UK Marks 24 Years

26th September 1990; 6pm; BBC2. I was nine.

Where were you?

I was watching Encounter at Farpoint for the very first time as today marks 24 years since the first broadcast on UK terrestrial TV. Most notable is the fact that after this all the shows would be first shown on the satellite channel SKY One before hitting the BBC (or Channel 4 with Enterprise). IN fact I was sitting in our lounge in Ilkeston, Derbyshire at the time. Don't ask me what was for tea, I have no idea; it's been a long time.

It truly harks back to a different age and falls nicely a week and a bit before Destination Star Trek arrives in London for the second time. Sadly though with the recent announcement that Jonathan Frakes won't be attending, the full The Next Generation cast reunion has taken a slight turn although Colm Meaney has now joined the guest list.

Anyway, yep, it's 24 years today - and it was a Wednesday. We'd waited an extra three years for the show to make it across the water and at the time it was well worth it. I know I've talked about all the niggles I have looking back at these fledgling years but without it we wouldn't have the vast amount of material, the reboots and, dare I say it, Some Kind of Star Trek either. 

The big benefit of BBC2 was that we got to see Encounter at Farpoint without a single advert in its full 90 minute run time. For those who had the cash, they could have splashed out in April of the same year for the first in the run of VHS cassettes (78 in total). It's an exceptionally Roddenberry vision and many steps away from the direction that Rick Berman, Michael Piller and co took the show from the beginning of the third season. Watching a Klingon on the bridge was such a big thing even if he was effectively a bit part until the demise of Tasha Yar in Skin of Evil. How it all changed in seven years huh? Just a gimmick...never go anywhere.

From that first shot of the majestic, new USS Enterprise dropping onto the screen until the immortal "Let's see what's out there." it had me hooked. For my Dad it would always be Kirk but for me Picard was the way forward and this was my generation - until Sisko came along that is. It's strange to look back and think I knew nothing about this show before it aired, I knew even less about the characters - who was the guy with the gold eyes? What was that visor thing? I know I enjoyed every second of the show and was right back the following week for The Naked Now which suggested it was all going to be homages to The Original Series and reuse lots of ships and bits from the motion pictures. How wrong was I.

So what were the high points from the episode? Undoubtedly the saucer separation, the arrival of Q and McCoy's cameo (she'll always bring you home...) marked this out as the start of something special. While there were moments of action it wasn't about just phaser fights - there was real substance to this show. 

Picard totally intrigued me (he was all shouty) even at the age of nine and was nothing like Captain Kirk; which was good. Datawas pretty cool especially the bit in that holodeck when he pulled Wesley out of the water. The aliens at the end were a bit drippy and it was all a tad cuddly but hey, this is the utopia of the future. But there were so many sparks which erupted here and a few that didn't - how about the Troi/Riker romance which blipped in and out from here to Nemesis? Those wonderful "skant" uniforms were another which, fortunately didn't make it much further. For one more thing, September 28th marks the anniversary of the first episode of The Next Generation airing in the US in 1987 (27 years for reference) and we covered that anniversary last year with some little homage pics.

It's Been a Long Road

And yes, in 2001 Enterprise premiered today with the rather impressive Broken Bow. While not my favourite, coming behind Emissary and Caretaker in that top six it's a solid effort with some wonderful moments and scoops of prospect, interesting characters, a different spin on the Star Trek universe and the opportunity to see how it all began - which is a shame that it took nearly four years to really hit it's stride and then got cancelled. We can only imagine what that fifth season would have been like and if a certain campaign gets its way, one day we might. We also did a little piccie for the 12th anniversary last year.

For now we can at least bask in the brilliance of that pilot and the later episodes (but not These are the Voyages). It does take a battering at some points but I think there's a place for Enterprise within the family. At least it tried to do something different if nothing else. Stripping back the formula was a risky strategy rather than making another jump into the further future beyond the years of Picard, Sisko and Janeway.

