Apathy Sketchpad

A common, if not terribly entertaining, pastime at the old student house was attempting to match up the real-life hosemates (and, where nessecary, other people we knew) to the characters in whatever TV show or film we’d been watching. Rarely did it work out. In fact, in most cases, Lee and Lizzy, who in real life are the irritating kind of couple everyone would feel much better about if they’d stop being so damned happy all over the place, are given characters who are brother and sister.

Er… Sorry. I have no idea what I was talking about. I just got a text from Lizzy telling me to watch Channel 4, since it was apparently showing “the worst film ever”. The film in question was “Ghosts Of Mars”, a crazy film full of Action and Excitement, and with more than its fair share (unusually, for a science fiction film) of ghosts and (unusually, for a planet with a carbon dioxide atmosphere) explosions and fires.

Yes. Anyway, er… Yes. Now, I am usually assigned a character who is going out with Lizzy’s character. For example, in Friends, it was unanimously decided that I was Chandler. After that, things got difficult. Lee was given Ross simply because he was so spectacularly un-Joey-like, but that was a problem because Lizzy is so clearly Monica (though she insists she’s more like Phoebe). As I recall, Annie was given Rachel, which basically left Adam and Stavros to fight over who got to be Joey and who was stuck being Phoebe. Frankly either way around would have been funny (but Stavros being Joey failed on at least one fairly major level).

Lizzy doesn’t seem very receptive to the idea that if imaginary people a lot like us can make it work, then logically the real us should be even better, but she seems very receptive to the idea that since I recently moved in with someone called Monica she must be very tidy and we have to get married, and that this is hilarious. In fact, I haven’t moved in with anyone called Monica; my new housemate (who is neither particularly tidy nor my fiancée) is called Monika, but it sounds the same and nobody else spells Monica with a K anyway so it’s an understandable mistake.

The exception to this rule, though, is Star Trek. Star Trek was a problem, because although there are several different incarnations, each with a large cast to pick and choose from, none of the characters really has a personality. I am of the opinion that Adam is Chief Shuttle Advocate* Tom Paris. Eventually he invented a character for me, based on my stated desire for a transporter.

I mean, think about it: what would be a better toy than the transporter? You’d never have to do anything. I’d beam whatever I wanted into my hand. If I wanted to go somewhere, I wouldn’t walk; I’d just beam there. They can do that — they call it a ’site-to-site transport’ — I have no idea why they almost never do. You might expect I would get fat living like this, but I would just beam the fat out of my body and use it as fuel to replicate more chips. I could eat junk food forever and never put on weight. I’d beam small objects around people’s desks while they were working to see if they noticed. If I wanted to talk to my subordinates I’d beam them directly into my office no matter what they were doing. (I wouldn’t do that to the Captain though; they might take away my transporter privelidges if I did that.) Ideally, I would also be a hologram, so that I could transport things simply by wanting to without having to go through any of the hassle of voice commands.

Well, I’ll tell you what would be a better toy than the transporter: the holodeck. That would be fantastic fun, and not just for the obvious reasons. But you know what would be the best toy ever? The holodeck and the transporter. Because then what you could do is construct a holodeck programme which was exactly the same as day-to-day life, but with little changes (like everything slowly shrinking, say, or time running faster and faster) and beam people into it while they’re asleep for a laugh. Or rig the simulation so that the victim gets off with another member of the crew, and then beam them back. They’d never know it was a simulation until they try to call their new girlfriend and find she has no idea what he’s talking about and more to the point where the hell was he for his duty shifts last week?

*His official rank changes during the series, but his enthusiasm for using shuttles to solve (and often create) all problems remains constant.