Agent Palmer

Palmer’s Trek, the unwatched frontier. These are the voyages of Agent Palmer. On his continuing mission: to explore Star Trek. To seek out its numerous series and movies. To boldly go where many fans have gone before!

I’m going to boldly watch it all. Yes. All of it. For the first time.

And you’ll be able to read about it all here.

This former science fiction fanatic – I say “former” because it’s been a while since I’ve read the genre I loved as a child – and this Star Wars fan is going to watch all Star Trek.

One post for every series.

One post for every movie.

I will only be covering series that have been completed. This is going to take a while so I can’t vouch for any of the shows yet created, in the works, or currently ongoing being done by the time I get to them, but I’m sure there will be more than the 20 that I can vouch for at this moment in time.

It’s a long way to go, but I’m starting back in 1966, where it all started with The Original Series.

Why one post per series and one post per movie? Some of those series have seven seasons, that’s why!

And also because my blog isn’t a Star Trek blog. It’s a geek blog. To cover every series, season by season and movie by movie as I have it mapped out, would turn my blog into a Trek only wonderland. If you’ve spent time here before, you know that I like the poetic chaos of Deighton and Coupland next to Aerosmith, Magic: The Gathering, and Ralph Bakshi too much to forego any of that. Now, Star Trek gets added to the mix.

Before I endeavor forward with this, it seems proper to give you some context as to my Star Trek knowledge as it stands right now.

I caught a few episodes of The Original Series and The Next Generation in syndication. Of the two, I prefer The Original Series because Next Generation always felt like it was a piece of something larger. As syndication goes, The Original Series was much closer to reruns of Cheers or M.A.S.H. where you didn’t have to know everything that happened before that episode to get it. With Next Generation’s syndication, however, I always felt lost.

I can’t tell you what episodes I’ve seen or even remember much of what they were about, but I know I’ve seen them. I’m sorry to say at this point in the experiment that they left no real impression at all.

Aside from that, I’ve had a solid relationship with some of Trek’s more obvious television influences. I have enjoyed Futurama and The Orville, two shows which homage Trek on a regular frequency. I can tell from both shows when they are making Trek references, but that’s as far as I can go. I can state what seems like a Trek reference, but I have no idea what it is actually in reference to. This will probably change as I undertake this journey.

I also know a little about Trek from The Refreshments song Banditos

So give your ID card to the border guard
Yeah, your alias says you’re Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Of the United Federation of Planets
‘Cause he won’t speak English anyway

I’m also extremely familiar with the music, because, well it is iconic, and because it led to a nickname that makes it all the more crazy that I’m just undertaking this journey now.

Back in high school, among other things like band and theater, I was a cross country and track & field runner. This would have no bearing on this Trek post except that one of the CDs that I used to listen to on the bus to away meets was “Space Trax.”

On that album performed by The Starlite Orchestra are themes from the two big Star franchises of Trek and Wars, but also some tracks from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica, 2001 – A Space Odyssey, Twilight Zone, Independence Day, and X-Files.

However, with a surname like Stershic, Star Trek isn’t so far off and, let’s be honest, how clever were we all really back in high school? So, on my track windbreaker is embroidered “Star Track” and, well, there really aren’t many people left who would remember that, For the fact that I didn’t watch the show, I thought it was interesting to share that with you now that I’m about to.

The rest of my Trek knowledge comes from the cultural aspect of the show. I know the show was groundbreaking television for its time. I know it inspired generations of engineers to go into the field and that NASA wouldn’t be what it is today without the show’s influence.

I had the pleasure of hearing the late great Nichelle Nichols speak at a local comic convention and heard her story as only she can tell it. It’s a story about inclusion which also led to the inspiration of even more engineers.

And of course there’s the other stuff that has seeped into the cultural zeitgeist from Trek, like the Kobayashi Maru which has been referenced too many times to know where I got it from. I just know I didn’t actually get it directly from Star Trek.

There’s the whole idea that there are a lot of people who feel very strongly about Kirk vs. Picard, a debate I have to this point only listened to without much context. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Fanboys, a personal favorite film of mine, which is as much a love letter to fandom as it is to Star Wars. Again, I get the references, but I’m sure just like Futurama and The Orville, rewatching those after this epic journey of watching all of Star Trek will give me even more satisfaction through the overt references.

I also have Trek friends, some of whom are still amazed that I’m just doing this now and that I wasn’t watching it back in the day. They are all excited to welcome me into the club.

The journey I’m about to undertake is one I have been considering for a while. In fact, it comes up during a few episodes of my podcast, specifically, the one with Cam Smith. The real start, however, comes from my partner’s frustration of my lack of Trek knowledge. She seems more annoyed than what may be acceptable when I make minimally informed references without the source context.

That all changes now. The posts that will follow will be in order of the release of the series or movie. Where movies overlap with shows, the start of a series will also determine the order I watch it. It’ll all make sense as we go forward, I promise. Just know I have it all mapped out until the 2020 releases. It’s a long way to go from 1966 until that becomes an issue.

I hope you enjoy this journey with me. If not, there’s always plenty of other things on this site that I’m sure something will pique your interest.

Live Long and Prosper. Palmer Out.