How Star Trek and Doctor Who Brought Friends Closer Together

In my opinion, television is one of the best windows into the soul. The eyes, of course, are up there too, but television brings you insight on an entirely different level. You can learn so much about someone simply based off what programs they like and further, what characters they gravitate towards. A test of character in just a few arbitrary sentences. And now in the era of streaming, TV further transcends time and space, allowing friends hundreds of miles away the same connection that we would get if we were together in the same room. Television, and more specifically, Star Trek and its never-ending universe has helped me stay close with an old friend and form one of my first real college friendships.

I've known Kaitlyn since 2019. We met during a high school theater production that left me with little more than bad memories, resentment, and permanent snow cone stains on my crew blacks. However, the adage is correct, there is a silver lining in most situations and, for me and this production, it was her.  

But the good times didn't roll for quite as long as we hoped, and about a week after closing, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It shut down our high school. It would be fair to assume it also closed the chapter on our friendship, or to assume that we moved on and back to our pre-existing friend groups.

However, ironically, our friendship flourished during these dark days; not even a global health crisis could damage the fledgling bonds. Over Zoom calls, we would rotate through shows and movies — a tasting board of science fiction and fantasy. And our sampling didn't end as we went back to "normal," even as our lives got busier and the next chapters of life began to unfurl. In fact, that hunger grew, we were continuously on the hunt for something perfect, a long-form space epic that could carry us for the next few years, through college and beyond.

And so, "Trek Tuesdays" were born. Basically every Tuesday, we would watch an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation – the place where I started when I first got into the franchise – or on occasion, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. At the end of the day, it didn't matter what we're watching. Our "Trek Tuesdays" have kept us together even when we were states apart, like now. And in fact, I feel like our escapades with Pike and Picard have helped us grow closer than ever before, more than when we would see each other every single day. No matter what exams or applications or collegiate drama comes our way we have this designated sliver of the week where we can walk the carpeted halls of the Enterprise-D and let the world around us fade away.

My adventures with Anjali are a lot more recent, partially because I never imagined my love of science fiction would help make me friends in college. I was worried the opposite would transpire. That my care and infatuation for something would alienate me during the "best years of my life."  But the smattering of peeling stickers of the Voyager and other starships featured prominently on my water bottle and laptop brought on conversation.

This was when Anjali and I entered each other's orbits. Like the binary system of black holes from Star Trek: Discovery's final season, we had mutual gravitation point — our love of science fiction. Anjali is perhaps the biggest Doctor Who fan I've met. She pulled my time travel obsession out of its almost decade-long hibernation and I, in turn, bestowed her a gift — Michelle Yeoh in Discovery.

After days of breaking down the universes and going into the minutia of the differences between the franchises, I offhandedly mentioned Michelle Yeoh as the Mirror Universe's Emperor Philippa Georgiou.

After providing a photo, I believe Anjali said, "You should have opened with that. Where do we start?"

We would commandeer the first-year housing's computer room and bounced around time and space with the different Federation crews. Somedays we’d be in the 32nd Century investigating the Burn or tagging along with the crew of the Cerritos or even watching Spock sing in Strange New World's musical episode. And with the new era of Doctor Who approaching we spent meals in the dining hall, crowded around a laptop. We watched the new adventures of David Tennent as The Doctor unfolded. And reacted to the bi-generation and introduction of Ncuti Gatwa in real time.

Anjali said it best, "I particularly love that because we both love different sci-fi shows, we're somehow on the same wavelength that we can have full blown conversations where we're both talking about completely different things."

We have our main areas of expertise, the hills we're willing to die on, but through osmosis or perhaps respect for the pure passion of the other, we have passed along all our favorite parts of the worlds we love. That is what makes both inter- and cross-fandom friendships so special. You're part of a little club with its own language and lens and it is so special to find someone on "the same wavelength."

Kaitlyn and Anjali are names that are nothing alike in sound or appearance. And on paper, the people behind them are quite dissimilar, yet my brain constantly conflates the two in conversation. They also haven't met yet. I'm the only link between these spheres of influence — kinda like how Worf links the crews of the Enterprise and Deep Space 9. They are cut from the same cloth; endlessly kind and compassionate. Both have changed my life for the better. I am incredibly lucky to have found not just one person, but two, that are fascinated by these fictional worlds. I can't wait to see what the next chapter has in store for us all. There is no one I would rather sail through space and time with, whether by TARDIS or Federation starship.