Star Trek

Since a lot of us here are older, I'm wondering if anyone else is a fan of the Star Trek Series?

I'm assuming many of us remember the original series, as I do.  My favorite series are Voyager and Enterprise. 

Is anyone watching the new one, Discovery?  I started it but stopped watching because of a noncanonical piece in the storyline I could not get past.

Also, there is Seth McFarland's, "The Orville," which is not "officially" a Star Trek Series, but so obviously is.  They've done a great job with that series.  It can be silly and a little irreverent, but also does that Star Trek thing wherein it addresses some real-world issues, while also being fun. 

To bring this into the RV realm, do most of you watch TV on your PC's and Tablets or have screens mounted? 

I'm thinking we might have one screen, in the living room and use PCs and tablets for other areas.

As a science geek, I grew up on science fiction. The first date Kevin and I had was to see Star Wars, both of for the second time. I love the original Star Trek series, and anything with Patrick Stewart in it gets my attention. As for watching, we have had at least one TV in our trailers for years and years. The new motorhome has FOUR! I know, ridiculous. I do have an Apple to HDMI adapter, and I have displayed shows on the TV I downloaded on the iPhone earlier. We also have DISH and a Pathways antenna for satellite though. Mostly we only watch TV on winter nights (which are very long in January!).

UTTransplant said:

As a science geek, I grew up on science fiction. The first date Kevin and I had was to see Star Wars, both of for the second time. I love the original Star Trek series, and anything with Patrick Stewart in it gets my attention. As for watching, we have had at least one TV in our trailers for years and years. The new motorhome has FOUR! I know, ridiculous. I do have an Apple to HDMI adapter, and I have displayed shows on the TV I downloaded on the iPhone earlier. We also have DISH and a Pathways antenna for satellite though. Mostly we only watch TV on winter nights (which are very long in January!).

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I understand Patrick Stewart ( I like him too ) , is doing a new Star Trek Series, The Verge.  So, that should be fun.

I've been wanting to ask about that, actually, wifi and TV in an RV.  I'm assuming a lot of peeps have satellite dishes.  Is Pathways a service particular to vehicles?

We have three TV screens (one in the kitchen) in the house, but most of us use our PC's, Tablets and Androids for watching TV, as well. 

When it's just the two of us in the RV, I'm thinking one mounted, dedicated screen and then the tech. screens.  But who knows, it's all speculation at this point.  Maybe I'll end up with several mounted screens. 

Star Trek is spectacular!!!  My introduction to Star Trek was late.  When Star Trek was first on TV, I was six years old.  I was very excited, because I had seen the ads that featured the Gorn.  I thought, "Monsters!!".  Then I saw my first episode.  I was disenchanted.  The 6 year old wanted monsters, and there were no monsters!  I didn't watch Star Trek again for 11 years.

In high school, I had an english class called "Individualized Reading".  Believe it or not, it was a semester long course available to juniors and seniors.  To get an A, you had to read a book a week, and turn in a report on the book.  I thought, "Ha, an easy A!"  The teacher had a cabinet full of paperbacks, and I happened to grab one of the James Blish adaptations of the Star Trek episodes.  I was hooked!  I read all of the ones that the teacher had, and ended up buying the ones she didn't.  Remember Walden's Bookstore?  I was their best customer.  Then, a year or two later, I found a channel that was airing Star Trek reruns!  I watched them all!

We started full-timing, and that somewhat limits the availability of Star Trek, but I love it!  Star Wars?  pfffft!  My favorites are Next Gen, and Enterprise.  I haven't seen the new one.  Is it good?

Thanks, and "Live long and prosper."  \\//

jayc2640 said:

Star Trek is spectacular!!!  My introduction to Star Trek was late.  When Star Trek was first on TV, I was six years old.  I was very excited, because I had seen the ads that featured the Gorn.  I thought, "Monsters!!".  Then I saw my first episode.  I was disenchanted.  The 6 year old wanted monsters, and there were no monsters!  I didn't watch Star Trek again for 11 years.

In high school, I had an english class called "Individualized Reading".  Believe it or not, it was a semester long course available to juniors and seniors.  To get an A, you had to read a book a week, and turn in a report on the book.  I thought, "Ha, an easy A!"  The teacher had a cabinet full of paperbacks, and I happened to grab one of the James Blish adaptations of the Star Trek episodes.  I was hooked!  I read all of the ones that the teacher had, and ended up buying the ones she didn't.  Remember Walden's Bookstore?  I was their best customer.  Then, a year or two later, I found a channel that was airing Star Trek reruns!  I watched them all!

