57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)

Note: I've moved my blog to my own web site - the new address is:
www.nonaverage.net/insomanywords/
Comments can only be left at the new location.

*********************************************************

I don’t watch much TV. We don’t have cable at home because there seems to be so little that is worth watching and I don’t want to spend $30/month for a service that I would rarely use. There are some channels that I would watch, like Animal Planet or Discovery Channel, but until the cable company allows me to choose only the channels I want, I’ll pass. And I have gotten spoiled by DVD movies and TV shows that don’t have commercial breaks, so I can hardly stand to watch regular television programming. The few current shows that I do enjoy, like Scrubs or 24, I rent or watch online. Of course that may mean that I’m not up date with them, but I’m OK with that. Besides, I’ve pretty much given up on 24 since they killed off Tony, Michelle and Samwise.

But TV was pretty important when I was growing up. By the time I turned 13 I was hooked on a horror-type soap opera called Dark Shadows, and I would rush home every day after school to watch. There were also several shows like The Andy Griffith Show, The Twilight Zone, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Outer Limits that were in afternoon reruns and kept me in front of the TV for a few hours. And I had a crush on Marlo Thomas (That Girl) and never missed her show. Then there was the pièce de résistance of 60s television - Star Trek.

My dad and I discovered Star Trek and we watched during its original run on NBC. It was one of the few things my dad and I did together. I would sit on the floor in front of our TV and watch Captain Kirk save the universe week after week. The Transporter was very cool, Spock was cool, Scotty and Chekov were cool, Lt. Uhura and Yeoman Rand were babes - it was a great show, although it took me awhile to understand the deal with Kirk and all of those female aliens. But I watched week after week, and kept watching when it went into reruns, and I learned more about that show than most people would want to know. I enjoyed the Star Trek movies but I really didn’t get into the later series incarnations like The Next Generation or Deep Space 9. I watched occasionally, but they never held my interest like the original.

I saw William Shatner in person once. I was working at the Culver City Studios (which were the old Desilu television studios) and I was walking from the sound stages to the office area, and as I rounded the corner of a sound stage I walked past good ol’ Captain Kirk. I believe he was on the lot working on one of those made-for-TV movies. So I said “Hi” and he said “Hi” and we passed each other and went about our business. I would have liked to have chatted with him, but we were both working and besides, what could I say to him that every other Star Trek fan hadn’t already said.