How did you become a Star Trek fan

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-09-19 03:33am

In my case I used to watch TOS reruns as a child back in the 90s. I was a great fan of the show even though I did not understand much.

In the mid 90s I began watching TNG. It was different and I wondered what the hell is a new ship with new uniformed crew doing. I did not watch it much.

In the late 90s I lived in Ireland. There I was a regular fan of TNG, DS9 and VOY.

After coming back home I was a causual fan of Trek shows. But after reading Stardestroyer.net I began regularly watching when I had the time.

So that's my story.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-09-19 03:50am

I started watching TNG with the episode "Rascals" - previous to this I had only the TOS movies to introduce me to the world of ST. To give you some idea of how young I was, I thought the Klingon Bird of Prey was actually teleporting to it's destination rather than cloaking. (ironically, when B5 came into being I initially presumed the Shadow Battlecrab actually possessed a cloaking device

)

Rascals wasn't really gripping, but it was sci-fi. So I kept on watching.

Then channel 7 started showing TOS and B5 season 1. Oh my fucking god...

I would often stay up late waiting for my favourite shows to come onto TV - curse the TV channels, they hate scifi and I hate them - until I figured out how to program my VCR to record the shows without needing my personal touch. I didn't like doing this however, as I wouldn't be able to pause the commerical breaks out of the recording. But with TOS, the magic started. It will always have a special place in my heart because of it. Even today TOS is still watchable, while TNG and DS9 aren't. (even when I was young it didn't take me much to throw off VOY)

Butterbean569 · Post by **Butterbean569** » 2004-09-19 03:53am

I was way into Star Wars when I was 10 or 11 (about '95) and was watching ESB on TV when my Aunt came over to visit. She was telling me about a show that was a space based adventure kinda like Star Wars (ok it's not...but to a little kid and a "regular" scifi fan, they're kinda the same lol). Anyway, a few weeks later I was at her house when I watched Star Trek V. Ok Ok it's probably the *worst* way to start getting into trek....but I didn't care I still thought it was cool.

After watching that movie, I just wanted to see more and more and more of Trek. I viewed my Aunt's entire library (ST I through VI....I think Generations had just come out in theatres...?) and fell in love. Especially with Wrath and Undiscovered Country.

After watching those movies, I found out that replays of TNG were being shown in syndication...but they were on at like 1 in the morning. So, being an intelligent 10 year old, I programmed the VCR to start taping when it came on. Every day after school, for about 6 or 7 months, I would watch TNG. I ended up seeing just about every episode this way.

Once I was all done with TNG, I wanted to see what the old series was like. I found out that it was shown at THREE in the morning on Sundays (actually, it's about 3 in the morning on a sunday right now...but back then that was fucking late). I would wake up at about 2:45, sneak past my parent's bedroom, and go watch TOS. The funniest shit was that before TOS aired, SOUL TRAIN WAS ON!!!! lol Being a sheltered little white boy, I was kinda amazed by all these black people dancing...it was awesome lol Anyway, my first TOS show was Arena. They stopped showing TOS after a few months, so I only say about 13 or 14 episdoes of TOS. When it came on the SciFi channel a few years ago, I watched that and saw just about every TOS episode.

This summer, I went to my roomate's house in Colorado for about 3 weeks. His dad was a big trek fan, and had every TOS episode on tape, so we watched most of them. The funniest part was that when his dad taped them, it was the mid-80's....the Commercials were priceless

I didn't start watching DS9 until it's second season, but watched it every Saturday from then until it's end. I have good memories of playing football games when I was a kid on Saturday morning, then getting home just in time to check out the newest episode.

For Voyager, I saw the very first episode with a friend of mine when I was in 4th or 5th grade. I saw just about every Voyager episode from start to finish....although I don't really remember them too well for some reason.

