My father has always loved Star Trek. He likes Spock more than Kirk and I think Picard more than either of them. Spock is not only undeniably Jewish, but the symbol for “Live Long and Prosper” is taken directly from the Levis, and my father, an egalitarian in every other sense has always been proud to be a Levi. But Picard is a captain who wants to be an archeologist. How could my anthropologist father not love that?

Next Generation is on every weeknight at 8. It is on an endless loop, one season after the other. You can watch Wesley Crusher go through puberty and Will Riker grow a beard over and over again. In college, my roommate and I watched Dallas reruns every night at midnight. We were stunned at the way people seemed to age so quickly, the way plots really didn’t hold together without the weeks and months of time in between to make you forget that the discussion had already happened, and the problem solved a different way last year. We were amazed at how repetitive the plots seemed to be. Someone was always having an affair, or lying, or being born, or dying. At the time, we did not know how realistic that was. We did not know that 35 years later we would still be having the same conversations. We did not know that you could start a fight in 1987 and still, in 2023 if someone said just the right word, it wouldn’t really be over. We did not know that we too would age in a way that didn’t feel quite real and that all around us people would just continue to be born and to die.

A few times a week I watch a Star Trek rerun. I like watching it on TV instead of streaming. On a streaming service you have to choose what to watch. On TV, you just put it on and maybe it’s one of your favorites, where Picard realizes an alien can communicate in stories. Or maybe it’s one of your least favorites where Troi gets thwarted in love again. You have no control. The people on screen are younger than me now. In reruns, even Picard, the same age as my father when I first watched it, is younger than I am now.

We recently got a new streaming service and so I have started to watch Picard, the Next Generation sequel. I find it sweet, and I find it sad. When I hear Patrick Stewart’s now weakened voice I think of my father and the way he sometimes forgets how to move his legs. The way he sometimes seems exactly the same, and sometimes seems completely different. Towards the end of season two, when Q admits that he secretly loves Picard, and Picard holds him as he dies, I understand. I understand how you eventually get to a point in life where you want to see and hold anyone who knew you when you were yourself. How even an old enemy can feel like a loved one, if once, a long time ago, they knew you well enough.

In Season 3, when Picard says that he cannot bear to watch Data die again, I don’t just cry, I weep. I have to pause the episode and I am glad no one is home. There comes a point where as much as you long for those you’ve lost, you don’t know if you can stand the same tragedy over and over again.

I visited my parents and we watched Strange New Worlds, the prequel to the original Star Trek. I know what will happen to Captain Pike, and Captain Pike knows what will happen to him, and yet I find myself getting invested in this character, a character who will die in tragedy. When the episode is over I ask my father if he liked it. “I don’t think I followed the whole thing,” he says to me. “I don’t think I understood it.” “That’s ok,” I tell him. “It’s a little confusing. But it was fun to see a different version of Spock.” “Yes,” he says “that was nice.”