The CSI Episode That Mocked Star Trek Fans Is Still Relevant Today
It’s long been true that by the time a network procedural devotes an episode to a topic, from escape rooms to flash mobs, it’s shown in a way that’s uncool and insulting. One of the few exceptions is the CSI episode “A Space Oddity,” which takes some loving shots at Star Trek but it’s how the fans are shown that was depressingly accurate. If anything, this 2009 episode doesn’t show how horrible they can be today.
A Loving Ode To Star Trek
“A Space Oddity” aired during the era with Laurence Fishbourne’s Raymond Langston as part of the team, but the focus of the episode is on lab techs David Hodges (Wallace Langham) and Wendy Simms (Liz Vassey). Hodges and Simms, engaged in a season-long flirtation, discover they both enjoy the 60’s show Astro Quest while at a sci-fi convention. During the course of the investigation, Hodges has daydreams of himself and Simms as characters in the show, which resembles Star Trek: The Original Series, but is legally distinct.
A Depressing Take On Star Trek Fans
The problem is that the CSI episode’s victim is Jonathan Danson, the man responsible for reviving Astro Quest as a darker, grittier series. He’s shown in video giving a presentation to fans, with a preview of the new series, with dark lighting, bloody deaths, and none of the charm of the original series. Fans respond with a loud “You suck,” and start issuing death threats.
Greg (Eric Szamanda) sums it up afterward by wondering out loud, “Other nerds get pissed off enough they beat him and kill him over it?” In the next scene, CSI investigators find a video of masked anonymous Astro Quest fans saying they find Danson guilty of high treason, and it then cuts to a poor, early-2000s meme video of an execution. Sadly, all of this was taken from what was going on in real life.
Ripped From The Headlines
CSI’s “A Space Oddity” aired in 2009, the same year that Star Trek (2009) arrived in theaters, and it’s subtle, but the two are connected. J.J. Abrams was receiving hate mail and death threats; in fact, he probably still is today, regarding his updated take on the U.S.S. Enterprise. Spend any time on social media, and you’ll trip across someone saying that they hate what’s happened to something they love, and typically, death threats follow.
The Real-Life Star Trek Connections
From Star Wars to Star Trek, it’s impossible to make every fan happy, and while the minority are the loudest on the internet, they make it embarrassing to be a fan sometimes. That’s why it’s almost refreshing that CSI managed to separate honoring Star Trek from the vocal minority. In fact, “A Space Oddity” is filled with Trek connections.
For starters, Wallace Langham was on Star Trek: Voyager as Flotter in the episode “Once Upon A Time.” Liz Vassey played Kristin in “Conundrum,” an early Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. The CSI team even went one step further, and during the convention scenes, former Trek writer and Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald Moore makes an appearance; in fact, he’s the one yelling, “You suck,” as does Grace Park.
A Fan-Favorite Episode That Didn’t Go Far Enough
As far as network procedurals that focus on a geek topic go, CSI, this time, did a great job and made a fan-favorite episode that, of course, appealed to Star Trek fans as well. Though it ends on a positive note and acknowledges the good that sci-fi fandom can do for people, the truth is that, if anything, fans have become worse in the 15 years since the episode aired.
