How an original STAR TREK episode nearly cost me my first JW marriage in its first year...true story I find funny/sad

by oompa 31 Replies latest jw friends

  • Diest
    Diest

    The treck connection relates to the personality type connection. Intuitives tend to be drawn to scifi.

  • Berengaria
    Berengaria

    Mmmmmmmmm Star Trek!

    I loved TNG, but ST was just awesome. Great writers!! Gene you really should try it. Yes it was cheezy, but all the better because of the characters and story lines.

    Leo, that was the first thing I thought, what episode?????

  • oompa
    oompa

    just getting caught up my fellow trekkies...but im pretty sure it was one with a talking dino rock creature...Savage Curtain i think.......oompa

    love long and prosper...not a typo!!!

  • botchtowersociety
    botchtowersociety

    I grew up trekkie. My elder father was a trekkie ( he was a huge scifi fan with a closet full of novels).. And several of the brothers I knew were trekkies. I grew up on TOS reruns and the movies.

  • betterdaze
    betterdaze

    Every JW parent should be forced to watch this episode: And The Children Shall Lead.

    Cognitive dissonance = being a kid in the pre-1975 era when these fresh-faced orphans were calling on some "demon" entity…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onntXB7qRts


    ...Who turns out *exactly* like Jehovah!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo1zbUwSNWg

  • botchtowersociety
    botchtowersociety

    Great catch betterdaze.

  • Paralipomenon
    Paralipomenon

    Usually Saturday service ended at noon and then we would head home. From 12:00-1:00 was Looney Toons and it was the last cartoon of the morning (missing all the cool ones by being in service)

    At 1:00 all that was on was sports, fishing and Star Trek. We'd watch Star Trek before being put to work doing chores.

    My dad was a closet trekkie though, when TNG came out, we skipped family study to watch it. My mom was furious.

  • Jim_TX
    Jim_TX

    I was a teen when Star Ttrek came into being. (The original Star Trek)

    I watched most - if not all - of the episodes when they aired. It was awesome!

    I remember that later, they started showing the reruns on afternoon TV. My older sister and younger brother were addicted. They had to watch every repeat. I liked to watch it too, but one day, I was bored, and so went and got my RF signal generator out from my work room. I hooked it up in the kitchen, well away from their eyes that might see it.

    I carefully dialed the frequency dial until I found the correct frequency (or a harmonic thereof) for the TV station. It was classic! The network had just gone to a commercial break. Instead of seeing a commercial - or Star Trek, all they saw was first my interference all over the TV. Then the screen went blank - which was from the TV network.

    I quickly turned off my RF generator so as to not be spotted and yelled at. My sister got up to adjust the TV, yelling at my brother that he had broken the TV or something. I made a hasty retreat, not telling them that I had anything to do with the loss of TV picture. After a few seconds, which seemed like hours, the network came back on, and Star Trek continued. <whew>

    The last Star Trek movie was interesting. It seems that they have left it so that they can continue making Star Trek movies, because they have pretty much changed the future. Nothing that happened has happened. So they can start over. I'm not sure how that will work out.

  • sd-7
    sd-7

    I only discovered Star Trek maybe, what, 5 years ago? Reruns on TV Land of the [evidently true] Star Trek caught my eye. Bought the entire Original Series, and the entire TNG series (still watching Season 7 of that), and watched Enterprise on Netflix (which only really got good in Seasons 3 and 4). Seen only a few of Voyager and DS9. Original Series and TNG are my favorites by far. Loved the 2009 movie, Chris Pine really owned the role of Kirk. Though I like Zachary Quinto, there's only one Leonard Nimoy, period, and the nuances of Spock were his alone. Quinto's Spock seems to have too much anger simmering at the surface even before the whole Vulcan destruction thing. I loved Nimoy's performance because so much of it was conveyed while keeping his face neutral.

    Anyway, there is so much forward-looking stuff in Star Trek, and I think it really spoke to me even as a JW. (I don't remember when I finally worked up the courage to watch that 'Catspaw' episode, but I knew Star Trek required a scientific explanation for everything, so I took a chance on it when Mom wasn't around to notice...) Just the thought that man was capable of uniting...utterly anti-JW, but I always believed it was possible anyway. I hesitated to attribute all good or bad things to YHWH or Satan because that just wasn't...logical.

    I can see wanting to watch a TV show over going to a meeting, but I was fortunate enough to be able to have my own VCR after high school, so I taped a lot of stuff. But that is the sucky thing about being married to a JW--they will ride you to no end over petty crap like that. As if you really miss that much by not going to one flippin' meeting. I always remember such joy and relief missing a meeting and finally getting to see what shows came on Tuesday nights. Ah...but Star Trek was about uniting people! How could it harm a marriage?

    Well, Capt. Archer said it well, "Whenever a group of people starts thinking they're better than everyone else, the results are always the same."

    --sd-7

  • JWdaughter
    JWdaughter

    Star Trek was a JW issue? It never came up for me in my mixed household, but my mom would watch Benny Hill (I almost said Hinn and realized how WRONG that was ) with my dad, so I guess she was not hardcore in the way that others might have been. I always enjoyed Star Trek until I married my ex. He loved it. Excessively. He didn't just watch the marathons that came on a couple times a year, he watched as many of the TV episodes as he could (and it was on nearly 24/7 in Seattle, land of serious geekiness) he bought all the boxed sets (first video, then traded them in for DVD, probably has blue ray now). I love Mr. Spock, but come on!

    I think Roddenberry touched on religion a LOT, just not any with current or real ones. Definitely touched on spiritual/God issues though.

    Personally, I loved TNG and Voyager. I "respected" their captains more than Kirk-I thought he was ridiculously campy and fun, but I'd never get on a spacecraft with him! Still have fond memories of watching episodes before they were on 24/7. Cable is what destroyed the fun about 2 years into the marriage. Maybe it helped doom it. Who knows??

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