When my husband and I first met, I was about as far from a fan of Star Trek as you could possibly imagine. I enjoyed sci fi movies and shows, but rarely watched them unless my father put them on the television. I lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere, and we generally stuck to Star Wars and Dune when it came to getting our geek on.<\/p>\n
At first, he basically forced me to watch it – I was bored and uninterested (although I will admit, the original series and movies still are a bit of a struggle to get through for me). The Next Generation was different, though. It was interesting, and I became a serious Data and Picard fangirl. I would watch what they were in and when they were on, and that was the extent. A lot of the time I hated the other characters – Troi, Riker, and Wesley were my mental punching bags, but I had a soft spot for Worf and Geordie. The characters I disliked were basically just a target of adolescence – I was only sixteen or so. I read the hilarious fanfiction, watched the first season and movies, but fell away from it as soon as he stopped making me watch it.<\/p>\n
I recently started watching The Guild, and I enjoyed it immensely, and between the show and Twitter, I was led over to Wil Wheaton’s blog and tweets. I read some posts, but like everything before, drifted off and forgot it. I saw the new Star Trek movie, and it was amazing, but I still felt kind of neutral towards the original shows and TNG… until my husband loaded up the Memories of the Futurecast.<\/p>\n
It was an entirely new way to experience Star Trek. It made fun of the silly things in a loving way, but brought light to things I had missed when watching the show – nuances of the writing, plot pieces I hadn’t even recognized. After hearing the podcasts, my husband and I stayed up late to catch reruns on television of the first season – and suddenly, Star Trek wasn’t something dorky that used to be boring and no fun before the new film, it was something I enjoyed. The “Data & Picard show” was suddenly filled with a full cast of interesting characters, ones that I wanted to see a beginning, middle, and end of stories.<\/p>\n
I have listened to every podcast of Memories of the Futurecast released thus far, and it’s built a new connection between my husband and I – something we can share and enjoy together – and it’s also allowed me something I never thought I would have. I’m okay<\/span> with being a geek. I’m even happy about it! If the people who love these things, and people like Wil Wheaton and Fecilia Day are the people who I am in good company with by loving Star Trek and D&D and video games, then that is where I want to be.<\/p>\n Thank you, Wil Wheaton, and all of the other geeks who have opened up and taught me by example how awesome being a geek can be. FTW!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"