We started full-timing, and that somewhat limits the availability of Star Trek, but I love it!  Star Wars?  pfffft!  My favorites are Next Gen, and Enterprise.  I haven't seen the new one.  Is it good?

Thanks, and "Live long and prosper."  \\//

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Okay, your post and this forum are awesome.   

I am 53 and when I was watching the original series, it was in reruns; I think I was around 10/11ish. 

I remember being so freaking thrilled when Next Gen. came out about ten years later.

I'm not familiar with the books you mentioned, but now I will have to look them up.  Walden's Books.  Sure.    That and Barnes & Noble, long before the now almost defunct, Borders, which put them out of biz.

I feel the same way about Star Wars Vs. Trek.  No contest.

I am not enjoying the new series, Discovery, and have stopped watching it.  It is, IMO, badly written, slow and has a storyline issue I cannot reconcile. 

The Orville, however, is great. 

If I spoke it, I would totally end with something cool in Klingon. 

Orville is a hoot.  Always good for a laugh and I really enjoy how they poke fun at the original series.

Discovery is dark.  Very dark.  That's why lots of people find it off putting.  The tweaks they did to the ST universe reflect current scientific theories.  if they hadn't updated the science a larger group would be roasting them alive for it. 

Not so sure about the Klingons, Romulans etc.  Wonder what the Gorn in this universe looks like?  Hopefully better than a badly constructed rubber suit.

I have never cared for Star Trek, however I live 40 miles from Kennedy and I get to see at least two real rocket launches a month. I am obsessed with Mars. Real space thrills me but fictional movies about space leave me cold. But I do understand why ST and SW are so popular.

What I wanted to say to the OP is that be prepared for life on the road. Mobile wireless is expensive and has a cap on speed. Watching TV on a wireless Internet signal can be tough. The free park WiFi is generally worthless. If you can get a signal at all then you will be lucky to surf the web. Watching TV would be out of the question. The best carrier for a cell phone is Project Fi. Their phones can be used as a hot spot and unlimited viewing is $60 a month.

http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,110136.msg1004729.html#msg1004729

You can also get a satellite dish. There are two types, fixed and temporary. The fixed ones are pricey and mount on  the roof. The temps are cheaper but subject to being stolen. They are pricey too. Then you need to park so you have no trees blocking the southern sky.

Living in an RV is very different from living in a S/B and one of the biggest differences is the utilities.

8Muddypaws said:

Orville is a hoot.  Always good for a laugh and I really enjoy how they poke fun at the original series.

Discovery is dark.  Very dark.  That's why lots of people find it off putting.  The tweaks they did to the ST universe reflect current scientific theories.  if they hadn't updated the science a larger group would be roasting them alive for it. 

Not so sure about the Klingons, Romulans etc.  Wonder what the Gorn in this universe looks like?  Hopefully better than a badly constructed rubber suit.

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I don't care for Discovery's pace or writing, but my main problem with it is what they've done with the story involving Michael, Sarek, and Spock.  They've changed the past.  It seems capricious, hubristic and doesn't track.

What the show (and the current movies, which I love, otherwise) have done to the Klingons, is confusing and hurts my heart a little. IMO the Klingons should have stopped changing at their Enterprise evolution.

All these years later, don't we all have a soft place in our hearts for The Gorn? 

SeilerBird said:

I have never cared for Star Trek, however I live 40 miles from Kennedy and I get to see at least two real rocket launches a month. I am obsessed with Mars. Real space thrills me but fictional movies about space leave me cold. But I do understand why ST and SW are so popular.

What I wanted to say to the OP is that be prepared for life on the road. Mobile wireless is expensive and has a cap on speed. Watching TV on a wireless Internet signal can be tough. The free park WiFi is generally worthless. If you can get a signal at all then you will be lucky to surf the web. Watching TV would be out of the question. The best carrier for a cell phone is Project Fi. Their phones can be used as a hot spot and unlimited viewing is $60 a month.

http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,110136.msg1004729.html#msg1004729

You can also get a satellite dish. There are two types, fixed and temporary. The fixed ones are pricey and mount on  the roof. The temps are cheaper but subject to being stolen. They are pricey too. Then you need to park so you have no trees blocking the southern sky.

Living in an RV is very different from living in a S/B and one of the biggest differences is the utilities.

Click to expand...

Science fiction shows, in many ways, are a form of expression, imagining new ideas, people thinking about what might be.

They can at times even influence and presage the future technology. Art predicting life, in this case, science and technology. 