What a great week for Star Trek in the anniversary stakes and all just ahead of Destination Star Trek. The guest list is spectacular, we know that both Simon and Schuster and Eaglemoss will be attending thanks to our sources as well as many other businesses linked into the Star Trek universe. Got your tickets? If not, you can follow the link at the top of our page.

What were your memories of your first viewing of Encounter at Farpoint? Where were you at the time? Let us know below!

Remember Nemesis? Or is it Dorn's Day?

Like the proverbial London bus there's nothing and then everything comes along at once. Today marks two super special occasions in the History of Star Trek and we thought what better way than to talk about them both!

Apologies that this is a day late but life in general took a precedent!

First up would you believe it's 11 years since the final motion picture from The Next Generation crew limped into cinemas? The less said about its takings...and plot...and...yeah, ok...everything - the better perhaps. Still a shame to this day that they went out without a bang. I've watched it again recently and it's not as bad as I remember which isn't saying it's good if you know what I mean. We at Some Kind of Star Trek have a little something planned around Nemesis in the New Year but we'll come back to you on that one shortly!

Secondly, 9th December was also Michael Dorn's birthday (1952). While we could wander into remembering 10 Great Worf moments or best lines, I thought it might be better to do something different and a little unique to mark the occasion. After all, Worf is the character with the most screen time out of any series or movie ever and has certainly developed in a lot of ways since Encounter at Farpoint where he was essentially a background part.

Hence we bring you Worf-olution - a voyage through each year of the character on the screen (live action only!) and the subtle changes you might be able to spot - ok and there's one that wasn't actually played by Michael Dorn before we get floods of abuse but hey, enjoy!

...OK and if you're wondering I'll throw in ten top Worf moments just because it's Michael Dorn's (belated) birthday post - and in no particular order and I can assure you there are a lot more!

• Killing Gowron; Tacking into the Wind (Deep Space Nine)
• Leaving the Enterprise-D; Redemption (The Next Generation)
• Arriving on Deep Space Nine and KO's Martok's son; Way of the Warrior (Deep Space Nine)
• Refusing to provide blood for a Romulan; The Enemy (The Next Generation)
• Delivering Keiko's baby; Disaster (The Next Generation)
• Saving his wife takes priority over the mission; Change of Heart (Deep Space Nine)
• Realising he's married to Troi in an alternative reality; Parallels (The Next Generation)
• Fighting the Jem'Hadar at their prison camp; By Inferno's Light (Deep Space Nine)
• Singing Gilbert and Sullivan; Star Trek: Insurrection
• Coming to Picard's rescue against the Borgified Lieutenant Hawke; Star Trek: First Contact

Now then...what event do we have coming up next...

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It Is the Unknown that Defines Our Existence: Why "Emissary" is Star Trek's Greatest Pilot

Twenty years and nine months have passed since Star Trek: Deep Space Nine premiered in January 1993 and for me it remains the definitive series of the franchise.

Deep Space Nine is my favourite of all the Star Trek series even though during those unsteady first season episodes I even considered walking away. I can say now that I'm glad I didn't and this rewatch is something I have been gearing up to for a while. What better way to start (and none less obvious) than with the brilliant pilot episode.

Emissary is one of the reasons I stuck with the show. Watching it again I found it much more enjoyable and made even more sense. It had given me a totally different feeling about the Star Trek universe. Things were unusual, the characters darker, the setting bleak. A lot of the hope and prosperity from The Next Generation had been stripped away. I actually find Picard's appearance a bit of a drag now even though it does help the story along. Sisko getting all grumpy with him isn't a highlight and initially I really didn't like the guy. Who was he to stick two fingers up at Picard and hold that kind of a grudge? It wasn't Picard's fault he got assimilated! In another sense this is only a small indication of just how hardcore the station commander would get later on. For reference see anything after the introduction of the beard and shaved head.

For me, Deep Space Nine's first story is the best example of the Gene Roddenberry vision even though, ironically, it's probably the one that appears as far away from the origins and basis of the Great Bird's concept as possible. It ticks almost every box in the Big List of Star Trek Must Have's and even more so with the opening of so many recurring themes as we'll mention shortly. I think the only thing it doesn't have is a bare knuckle fistfight but hey, who would commission a series based on having one of those in the first episode?!

