Pamela Sargent
A Sci-Fi Case History
Hilary Palencar. Confessions of
a Trekoholic. Malcolm Hulke Studies in Cinema and Television, no. 1.
San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1996. 120pp. $15.00 paper, $25.00 cloth.
Hilary Palencar, in writing of what she calls her addiction to the television series Star
Trek: The Next Generation, briefly refers to events in her personal life that she
believes made her vulnerable to "the seductions--the many seductions--of the place
where no one has gone before" (9). In the same spirit, I'll disclose some facts about
myself that may have affected my view of her book. I enjoyed watching the original Star
Trek series while managing to avoid addiction, watched Star Trek: The Next
Generation intermittently but with affection, and barely watch their successors, Deep
Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, at all. I am the co-author of a Star
Trek: The Next Generation novel and of a "classic" Trek novel; lacking the
detailed knowledge of a true Star Trek fan, I had to resort to a pile of
guidebooks from the publisher and the viewing of videotaped episodes to fill large gaps in
my knowledge. I own some videodisks and videotapes of Star Trek episodes and
movies. I had a pleasant talk with Michael Dorn, the actor who plays Worf, some years ago
in the lobby of an inn where the convention that had invited us was housing its guests;
interestingly, Dorn expressed regrets about not having had time to meet more of the
writers in attendance.
All of which makes me feel like a social drinker invited to comment on the discourse of
an alcoholic. But I have also been a science-fiction writer and anthologist for over
twenty-seven years, and this particular fact may have affected my response to Palencar's
book more than anything else.
Palencar briefly discusses how she became fixated on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
During a difficult time in her life, when she faced both an unspecified illness and the
loss of her job, this television series became an escape. For a while, she resisted the
program's attractions, but during the show's fifth season, "I realized that Fox not
only showed first run episodes and first run repeats on Saturdays, but episodes from
former seasons every weeknight at six. However, I had been reluctant to become a nightly
viewer because that would mean I was watching the show every night of the week. At that
point a certain shame still existed in me that made me regard such a dependence as
undeniable proof I had become a Trekkie..." (23). She was also put off by the complex
background against which the series was set. "Becoming a Trekkie in 1991 was like
signing up late for a college course or getting married to someone from a huge family--so
much to memorize, so many new faces to familiarize myself with" (23).
I found it interesting and moving that Palencar regarded her growing attachment to Star
Trek: The Next Generation with such shame, given the number of people in the U.S.
with strong, even obsessive, attachments to certain TV programs. Among my close friends
are one who never missed an episode of Cheers and watched it every night of the
week in syndication, a second who had a weekly ritual for viewings of Dynasty
that included putting on a negligee and opening a bottle of champagne, and a third who
lives in the Manhattan neighborhood where Seinfeld is set, a fact that sends fans of that
show who live outside New York into raptures when they meet her. I myself can offer
detailed analyses of Leave It to Beaver and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Yet somehow fans of these programs don't risk the level of scorn that a regular Trek
viewer faces.
Why is that? I don't think it's just because it's more socially acceptable (and
certainly more common) to be a Seinfeld, Friends, or Home Improvement
viewer than to be a Star Trek fan, although that is part of the answer. Nor is it
simply because Star Trek is a science-fiction series, and therefore considered
incomprehensible, outré or just plain geeky by large numbers of people who dislike all
that "sci-fi stuff." There is a noticeable lack of shame among fans of The
X-Files, a popular TV program with roots in fantastic fiction that is considered
cool, and the science-fiction comedy Third Rock from the Sun has become a hit.
Palencar may have experienced her attachment to Star Trek: The Next Generation as
an addiction, but using addiction as a metaphor here is perhaps misleading. The addict is
involved mainly with his own emotions, mental states, and pain; addiction, in the end, is
a solitary vice. But the true devotee of Star Trek can proceed from the solitary
viewing of episodes to seeking out others like herself. In some ways, the world of Star
Trek bears more resemblance to a cult than to an assemblage of addicts; the series
gives fans an eschatology, a liturgy, a philosophy of sorts, and a sense of belonging to a
community. People who attend Star Trek conventions and collect assorted Trek
merchandise may be a minority of Star Trek viewers, but they are the most
visible. They have been responsible for preserving Star Trek, in its various
incarnations, and turning it into a kind of cult, as Palencar recognizes: "the Church
of Star Trek is a loosely connected but incredible congregation of like-minded
individuals, individuals who, whether they realize it or not, owe their devotion as much
to the human factor provided by conventions and fanzines as to science fiction" (98).
An irony is that these fans most responsible for keeping Star Trek alive have
probably also fueled the prejudices of people unfamiliar with the series, as well as
Palencar's own shame about her viewing habits.
Palencar, despite her attraction to the series, has never been involved with any
organized public Trek activity. "I was never a convention-goer," she
admits, somewhat defensively, obviously feeling that such gatherings were best avoided
(7). After reading her book, I found myself wondering, much to my surprise, if she might
have been better off attending a meeting of Trekophiles. To have hung around with others
who shared her addiction might either have brought about recovery much sooner or else have
shown her that a fair number of people can combine an attachment to the universe of Star
Trek with a full and normal life.
