Last night, I dreamt I
visited a friend to watch the winding down of a Sherlock Holmes TV series. I
walked down to her apartment in a red brick building in England, and I sat
beside her on a couch as we watched. There were no behind-the-scenes insights;
just the last episode with Sherlock in his deerslayer cap.
public domain
The scene changed to me by
myself in a large auditorium, I think in California. I was there for the
winding down of Star Trek background scenes. A large, flat image of the moon
was against the high wall towards one end of the auditorium, and a few people from
Star Trek, including DeForest Kelley who had played Doctor McCoy, were standing
on a catwalk at that level for the occasion, smiling and apparently reminiscing
about the old prop.
photo by Alan C. Teeple
The moon was almost twice as
tall as a person, and a large clamp at the end of a lift was set to take it
apart, piece by piece. It grabbed hold of the bottom and pulled, making a
middle flap start to tear away from the rest, so it was obvious it was composed
of cardboard sections with the image of the moon spread on top, perhaps on a
plastic sheet. This definitely ruined the illusion of it being so realistic.
But that section of the moon
wouldn’t detach. Kelley and the others had to look at each other and amble
around a little on their catwalk to make up for the lack of action.
With nothing happening, much of
the crowd dispersed. I wandered on the bleachers towards the other end and
found Jeri Ryan, who had played Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager, sitting by
herself. She was dressed in ordinary clothes and had her blonde hair down. I
asked if I could sit next to her, and she said yes.
photo by GabboT
We chatted as a couple men at
that other end stood at the top of a ladder, obviously in a dangerous way, to
dismantle some red metal framework that was as tall as a basketball hoop. One
of the men got down from the ladder, then part of the framework fell near him.
Part of it must have hit his arm, so he cried out in pain. This greatly
disturbed Jeri Ryan, so she stared at him for several seconds, a look of great
concern on her face.
A couple other celebrities came
by. One of them was Sylvester Stallone, who asked me a question about Star
Trek. When I tried to reply, he talked over me, making fun of Star Trek as if
it were a silly subject for children. Resentful, I realized that behind him in
the distance was a placard of some Neanderthal-like people, and I was tempted
to make a comparison, but thought better of it.
photo by Towpilot
After they left, a large
scaffolding structure rose suddenly in the middle of the auditorium,
effectively cutting the place in half. The people controlling it showed some of
the effects they could do, like making part of it shoot it up so it looked like
it reached the ceiling. They proceeded to dismantle it slowly, piece by piece.
I said to Jeri Ryan in an
apologetic tone that this was all anti-climactic, after the failure to
take down the moon.
The scene shifted to Seattle,
and we were inside some kind of Star Trek museum. The first part was on the
classic Star Trek, and she laid her hand on a tabletop display showing drawings
of two starships. They were very similar to the original Enterprise, and she
looked puzzled that the ships had a different name on it. I knew that the
Enterprise was part of a fleet that had several ships of the same class, and I
watched to see if she figured it out. She remained puzzled, and we moved on.
We went through a number of
exhibits, then we reached the one on Voyager. I said, “This should be familiar
to you.”
She was standing to my left,
and for a moment she was in her Seven of Nine persona: hair wrapped around her
head, a metal implant in place of an eyebrow, and her figure more pronounced
because she was in her skintight silver uniform with a corset underneath. She
said nothing but simply stared at an exhibit, implacably.
When I turned to look at her
again after an instant, she was back to normal.
(There are no copyright-free
images of Seven of Nine. Here is the link:
