Teach me, Captain. What is a kiss?

Oh, how I wish that scene was in the new Star Trek movie. Or Empire Strikes Back. They'd both be improved by it and that's no disrespect towards either.

I'm off to see Star Trek again tonight, after which I'll hopefully be able to formulate some thoughts deeper than, "Cool!" Of course, they're likely to be thoughts that have already been expressed by someone else very well thank you. I'm pretty solidly in the I Was Done With Trek So Play With It As Much As You Like camp. If anything, the new movie makes me want to finally buy those Original Series DVDs and watch them start to finish. There are still a lot of episodes that I've never seen.

One of the ones that I have seen though is "The Savage Curtain," which is sort of the poster child for the idea that maybe we shouldn't be taking Star Trek quite so seriously. Gene Roddenberry's creative vision - revered though it may be - could be pretty silly.



Dorian is turning over part of his blog to a pal of his for a look at Star Trek canon and how the very idea is "an unnecessary, deleterious, and un-Trek addition to the Trek world." The first article in the series references "The Savage Curtain" and wonders why - if Trek canon is so important - the monumental meeting between Kirk and Abraham Lincoln is never mentioned again.

So there sits semi-retired sad sack James T. Kirk on his 52nd birthday, at the beginning of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the best-loved of the Star Trek movies.

...He delivers a convincing scene ... that evokes everything Kirk has given up in his life to become a Starfleet admiral. Reliably on hand to tell Kirk to get back into the game is Dr. McCoy, his straight-talking friend. "This isn’t about age, and you know it," Bones says. No, it’s that Kirk has let himself get trapped in Starfleet academia – and, although the doctor doesn’t need to say it, regret – "when you want to be out there, hopping galaxies."

But after a five-year mission to all those planets, there must have been all sorts of regrets going through his mind. Why didn’t writers Nicholas Meyer and Jack Sowards have Kirk turn to the dusky skyline of the 23rd century Fillmore District and say: "Bones… Remember that time we met Abraham Lincoln in space?"

While I'm at the movie, one of the things I'll be looking for this time is my fellow Robot 6er Carla Hoffman who apparently joined Starfleet Academy when I blinked. This is her scene.



This is where she tells you how to find her.