Star Trek was to be a show about the final frontier, exploration, the human condition, diverse characters, humanity's ability to put aside it's differences and in my opinion Deep Space Nine manages to do this in spades. But is it fair to say that Encounter at Farpoint or Caretaker do not fulfil the Star Trek "mission statement" as such? Probably not, but the space station based series really is right on the edge of the frontier - placing the "perfect world" of Starfleet into conflict with the Bajorans while also dumping the crew on the business end of an artificially created wormhole. 

Couple that with the fact that the crew are manning a Cardassian mining station not a Federation/Starfleet vessel with cutting edge technology and we can see how Roddenberry's vision is both highlighted and tested to the extreme. There is nowhere to hide and that comfortable, cuddly humanity is going to be in for a rough ride. Even Sisko's arrival and first meeting with Kira, his liasion and first officer is far from the warm handshakes of Encounter at Farpoint. 

Uniquely the wormhole and the Bajorans mean that Deep Space Nine has a head-on conflict with religion and the uniform from day one which none of the other shows even come close to attempting. Deep Space Nine was a true pioneer and while this theme was not overly popular it gave the series a heap of backstory, a lot of substance and a unique identity. Notably the first season is almost devoid religious aspects bar one or two episodes. 

Now add into that the way from Emissary to What You Leave Behind we are constantly reminded of Sisko's links to the Bajorans and their beliefs as the eponymous Emissary of the Prophets. Look at the other shows and aside from Picard acting as arbiter of succession to the Klingon Empire he is the only commanding officer who stands astride such a division of culture, acting as a distinct bridge from the comfort of Starfleet to the mystery of the Bajorans. 

As well as that, actions from Week A could affect Week B and Week C. There was continuity and questions that needed to be answered from the start but no doubt would take a long time to uncover - Odo's origins, the non-linear time wormhole aliens, the shadowy Cardassian Dukat, the Cardassian occupation and resource-stripping of Bajor; all elements that are introduced here and would play out across the show's 176 episodes. No other Star Trek series allowed events to echo through into other stories as they did here. Brilliantly this construction of the "world" of Deep Space Nine would not finish here. A lot of the subsequent episodes would run with themes suggested here and build even more story elements that would be loved for the next seven years.

Voyager's Caretaker is also about exploration of the unknown and the beginning of a physical journey for the crew, but the staff here are placed at a crossroads and a place and time that will change the very nature of the Alpha Quadrant and the Star Trek universe that we have known for over 25 years. Voyager's foes are far away in the Delta Quadrant but the new frontier for Sisko is right on his doorstep and will fundamentally alter the future of the galaxy in virtually every way possible, a thought not lost on Major Kira in Emissary. The danger is just a footstep away and boy, would it prove to be more than interesting. Enterprise was equally about the unknown but being a prequel we knew what those elements would turn out to be (perhaps with the exclusion of the Xindi and Suliban). Their unknowns formed the universe that Deep Space Nine would rip apart at the very core.

Roddenberry's vision was, of course, to show that humanity could come together, cast aside its differences and work to better itself through exploration of the stars - perhaps moreso the human condition. It's almost as if you had held a mirror up to The Next Generation and done everything as opposite as possible to amplify the very reason for Deep Space Nine's existence. Even the guy at the top, only a commander here not a captain, doesn't want to stick around. There's not a lot of hope and the start out here is the attempt to rise from the ashes and start afresh.

Look back at Encounter at Farpoint and also to Enterprise where they are at the cutting edge of technology and knowledge. For them in their respective timeframes there is nothing better, they are the explorers heading out on new adventures and to final frontiers tooled up for the job in hamd but here that frontier is initially nothing new and nor is it particularly desirable. The equipment itself is substandard even for the environment we are greeted with in Emissary svae nothing of what would come later. For reference it would take until The Way of the Warrior for there to be any major improvements - and an additional Klingon. Maybe that's actually a strong point about the pilot. It's the unexpected. We don't see Sisko as being someone who will be cold to Picard. We expect everything to be cool, sleek and fully functional, we expect the crew to all get on and be reading from the same hymn sheet. Well, they aren't.

