Hello, all you folks who've never really cared a whit for Star Trek! Goodbye. Our usual mix of petty events and tendentious observations resumes tomorrow. For now: deep into the Geek Sector. Deep. Indulge me, if you want — it's not like this is some insignificant pop culture artifact. Tote all the seasons up, and Trek ran for 28 seasons. It started with LBJ and ended half a decade into the 21st century.

Are we among friends now? Okay.
----------------snip---------------
It ended with the three ships. (Interesting how they didn't show the 1701-E, perhaps because the design wasn't really beloved; it owes too much to the Voyager-class shoehorn look, and the notch on the nacelles looks distinctly unFederation-like. And yes, I just crossed over into the land of unredeemable dorkheadedness, but I'm past caring.) I've always liked the design of the "Enterprise" Enterprise. The 1701-D looks computer generated. But the original ship, the Constitution class — that's the one that still has a hook in your heart. Maybe because it was actually real. They built a model out of wood and painted it and stuck wires in it and filmed it, and those few frames brought the whole story to life. I bought the original model kit and flew it around my bedroom. (I considered buying another and burning it to look like the one in the Doomsday Machine, too.) That was the archetype; that was what Icarus had in mind. And that was what hung in the Smithsonian that day they opened the Star Trek exhibit. All the cast showed up, except for Bones. I met them all: press tour. On the way out I found myself standing next to James Doohan under the big model of the Enterprise, floating above in the hall. I walked up next to Scotty. We looked up.

"Ah, she's a beautiful thing, isn't it?" he said.

That she was.