During her attachment to Star Trek: The Next Generation, Palencar became
especially devoted to the character of Data. "I was swept off my feet by the
loneliest character ever to appear on network television--and possibly in all of English
literature--Data, the android" (23). Eventually, she came to see this fixation as a
product of her unhappiness with her own life, and objects strongly to the way in which
Data seems to embody a kind of unattainable perfection. He is the strongest, most
knowledgeable, and often the most heroic of the continuing characters; in Palencar's view,
he is the true hero of the series. But she finds this attention to Data "cruel"
on the part of the Star Trek writers, because "one of the functions of
heroes is to inspire us, make us believe that, with courage and will, we might overcome
obstacles in our lives the way they overcame theirs" (37). And Data, according to
Palencar, cannot fulfill this function of a hero since he is an android, and unlike us.
As it happens, however, Data works very well as a hero for some people. In his book An
Anthropologist on Mars (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), the neurologist and writer
Oliver Sacks, another Star Trek fan, points out that "a surprising number of
people with autism identify with Data, or with his predecessor, Mr. Spock" (275).
They see themselves in these characters, as beings that mimic human behavior and look
human but are deeply, irrevocably different. That autistic people can respond this way to
the characters of Data and Spock seems to me to be a point in Star Trek's favor.
The fact that autistics can see themselves in Data also seems to undercut Palencar's
argument here.
This illustrates the main problem with Palencar's analysis of Star Trek: The Next
Generation: there is little reference to the world outside the series. She often
resorts to rhetorical questions or unverifiable musings to make her points. In discussing
the name given one character, Soong, she asks: "Is it possible no one on the
Paramount lot was aware that a dictator with a very similar name had been responsible for
the deaths of many Americans...is it possible no viewer mail alerted Paramount about the
coincidence?" (26-27). (Answer to both questions: Sure, it is.) "What was the
reason for this segue? ...could it be a way to distract viewers from the gratuitous
cruelties being inflicted on another woman...as Data brings her down to size?" (41).
(Answer: Who knows? Maybe the scriptwriter simply had to fill the time until the next
commercial break.) About an episode Palencar finds especially odious: "Majel Barrett
isn't blameless for her participation.... It is impossible to say to what degree she was
immune from the writer/producers' tyranny once her husband [Gene Roddenberry] was
dead" (70). (Since Palencar goes on to heap most of the blame on the writers and
producers, and can't know how much control, if any, Barrett had over her role in the
series, why bring this up?)
Palencar often addresses the problems, contradictions, inadvertent oversights, and
apparent messages of various episodes as if the scriptwriters and producers were, at
different times, conscious of their intentions, totally cynical and malign, or
unconsciously reflecting sinister or prejudiced views. She seems unaware of how little
power scriptwriters usually have, or else is deliberately choosing to ignore it. She sees
misogyny and sexism dominating the treatment of the series' female characters, and racism
in the way people of color are handled. Sexism and racism may be present in Star Trek:
The Next Generation, as they often are in most popular entertainments aimed at
viewers in our particular society, but the writers and producers are given little credit
for their efforts to transcend stereotypes in their casting and scripts. Palencar can
grant that some episodes at least attempt to wrestle with important or weighty issues, but
then goes on to accuse the series of "deceptive carelessness," because other
episodes seem more sinister. It is as if Palencar's anger and disillusionment with the
former object of her affections bring her to see only the worst--Star Trek: The Next
Generation becomes Demon Rum. One of her least convincing assertions is that Quark, a
continuing character on Deep Space Nine, reflects anti-Semitic stereotypes, a
thought that never occurred to me, the child of a Jewish mother, or to any Star Trek
viewer I know.
Occasionally, Palencar hits the mark. Geordi LaForge, the character played by LeVar
Burton, has had, she points out, only one love interest who was also black (shades of Bill
Cosby's character in I Spy back in the sixties). Worf, the Klingon warrior,
becomes the paradoxical exemplar of traditional and family values. She finds it surprising
that no one on board the Enterprise is tempted to misuse or escape completely into the
Holodeck--that there are no Holodeck addicts. (She might be interested to know that
writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation novels are discouraged from writing
stories centered on the Holodeck; a place where anything can happen, in any kind of
setting, could easily take over the series and make what happens in the rest of the Trek
universe meaningless.) Her analyses of some of the continuing characters and how they are
depicted are intriguing, but might have been more astute had she realized that the
sometimes troubling and inconsistent depictions might have been the products of a
scriptwriter's haste and the demands of a series with a complicated background. She finds
the character of the amoral and seemingly omnipotent Q especially distressing, wondering
if the unease he produces in viewers is meant as a message "about the state of the
'human condition' at the end of the millennium" (106). She mentions the possibility
that Q might be a symbol for Paramount's control of Star Trek, an alter ego of
sorts (19). Maybe Q is just a way of giving the Enterprise crew members a powerful
antagonist against whom to react, always a popular device for writers wanting to show
characters in conflict. Q is actually a member of a vastly superior civilization, often
hinted at in the first Star Trek series, and seems to provide a kind of Greek
chorus.
