Kirk/Spock on New Year's Eve? There's a vid for that.

I made this vid several years ago. As far as I can tell, it remains the only New Year's themed Kirk/Spock vid in existence, so there's that. Happy 2015!

Spock's Beef with Rand

At the end of The Enemy Within, Spock makes this infamously awful comment to Janice Rand:
"The imposter had some interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, Yeoman?"

This memorable example of Spock's ability to be cruel colors how I interpret the following scene from Miri:

KIRK: Miri? Come here. You want to go some place with me?
MIRI: Sure. (They leave, holding hands)
RAND: That little girl---
SPOCK: ---is at least 300 years older than you are, Yeoman. Think about it. 

What does Spock mean, "Think about it"? 

Ultimately, Miri is another female Kirk woos for information. But Kim Darby's fine acting combined with Shatner's ability to have chemistry with a wall makes their brief attachment, such as it is, one of the most convincing relationships of the series, right up there with Edith Keeler and the Gorn.

The fact that Miri is a "little girl" makes Kirk's genuinely warm way of saying "I like your name. I like you" a bit unsettling. 

And it seems to unsettle Rand too.

When she says to Spock, "That little girl---", she seems to be hoping to confirm that Miri is, despite her technical years and her thing for Jim, a child. But Spock offers no comfort in his answer, and suggesting Rand "think about it" only unsettles her further by her look.

I don't blame Spock's cattiness on anything very slashy, though. 
Rather, I think he's simply a territorial watchdog when it comes to the Captain. He doesn't want his favorite superior officer getting up to anything improper, and Rand is Kirk's ongoing opportunity for such things.

That, and he occasionally enjoys being mean. 

My fellow Trekkie roommate wonders if the Captain is aware of such Spock/Rand scuffles. I don't think so. The naughty child always hits the other child when mom is looking away.

The Next Apple

Netflix autoplay makes it hard to watch just one episode, especially if the preview shot looks as wacky as this:

Watching TNG

Last year, I took on a few overnight shifts at my old job. This was at a group home, and my duties were to help disabled residents to the bathroom and guard the big screen TV. What would be on in the wee hours but re-runs of TNG?

I kept the volume extremely low, and so missed most of the dialogue. Not to mention the fact that I was barely awake. But I started to like Picard. His stiff body language indicated someone who delights in his own moral objections to things, like me.

So, I finally started on TNG today. Some on the Internet advise skipping the first two seasons. But there are gems in even the worst episodes of TOS, so I decided to trudge though.

Encounter at Farpoint

Maybe, like Spock, I have a thing for Captains. I got a big kick out of Picard, especially when he was annoyed, offended, or self-righteous---which was often because this episodes features Q. 

Q was as much fun (lots) as I've been led to believe, and though I'm not usually charmed by villians, he dazzled me a bit, especially when he appeared in a Starfleet uniform and made it look ominous.

Also, I felt he was a needed force of malice to balance the noble Enterprise crew, whose parading of humanity's worthiness makes you question humanity's worthiness. DeForest Kelley's moment with Data was a highlight, and I wished Admiral McCoy would stay to complain about things.

At first look, TNG appears to give its crew less to complain about than TOS. Men can wear mini-skirts, and there's a therapist on the Bridge. But there are enough cracks in this happy family to make it interesting.

The most noticeable crack is the Captain himself. He's aware of being perceived as "harsh" and "cold blooded", but this only seems to concern him so far as it affects his command. He enlists Riker to make sure he (Picard) "projects an image of geniality", as if it's a terrible but necessary part of the job.

And those reclined bridge chairs may look like Lay-Z-Boys, but don't be fooled! Holding your head up like that will give your neck hell, I guarantee it.

 Deanna Troi is a sorry excuse for a character, and I can't wait til they kill her off in episode 6. If only.

Overall, I hesitate to say I liked it. But Picard is too good to pass up, so I'll keep watching.

Captain Kirk: Prisoner of Love

I made this.

Is Captain Kirk a Stress Eater? and Other Considerations

Played by the bow-slinging, motorcycle-riding Shatner, it's hard to imagine Kirk as anything other than vital. And no matter how much he gets pummeled, or how worried he looks, he ultimately comes across as a person who sleeps well.

I don't dispute Kirk's essential vitality. But I think it's also important to remember: Kirk suffers from anxiety-induced  nausea, headaches, and sleeplessness.
And why shouldn't he, with all his job entails?

Here are some examples:

Stomach Aches

In "The Man Trap", Kirk delivers this memorably film noir-ish line:
"I don't like mysteries. They give me a bellyache, and I got a beauty right now."

