"For the last time, I'm not Worf"...

To celebrate the upcoming release of season one of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray on 23rd July, Shadowlocked was invited along to the Enterprise pub in Camden to take part in a quiz night based around, what else, Trek. Braving the schizophrenic British summertime weather, myself, fellow Shadowlocker Calvin Peat, and my good lady wife Deborah (who also took the pictures accompanying this article) became Team Troi in an attempt to prove our worth in Star Trek: The Next Interrogation!

Welcoming us onto the holodeck of the GBP (Great British Pub) Enterprise was Star Trek legend and compere for the evening Terry Shuttleworth, quite possibly the world’s foremost authority on all things Trek, who marveled at how accurate the representation of the dingy upstairs room of a North London pub was. To that I’d add that the replicators did a splendid job on the beer and food as well, including some of the largest hand cut chips this side of The Neutral Zone.

Also present were a couple of Klingons who, as luck would have it, had parked their Battle Cruiser just around the corner and popped in for a pint of Blood Wine. During the course of the evening they were happy (or as happy as Klingons get, anyway) to pose for photographs and to offer their services in one of the numerous quiz rounds that just happened to be called “Let’s Parlez Klingon”.

The quiz itself covered Trek right from the original series to Voyager, and included such rounds as “Name That Alien Species”, “Guest Stars”, and “In Which Episode”, as well as an opportunity to score additional points by naming various characters from a sheet full of television stills, and naming a series of three things, which ranged from “Vulcans With Names Beginning With S” through “Klingons With Names Beginning With K” to “Holodeck Characters”.

After a good hour of having our brains taxed by Terry, we were put out of our misery as he relayed the answers to the close on one hundred questions from memory, only referring to the bible, otherwise known as the Official Star Trek Encyclopedia, when an answer was disputed. Sadly I can’t report that Shadowlocked was the envy of the Enterprise, but we didn’t disgrace ourselves, coming in officially fourth, but actually third due to some excessively harsh and incorrect marking by a rival team. (Bitter? Us? Not at all! The realisation that we'd missed out on prizes did have us feeling like a bankrupt Ferengi, though.)

All in all, it was a great evening and a great way to launch the Next Generation Blu-rays, which we got a sneak peak at by way of a looping film playing on the screen as we entered the holodeck - sorry, upstairs room of the pub - which showcased the difference between the original release and these new remastered versions. Needless to say the new transfers look out of this world (sorry, couldn’t resist!) and I, for one, am very much looking forward to getting my hands on them come 23rd July.

Thank you to Paramount for the invite to this fun event, and to Deborah Cosgrove Photography for valuable input on the quiz and her photographs respectively.

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