Nothing happens, we don?t advance unless we first imagine it. https://qz.com/766831/star-trek-real-life-technology/

I was wondering about the availability of wifi and a little worried that what you?ve described might be the case.  It seems there are some options though, and as with most aspects of our lives, we will have to do some adjusting when we transition to an RV.

I watch a lot of streaming TV, which might be difficult on the road or when moving around a lot, but that can be readily remedied with pre-downloads while at strong wifi spots, a DVD subscription, or maybe a dish; we?ll look into the options there.

Thank you for the advice and the link. 

When the first Trek came on, it was a wonderful change from the way TV (and sometimes movies) had treated SF. The special effects were excellent for the time, and it was easy to let yourself "believe" enough to almost immerse in the show, even though it was a small screen (19" to 30", or so). There was a lot of uproar when they cancelled the series. Then when the first movie came out, it was again a wonderful experience. I have a BluRay set of all the First Gen movies -- great stuff.

Next Gen had its good and its bad -- most of it was outstanding, but the Borg soon got overdone.

On a separate note, I also have an HD-DVD of Forbidden Planet, excellent (IMO) for the early '50s.

Chameleonxanth said:

They can at times even influence and presage the future technology. Art predicting life, in this case, science and technology. 

Nothing happens, we don?t advance unless we first imagine it. https://qz.com/766831/star-trek-real-life-technology/

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Yep. For example, The 1945 Proposal by Arthur C. Clarke for Geostationary Satellite Communications which helped usher in the GPS and television satellites we now take for granted, and which we use without thinking about every time we pull our 1/4" thick smart phones out of our pocket and GPS our way over to our destination with about 3 meter accuracy.

Larry N. said:

When the first Trek came on, it was a wonderful change from the way TV (and sometimes movies) had treated SF. The special effects were excellent for the time, and it was easy to let yourself "believe" enough to almost immerse in the show, even though it was a small screen (19" to 30", or so). There was a lot of uproar when they cancelled the series. Then when the first movie came out, it was again a wonderful experience. I have a BluRay set of all the First Gen movies -- great stuff.

Next Gen had its good and its bad -- most of it was outstanding, but the Borg soon got overdone.

On a separate note, I also have an HD-DVD of Forbidden Planet, excellent (IMO) for the early '50s.

Click to expand...

I wonder if the uproar over the cancellation of the original Star Trek was similar to the uproar that occurred (and spurred the creation of the movie) when FireFly was cancelled.

One of the things I love about the Star Trek series is the way it openly addressed cultural issues of the time, a trait that continued into the further series, e.g., the first on screen interracial kiss, Uhura being female, black and a Bridge Officer in the 1960?s. 

I have to confess, I kind of love The Borg. 

I was unaware of the movie, Forbidden Planet and so looked up the Wiki.  I didn?t read the entire article so it might mention it, but the robot, Robby the Robot, looks and seems very much like the robot from Lost in Space.  I wonder if it was the model.

You know you?re a Trekkie when you can?t get hold of anyone in your family and your internal auto-response is an annoyed: ?Why is no one responding to my hails??

Sun2Retire said:

Yep. For example, The 1945 Proposal by Arthur C. Clarke for Geostationary Satellite Communications which helped usher in the GPS and television satellites we now take for granted, and which we use without thinking about every time we pull our 1/4" thick smart phones out of our pocket and GPS our way over to our destination with about 3 meter accuracy.

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Inspiring and encouraging.  I wasn't aware of his contribution.  Thanks for the link. 

Chameleonxanth said:

I understand Patrick Stewart ( I like him too ) , is doing a new Star Trek Series, The Verge.  So, that should be fun.

I've been wanting to ask about that, actually, wifi and TV in an RV.  I'm assuming a lot of peeps have satellite dishes.  Is Pathways a service particular to vehicles?

We have three TV screens (one in the kitchen) in the house, but most of us use our PC's, Tablets and Androids for watching TV, as well. 

When it's just the two of us in the RV, I'm thinking one mounted, dedicated screen and then the tech. screens.  But who knows, it's all speculation at this point.  Maybe I'll end up with several mounted screens. 

Click to expand...

