My son has recently developed an interest in the original Star Trek series (he mostly likes to watch the animated episode “More Tribbles, More Troubles,” since it is humorous and has nothing that could possibly be considered “scary” in it). I am of course very happy to oblige, and have broken out David Gerrold’s The World of Star Trek and my original Star Fleet Technical Manual, which he is particularly ecstatic over.

Two digressions, but important ones:

1. 1.I am a fairly intense fan of the original show; it was one of the three or four main cultural co-ordinates for my early childhood (along with Tolkien, Greek mythology). I have bought perhaps a half dozen Trek novels in my life, and picked up Gerrold’s book (see above) in college because the original one belonged to my brother. I got some Trek-themed gifts when I was a kid, one of which I still have today (which Sasha hasn’t seen yet): blueprints to the Enterprise. But there are limits to my fandom, fairly severe ones which establish a kind of border zone in which adoration rapidly turns into contempt. I have never worn a Trek costume of any kind (although I had awesome Trek walkie-talkies when I was six or seven). I have never been to a convention. Of any kind. For anything. I don’t build models, buy figurines, etc. I am now curious: why does my love of Trek not only not extend to these other things, but in fact turns into hate? I have a visceral reaction against those who embarrass themselves in this way. But why? Is it simply me experiencing shame at my private fantasy life being exteriorized by someone else? But I digress within my digression…
   

2. 2.I am not—at least technically—even a Star Trek geek. I happen to know a lot about Trek because I watched the show in the terrifyingly rapt way that an adoring 6 year-old does, sucking up information. I know that James T. Kirk’s middle name is “Tiberius.” I know that the grain the Tribbles eat in “The Trouble with Tribbles” is called Quintotritachaline, but I don’t know how it’s actually spelled. I haven’t memorized Kirk’s Starfleet ID number (but I do remember when the computer says it out loud). I remember that Mr. Spock is a level 5 computer expert, but I don’t remember what his Star Fleet medals and citations are. And so on. In short, while I remember a lot about Trek, I never sat down to memorize Trek facts or trivia, and I would never engage in a Trek trivia contest with a real geek—I would lose, and I would be quite proud to lose. My fandom is the fandom of an introverted and socially isolated 7 year-old, not that of an introverted and socially isolated 27 year-old going on 40. You know who I’m talking about…
   

Today I was looking for images of Picard-turned-Borg for my class on artificial life that I’m teaching and stumbled across one of these figures. Only, it turned out, they are making them again. Identical ones, from the original molds (called “sculpts”), everything exactly the same, down to the packaging!

The Uhura figure is shown wearing heavy, slightly sparkly tights that completely conceal her legs—but the original figure didn’t have those tights! I remember her legs quite well, thank you! Her hair was different, too—longer. And the clothes are strangely large, with those weirdly massive collars—not right. And what’s up with the bright blue accessories, phasers, communicators, tricorders? They were black, like on the show. Scotty on the right here is a good example of what they got right and wrong—the figure mold is perfect, but the huge collar, the baggy shirt, the bright blue phaser…

Except that all of those details are exactly correct. I have gone back to find examples of all the original figures, and even to watch the original TV commercials for them (oh, YouTube! What wonders do you not contain, besides any piece of the Futurama “Star Trek” episode?). In every case, I was wrong: Uhura did come with tights (evidently in a fit of surprisingly early pre-adolescent sexuality, I took them off? Although her skirt was obviously too short for her not to have worn tights, just like in the show). The accessories were indeed bright blue. The hair is identical. The collars were really that big.

In every case, I misremembered. My memories weren’t memories, but nostalgias, colored in (in some cases, quite literally) by the actual show: on the original show from the late 1960s, Uhura’s stockings weren’t so visible, the collars not so wide, the phasers, communicators and tricorders were black, the shirts tighter… The figures were figures from the mid-1970s, so collars and shirts were bigger, colors were louder, bell bottoms were… bellier. You get the idea.

UPDATE

The Spock/Andorian figures arrived and Sahsa loves them (he sleeps with them, of course). Sasha also immediately out-geeked me. I said that I didn’t know why the Andorian had grey skin, since they’re bright blue on the original Star Trek. Sasha replied that it’s because they’re grey on the animated series. “There aren’t any on the animated series,” I said. “Yes there are,” he says, “don’t you remember, in ‘Yesteryear’?” Damn. He named the episode and everything.

Spock is very satisfying. They did change one thing, by the way, and not just in my memory. The cheap metallic insignia on his chest and sleeves is much higher quality and more durable. The old ones used to fall off pretty much instantly. The other change that I noticed immediately, however, was truly major: Spock is much, much smaller. That, of course, is entirely in my memory. Eight inches used to be really pretty big—now it’s not.