In “The Final Frontier”, Michael Chabon tells of writing Star Trek by his father’s deathbed
"Michael Chabon" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Pulitzer Prize winner and Star Trek: Picard showrunner Michael Chabon has written a piece for The New Yorker’s November 18th issue, which tells the tale of his father’s death through the medium of writing Star Trek.
In the piece, Chabon recounts writing the script for the Star Trek Short Treks episode “Q&A”, while sitting at his father’s deathbed. Through a fictional conversation with his unconscious father, as he slipped towards what Chabon called “The Final Frontier”, he explored what it meant to write Star Trek, and their shared history as fans of the franchise. Chabon recalled the first time he saw Spock on screen, and he and his father recounted the elder Chabon’s Top Five Episodes.
The story is framed around the process of writing the turbolift scene between Spock and Number One in “Q&A”; it’s his father who challenges Chabon with “Then what?” when he gets stuck on a line. And it’s his father who asks “What hole are you patching?” with the story.
Chabon spends some time explaining why “Q&A” is meant to bridge “The Cage” and the rest of The Original Series. He focuses on the Spock character and tells his father, “I love Mr. Spock because he reminds me of you.”
Chabon’s New Yorker piece is not a short one but a highly enjoyable read. You can read it for yourself online, or in the print version of the magazine.