While the Enterprise-D had families on board, here on Deep Space Nine it's families and alien races that could change daily with the coming and going of ships at this vital Federation outpost. You get the feeling that Picard might even be a little jealous when he leaves at the end of the pilot. Nothing is the same from day to day and even more significant  these guys can't just fly off and leave whatever incident they've just managed to contain. It will always be on their doorstep be it a passing Kai or a suspicious Cardassian Gul.

What I really like is that Sisko is placed into a situation where he has to justify humanity and his own existence. Now, yes, if we look back at Where No Man Has Gone Before and certainly to the Q storyline from Encounter at Farpoint, this point is there. The man who is a god in the former becomes "better" than human while Q places Picard's crew on trial as representatives of a "savage child-like race" but with Deep Space Nine it is about choice, the element of the unknown which is what life is about as well as the very nature of exploration; it is the unknown, says Sisko, that defines our existence.

Here there is true exploration and what marks this against the previous two shows is the addition of a foreign power into the mix. It's a first that, to some degree would also appear in Voyager with the inclusion of the Maquis. Deep Space Nine just hits a bigger target as the Bajoran militia and Odo have never had any experience of Starfleet. They are truly stepping into unknown waters. The nature of the mission to bring Bajor into the Federation might underpin the series from this point but it takes a backseat to the wormhole in every respect here. 

In another sense Deep Space Nine really hit the ground running in relation to the cast and their abilities. In Encounter at Farpoint it is very hard not to feel uneasy with Picard's bark and stern nature or the cringeworthy Troi. Mulgrew in Caretaker took some serious getting used to - maybe one or two seasons - and in Enterprise everything felt a little untested and uncertain. Here in Emissary I don't think there's a bad performance across the board. OK, there are some makeup issues in relation to Odo and Quark has the wrong nose but these are resolved in the first year. Nothing requires serious adjustment and it truly develops and flourishes from this point.

Now I'm off to hit the first season. I think it's been a good 10 to 15 years since I've watched most of them and undoubtedly my opinion should/will have changed. It's time to take a trip to the New Frontier.....

26 Years on...with Picard

Go on then...just one more before we end the week....

With those words Encounter at Farpoint came to a close and the USS Enterprise began her seven year trek to the stars....

26 Years on...With Geordi

One more image and quote for the week from the pilot of The Next Generation. Remember when Geordi wore red...?

Over the course of Star Trek history La Forge would be seen with the ranks of full and junior grade lieutenant, lieutenant commander and also captain of his own ship in Timeless from Voyager. That VISOR would undergo a few changes and eventual retirement as well!

26 Years On...with Q

Continuing this week's mini-celebration of 26 years of The Next Generation with a visit from Q....

26 Years On

After 18 years Star Trek was back on the TV and in syndication from the start. This week marks the anniversary of the first airing of the pilot episode of The Next Generation. Do you remember the first time you saw Encounter at Farpoint?

For me I would first see Encounter at Farpoint three years later when the UK broadcaster BBC Two aired the show on 26th September 1990 (wow - 23 years ago this week!). 

The pilot of The Next Generation would be the start of 18 years of first run Star Trek on the TV, ending in 2005 with Enterprise's final episode These Are the Voyages....

Happy birthday The Next Generation!

Trekollections II: What Does God Need With A Starship?

The excitement of The Voyage Home had to be bettered, surely?  Well - I hoped it would be when 1989 brought news that we would be embarking on a voyage to The Final Frontier.

Derby's UCI Cinema was the setting for my first viewing of the Shatner-directed Star Trek V. My knowledge of the film was limited to clips I had caught when we recorded America's Top Ten overnight on Channel 4 - actually they were from the final five minutes of the US Box Office review show that preceeded it and seeing the shuttlecraft crash into the Enterprise landing bay was all I needed to be convinced that I had to see it. 

