The cat is out of the bag. I'm a Trekker. Or, at least, I was until eighteen years ago when "Star Trek: The Next Generation" went off the air. Since then, I've been just an average guy, contributing to a society without a solid Star Trek franchise, like a man in a science fiction witness protection program.
Fortunately, there has been some form of bizarre genealogical trickledown effect; my kids enjoy reruns of STNG on DVD. Granted, I only own one season (no, it's not worth my time, money, or freedom purchasing additional seasons or downloading them online), and within that season there are only one or two episodes to which I would assign a 'G' rating. This means we generally watch the same episode at each viewing.
It has been at least a year since my kids and I shared "Timescape".
Yesterday evening I sat, sandwiched between them, sharing popcorn, boldly going where no one had gone before.
The Boy - age 7 - has gained enough awareness of reality and science that plot holes are starting to bother him, and he can't help but point them out - ad nauseum.
The Girl - age 4 - has matured enough intellectually to find certain concepts and characters more frightening than she did one year ago. She has a more well developed sense of good and evil (Starfleet officers vs Romulans...boy, I already feel like a loser and I'm barely two-hundred words into the blog-post. Well, waddaya gonna do? It's the web; surf away.)
I imagined their 'maturation' resulting in closer bonds being formed over material more suited to both adults and children; more live-action, less Disney.
Instead the consequences are: more questions, and more talking. Lots of questions from The Girl; non-stop observations from The Boy.
He seemed focused on the unrealistically large inner space of the Runabout (shuttle craft) in which four of the crew members were flying.
The exterior shots of the tiny ship suggested one or two rooms only, yet, throughout the episode, the crew darts from room to room as through running through Versailles.
He pointed out this flaw every time Picard, Troy, Geordie or Data walked through the sliding doors from one part of the shuttle to another.
She was becoming not only fearful of the aggressive creatures inhabiting the bodies of certain Romulans, but she was also more frustrated this time by her own inability to grasp certain concepts: fractures in the space/time continuum, tears in space, the acceleration of growth and aging when in contact with unstable timeframe...you know, the usual stuff I hoped they would cover in pre-school.
The result of this, is little voices ping-ponging in my ear for 45 minutes:
- "How big is this ship, anyway?"
- "How come he screamed when he reached for the bowl of rotten fruit?"
- "Come on! Really! How big is this ship!?"
- "How come he's hold his head going 'No, no, no?'" (Here I tried my best to explainto my daughter the failure of the protective force-field jury-rigged by Geordie...but alas, she didn't quite get it.)
- "OK! Seriously! The ship is so small from the outside, how do they keep finding a different room?!?!"
- "Is he dead? Did she hurt him?" (No, I said, Troy just removed the skin-tight protective force-field in order that he, too, be frozen in time with the hopes they can revive him in his actual time frame and heal the wound he received from the alien inhabiting the Romulan.)
- "This is silly. I mean, look how big the other ship is compared to their little ship. The little ship is, like, the size of my room, and my room has just one room!"
- "Are the Romulans bad guys? Are they trying to hurt them?" (No, well, yes, Romulans are usually bad guys, but in this episode the Romulans are good guys....except for those three Romulans, who aren't really Romulans, but aliens appearing as Romulans in order to rescue their young trapped in the Romulan warp core.)...
For the love of Gene Rodenberry...when's bedtime???
It used to be, I would sit with them in silence, put them to bed, and clean up their popcorn.
But: they ain't babies no more, and the evil Romulan ain't no Little Mermaid...
When I wished they would grow out of that baby stage, I should have been more careful...maybe, if I can create a small tear in the space-time continuum......
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