I'm around Rich and Mike's age, and they're both talking about watching TNG while growing up. I dunno if it was a language thing, but as a kid I couldn't stand the idea of watching Star Trek. I've always had this memory, over in Canada, TNG would air on what was called CHRO at the time. I used to watch DarkWing Duck on that network, but I had to tape it because it aired when I was on my way out from lunch and heading back to elementary. Anyway, I just remember they would run these 1m long ad spot for Star Trek TNG. The ad was just a clip from the show, I distinctly recall the one with Romulan Not-Tasha Yar talking about how we can't under-estimate how humans are clever and etc. I felt those ads were so agonizingly long I would't normally fast forward through commercials but these I would, every fucking time.
I must have been 8 or 9 at that time. I also remember the son of a friend of my mom was around my age but was anglo and when I went at his place he had alllllllll these Star Trek toys and he really fucking loved Star Trek and as far as I was concerned Star Trek was a "Dad show" another friend of mine's dad was a big fan of it and it was boring and I couldn't understand how you could be such a fan of that show. We had Star Wars, Ninja Turtles, Transformers and Gi-Joes, I never heard of anyone having Star Trek toys!
My love for Trek only set in when I was a little older and at home during summer vacation and I was watching a bunch of movies my dad had taped from our movie network. I happened to watch for the first time; The Star Wars original trilogy and Star Trek motion pictures all the way to The Voyage Home. I knew Star Wars a little better than Trek at the time but still never actually watched all 3 movies entirely until then. One could say I became a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars at the same time. I still didn't watch the TV until in high school where a friend of mine was a big fan of First Contact and we watched that which taught me a little about the TNG cast. After that when I'd catch it on it's many syndication I would watch it and that how I grew to love it. It wasn't long before my love for Star Trek completely overshadowed my interest in Star Wars. Voyager was the only series that I got to watch partially as it aired. Well that and Enterprise but meh. Another local network had started airing TNG at midnight, voyager at 1 am and DS9 at 2 am and it was in my post high school time where I'd entire nights up all the time and that's when I started seriously watching DS9. I had watched the occasional episode here and there but it never connected with me, kinda funny that's now it's definitely my favorite Trek series.
[Bonus for Rich pointing out what episode my PFP is from!]
thehundreds.uk
explosions".
