Published: Thursday, 30th April, 2009 4:55pm

The wait is almost over

by Geek Chic

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Star Trek was the first sci fi show I discovered for myself.

It's a family joke that I was destined to be a geek girl from the womb, when my Mum's request to see Saturday Night Fever was thwarted by a sold out show and her and my Dad went to see some random space ship thing called Star Wars instead.

Growing up I remember watching the Star Wars films on telly at Christmas (before Lucas started his biennial tweak-and-rerelease strategy to boost his pension fund) and Flash Gordon and the like, but the shows I first fell in love with were the post-school BBC2 scifi shows - notably Star Trek: The Next Generation and Quantum Leap.

TNG introduced me to my first proper TV crush, the amazing and brilliant Wesley Crusher (what? I was 12 or 13 - he was aimed squarely at my demographic, even while he was treated with Jar Jar Binks levels of hate elsewhere), but the allure of TNG was so much more than that. Intelligent, funny, so much more my thing than the Kirk and Spock cheesefest which my Mum reckoned was better.

Over the years TNG cycled through brilliance ('there are four lights!') to some concept episodes that even the cast looked a little embarrassed to be part of ('I am not a merry man'). But even at its worst it was still eminently watchable, giving us an insight to a better world.

When Deep Space Nine appeared on the scene it was overshadowed for me somewhat by Babylon Five, which was grittier, darker and seemed more real. Voyager, which should have thrilled me with joy at our first female captain, left me monumentally underwhelmed. Meanwhile when Enterprise appeared even the starring status of Sam Beckett himself couldn't make me stick out more than half a season, although I did tune back in for the final episodes to see if it was as dire as people said (it wasn't - it was worse).

All in all, it felt like it was time Trek was put out to pasture, left forever as a fond childhood memory.

Except J J Abrams then got his hands on the franchise. I loved Cloverfield, and like Lost (although it's, ahem, lost its way in the last season frankly) and was quietly optimistic. After all, after the mediocrity of the TNG films, how bad could it be?

All the signs are good. The trailer made me squee slightly. The reviews have been for the most part positive. It has Simon Pegg in it, and Sylar. This makes me happy.

I've just booked my tickets for next week at the Imax and I'm hoping for my socks to be blown off at it. If not, with the amount of money put into the project up to this point it might be the final hurrah for Gene Roddenbury's vision.

Let's hope it's not and the Enterprise lives on.

Have you seen Star Trek yet? What do you think of it? What are your hopes for the film?