Considering the almost constantly freakish adventures of the Enterprise, Kirk must feel queasy often, like the naval hero he's based on, Horatio Hornblower. Of course, it's not mysteries themselves that give Kirk bellyaches, but the anxiety these mysteries cause him.

My guess is that McCoy has a pill for this when it's severe. 

Headaches

If mysteries give Kirk stomach aches, diplomatic tangles give him headaches. In "The Trouble with Tribbles", Kirk does something unheard of for him, and visits sickbay voluntarily, without any prompting. He does so for a headache. On several other occasions throughout TOS, he's seen rubbing his head in tense situations. 

In "Tribbles", McCoy administers a pill for this.

Sleeplessness

Kirk also suffers from sleeplessness, and, you guessed it: McCoy has a pill for that too.
But even in the 23rd century, they haven't managed to make a pill that puts you to sleep without knocking you out.
"Try taking one of those red pills you gave me last week," Kirk tells McCoy sharply, "You'll sleep." ("The Corbomite Maneuver")

Given this pill's apparently unpleasant side-affects, Kirk probably only takes them when tossing and turning doesn't do the trick.

Muscle Kinks

Other aches and pains? How about "a kink in my back"?
This scene has become so famous among Kirk/Spock shippers for its sexual overtones, I worry the implications of Kirk's muscle knot is lost. Between sitting in his straight-backed captain's chair on slow days and throwing punches on fast days, the source of his back kink is no mystery. And if he has back trouble at the beginning of "Shore Leave", he's in for a real treat by the end of the episode.

But another cause of muscle tension is stress, which he also gets his fair share of.

Stress Eating

Kirk's weight visibly fluctuates, especially towards the end of the 5 year mission. In "The Corbomite Manuever", McCoy orders a "diet card change" for Kirk because he's "put on a couple of pounds".

This indicates that everyone aboard the Enterprise has a diet card for their specific nutritional needs. I imagine a diet card allows for variety and the pleasure of choice (Rand offers to bring Kirk something else when he fusses about his "green leaves"), but ultimately makes it difficult to become overweight, especially when combined with a demanding job.

We see Kirk eating on the bridge. A colored cube here and there is likely what sustains him on the most chaotic days. As Rand brings him his meal in "The Corbomite Manuever", she says, "It's past time you had something to eat, sir." No doubt it is.

So how does Kirk gain weight?
In his off-duty time. I bet he likes caramel milkshakes, roast chicken, and wedge fries.

In "The Wrath of Khan", Kirk says he's starving when they're in the underground lab, shortly after a fellow officer has committed suicide, his own son has tried to kill him, and Genesis has been stolen by Khan. "How can you think of food at a time like this?" McCoy says.
Kirk's appetite isn't inhibited by stress, and is perhaps even increased by it.

There's a fic that posits Kirk's eating "quirks" are a result of living through a famine on Tarsus IV, and that his habits intensify after the incidents of "The Conscience of the King".

Rayna Teaching Kirk Billiards

If you search "man teaching woman" on Google images, you get stock photos of men showing women how to play golf, shoot pool, and fire guns. If you change your query to "woman teaching man", the images don't change. And it's not because word order doesn't count on Google. It does---"man woman" brings up different images than "woman man".
There just aren't really images of women teaching men.

(A non-image search of "woman teaching man" brings up 1 Timothy 2:12 as the first result: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.")

That's why I love this scene from "Requiem for Methuselah", where Rayna helps Kirk set up his shot. Yes, she's technically an android, but Kirk doesn't know this at the time, and for all social purposes, she's a woman teaching a captain billiards. And he's into it.

How Spock Falls vs. How Kirk Falls

I charted the path of Spock's fall vs. the path of Kirk's fall when they're zapped by the cloud in "Metamorphosis":

The Same Song

Kirk's quote is from "The Conscience of the King".
Eve's is from "Mudd's Women".
Photos from TrekCore.

5 Years of Trek: The Transformed Fan

How I Met Star Trek

In 2009, my Trekkie friend Andrew asked me to see the new Star Trek movie with him.
I wasn't interested, but I was aimless enough to see a movie I wasn't interested in.

I had just graduated from high school and had stopped believing in God.
But while I rejected the idea of heaven and hell, the general message of humanity being "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" stuck with me. I felt uneasy in the secular world, yet my friends from the fundamentalist Christian church I grew up in treated me with prayerful avoidance.

Star Trek 2009 bored me. Andrew, however, had a lot to say about it.
"But what's the big deal about Star Trek?" I asked him.
He said I needed to watch the older shows to find out.

That night, I watched "The Naked Time", which was streaming on YouTube.
It was one of the first episodes that came up when I searched for "original star trek", and the title caught my attention.