A few weeks went by and Star Trek V landed in the UK. For some reason the cinema was also promoting The Next Generation with a board of photos from the series that was, at that time, entering its third season in the US.  There are only two images I can remember and they are of the Enterprise-D and Geordi in command red lying on a biobed from "The Naked Now". By this point I was itching to see this new series but pictures were all I was getting to see.  They would have to do until terrestrial TV started to run them. 

Twenty-three and a bit years on, I still think Shatner's lone effort is OK.  For once Kirk and crew aren't the only ship in the quadrant and Starfleet specifically want them to go and sort out the bad guys which all stands up to reason rather than convenience of plot. I still love the fresh, clean-finish sets although why the bridge set for The Undiscovered Country took a backward step and reintroduced buttons and sliders is beyond me.  It made no sense after the feel that they created for The Final Frontier. We know that the reason for the look of STV was down to the opportunity to utilise the TNG sets on the adjoining stage and I can only assume the feel of the bridge would not have been in keeping with the darker tone of Star Trek IV in 1991.

One of my favourite scenes which was great to experience in the cinema was Kirk fronting off against a Klingon Bird of Prey at the conclusion and who could forget the whole shuttlecraft scenario? It's unique to this film and I think without these little bits (and there are more) it would have been terrible.  Even more interesting is the fact that at one point it was considered that the remains of the full scale shuttle mock-up could have been used in TNG or even Insurrection! Perhaps The Final Frontier is a good example where the integral parts are better than the whole.


Sadly Spock having a half-brother and the crew all joining him on a quest for Eden gels no more for me now than it did then; nor was the comedy element as good as The Voyage Home. That film had balanced the comedy/action formula to a tee but by attempting to replicate it and step up the action quota, its successor missed the mark and also managed to confirm the fact that the odd numbered films were the weaker segments. The ending was poor and nothing like the explosive finale that I wanted to see. Polystyrene rocks and a fake God were not keeping me on the edge of my seat.

Actually, it's time for a bit of an admission as well. There was one thing from Star Trek V that I was in awe of - the suede-style bomber jacket that Kirk wears in this film looked cool and cemented a belief that still exists today - that the movie uniforms were the best even if the rank/colour/service bar markings were confusing (until the arrival of Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise and later, the Star Trek Encyclopedia). It clearly showed that at this point Starfleet was a military organisation rather than the exploratory body it would resemble by the time of TNG and I suspect that was quite a big draw for an impressionable 10 year old.

Around this time I started to collect little bits of Trek memorabilia which is still scattered around to this day in various boxes, drawers or filed on shelves.  Most of the clipped articles I found are now stuck into one of two scrapbooks I recently unearthed from the loft at the same time I resurrected the Enterprise from The Original Series (see LoT: The Formative Years). One of the first I stuck in was a piece from the cinema magazine  accompanied by a couple of stills and a very basic summary (pictured here - note the flipped Kirk image!).

Next was a Christmas present from a family friend that provided me with two figures from Star Trek: The Next Generation, specifically Lt. (JG) Geordi La Forge and Captain Jean-Luc Picard.  These were released in conjunction with the first season and inexplicably you could only ever seem to find these two in vast quantities.  Both came with tricorders on straps and dustbuster Type 2 phasers that couldn't be taken out of their hands.  Pretty useless when you want to fly the ship in Geordi's case. The packaging perished a long time ago but I managed to salvage a few logos and oddments that ended up stuck in the growing scrapbook a few years later.

Sadly the same can't be said for my Star Trek V calendar which I received that same Christmas . Tragically it seems to have vanished/been binned at some point in the last few years. It featured 12 stills from the film as well as a central foldout promotional poster which adorned my bedroom wall a few years later when super-fan syndrome kicked in.

