Name a show like Star Trek, I dare you. Other TV shows made the jump to the big screen like Batman, but for a TV show to become a franchise that lasts through six decades with hits on regular TV, syndicated TV, Saturday morning TV, the big screen and the web, that list begins and ends with Star Trek. I was a young man when Nimoy wrote I Am Not Spock, and from that I surmised that being typecast really stunk. But Nimoy and Shatner broke that cast, Nimoy most successfully as the director of a Night Gallery episode, one good Star Trek movie (number IV) and one bad one (Number III) and a big box office hit completely outside of genre, Three Men and a Baby. He also wrote a book entitled I Am Spock. I will admit to being confused.
Many fans of Star Trek also love Galaxy Quest and consider Alan Rickman's portrayal of Alexander Dane was supposed to be somewhere between Sir Patrick Stewart and Leonard Nimoy. But if these actors had qualms about their never dying connection to their particular roles on Star Trek, in the long run their defenses were broken down because WE FUCKING LOVE THEM! We are nerds and dweebs and geeks and poindexters, but we loved them then, we love them now and we will continue to love them as long as we draw breath. As time went on, they accepted our love and that made us even more grateful. We may be odd people, but the vast majority of us are not bad people, and we returned their acceptance many million fold over.
Ever wonder how many Mission: Impossible conventions Nimoy attended or I, Claudius fanfests Stewart was asked to do? Yeah, me neither.
I could mention his roles on dozens of other genre productions, including The Big Bang Theory, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Them!, Zombies of the Stratosphere and the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Okay I mentioned some, but we know the score. Spock is dead and if he could be excited when he found out Kirk was still alive, we can grieve knowing he is gone.
Best wishes to the family and friends of Leonard Nimoy, from a currently crying fan. He is never to be forgotten.
Well done, sir. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm happy at how this one came out.
DeleteAs often as I despair for the United States these days, I shudder to consider what it might've become had Leonard Nimoy, as Spock, not helped millions of young Americans to validate themselves, and provided inspiration to millions more.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't just Spock's smarts that made him such a hero to the millions of us nerds, or even his ability to prevent a bloody fight. It was the way that Spock, as portrayed by Leonard Nimoy, made the nonviolent solution the most (well) logical one. Spock never ran away from the fight; he belittled it into oblivion. Without Nimoy, there's no Spock; and without Spock, there's, at best, the violent mirror of Star Trek.
Godspeed, Leonard Nimoy.
We also had folks on planets even more peaceful than the Federation and the tacit understanding that they must be pinheads.
DeleteHe definitely wasn't a second banana, it was a team that ran the Enterprise.