As for Enterprise...meh...I watched the first season religoiusly, hoping it would get better as it went. It was ok I guess, but not that great. I saw about half of the second season, but didn't see one single episode of the third season (I think there have been 3 season...?? lol). Once I went to college, I didn't watch any Enterprise really...not because I didn't wanna watch Star Trek or something, but beccause I had better things to do lol

Ya, that's about it

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2004-09-19 05:13am

The Finnish TV-channel Kolmoskanava started running TOS in 1987, I was hooked totaly half way through "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-09-19 10:24am

I was introduced to TOS in the mid 80s (say 85-87). My mom then had me watch TNG part way through its second season and we both got hooked. I watched Trek movies any time they were on TV. Got the ocassional Trek toy. Got the 5 movie VHS box set for Trek. Watched TWOK as often as I could get away with. Got the TNG Tech manual. Some Trek models (quickly got thrown away when I couldn't finish them). DS9 started and I watched a bit of it. Taped the final ep of TNG. It was a progression over time getting more and more involved in Trek.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-09-19 10:35am

Star Trek IV was the first Star Trek movie I ever saw, and that's what drew me in. From there, I watched Star Trek II, then Star Trek III, V, VI etc. I only recently got into the TV series (about 6 years ago or so), but Australia never had the best timetable schedules, so my knowledge is really quite spotty- huge gaps in TNG, gargantuan gaps in DS9, nonexistent knowledge (save for a handful of episodes) of VOY, and some spotty knowledge of TOS. If the DVDs weren't so fucking overpriced, I'd get them, but ...

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2004-09-19 12:52pm

TOS reruns in the 70s with my dad.

I even watched the animated series when it was on first run IIRC.

I also read the Trek Log books that I checked out from the local library. They were basically novelizations of the TOS episodes. After that I read a handful of books that I recieved as gifts and then kind of stayed away from Trek other than going to the movies.

I saw TMP, TWoK, TVH, TUC, Gen, FC & Insurrection on their first run through the theaters. TMP picture really was an experience, really kick ass sound, but just like on video it got boring. TWoK was the only one I was ready to see again as soon as I left the theater.

TNG arrives in the late 80s and I watch it. I don't think I really get hooked until season 3 or after hit started being rerun everywhere. If the syndication market hadn't been so wide open at the time I don't think TNG would have made it like it did.

It was funny being at Navy tech schools and walking down the halls of the BEQ listening to the opening music of TNG blaring from multiple rooms.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-09-19 02:00pm

i got started with TOS reruns in the early 80's. every saturday my father would watch them. When TNG came out i watched every episode every week.

Laird · Post by **Laird** » 2004-09-19 02:44pm

I started with the original run of ST:tng and the TOS movies.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-09-19 02:47pm

Laird wrote:I started with the original run of ST:tng and the TOS movies.

i saw TWOK with my father in 1982 on opening day in Stamford CT. I was 6 years old and we waited in line for what seemed like forever. It blew me away, and some parts scared the living shit out of me. My mother gave my dad hell for weeks because i had nightmares about bugs crawling into my ears

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2004-09-19 02:51pm

I watched TOS in the mid 70's on WPIX every Saturday afternoon at 6:00pm. Right after having dinner I would slip in front of the big ole counsel TV and watch the adventures of Captain James T. Kikr. I believe the very first episode I can remember clearly watching was Arena. The Gorn scared the shit out of me.

Luke Skywalker and Co. were heroes but it was James Kirk that was in my living room every Saturday and he set in my mind what the good guy should be. Decisive, strong, with a hint of vulnerability an astounding ability to kick ass and a need to have his clothes shredded in almost every hand to hand battle.

I was hooked ever since, enjoying TNG despite many flaws and LOVED DS9 but sadly gave up on the franchise half way through the VOY series, gave it one last shot for ENT and was horrified by the result and never looked back.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2004-09-19 04:04pm

Stravo wrote:I watched TOS in the mid 70's on WPIX every Saturday afternoon at 6:00pm. Right after having dinner I would slip in front of the big ole counsel TV and watch the adventures of Captain James T. Kikr. I believe the very first episode I can remember clearly watching was Arena. The Gorn scared the shit out of me.

The main one I remember seeing when I was real young was the one with the Salt Monster. That one scared the shit out of me.

