Science Fiction fans have always prided themselves on being forward looking, but it seems some are now taking this too far. Some series have had almost instantaneous fashionableness, becoming cult programmes by the end of their first series; but sadly the trend now is for programmes to get a cult following before their pilot show is rewound after the first exclusive preview. The X-Files spinoff, Millenium, was an example of this phenomenon, but now a projected recycle-the-ancients, Son-of-Star Trek mini-series has attained not one but three competing fan clubs before the script has been finalized, while most of the rôles are as yet uncast and its working title has not been agreed.
Much speculation has centred upon who will take the rôle of the Captain in this series, which is also to include minor part players from the original Trek series. The result has been the formation of a “Captain To Be Announced” fan club, which already has upward-spiralling membership. Even though the sex of the actor has yet to be determined, members are falling over themselves to swear fealty and loyalty to him or her or whatever he, she or it turns out to be. Memorabilia is already changing hands at inflated prices, and the club have held their first convention - CatobeAnCon One, in Toledo Ohio.
The CatobeAns seem to have generated from out of nowhere, spontaneously, whereas the other two fan clubs are the results of an ill-tempered schism within MiniTrek, the brainchild of Arnold Clemson, a thirty-five year old fudge packer from Tupaman Falls, Delaware. With a group of fanatical friends, he founded this organisation as soon as they heard the mini-series was on the drawing board, as a pressure group to influence the content, format, casting and production values of the project. “We want to ensure that this will stick to the old values and be entirely canonical to ‘the legend that is Star Trek’, without any of this ‘friendly-Klingon’ hogwash,” fulminated foam-flecked Clemson. [Actually, we've had to leave out some of the more interesting words he included in that sentence because AOL’s naughty-language filter splatted them on sight. We'll be moving to Demon soon, and then we can eff as much as we blinding well like! So there!]
Their first general meeting, however, turned into a full on hair-pulling, scratchy girly cat-fight when the issue of colours of crew's uniforms arose. The exact shade of red for other ranks had yet to be decided upon, and as a result the two factions of the schism polarised into the Burgundians and the Crimsonians, with both groups of dissidents yelling abuse from opposite sides of the room and with faces which demonstrated amply the hues in question. Total chair-lobbing mayhem broke out when one member called the other a “*****” [Huh? I didn't think AOL's censor knew Tlingan! (Klingon...? You sad effer! -Ed)]
Sources beyond reproach have hinted that a new fan-group already exists in Billingham for a series which no-one has even thought of yet! Where will this all end? Only your up-to-the-minute, happening-now, absolutely with it, super-informed, ultra-connected, totally anal-retentive FanGrok Newdesk will be sad enough to care.....
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