I really thought I'd seen every important document from the original Star Trek, from the pitch document "Star Trek Is..." with Gene's fake "sexed-up" version of the Drake Equation to impress the network, to Gene's letter to Spockanalia establishing Star Trek's friendly attitude toward fan fiction... and here I am pleasantly surprised. I never knew he exchanged letter with Asimov, nor that he'd read Foundation. Awesome find.
One interesting oddity in the Star Trek fandom is that it was, at the times these letters were written, overwhelmingly female. Women saved Star Trek, women organized Star Trek, women wrote about (and for!) Star Trek. By the time The Next Generation premiered, it was considered a show for men with an overwhelmingly male audience and fandom (as depicted in the 1986 SNL "Get A Life!" sketch). Certainly that remains true today. I've often thought there was something magical about those characters in that moment that resonated in a very particular way, but which was never recaptured (even at Star Trek's absolute peak in the mid-1990s).
Fun, oh course you made me think of the plots where Shatner gets to play 'someone else'. (I also ordered "Black Prism". Thanks.)
I really thought I'd seen every important document from the original Star Trek, from the pitch document "Star Trek Is..." with Gene's fake "sexed-up" version of the Drake Equation to impress the network, to Gene's letter to Spockanalia establishing Star Trek's friendly attitude toward fan fiction... and here I am pleasantly surprised. I never knew he exchanged letter with Asimov, nor that he'd read Foundation. Awesome find.
One interesting oddity in the Star Trek fandom is that it was, at the times these letters were written, overwhelmingly female. Women saved Star Trek, women organized Star Trek, women wrote about (and for!) Star Trek. By the time The Next Generation premiered, it was considered a show for men with an overwhelmingly male audience and fandom (as depicted in the 1986 SNL "Get A Life!" sketch). Certainly that remains true today. I've often thought there was something magical about those characters in that moment that resonated in a very particular way, but which was never recaptured (even at Star Trek's absolute peak in the mid-1990s).