Oberleutnant · Post by **Oberleutnant** » 2004-09-19 04:23pm

When I was five, I was on a holiday in Spain with my parents. They were showing TOS on weekday afternoons there, and I still vividly remember an episode where Enterprise comes to 'our time' and gets intercepted by a fighter jet. ("Tomorrow Is Yesterday") My dad, who hates science fiction, tells me that they are starting to show a new version of this series back at home. So when we return, I immediately get glued to tv, watching TNG. There are few things what I can still remember: Picard as Dixon Hill, alien-controlled Admiral getting blasted ("Conspiracy") and Tasha Yar's funeral.

I also remember that back then I thought that the starship's bridge in TOS looked better than it did in TNG.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-09-19 04:32pm

Star Trek was on NBC when I was five, and the reruns started in our area in the early 70s, including on the old Morgus the Magnificent Saturday movie show on WDSU. They were staple afternoon fare on WGNO (formerly WWOM —the Wonderful World Of Movies) throughout the 70s and when a new UHF indy station started up, WNOL, they pinned their whole lineup around Star Trek and every cool show and movie which was the backbone of the wonderful world of UHF TV, which is now sadly lost to the infinite wasteland of cable.

So I was inculcated in real Star Trek loooooong before Roddenberry's brains turned to mush and certainly long before the Berman-Braga Axis formed.

Laird · Post by **Laird** » 2004-09-19 06:22pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:
Laird wrote:I started with the original run of ST:tng and the TOS movies.
i saw TWOK with my father in 1982 on opening day in Stamford CT. I was 6 years old and we waited in line for what seemed like forever. It blew me away, and some parts scared the living shit out of me. My mother gave my dad hell for weeks because i had nightmares about bugs crawling into my ears

Heh, well I was only 2 when you were 6. First TOS movie I saw in theatre was Undiscovered country.

First movie that gave me the scares was "Aliens" I saw it in the theatres when I was 6.

Dennis Toy · Post by **Dennis Toy** » 2004-09-19 10:35pm

let me speak my story.

It was one night in March 1990 and my father was watching the episode "where silence has lease" and i saw it and said "Hmm thats interesting", so i watched it and the rest is history. I started out on Star trk TNG and ever since i've enjoyed ( and endured) all of the series.

Enjoyed:

TOS
TNG
DS9
Voyager( season 3 and up)
Movies 1 7

Endured:

Enterprise
Insur-RETCH-shun and The final Frontier.

Thag · Post by **Thag** » 2004-09-19 11:12pm

My parents first introduced me to TOS when I was four or five. They had the first three movies on tape at the same time as well, and I remember being confused after seeing seeing TWOK before 'Space Seed' and trying to figure out how Khan came back to life. I followed TNG and DS9 religiously, but Voyager finally soured things.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-09-20 12:30am

By watching The Undiscovered Country about a million times on HBO. It was the first real Trek I saw and I loved it. Best trek movie ever, to this day.

Macross · Post by **Macross** » 2004-09-20 12:53am

Watching TOS reruns when I was very young.

Some of my earliest memories are watching Star Trek on TV.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-09-20 02:48am

Stormbringer wrote:By watching The Undiscovered Country about a million times on HBO. It was the first real Trek I saw and I loved it. Best trek movie ever, to this day.

Undiscovered Country was awesome, a great ending to the TOS saga. But the Wraith of Khan is the best TOS movie in my opinion.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-09-20 03:09am

Patrick Degan wrote:So I was inculcated in real Star Trek loooooong before Roddenberry's brains turned to mush and certainly long before the Berman-Braga Axis formed.

Growing up with ST like you did, how did the fanfiction and the novel and magazine publications help foster the fanbase? Did you find that it was just as important as the show or not as much, or perhaps even greater?

IUnknown wrote:Undiscovered Country was awesome, a great ending to the TOS saga. But the Wraith of Khan is the best TOS movie in my opinion.

