Space Travel

Ok, no more “t’was the night before” parodies.

Today, I introduced my son to Star Trek: The Next Generation.  He thought it was cool but couldn’t believe that Star Trek (at least the original series) preceded Star Wars and — Heavens!! — The Clone Wars.

He loves the look of the Starship Enterprise (I think he will be disappointed with the original series’ ship) and wanted to learn about all the classes of starships (there are websites cataloguing the fictional fleets of human and alien ships — who knew?) and he had a field day looking up warp drives and matter/anti-matter things.  (I guess; I didn’t look because my eyes glazed over with all the data.)

My son was ready to watch the entire Star Trek: TNG marathon today; I was not.  Not only would I be a lazy and bad parent, but when you watch shows as a parent, you notice the sexual innuendos, etc., that never before fazed you.  And you wonder about the overtly sexual costumes (especially on the original series) and wonder how much is lost — or found — on the kids.  The episode we saw featured an incident with the Farenghi — a misogynous species (they don’t talk directly to women and women aren’t deserving of clothes).  As a parent, I wasn’t so sure that the writers did enough of a job smacking down these creatures for their hatred of women.  And, of course, time-honored feminine wiles saved the day.  So cliché.

But the thing that made it all worthwhile?  My son thinks I know A LOT about space travel now and wants me to watch every Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode to discuss insights.

Wow, do I have much studying to do.  Yet I will boldly go where I have never gone before if only to be a heroine in my son’s eyes.  “Lay in a course for the Alpha Quadrant, my young son, Warp 5.  Engage!”