More Star Trek Model Instructions

Well, Joyce and I saw STAR TREK Into Darkness (along with son Matthew) Friday night.  Even my lovely non-Trekker bride was able to follow things, and laughed at the right lines.  I think it's a pretty fun ride, even though the whole lens-flare thing appears no longer a style choice but a nervous compulsion.

Back in college, a local channel showed episodes of Star Trek  every afternoon, and there were plenty that I had missed the first time through on NBC.  One of these was "The Galileo Seven," with its cliffhanger ending.

At least, for a college kid less savvy to story construction, it was a cliffhanger!

Anyway, it was a Friday afternoon and time to send off my girlfriend Joyce home in her car to her folks for the weekend.  While she was packing, I was waiting downstairs in the dorm's lounge, where "The Galileo Seven" was on.

I had never seen this episode!

She wanted me to walk her out and say goodbye AT THE EXACT TIME as the climax of the episode, with the shuttle's engines failing after liftoff.

So I grimly walked out on the Galileo Seven as they went burning back into the atmosphere, and told Joyce goodbye and sent her off with a wave.  It would be a year or more before I got the chance to see this episode's ending.

If that's not the self-sacrifice of true love, then what is?

It took me several viewings to realize that the "Seven" in the episode title was NOT the serial number of the shuttlecraft, but the number of people on it.