I boldly went. And then some.

Jill Pantozzi | September 22nd, 2009

Doesn’t every little girl dream of sitting in Counselor Troi’s seat on the bridge of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D ? I’m not like, a nerd or anything for that, am I?

Loyal readers, I apologize. I almost died this weekend, depriving you of years of further enjoyment via my fabulous writing. How did this happen? I almost died from geekasm in the most extreme sense of the word. My brother and I went to Star Trek: The Exhibit at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. It was, as any Klingon would tell you, glorious.

My oldest brother is one of the reasons I love Star Trek as much as I do so when I first heard about the exhibit I knew that’s where I was taking him for his birthday. That was months ago and we were both too busy at the time. Well, September snuck up pretty damn quick and we were lucky to make it there for the very last weekend. Technically speaking, pictures weren’t “allowed” so I just snuck a few with my camera phone, hence the low quality.

The main attraction of the entire exhibit were the costumes. They had something from just about every ST series and every movie ever made. Classic KHAAAAAAAN of course above, minus Ricardo Montalbán’s classic chest. The strangest costume was William Shatner’s original Captain Kirk uniform which looked like it had been shrunk in the wash several times over.

My personal favorite however, were the set pieces. They had the arch and table from Main Engineering and the bridge from Star Trek: The Next Generation (my personal favorite series). I had been on a recreation of the Next Gen bridge at the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas many years ago but you were only in the room for about two minutes and you weren’t allowed to touch anything. I just about lost it when I entered the bridge and realized I could explore. The screens in the rear had moving computer read-outs on them and everything. My brother and I giggled at the padlock keeping the turbolift doors shut.

And here’s what almost killed me. Not only were you allowed to touch the consoles, you could SIT in the bridge chairs. (I covered up my brother in Captain Picards chair because I didn’t have a chance to ask him if he wanted to be on my blog.) It’s cool to be Captain and all but my heart lies to the left of him in Counselor Deanna Troi’s seat. They were ridiculously comfortable and I wouldn’t mind having one in my living room. So yeah, we did the whole professional picture thing even though it cost and arm and a leg. It was worth every penny.

Speaking of pennies….Dabo anyone? There were tons of props being displayed as well and they were probably the most peculiar things to see. Most of them looked really cheap and beat up. Seriously, my toy tricorder looks more realistic. Some of the alien heads on display were impressive though. My favorite was, what I thought from a distance was Data’s head from “Time’s Arrow,” but turned to be B-4. Close enough I guess.

All in all, the exhibit wasn’t all that large but extremely enjoyable. It ended with costumes from the latest film, which honestly, this was all one big advertisement for anyway. I didn’t care. It was a geek’s dream come true. There were even a few people who showed up in costume. For anyone wondering, and because you can’t really see it in either photo, my shirt says “Nice Tribbles.” :)