We have DISH satellite programming that is received through a Pathways model portable antenna. We also had to have a DISH receiver, but ours is very inexpensive. We are too often far away from any good internet signal, and streaming lots just doesn?t work. I can download some programming from DISH using their app, and I do that when I find good WiFi available at a restaurant or other place. I can then play it through the HDMI adapters. I have heard portable antennas sometimes walk away so we use a big chain to tie the antenna and tripod down. The portable antennas are less expensive than the permanent ones, and of course you can keep the portable when you change RVs like we just did. A portable also makes installing and using solar easier since it is one less thing to shade the panels. It definitely is a lot more trouble to hook up so we don?t do it unless we will be somewhere for a few days or if it is Sunday night and the PBS mysteries are on! They are power hungry though so we unplug it while boondocking. You need to remember to turn it on 15 minutes or so before you need it though. We also intend on unplugging all the TVs when we aren?t using them while boondocking. No reason to just keep those things chewing power.

I also love Orville. So wonderfully campy! I am looking forward to the new season.

I was unaware of the movie, Forbidden Planet and so looked up the Wiki.  I didn?t read the entire article so it might mention it, but the robot, Robby the Robot, looks and seems very much like the robot from Lost in Space.  I wonder if it was the model.

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That's the same robot, not a copy. After the movie was done, they decided they could get more use out of it. It was quite the novelty.

The wife and I are huge Trekies! We have seen them all (except the new one, hate the premise and what they did to the characters).  Loved Next Gen, TOS was campy but fun, love the Borg, and one of our favorite characters is "Q".  He is out of control, then serious, then a genius all at once.  We are such ST Geeks, I have an older DVR that was starting to fail, but we won't get rid of it because we have 190 episodes of Next Gen on it! 

We can't wait until the next season of "Orville" is back.  And we loved "Firefly", bummer that it didn't make the cut. You can always tell when we are in a campground, because our WiFi broadcasts the name "Klingon Empire"! 

One of our favorite sayings is Ferengi. "There's no profit in it".  Yep, geeks.

Chameleonxanth said:

I was wondering about the availability of wifi and a little worried that what you?ve described might be the case.  It seems there are some options though, and as with most aspects of our lives, we will have to do some adjusting when we transition to an RV.

I watch a lot of streaming TV, which might be difficult on the road or when moving around a lot, but that can be readily remedied with pre-downloads while at strong wifi spots, a DVD subscription, or maybe a dish; we?ll look into the options there.

Click to expand...

Best source of info for that sort of thing is Technomadia's MOBILE INTERNET RESOURCE CENTER.  They literally wrote the book on the subject:

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/

Sun2Retire said:

Yep. For example, The 1945 Proposal by Arthur C. Clarke for Geostationary Satellite Communications which helped usher in the GPS and television satellites we now take for granted, and which we use without thinking about every time we pull our 1/4" thick smart phones out of our pocket and GPS our way over to our destination with about 3 meter accuracy.

Click to expand...

Of course GPS satellites aren't geosynchronous, and Clarke wasn't the first to talk about satellites (just geo), but he certainly had lots of influence on the space program, as did Robert A. Heinlein. A large percentage of the folks in the space program of the 60s and 70s grew up reading Heinlein and Clarke (among others). Clarke seems to get more credit from the general public for describing some of this stuff, but several other authors deserve credit for a lot of other things. Heinlein with his "teenage" novels (one a year for a number of years), Asimov with his robotics, and a number of others.

Oh, perhaps I should mention that Heinlein invented the modern water bed (some variations had been around for thousands of years) -- not just describing it in a novel, but actually designing a modern water bed (though he didn't actually build it).

Heinlein:
"I designed the waterbed during years as a bed patient in the middle thirties as an attempt to design the perfect hospital bed by one who had spent too damn much time in hospital beds."

Since we fulltime, we take our "connected" lives seriously. I attempt to have the same amenities on the road that we enjoyed at the stick house.  For instance we have an "enterprise" Wifi router that has dual sim capabilities for 2 different carriers. We use Verizon and T-Mobile.  The system also has a power booster and an exterior antenna on a 6' push up mast.  Sometimes that's the difference in getting a usable signal, or none at all. 

For TV the rig has a dome satellite antenna,  and a portable dish in the basement for when I have to get around the trees.  We currently use Direct TV, but we will see what happens when their 101 satellite dies sometime in 2019. The dome is SD, but HD is not a huge deal for me. I grew up on "rabbit ear" antenna's, and 7 channels of black and white reception. 

Love the old original Star Trek Series, watched reruns every day in the early 70?s. Favorite episode, or 2? were the ones concerning Capt. Christopher Pike and the Talosians. Heck, I still watch an episode now & then on Hulu, which, by the way is a great source for older TV series. I still watch things like Land of the Giants, Lost in Space, Adam 12, Night Gallery, etc. Yes, Im afraid the campy shows do entertain me.?