You're not wrong. TUC was excellent as a story, a movie, and a send off, but it had a few moments in it where things could have improved. TWOK was the same way, but it had far less missed opportunities that could have been explored. TUC for instance could have shown us some subtle commentary on life in the Klingon empire when Kirk and McCoy were imprisoned in Rura Penthe (Nimoy speaks of a projected scene where Kirk and Bones would meet a political dissident exiled to the prison world due to the oppressive regime - instead we get Marta, the Improbable Shapeshifter).

Both films are great Trek films, but I personally think TWOK is better in this regards.

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2004-09-20 05:17am

TOS back in the seventies, I feel old...

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2004-09-20 07:37am

Never saw TOS. I was too young I guess

I watched since TNG and must have seen almost all episodes but cant remmeber much of it since its been a while

DS9 I didnt really followed. B5 was also on and i liked it better. I guess DS9 became better in time but i missed it.

At start I liked VOY since it was, unlike DS9, back to exploration. I saw a lot of the first half of the series but eventually stopped watching because of stupid stories

Recently they started with ENT. I'm giving it a shot and its been ok so far. I saw episode 1 and 3. Missed the 2nd episode tough. What happened? (it continued from eps1)

All in all I enjoyed TNG the most

Post by **Kuja** » 2004-09-20 10:10am

TWOK, I think, was the first Trek I ever saw. Then I caught some reruns of TOS and watched TNG almost every day with my dad. ST6 was the first one I saw in theaters.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-09-21 02:03pm

The first movies I can remember seeing in the theater are ESB and The Wrath of Khan. When I was really young, I thought that the reliant was an upside-down enterprise, so whenever I played with my lego starships, the evil enterprise (or any evil starship) was the upside-down one.

Also, I slept with my hands over my ears for like a year. And for another 5 years I freaked out if a bug went anywhere near my ears.

I also remember going apeshit for the Bird of Prey in ST3. I remember being excited before ST3 came out, so I think I was watching TOS a lot at that time. My Dad was a big fan of science fiction (still is, I guess), so I saw it a lot and got to talk about the show and his favorite SF books and stuff. He worked on some of Nasa's rockets, like Gemini and I forget what else, so I like to call him a rocket scientist even though he was really just engineer # 7 working on flange assembly 36 or something.

I remember the first TOS episode that I would replay in my head a lot were Arena, Doomsday Weapon, and the salt vampire one. The alien that they show in the end credits used to freak me out, though, so I would always change the channel just as they started to roll. (It was a little too "Grey" for me.) So, when I saw that ST episode of Futurama I laughed for 10 minutes when they put Kif in the credits! I almost passed out! My wife was really worried and I was unable to explain why it was so funny.

Anyway, ST4 was the first movie that all of my friends and classmates really talked about. ST6 was the first movie I saw 3 or more times in the theater (though I may have hopped for a couple of those viewings). I remember the premier of TNG. We were all really excited but for soime reason my Dad couldn't be there, so I recapped the whole episode for him when he got home, even though we had taped it. I was really hooked from the episode with the Conspiracy alien parasites.

DS9 I tried to watch, but it was too boring. B5 swept me right away from it and took me to levels of fannish obsession that no other series ever has (except for books). Every now and then I would catch DS9 to see what was going on, but it still bored me. Then I saw the episode "The Visitor," which is probably the single best Star Trek episode of the new generation, if not ever. That brought me back for a while. Then I saw enough of voayger to leave ST fandom for a while.... The Warp 10 episode and the "Get this cheese to sickbay!" episode both haunt me to this day.

I hated Insurrection, and wouldn't have seen any more ST, but it turned out that my wife was a Voy fan. Back when we were dating, we would sometimes take a break from HW to watch an ep of Voy, but we kind of MST3ked it. In fact, I introduced her to MST3k just to justify my habit of making fun of dumb tv shows. Then me and her roommate's bf started getting them into TOS and TNG to show them what ST was really supposed to be. Enterprise killed our ST watching, though. But my wife liked Nemesis and so did I. She liked it because she like seeing the characters again and because she had an emotional moment when they killed Data. I just liked the space battle (reminded me of how I enjoyed TWOK), and finally got to see someone just shoot at the frikkin' bridge!

That is all.