That same Christmas was quite the Star Trek event as my grandparents bought me the AMT model of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek V. It was a big hulk of model with the added bonus that you could also make the shuttlecraft as either Galileo 5 or Copernicus 3. I stumped for the former and soon Dad had painted both the ship and shuttle to be proudly displayed in my room.  It would survive for eight years until one fateful night involving a school leaving party and a considerable amount of red wine left me a little worse for wear.  While being put to bed I managed to knock my beloved model from its shelf and bring it crashing to the ground.  In all honesty it was never as sturdy as the original TV Enterprise as the warp engines were attached to the secondary hull by a fairly insubstantial curved piece of bodywork that took a pounding thanks to the heaving weight of the saucer section over the years. Sadly this Enterprise's life was over much too soon due to a brush with alcohol. It ended up in about five chunks so apologies to anyone who was hoping to see the model as it's long gone by now!

Moving swiftly along, one thing I would like to slip/shoehorn in here is my continued inability to get to watch Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.  It just never seemed to be on in the UK.  The Wrath of Khan felt like it was on ITV every weekend at one point but it's successor was MIA.  That was until 1990.  The BBC had bought it and advertised that it would be aired one Saturday night at around 7pm.  I could almost taste my excitement at finally seeing it. There was no question I had waited a long time to see this and the trailer (featuring the Bird of Prey escaping from the self-destructing Genesis planet) only helped to increase my anticipation. Then it snowed.

When I say snowed I mean SNOWED.  Not too big a problem until you realise that it caused a powercut.  A powercut that hit on a certain Saturday - from about 8am in the morning through to that night. The kind of powercut that lasted until after the airing of Star Trek III.  From excitement and anticipation I had crumbled to withdrawal and disappointment. Although there had been the obligatory snowman constructed that afternoon I had missed the aptly named The Search for Spock once more; just like the Enterprise, my moment had been stolen.  Was I EVER going to get to see this film?!  It certainly felt like I wouldn't.

As I've mentioned in The Formative Decade, I had no Trek allies while we lived in Derbyshire besides Dad. This was a barren two years at school and not enjoyable in the least.  What did make it worth while was getting home...especially when 26th of November 1990 came around.  The wait had been very long but now, over three years since its arrival on US TV we finally got to experience "Encounter at Farpoint". It even garnered a few pages in the kids BBC magazine Fast Forward (who remembers that?). Dad only managed to get to see the last fifteen minutes but I was more than happy to fill him in on the new crew and the 90 minute pilot episode.  The captain was a bit stern and snappy; the android was very peculiar; Wesley was cheesy and I just didn't like Q at all.  I found "Encounter at Farpoint" a bit stilted and wooden in places and I hoped it would improve. The plot hadn't been all that amazing but there had been some really memorable bits in there. The ship separated, there was the holodeck and some familiar looking Starfleet admiral turned up.  Over the coming weeks I decided to take this new series to heart as it did indeed move forward at a fairly slow pace to begin with.  It would be my Trek as Kirk, Spock and McCoy had been for Dad back in the late 60's and early 70's. At school it was still very uncool to have watched this new Star Trek but it seemed that a couple of my peers had caught it but would never openly admit they had watched the whole thing - such was the level of peer pressure in that environment.

One weekend my parents were having an evening out somewhere and as part of my treat for the evening I was lucky enough to have the first issue of the Marvel Star Trek: The Next Generation comic bought for me.  There were two halves to it - one was the hand-drawn story section and the other was a synopsis of "Datalore".  It must've been very early during the first season when I was given this because I remember looking forward to seeing the episode on TV.  The comic had a free Starfleet insignia patch on a red background with it (seen here; right). Where this comic ended up is unknown now but it was a prized Trek possession for some time. The date on the issue is the 17th November 1990 but I'm certain I had it after "Encounter at Farpoint" had aired in the UK.

So it was that Wednesday nights at 6pm on BBC Two brought me into weekly contact with The Next Generation as they had years earlier with The Original Series. This ritual would continue through my last few years of primary school and into the first year of my life at secondary school but more on that in due course! 

