Sci-fi fans agree: Star Trek's the most enterprising series

http://cuttingsarchive.org/images/5/57/1981-06-28_Fort_Lauderdale_News.jpg

Publication: The Fort Lauderdale News
Date: 1981-06-28
Author: Helen Rojas
Page: B1
Language: English

Star Wars is great, Dr. Who is an up-and-corner and Superman draws a vast following. But of all the inter-galactic adventure series, Star Trek still commands the most starry-eyed fans.

That was the consensus at a convention of science fiction buffs at the Holiday Inn on Las Olas at A1A in Fort Lauderdale yesterday.

The small but fervent group agreed that despite the special effects of Star Wars and the superpowers of Superman, the spaceship Enterprise of Star Trek is still the grand dame of science fiction vessels.

"I started watching it at 16," said Gail Setliff, 30.

Setliff, a Fort Lauderdale resident, sells portraits of all the Star Trek characters at area science fiction conventions. Mr. Spock is the most popular crew member, she said.

"He's different," she explained of the pointy-eared Vulcan character on the show. "But Captain Kirk (the human commander of the spaceship) is a close second."

Buttons from Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and the Superman movie were all on display at the convention. But true science fiction fans have discovered a new hero to follow — a human-looking alien named Dr. Who who travels through time in a phone booth.

"It's become quite a cult thing," said Kevin Mead, 20, and a fan of the British-produced television show for three years. Dr. Who, which has been running for 18 years in the United Kingdom, is on public television in South Florida.

Though most of the science fiction fans at the convention said they got hooked through television and books, another sect is making up its own fantasies in a game called Dungeons and Dragons.

"You start in a dungeon and you have to go through all these monsters," explained 10-year-old Mark Lieberman.

Lieberman said he and his schoolmates have become avid fans of the game, which only 4bas a rule book — the players' collective imagination serves as game board. Players assume characters like magicians and clerics and roll dice to see how much intelligence, strenth and charisma their character gets, he said.

"Basically it's a fantasy role-playing game," said Craig Thomas, 16. "It's like the old war games with soldiers, only this uses magic, medieval weapons, even prayers can work."

Kirk Kingsmill, 18, said he has played in 29-hour Dungeons and Dragons marathons. The only complaint his parents have is that their son's new hobby is time-consuming, but "they'd rather have me playing this than hanging out on a street corner," Kirk said.

Walter Houston, a member of Omnicon, the science fiction group sponsoring the convention, said he feels science fiction's popularity stems from the possibilities involved.

"Science fiction is nothing more than science fact in the future," he said. "Jules Verne wrote about submarines before they were even thought about."

Caption: Jane Emerson of Lake Worth, left, looks at posters with Gail Bennett of Fort Lauderdale

Sci-fi fans agree: Star Trek's the most enterprising series

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