Happy First Contact Day!!

It is First Contact Day! The 50^th Pre-Anniversary of First Contact day! Yep, 50 years from now, the T’Plana Hath will be heading into Earth orbit after picking up a warp signature, just hours from landing in Montana. Zefram Cochrane will offer his hand to the strange visitor and then introduce them to the music of Roy Orbison…

We’ll be lucky to avoid them wiping us out for the good of the galaxy. I have a theory the Xindi attack was in fact entirely motivated by Zefram Cochrane trying to pass his CD’s to other races.

Anyway, I digress from the point I was vaguely considering making. Well, less of a point and more of a list! Yes, to commemorate this momentous pre-anniversary, I am listing my top 5 Vulcan moments in Trek! These are my personal top 5 moments, other opinions are available.

5. Sarek

I am a dude who got into Star Trek with The Next Generation. By the time Sarek rolled around I was already gaining some familiarity with the character and Vulcans, having got through the movies, though had yet to realise the full backstory from Journey to Babel. This episode always stuck out for me as particularly brilliant though. I think this was the first time I really understood that Vulcans do have emotions, they just control them. The concept of a Vulcan who is losing that control is brilliant. It’s almost horrifying to watch, the character has such gravity and dignity and it’s gradually crumbling. The final solution, for Picard to meld with him to give him emotional strength is also marvellous as it leads to the scene of Picard struggling with all of Sarek’s 200 years of repressed emotion. Which give Patrick Stewart the chance to let loose, which is awesome to see and underscores how much control a Vulcan must have to exert over a lifetime, which makes Sarek and Spock and all the Vulcans more impressive for managing it.

4. Kir’Shara

Ah Enterprise. For three series I persisted and struggled with you. Then season 4 arrived and wow, you got seriously awesome!

I’d never been too keen on Enterprise’s portrayal of Vulcans as a race. I liked Soval and T’Pol just fine, I just wasn’t keen on the idea of Vulcan as an overbearing, disapproving group holding us back from exploring space. I liked even less the idea that they were engaged in ongoing hostilities with the Andorians. I didn’t mind the hostilities as much as the way the Vulcan’s were dicks about it. They were, they were being dicks.

So this episode went a long way to redress that. In fact it was pretty momentous in terms of changing the status quo with Vulcan, as we pretty much have them go through a big old shift in philosophy. Yes, they’ve retained the basic idea of emotional control and logic, but from here they have to re-assess a lot of what they think they know about Surak’s teachings. As with so much of Enterprise’s fourth season, I would loved to have seen where this led in future years, but of course, that’s not possible now. Also, I really enjoy Robert Foxworth, I loved seeing him as a Vulcan/Romulan agent!

3. Innocence

I loved the character of Tuvok. I thought he was brilliant and tragically underused on Voyager. And when he was used, I felt they often failed to make good use of him. There seemed to be a lot to do with Tuvok losing emotional control through injury or some other thing or being injured.

But this episode Tuvok just got to be a Vulcan. Trapped on a planet alone apart from three scared children and a monster! Brilliant! Though I quite like the twist at the end that the children are actually really old people, the highlights for me are Tuvok’s interactions. He talks about his children and how Vulcan’s raise their young and his attempts to teach the 3 ‘kids’ Vulcan techniques to control their fears are all really brilliant.

2. Journey to Babel

I adore this episode! From the opening scene, when the Vulcan ambassador openly disses Spock and then Kirk offers Spock the chance to beam down to visit his parents and there’s the slightly awkward pause before Spock explains the Vulcan ambassador  and his wife ARE his parents, you know this is going to be good. What often happens in Trek is when an actor comes in to play a Vulcan, that stoicism coupled with that slight air of superior feeling that Vulcan’s seem to have means they come across as more Romulan than Vulcan. But Sarek comes across as perfect Vulcan while still having this air of disapproval and being a complete hard ass, but doesn’t end up feeling more like a sneering Romulan. Of course, Spock totally ups his game on the no emotion stakes by flatly refusing to donate blood for his father’s life saving operation as he needs to be in command of the ship. Throw in poor Amanda trapped in between the two most important people in her life for years of this conflict and now faced with losing one due to the others refusal to act… it’s marvellous. And leads to the payoff at the end, when in the face of Amanda’s emotional outburst, Spock asks why Sarek married her, the answer being, ‘it seemed logical’! You… you probably had to be there.

1.Amok Time

My number one moment with the Vulcans! The pon farr thing is kind of ridiculous if you think about it, but it’s one of the big things now in Star Trek lore, Vulcan’s absolutely have to mate every seven years… OR THEY DIE!!!
There’s a lot of big moments in this episode, our first real glimpse of Vulcan, our first encounter with other Vulcans and a pretty awesome fight and a crazy crazy Spock. It establishes that for a race steeped in logic, the Vulcans have a penchant for needless ceremony and ritual. It also seems odd that when everyone thinks Spock has killed Kirk in ritual combat, everyone is pretty ok about it. That seemed odd, admittedly 20 minutes of outcry would be rendered pointless at the final reveal, which is still very effective for Spock’s emotional slip when he sees his friend is ok. It’s one of those episodes where if you look deeply at it there’s a bunch of stuff that is actually stupid. But it doesn’t matter because it all works and you’re swept into this story where every moment is just brilliant. Who cares that needless gongs are necessary for a people steeped in logic, that Spock’s mother didn’t bother coming to his wedding/fight, that the deadly mating urge can also be cured by a punch up, altogether these things are brilliant because this episode is just brilliant. See, I can't even make that coherent an argument for why this episode ranks number 1 in my list of 5 great Vulcan episodes, it’s just so brilliant I am reduced to babbling and gushing about how much I love it.

