Star Trek Auction: Make It Sold

Big Trek auction last weekend in Vegas. The Star Trek Experience, a big nerd-bin where you could Experience everything connected with the show (except the interbeaming worms that freaked out Lt. Barkley) (See, you were angry about that nerd crack, weren't you? C'mon; I'm one of you) closed, and the sets, costumes, props, and other pieces of precious memorabilia were sold. If the franchise hadn't been reanimated last year, this would be the modern Trek fan's equivalent of the original series' third-season cancellation: The End.

I was a kid when the original Trek ended, and it was horrible. Oh, we contented ourselves with the books, and there was the animated series with the weird upside-down theme, but it was done and we knew it. Little did we know it would all come back in ten years. You want to go back in time, comfort your young self, and say: be of good cheer. There will be over a dozen movies, and four additional series. Yes, four. Hundreds of episodes, a total of 26 year's worth. And at the end of it they'll start all over again. It's okay. Buck up.

It's still sad to see the Experience go, because it means the end of the Middle Period of Trek. The new movies have a different timeline, which is probably just as well; the old one was exhausted, and there was really nothing more to do or say. The closest I ever got to authentic Trek stuff was a press preview for the Smithsonian exhibit in the early 90s; the press got to sit in Kirk's chair and pretend a comely yeoman was giving me something to sign; I stood on the original transporter pad. (The glass circles looked like large serving platters.) Don't know if Kirk's chair was up for sale, but the Experience auction had Picard's chair. I wonder how sturdy it really was: if you punched a button with your fist, as Captains are probably trained to do in the Academy, the armrest probably splintered and broke.

PS "Enterprise" was really good the last season, and "DS9" was the best show of them all. So there.