Trekking Along

Ok, I may get in dangerous territory today.

I love Star Trek. I’m American. It’s hard not to know about it. It’s the American equivalent of Doctor Who.

While it hasn’t been on TV as much as Who has, this year is the 50th Anniversary of the American institution.

I love imagination. That’s why I’m into Science Fiction in the first place.

So naturally I am into Trek.

What brought this up was a Concert here a couple of nights ago, call “Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage” which was a concert in celebration of those 50 years.

True, it was only estimated to be about a 30 pieces band helped by audio recordings and not The BBC Orchestra of Wales that I have seen also but it was a great concert nonetheless augmented by visuals.

It was afterwards that the discussion really got started, and this blog’s genesis (star trek pun).

It was pointed out that the concert itself was “inspiring” and that Star Trek, in general, is more “inspiring” than Who.

And that got me thinking.

Yes, I think Trek is more “inspiring”. This may also be an American point-of-view in someways as I didn’t grow up with Doctor Who as a kid. I was 21.

But I am big fan of both. But I am a bigger fan of WHO.

WHO is ALL OVER my house. Trek isn’t.

Trek inspired me as a kid for the imagination. Not the Science.

I am not the one who thought, I want to be a Planetary Geologist when I grow up. I know several who did.

I didn’t look at the communicator and go “oh look, a flip lid Cell phone, how 00’s of you.”

I gravitated to the imagination of it all. The going where no man has gone before. To go out there and see what and who is out there.

That was my thrill. Still is.

But Doctor Who has an even broader canvas. Arguably, the broadest possible one. Not just where Man hasn’t gone. He isn’t a Man. But Anywhere in Time & Space in the whole of creation and even beyond it.

Now that’s a imagination stage like no other.

And the lead character is the same one from 52 1/2 ago!

No “Next Generation”, you get Next Regeneration. 🙂

The Borg…HAH! Doctor Who had The Cybermen in 1966 when Star Trek had just premiered!

Doctor who has the Guinness Book of World Records for most Successful TV show.:)

Nov 25, 2013 – Guinness World Records can today confirm that the special 50 th Anniversary episode of Doctor Who which was broadcast globally on Saturday has set a new world for the largest ever simulcast of a TV drama after the episode was shown in 94 countries across six continents.

So, while Star Trek has inspired Science around the world. Doctor Who inspires even more Imagination.

And we need both.

So I am a fan of both. The Apple and the Custard. 🙂