Most of the individuals who pursue careers in pop culture journalism tend to be those who were obsessed with pop culture as they were growing up, and I am no exception to this rule. That obsession can be a bit of a double-edged sword, however, when it comes to interviewing the figures who were part of the fabric of your formative years, and it forces you to develop the ability to shove aside the instinct to go “oh my god, oh my god, oh my god” in favor of being a professional journalist and doing your job.

In January 2010, I was at the Television Critics Association press tour, standing outside a hotel room in Pasadena, California, and definitely not feeling like a professional journalist.

To offer a bit of back story, I’d been a Star Trek fan since sometime in the ‘70s, when I was on an out-of-town visit with family to see one of my father’s cousins and “Who Mourns for Adonais?” came on their TV. You know, the one where Captain Kirk and his crew run afoul of an alien entity purporting to be the Greek god Apollo? Well, I was as gripped by the episode as that giant green hand gripped the hull of the Enterprise—if you know, you know—and from that moment on, I never looked back.

As a result, I was the prime demographic when, in 1987, Gene Roddenberry presented the world at large with Star Trek: The Next Generation . Having somehow managed to avoid seeing Excalibur , Dune , or even Lifeforce , this was my first introduction to Patrick Stewart, and while Captain Jean-Luc Picard certainly wasn’t the second coming of James T.

Source link