I’m going to go watch it again this weekend. Actually, I think I need to watch this episode every seven weeks…OR I MIGHT DIE!!

(But I’ll probably be ok if I can have a fight instead)

But then time was reversed and it never happened...

As it turns out I rather enjoyed that Enterprise with Archer suffering a memory loss condition. Though all the development and interesting story aspects were ultimately lost when the timeline was reversed. An annoying occurence, I remember being disappointed on Voyager that Year of Hell just never happened. If things had been solved differently it could have been a fascinating thing to carry the series on with Voyager barely held together and the crew dealing with the effects of nearly being blown apart. I’m sure the Doctor could eventually cure Tuvok’s blindness, given his unrealistic skill at curing any other random recently encountered condition. Heck, McCoy once kept a Vulcan alive after his brain was removed, then to follow that miracle, attached a remote control unit to him!

I’m sometimes struck by the futility of railing against Voyagers failings when the shows been off the air for seven years. But not often.

I saw some of the latest and last series of Big Brother this week, and I noted that some of the housemates seem to be wearing a version of the nerd glasses I so admired last weekend. I’m not convinced that it isn’t a non-corrective pair that’s being passed around. It makes me feel better about not getting them!

I took Thursday off from the gym, though I shall be going again on Friday and looking to do something energetic on Saturday too. It’s a more punishing gym schedule than I’ve had before, but I’m feeling motivated and would really love to reach Kyle Rayner weight by my wedding. Which basically works out as two months to lose just under two stone. I don’t think this is unreasonable, I lost 3 stone in just over three months this year. My problem there was I got over-confident and spent the next 3 months bouncing around that weight. But progress has resumed now and I shall go from overweight nerd to skinny nerd!

Of course, in that time I have a stag do to attend and someone else’s wedding. Those will both involve alcohol and food in large quantities. I find it incredibly selfish of the couple getting married to have their wedding mere weeks before mine, thereby impacting on my weight loss. I may raise this point during the ceremony when they ask if anyone has any reasons etc. Actually, that would probably get me thrown out even if they reject my reasoning and still marry, so either way I can still eat healthily! I win! Right up to the point when my lovely fiancé comes home and brutally murders me for embarrassing her and everyone at her friends wedding.

I have almost finished Richard Herring’s book, which I have enjoyed. It seems to be frank, honest, self deprecating and in some ways tragic, but also wittily written and hopeful. Of course, instead of being titled ‘How not to grow up’, he could have called it ‘how to obsess over having a threesome’, which is quite a recurring theme. Though as a nerd I have enough trouble talking to girls one on one, let alone two of them. And yes, I said talking, imagine how much awkward embarrassment there would be trying to bed 2 at once! Actually don’t imagine it, just in case you picture me naked! Wait two more months, then me naked should be a more attractive image! Well, when I say ‘more attractive’, I actually mean ‘slightly less repulsive’.

Or maybe I was wrong...

Actually, I probably don’t have hay fever. See, I said it was a cold, then people started saying I might have developed hay fever, so I started taking some anti hayfever tablets, but they’ve had no effect, so maybe I have got a cold.

Which is a tad unfair, I’m eating tons of fruit these days. I easily pass my 5 a day, plus the exercise and general healthier living, doesn’t seem right to catch a cold. Also, I haven’t been in contact with anyone with a cold, and no-one else seems to have caught it from me. Clearly fruit is working for them...

I did another gym workout, which makes three so far this week. According to the Wii, I’ve lost 2 more pounds since Sunday. Still a way to go to match Kyle Rayner’s weight, but I think it’s achievable before the wedding. Well, before Christmas anyway...

I’ve recently begun watching through the 3rd series of Enterprise. I always tried with Enterprise, I’d start each series determined to give it a chance, but normally tailed off. Except with the 4th series, which really picked up. But the 3rd series was a series long storyline, and I’d dipped in and out before, so my buddy Will loaned me the series set. I’ve got 2 disks in and while the episodes are of variable quality, the larger story has caught me a bit more this time. What I have noticed is that Enterprise seemed to have a predilection for flashy effects sequences that weren’t particularly relevant. I just watched one where for no good reason a shuttlepod had fired a thruster while landed and Archer and Tucker watched it start to sail off leaving them stranded. So they shot the thrusters out and bought it down. Great looking sequence, completely pointless for the story.

The next one I have to watch features Archer waking up in the future.. well I guess he always does that, but I mean his own future, after the Xindi have destroyed Earth, but Archer can’t remember it. His short term memory is gone and he’s like that guy in Memento. Sounds a bit similar to Future Imperfect from the 4th season of The Next Generation really. That was a kick ass episode.

My lovely fiance pointed out to me that uh-oh, no Doctor Who on Saturday! This is very true and a cause for concern. Frankly, after that finale, Christmas seems a long way away! So, what to do?

Well, I might see if she’ll be amenable to some classic Who on DVD! Seems like a plan! I’m in the mood for some Troughton myself but who knows how the mood may take me?