STAR TREK -- Family Star Trek Night -- Double Feature!

Family Star Trek night is "fun for the whole family!"

We all look forward to it -- to spending the time together, to discussing the episode afterwards.

We even have our family "rituals" -- all the kids sit together on the couch, under blankets (even in the summer).

Our "house rule" is to watch an episode every Saturday night, with whoever is at home. In theory, we watch an episode every week. In practice, this has not happened for a while.

If two or more people are not around, whether kids or adults, we usually choose to skip that week. If we go away for Shabbat, we usually come home too late, so we skip that week as well. There are an infinite number of "wrenches" that can be "thrown into the gears," causing our Star Trek expedition to grind to a halt.

Once or twice we have "postponed" Star Trek night and watched during the week. But, for technical reasons (i.e. everyone's busy schedules), that rarely works.

Last summer, Moshe and I anticipated watching extra episodes during summer vacation. Since the kids do not have to get up for school, we let them stay up later. So, at least in theory, we have more nights available for watching Star Trek. Again, in practice, things turned out quite differently than we expected.

Between our "kaytanat ima" (Mom's Summer Camp) activities, which kept us out until late, and our eldest daughter's activities, with kept her out even later, we were rarely home in time to watch Star Trek, even with out more relaxed bedtimes. And, since we visited friends (out of town) almost every Shabbat, we were not even home in time for our "regularly scheduled" Saturday night viewings.

This summer, when I suggested to Moshe that we would watch extra episodes, he skeptically answered, "we'll see...," reminding me "that's what we said last summer...."

Not surprisingly, Moshe assessed the situation better than I. Though we could not have anticipated my need for extra sleep (caused by the radiation), we still had all sorts of "outside" demands surrounding our son's Bar Mitzvah. And, though we did not go away for Shabbatot (with only two exceptions), there were so many other things going on that it just did not work out.

So, this past motz'ai Shabbat (Saturday night), we were all excited to finally get back to watching Star Trek together.

Moshe promised the kids that if they got ready quickly, we would watch two episodes. Sure enough, the kids were sitting on the couch, covered in blankets, quicker than you can blink an eye!

The second episode was a WHAM episode (part of the major arc story), from season three of "Enterprise." Not only was it an EXCELLENT episode, but my eldest daughter "got it" before the rest of us.

The following paragraph is purposefully vague, but might be considered a SPOILER if you are super serious about Star Trek (but somehow have not yet seen all of Enterprise). It does not include any specific details.

******** SPOILER ALERT ********

Less than 10 minutes into the episode, our eldest suspected that what we were seeing was not "real." Five minutes later, the "deception" was exposed. Later, towards the end of the episode, once again, she again questioned whether what we were seeing was "real." Despite having been impressed with her earlier "catch," the rest of us thought that this part of the episode was "really" happening. When it turned out to be an even more elaborate deception, we were all duly impressed with my eldest!

We are truly raising the next generation of Trekkies. (God help them!)



Please daven (or send happy, healing thoughts) for RivkA bat Teirtzel.

With love and optimism,
RivkA