Table Of Content

Living with Star trek Living with Star trek AmericAn culture And the Star trek universe lincoln GerAGhty Published in 2007 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com In the United States of America and in Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St Martin’s Press 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © Lincoln Geraghty, 2007 The right of Lincoln Geraghty to be identifed as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN 1 84511 265 3 Hardback ISBN 1 84511 421 3 Paperback A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress catalog card: available Typeset in Quadraat by Steve Tribe, Andover Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction: Living with Star Trek 1 Part I ‘Carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives’: History, Myth, and Star Trek’s Exemplary Narratives 17 1. A Look to the Past: Reality and Star Trek’s Multiple Histories 21 2. Telling Tales of the Future: Star Trek’s Exemplary Narratives 39 3. Creating and Comparing Myth: Star Trek and Star Wars 55 4. ‘For we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us’: The American Jeremiad and Star Trek’s Puritan Legacy 68 Part II A Network of Support: Identifcation and Emotion in Star Trek Fan Letters 87 5. ‘A reason to live’: Star Trek’s Utopia and Social Change 91 6. Help When Times are Hard: Coping with Trauma through the Star Trek Community 103 7. The Pleasure of the Trek: Confessions of Self-Improvement and Individualism 116 vi livinG with Star trek Part III Fans on Film: Explorations of Future History and Star Trek Fan Culture 129 8. Poles Apart: Future Time, Deep Space Nine and Enterprise’s ‘Faith of the Heart’ 133 9. ‘Oh my God, it’s real!’: Crossing the Frontiers of Star Trek Fandom in Galaxy Quest 146 Epilogue: Bringing the Memory to Life 165 Notes 173 Filmography 203 Bibliography 207 Index 225 AcknowledGements To start, I must thank those in the School of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham for helping to create a stimulating and supportive environment that provided a suitable setting in which to undertake the research for my PhD, which forms the basis of this book. For providing travel expenses for a research trip to Los Angeles, I would like to thank BAAS for their support and the staff of the Arts Special Collection Library at UCLA for their help and priceless knowledge of the Gene Roddenberry archive. Special mention must also go to Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who allowed me access to the collection. I want to also thank my colleagues in the School of Creative Arts, Film and Media at the University of Portsmouth for welcoming me into their department. Special thanks go to all those in the Film and Media teams who helped me settle in while completing this book. Particular thanks go to Eithne Quinn and Mark Jancovich, who were my supervisors for the PhD, and Julian Stringer and Tim O’Sullivan, my PhD examiners. To Philippa Brewster, my editor, and all those at I.B.Tauris who supported the publication of this book, I offer my sincere thanks and appreciation. My deepest gratitude and affection are reserved for the following: Laurence and Kathy Janicker, who have been incredibly supportive throughout; my parents, Malcolm and Diane Geraghty, whose support and love were priceless throughout the entire project; and fnally my partner, Rebecca Janicker, who not only helped proofread the manuscript in all of its varying stages, but has also had to put up with me wittering on about Star Trek for the past six years. Rebecca viii livinG with Star trek has remained a source of continual inspiration and encouragement. It is for all these reasons, and for many more, that this book is dedicated to her. note Since this book is partly drawn from my PhD thesis, components have also been published elsewhere in different forms: Chapter One as ‘“Carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives”: Reality and Star Trek’s Multiple Histories’, European Journal of American Culture 21.3 (2002): 160–76; Chapter Two as ‘Telling Tales of the Future: Science Fiction and Star Trek’s Exemplary Narratives’, Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 3.2 (Spring 2003); Chapter Three as ‘Creating and Comparing Myth in Twentieth Century Science Fiction: Star Trek and Star Wars’, Literature/Film Quarterly 33.3 (2005): 191–200; Extracts from Chapter Four as ‘The American Jeremiad and Star Trek’s Puritan Legacy’, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 14.2 (2003): 228–45; Chapter Six as ‘“Help When Times are Hard”: Bereavement and Star Trek Fan Letters’, Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, Volume 5 (2004). introduction Living with Star trek ‘without freedom of choice there is no creativity. without creativity there is no life.’ kirk to Landru, ‘return of the archons’ (1967) Is Star Trek dead? Some might wonder why I ask such a question at the beginning of a book called Living with Star Trek, but with Star Trek: Enterprise1 no longer being produced and plans for an eleventh movie being hotly contested by fans wishing producers would stop interfering with Star Trek’s back story, people might be right in assuming that this is the end for the world’s most famous, and once most popular, science fction franchise. On the one hand, this can be seen as a devastating blow to the millions of fans who continue to watch Star Trek in syndication around the world; on the other, the current predicament is not new to Star Trek or its fans. In 1967, when the original series was entering its second season, it too was facing cancellation. Only after a successful fan-led campaign did it go on to complete a third and fnal season. What the contemporary situation really reminds us is that Star Trek has had a history of cancellations and problems with image: Enterprise is not the frst series to face criticism and commercial failure. history Gene Roddenberry, an ex-pilot and Los Angeles police offcer from El Paso, Texas, created Star Trek in response to his increasing lack of success in securing long-term television show writing contracts.