Amnesia of the Future: Boldly Going
3rd November, 2009 by Christina - 12 Comments
Back in June, I mentioned how my friend Ryan was introducing me to the world of comics and let me tag along to MoCCA. While there we had to stop by Richard Steven’s table to buy socks for Ryan’s girlfriend, Heather…who then showed up and bought more socks. Yay socks!
Anyway, Ryan mentioned to me how Stevens had worked Wil Wheaton* wearing the clown sweater (picture) into his comic, Diesel Sweeties.
And I was all, “…………………………..who’s Will Weton?”
So, fast forward to now. I follow the RSS feed of Wil Wheaton’s blog and on Twitter (@wilw). I agreed to water a friend’s plants so that I could use her TV to watch The Big Bang Theory when Wil Wheaton guest starred. There was also that incident of learning he was guest staring on The Guild, which I’d also never seen and ended up staying very late at the office one night in order to watch the first two seasons.
But my Wil Wheaton experience is pretty recent and I don’t have the full scope of why this guy is a geek hero. As a latch-key kid, one of my first things to do upon getting home from school was to turn on the TV where I watched a lot of Mathnet, 3-2-1 Contact, and The Muppet Show (the second thing I’d do would be pretend no one would notice an entire row of Oreos was now missing from the bag…) and on very rare occasions Star Trek would be the only thing on. The thing was, I was busy trying to make swords out of my Legos or cutting my Barbie’s hair and didn’t pay much attention; the television was just noise to keep me company. Plus, we were a Star Wars family and had no room for other space travel cultish behavior. Oh, and when I got older there was SeaQuest DSV. Which had a talking dolphin.
TALKING DOLPHIN!
Anyway, I sort of feel like I’ve missed out. I mean, I did see The Secret of NIMH, but that was a cartoon and voice-over. None of his movies. No Star Trek. Zip. So I’ve done the only logical thing possible–I purchased Wil Wheaton’s Memories of the Future and lined up Star Trek: The Next Generation in my Netflix queue. That’s right, I’m going to do a marathon of sorts and I’m going to record my brand new experience for your entertainment. It will sort of be like watching your kid get really excited for the first time about something that’s fairly common to us as adults.
What makes me look forward to this project (besides the fact that I’m totally making a little Star Trek communicator badgey-thing to wear. With glitter.) is that I get to present a completely different take on the book and the television series than the average geek. Because they’ve seen it all. They’ve been there and done that. They have memories and things they loved or hated about the show. I have no nostalgia, no bias, no gilded memories of my own that will shape my point of view. My lack of experience with Star Trek means that I can’t just review the book and say what I think because I have no frame of reference to go off of, and even if I watch the shows, it’s going to be a completely different sort of review from anyone who is already a fan. I’m going to go where plenty of geeks have gone before but with a fresh and unjaded pair of eyes.
The plan is to watch an episode and then read the corresponding entry in Memories of the Future. The book is a reflection of Wil Wheaton’s experience on set through the episodes of the first season. Thinking more about it, it seems sort of meta, no? Reflecting on someone else’s reflections? But like I said, I don’t have the background of remembrance. This is my own discovery of new lands. Sure, someone beat me there, but it is unique to me. I finally get to understand all the inside jokes. And I’ve been practicing my Spock “live long and prosper” hand thing-a-ma-bob.** Did anyone else know about all those muscles between the middle and ring finger? I think I sprained something.
How this will all unfold is up to you, my readers. We’re doing this in a few parts, 5-6 episodes at a time.
1) Do you want a marathon of posts for each set? A Saturday of updates as I go along for each disk?
- or-
2) Would you prefer a post per episode over the course of thirteen days with no breaks short of the weekends?
I leave the decision in your hands as I’m feeling a bit indecisive at the moment. But you only have until Thursday because if you want one-day updates, I’m going to have to crash someone’s apartment so I can use their Internet. Drop a note into the comments, send me a note on Twitter, let me know what you think about what approach to take. Not about the show. I will cover my ears and go LALALALALA if you try to tell me anything about the show.
*Ever notice how you can’t just refer to him as “Wil” or “Wheaton” – it’s always “WilWheaton?”–Really fast, like his entire name is one word. Also, spell check doesn’t like his name.
**Yes, I get that the hand thing-a-ma-bob was a previous incarnation of the show. Whatever. IT’S ALL I KNOW! That and wearing a red shirt is never a good idea if you want to live.
