Can You Fathom It?
Recently, I had the good fortune of hearing Patrick Stewart tell a story about how he ruined a family’s summer.
Truth be told, I think he ruined many families’ summer, so let me put it in context.
If you’re unaware of Fathom Events, then you’re missing something that’s occasionally pretty awesome. As a division of NCM Media Networks, the folks at Fathom specialize in bringing digital entertainment presentations to the masses by broadcasting these ‘single night events’ in theaters equipped with the proper technology. They airing concerts (no interest to me), big city opera (even less interest to me), or once-in-a-lifetime sport events (even less interest to me). But, every now and then, Fathom crosses over into total, uninhibited nerdfests (now THAT’s what I’m talking about).
For example, they’ve done simulcasts of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett skewering ‘Manos, the Hands of Fate’ in a live presentation before a theatrical audience. You do know who Mike, Kevin, and Bill are, right? MST3K? If you’re no idea who they are, then turn in your geek credentials on the way out, please.
To date, Fathom has sponsored four special Star Trek engagements (that I know of). I’ve attended three of them. To celebrate the kick-off of Star Trek TOS on Blu-ray, Fathom coordinated a high def screening of the two-parter classic, The Menagerie (November, 2007) – note to fans: the audience at my place was nearly at capacity, and classic Trek looked terrific up on the screen. In July of 2012, Fathom celebrated the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation by hosting two episodes from the first season – Where No One Has Gone Before and Datalore – on the silver screen; also, they provided some advertising filler promoting the upcoming release of TNG on Blu-ray. Four months later, Fathom screened Q Who and The Measure of a Man digitally to audiences.
This past April 25th, Trek enthusiasts were treated to the high-def broadcast of the epic two-parter The Best of Both Worlds … and it was, indeed, the best of all events so far.
Fathom also ponied up – through Paramount – some additional features which included airing the Blooper Reel from TNG’s impending Season 3 Blu-ray set as well as a ‘One Night Only’ kinda/sorta documentary on the making of the two episodes that shocked all of Trekdom when they aired back in 1990.
See, those of us who are old enough to have been around when the first half of The Best of Both Worlds can identify exactly with Stewart’s story. Let me paraphrase it:
“I was driving around in California not long after the first show aired. I had the top down on my convertible. I had a hat pulled down over my head. I came to a red light and stopped. Another family pulled up next to me at the stoplight. I looked over casually and saw that they were looking at me, studying me, trying to see who it was. It was clear they recognized me and knew who I was. It was the woman in the car who had a particularly sour look. Once she was certain it was me, she raised herself up in her seat and shouted over, ‘You ruined our summer!’”
As you can imagine, this brought out a big laugh from the Fathom audience.
Certainly, those of us who had watched The Best of Both Worlds could identify with that woman’s frustration. Here was the captain of the Starship Enterprise-D – our captain – and it looked like we had lost him for good.
See, throughout fandom, it was pretty common knowledge that Stewart wasn’t all that happy with Star Trek at the time. From what I recall, much of his frustration was attributed to the change it imposed his promising career. Stewart had made his name in live theatre, which by its nature is awarded plenty of rehearsal time, but the nature of episodic TV makes ongoing rehearsals a commodity at best.
Also, Stewart knew that, originally, Roddenberry had strong reservations about casting a bald man to serve as captain. And apparently scripts were slow to come to the actor, often times putting him between a rock and a hard place in preparing his character for whatever ‘anomaly of the week’ waited in the wings. Clearly, it wasn’t the best of any worlds for this consummate professional.
Rumors began circulating that he’d be leaving the show.
This all came out during Season 3’s strong run, which has long been credited with being the time when TNG found its footing. The production staff finally shook the shackles of the original Star Trek series from their shoulders. They were now able to seek out and explore new worlds and new civilizations with characters audiences were finally embracing. Geordi had a place in engineering. Fans accepted a ship’s counselor always stating the obvious. Riker was mostly gonna be Kirk-lite. And even that grumpy Klingon had a growing fan base. Picard – always a bit emotionally aloof in these early outings – was a great ‘manager’ by contrast to captains of the original series, but fans still wanted him to succeed.
Then … Part 1 aired, and it looked like we were losing him forever … though, to be fair, no one ever really dies in science fiction, especially sci-fi television. Still, it looked like Jean-luc Picard’s days were numbered, compliments of the nasty Borg.
But he wasn’t.
Like most Trek fans, I never found Part 2 as compelling as Part 1, but how could it be? Part 1 deftly made its way around crises too numerous to imagine. How could Picard do this to us? Were we baring witness to the end of the Federation? Could we ever stand against the Borg? Did Riker really just fire on his captain? Would Wesley ever win at poker? Who put that stick so far up Shelby’s butt? As TV drama goes, it was undeniably compelling, so it’s understandable how Part 2 suffers by comparison.
Still, what amazed me more that April 25th was how a mere TV show from 25 years ago still managed to nearly pack a wallop.
Not only that, but also the audience was nearly packed – my guess is that it was easily over 80% full – and that’s definitely nothing to sneeze at. As a group, we applauded the opening credits. We laughed at jokes we’d all probably heard dozens of times. We even cheered when our heroes bested the villains. Granted, it’s easy to dismiss all of that given the fact that, clearly, we were all fans of the program to begin with, but methinks that’s taking the easy way out when it comes to understanding Trek’s endurability.
As a culture, we need heroes.
For each of us, so much of any given day is spent marching through the routine – we get up, we go to work, we eat, we come home, we sleep. We are the Borg!
But when we take time out to celebrate our heroes – yes, even the fictional ones, haters – that’s when we find a kind of peace that brings us closer to knowing who we are, what’s important to us, and how we might behave in similar situations. Star Trek – like so many other programs – gives us heroes worth celebrating, and thank goodness Fathom keeps giving us the chance to revisit them up on the silver screen instead of the boob tube.
That’s certainly the Best of Both Worlds.
