So I haven’t updated! Actually, I thought that I had one update in my automatic updater, but apparently 8:00 came and went without that showing up on Wednesday… leading me to give you a rough post, now!
So, I just finished reading Memories of the Future by the nerd-king Wil Wheaton and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Star Trek (any series), science fiction, geek culture, or snark. It’s essentially a play-by-play of the first half of The Next Generation, complete with snarky synopsis, notes on why things turned out how they did, and memories of filming the season as it progressed.
Now, I was a little young in the eighties when TNG came out, so my first experience with Star Trek was watching later seasons. (Voyager was actually the first series that I really watched religiously). This means that I haven’t actually seen a lot of these early episodes.
Strangely enough, though, I didn’t have a problem reading this book. First of all, it was great to see introductions of characters like Q or devices like the Holodeck program into the Star Trek universe for the very first time.
Secondly, Wheaton really does his job as a storyteller well. The synopsis were clear, the descriptions were entertaining, and I was never lost trying to visualize what was happening on screen. (Although I’m going to have to go back and watch all of TNG now. Thanks Mr. Nerd King.)
But what I found most interesting were the memories that Wil had of slowly realizing that his character (and by extension, himself) was hated by legions of Star Trek fans the world over. He recalls how he was stabbed in one early episode and then presented with pictures of his temporary death, or how one negative line from Picard to his character quickly showed up on shirts, buttons, bags, and internet forums the world over.
Don’t believe me? Check out a piece of the story here and then go buy it here. Seriously. It’s five dollars for the Kindle. The only bad thing about this purchase is that you might get strange looks in public as you guffaw loudly while reading it.