But what disturbed me most about this book, in the end, is that Palencar nowhere refers
to any published science-fiction novels or stories. The only author of printed science
fiction mentioned is Harlan Ellison, and then only during a discussion of the classic Star
Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever," which was based on his
teleplay. She may be familiar with science fiction in book form (she is clearly familiar
with literature in general), but it plays no role in her analysis. For Palencar (and I
suspect for growing numbers of people), the world of science fiction is encompassed by Star
Trek, Star Wars, E.T., Babylon 5, and other cinematic and televised dramas.
It is as if science fiction in printed form doesn't exist--or at least that it has played
no role in influencing any of these entertainments. In fact, it is the source of all of
it. Visual science fiction is almost a virtual museum of the forms and ideas found in
written sf, dumbed down to varying degrees and with occasional flashes of originality.
Near the beginning of her book, Palencar writes: "I have asked myself more than
once in the years since I began to watch [Star Trek: The Next Generation] if the
problem with the series isn't a problem with science fiction in general: whether, once a
writer has freed his or her imagination of all technological restrictions--similar to the
way the imagination is freed of all sexual inhibitions in pornography--it is possible to
offer a picture of human life that is at all faithful to the realities we know in our
homely mortal bodies" (13). But science fiction, at its core, is not about
"freeing the imagination of all technological restrictions," although it's easy
to understand why someone who knows the genre only through visual presentations might
think so. The science- fictional devices used in movies and TV dramas are usually treated
merely as props, as magical and incomprehensible in their way as a fairy godmother's wand
or a flying carpet. In a movie, interplanetary space vessels can behave like jets and
hackers can break into alien computer systems with laptops. In genuine science fiction,
even in tales some might class as borderline, the limits of what is known and what is
possible are respected. What Palencar is describing and reacting to isn't science fiction,
but a kind of fantasy.
But her interest in science fiction, as she admits, was fueled by the Star Wars trilogy
and nurtured by Star Trek: The Next Generation. She seems completely unaware that
the two series are the descendants of two distinct forms of science fiction, that Star
Wars draws from pulp adventures while Star Trek's influences can be traced
from both realistic and utopian science fiction. Palencar thinks of science fiction as a
genre in which anything can happen and ends by feeling hurt and betrayed because, of
course, it isn't. Having no apparent acquaintance with science fiction as a thought
experiment or as an imaginative playing with what we think of as reality, as what Isaac
Asimov called an "escape into reality" greater than the everyday, she reacts to Star
Trek not as an intelligent if sometimes flawed entertainment, but as the forerunner
of a possible future she ultimately finds repellent. With no clear way to distinguish
among reality, possibility, plausibility, and fantasy, Star Trek: The Next Generation
becomes reality.
Confessions of a Trekoholic is thus valuable in a way the author probably did
not intend: as a case history, an insight into the mind of someone whose view of science
fiction has been formed almost entirely, based on the evidence of this book, by visual
media. Palencar, I hasten to point out, is an intelligent and reasonably articulate person
who has taught a course in fantasy literature at the junior college level and may well
have more knowledge of written science fiction than she reveals (in which case her problem
isn't ignorance of the field, but misunderstanding, and a failure to present and use what
she may know). One wonders what kinds of confused and nutty ideas are floating around in
the minds of media sf fans who have little real knowledge of anything and who don't read
at all.
As the popularity of visual science fiction has grown, the written form of sf has
become ever more endangered. That media tie-ins are crowding out original work is one
danger; publishers can make so much more money with novelizations of hit movies, franchise
fiction of the Star Wars or Star Trek variety, and the occasional novel
that is turned into a movie, that there is less and less incentive to bring out other
kinds of sf books. New novelists have a harder time reaching an audience; older sf works,
many of them classics that fed the genre's wellsprings (and also some of our recent media
entertainments) remain out of print and are lost to new generations of readers. More and
more people are going to form their impressions of science fiction from what they see in a
movie theater, on a TV screen, or on a computer monitor. More and more of them are likely
to see not true sf, but a sort of fantasy in which anything is possible and, given the
power of visual media, confuse more of it with the world as it is and as it might become.
For those who might think that the distinction between science fiction and visual
"sci-fi" fantasy is trivial or unimportant, it is akin to the difference between
what astronomers might discover about the Hale-Bopp comet and what the thirty-nine dead
members of the Heaven's Gate cult, more fans of media sf, concluded that the comet meant
to them. One loses the ability to draw distinctions at one's peril. Being able to draw
them might have left Hilary Palencar able to enjoy Star Trek: The Next Generation
for the often flawed but still sometimes worthwhile, suggestive entertainment that it is.
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