Naturally, Dan and Sophie took every available opportunity to mock their father for his cluelessness. It seems that Stewart’s kids were less than impressed with their dad’s ability to stride the boards of an old theater, speaking Shakespearean dialogue with the utmost acumen. They saw his work as completely boring and amused themselves by dropping “Trek” references they knew Stewart wouldn’t get. He wrote:
“I should add that my children […] also took the opportunity to rib me about my ‘Trek’ cluelessness. They would trade lines of dialogue between William Shatner’s Kirk and Leonard Nimoy’s Spock in front of me, knowing that I wouldn’t catch the references, and reveled in my befuddlement. But they, of course, were thrilled. They couldn’t believe that their boring old dad who spoke blank verse onstage would be doing something that they could connect with.”
In terms of actually watching old “Star Trek” reruns, Stewart felt that the original series wasn’t a good place to start. The original 1960s television vibe looked and felt much different from modern shows, as the style, the acting, and the sensibility had evolved greatly. In 1987, he had three seasons of the original series, one season of the (obscure) animated series, and only four feature films to fall back on for research. Stewart admitted that, as research objects, the “Star Trek” feature films helped him understand the series better, merely by dint of their more professional production values and their recency. The first four “Trek” movies were made in 1979, 1981, 1984, and 1986 respectively. That’s a far cry from the old 1966 Desilu days.
