All of Star Trek: TNG is now on Netflix and Katr and I cannot stop.
Every night, we're like: "What should we watch?" and then we pretend like we're going to watch something other than TNG but then we totally fucking watching TNG.
We're already on Season 4. A lot of my dreams lately have involved unitards, turtlenecks (the clothes of the FUTURE) and Guinan giving me life advice.
I have a lot of things to say about TNG, but they may have to take up a whole n'other post, because this is about how, when watching an episode in Season 2, I was reminded of the time my father totally ruined Star Trek: TNG for me.
When I was a young teen, all of my other friends were fawning over the hunky, grown up movie stars of the day (I'm old, so we're talking Christian Slater, Tom Cruise before he was creepy, maybe Harrison Ford if you had daddy issues). I, on the other hand, took care to point my ardour at young Hollywood. I reasoned that it was ridiculous to have a crush on an older gentleman, because by the time I was old enough for courting, he would be too old for me.
Because our age difference was surely the only thing that was keeping Christian Slater from showing up at my door.
Also, I was gay, so while I still picked boys to crush on, they were young, pretty boys who kinda looked like girls. You can only imagine my confusion when I saw Mary Stuart Masterson in Some Kind of Wonderful, who was a girl who looked like a pretty boy. MIND. FUCKING. BLOWN.
Anyway, all this to say that yes, SHUT UP, I liked Wesley on Star Trek: TNG. He was smart...he was respectful...he had a slim, girlish figure in his unitard. I now know that Wesley was greatly maligned by certain factions of the fandom, but I do feel a little justified in my crush now that the actor who portrayed Wesley, Wil Wheaton, has turned out to be such a funny, likeable, internet geek-god.
So anyway. I LOVED Wesley and in Season 2, Episode 10: The Dauphin, Wesley falls in love for the first time with the young soon-to-be leader of another world, Salia. Their flirtation begins over Wesley showing Salia how to use the food replicator to create a delicious Thalian chocolate mousse, which she delicately tries with a finger and then leaves the rest. RUDE. She doesn't DESERVE that mousse!
My father joined me on the couch as I watched Wesley experience the sturm und drang of first love; going to older crew members for lurve advice; discovering that Salia had a secret (spoiler alert: she's a shape-shifter!); feeling betrayed by her deception; acting like a douche when she comes to say goodbye.
I totally understood where he was coming from. One minute she's a girl - the next, she's a screaming hairy beast - BETRAYED. But naturally, Wesley, being Wesley, has a change of heart and does the right thing.
At the end, just as Salia is leaving to rule her warring world, sure that Wesley will stay mad at her forever, Wesley shows up in the transporter room! With a cut glass dish of Thalian chocolate mousse! My heart leapt; my lip quivered. I thrilled to the moment, young love recognizing young love.
Wesley holds out the mound of chocolate mousse and says something to Salia like "I brought you something." And my dad says "A giant turd?"
FURIOUS.
I recounted this anecdote to my father over the phone a few weeks ago and once again, he died laughing at his own joke. Philistine.
