Let's face it, Star Trek fans have never been renowned for the ability to poke fun at themselves, or to have fun poked at them. Why? Because walking around in public wearing pointy rubber ears and speaking in nonexistent languages is serious business, dammit. It is thus unsurprising that Jack Trevino and Toni Marberry's Voyager story pitch, in which the show would subtly satirize the phenomenon of Trek fandom, never really got off the ground. The concept went like this: in the several years since Voyager's stranding in the Delta Quadrant, the residents of an alien planet have been monitoring the ship's log entries and onboard communications. So impressed are the aliens by what they overhear that, naturally, they model their entire society on Voyager's example and take to dressing in Starfleet uniforms and emulating individual members of the crew. Voyager then arrives at the planet and is greeted by, for all intents and purposes, an exoplanetary Star Trek fanboy convention. It's not difficult to see why the story never had a chance of being produced, tantalizing though it may be to imagine Captain Janeway standing atop a podium screaming "Would you people GET A LIFE?"
Recovering print journalist, writing professionally since 1991, polluting the internet and wasting the world's bandwidth since 1995. Board-certified Doctor of Memetics and Trollology, offering free consultations to qualified patients.