I grew to admire this cast and their adventures.  There was a lot of action, a lot more budget and the ship didn't look as weird as I had first thought a few years earlier. What I remember is how the series evolved, how the characters developed (a prime example being Troi) and how the stories just got better and better with each week.  The introduction of the Borg was amazing and unforgettable in "Q Who". The set was stunning and they were genuinely chilling as an enemy.  For once it really did look like the crew were beaten until Q reappeared.  It's probably one of the episodes I've watched the most and when I caught sight of the VHS release of "The Best of Both Worlds" in our local Woolworth's I knew that there was more from this new threat to come and it couldn't arrive soon enough.  In fact, as I watched the episodes on the TV at home I started to take an interest in what installments were being released on tape to get a taster of what I could expect.  In a way we were lucky as the first three years ran back to back but that would all come to an abrupt end in 1992 with the climax of "The Best of Both Worlds".

So what was so memorable and enduring about this series to a ten/eleven year old? A lot is the answer. It was cutting edge in effects and there was nothing on TV that came close to the level of storytelling that I saw each week. As it matured the cast grew more comfortable in their roles and before we get stuck into the brilliance of Season Three, it's worth saying that the first two years weren't without their moments. I wasn't into remembering episode titles at that time so it was more incidents from the crew's adventures that stuck in my head. Oddly it's not necessarily the best bits that stuck. 


Take for example "The Neutral Zone"; it wasn't the first TNG appearance of the Romulans that stayed with me but the discovery of the three humans in stasis and their attempts to rediscover who they are in the twenty-fourth century. I can still recall the first time I saw Riker, Data and Worf find the body of the astronaut in the Royale hotel bedroom even though it's nowhere near one of the best episodes of the season let alone the series. Troi's fast-growing child also remains a prominent memory from my first meeting with TNG. Picard as Dixon Hill and Data as Sherlock Holmes made the early seasons essential viewing and lest we forget the uncomfortable appearances of Lwaxana Troi or the unexpected death of one Lt. Tasha Yar.

Then again how could I forget seeing the Stargazer loom into view; the duplicate Picard of "Time Squared" attempting to make his escape (again!) and strangely the budget-saving worst-TNG-episode-ever, "Shades of Grey" made a substantial impression. Heck, that was just the first 48 episodes and the next 26 stories would blow these clean out of the water. I couldn't get enough and had me completely hooked by 1991; the show's 25th Anniversary year. What I would also say at this point my love of all things Trek  was confined to a colour TV and any books I could find in the local library. While we lived in Derbyshire I was lucky enough to read the novel edition of Star Trek II which put the film into a whole new perspective - especially the minor character of Peter Preston, Scotty's nephew. It was excellent from start to finish and led me to devour episode adaptations and a couple of classic series novels that were available. Shamefully that's as far as it could go purely because of the availability of material on Star Trek. Besides, the internet and DVD were still a long way off.

While the series played on, we moved again to Lincolnshire. The bullying I had experienced for two years stopped and things seemed to be looking up. I attended a new school which was much more friendly and while there weren't any massive Trek fans in my class at least I didn't feel "wrong" for liking it. I felt I could be myself and wouldn't be chastised for what I  was interested in.

Between leaving there and starting at secondary school I spent the summer being watched over by a mum who had three boys while my parents were at work. I introduced them to Star Trek  as the six weeks flashed by to the point where we watched a videoed copy of Star Trek IV on more than one occasion. It wasn't unknown for us and some of the other kids in the street to recreate the bridge of the Enterprise in the garage and stage our own adventures for whole afternoons. We would be adorned with Lego phasers and handmade rank pips and badges a la TNG. For the first time in a long while I was able to talk about my favourite programme and not be ridiculed for being different.  It came as something of a relief you can appreciate and this move was to help bring about a big turning point in my relationship with Star Trek but there's plenty of time for us to talk about that.

So we'll pause there for now before I get too carried away in nostalgia! Next time, the saga of Trek III concludes (honestly it does!), TNG's third season on BBC 2 begins, The Undiscovered Country is discovered and another side to my collection begins...