This was the first time I saw Captain Kirk:

The Future in Pink

I loved Star Trek immediately, especially Kirk.
He didn't feel uneasy in the world, let alone the universe.

His idiosyncratic sense of lawfulness and feminine way of being manly make him "one of a kind", as Dr. McCoy says.
And he sticks up for humanity. 

Star Trek struck me as familiar and bizarre at the same time.
Velour uniforms notwithstanding, it seemed very plausible that the future would somehow resemble the 1960s.

In 2009, brown was in. Instead of gold, orange, or blue, my graduating class voted for brown robes.
So, the colors of Star Trek were fantastic to me. Even militaristic institutions like Starfleet featured pink lighting.

I liked the idea that progress wouldn't necessarily be bland.

Making Contact

After watching Star Trek, I wanted to make physical contact with William Shatner.
The easiest way to do so was at a  convention, for the price of $79. So, I went to Star Trek: Las Vegas, where waiting in line with other fans was almost as much fun as the main attractions.

After the photo was taken, I clapped him on the back, managed to say "thank you", and hurried to the bathroom to cry.

The Church of Shatner

Fandom was my introduction to the adult secular world.

We raved about William Shatner's beauty and charisma on sites like Look At His Butt, and More Shat, Less Shame.

Party Posts on OhNoTheyDidn't_Trek really felt like parties, with 5,000+ comments of .gifs and all-caps enthusiasm.

On YouTube, I caught the end of the Star Trek: Original Series vidding boom, and struggled through the headache of Windows Movie Maker to make a few myself.

Star Trek was a good replacement for religion, and fandom was a good replacement for church.
In fundamentalist Christianity, criticism of the faith is unacceptable, whereas in fandom, breaking down an episode's failings or re-imagining canon is an ongoing source of fun.

The Trouble with Humans

When I moved out on my own and got my first taste of crazy bosses and violence on the city bus, I realized fandom wasn't the larger world.

After falling out with Christianity, I thought religion was what kept people from being wonderful Starfleet material. Turns out, humans are the trouble with people.

I felt duped by Captain Kirk, the poster boy for humanity.
I took his picture off my wall and replaced it with one of Spock.

Trekless Trek

I didn't watch Star Trek for a few years after that. But I was still attached enough to go to Trek Fest in Iowa, dressed as a Yang from "The Omega Glory":

And to buy tickets when Shatner came to town with his show Shatner's World:

How I Met Star Trek Again

Earlier this year, I found myself once again at loose ends and with a lot of free time on my hands.
My roommate was out of town, and I had a week off work.
So, I watched "The Man Trap".

I was worried Star Trek would've lost it's effect for me. Instead, it was more exciting and interesting than ever. The first time around, I was so absorbed with Captain Kirk's every move, I noticed little else.

For example, Dr. McCoy.
Watching Star Trek again, he became an important character to me.
Duly cynical, he still does good work. He's scared of outer space, but lives on the Enterprise. He disagrees with Kirk vehemently, but is still his best friend.
He gives me a hopeful picture of how to live in the world and be at odds with it.

margaret haney star trek

Writing is hard for me, so I tend to avoid it.
But recently, I got the following notification:

And that pushed me to start this blog.

Happy 48th Birthday, Star Trek!

 I thought it would be fitting to celebrate the occasion with a prediction from Walter Irwin and G.B. Love, editors of Best of Trek. This is from issue #1, from 1977:

Perhaps the why of Star Trek is better left to ... historians. Why historians? While our overview as editors hasn't given us the answer to why Star Trek is so enduring and popular, it has allowed us to see something which really can be called a phenomenon ... That phenomenon is the gradual absorption of Star Trek into our cultural heritage.

Characters, things, concepts, words from Star Trek have slowly become part of our everyday lives. It is an ongoing process, and one which seems to be picking up speed.

Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are almost as well known as Tarzan, the Shadow, and Sherlock Holmes - a sure indication that they are about to join that exclusive club of characters who are instantly recognizable to the general public.

So, for bad or good, Star Trek is making a place for itself in our culture. It may not be as honored and exalted a place as many fans would like, but they can comfort themselves with this fact: There will always be a Star Trek.

Star Trek will live on, in one form or another, as long as our civilization does.

Robin Williams on the USS Microwave

Excerpt from Chekov's Enterprise:

Robin Williams, our favorite Mork, rides his bicycle over to our sound stage. He explains that he is a big fan of our show and is invited to visit the Bridge. Wide eyed admiration notwithstanding, his squeaky voiced reaction to all the buttons and panels is "Hmmmm, microwave!"