Organizers hope to stage the event again in 2012.

By Steve Kupferman • Photos by Corbin Smith

Costume-contest participants line up for judgment at Star Trek Day 2011.

Sunday was Star Trek Day at the Toronto Underground Cinema. The event, hosted by The Nerd Mafia, was conceived as a kind of foil for the Star Wars Day celebrations that happened, for the first time in Toronto, at the Underground last May.

Star Trek Day, whose organizers are hoping to stage it again next year, had all the requisite features of a nerd get-together: there were screenings of Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan and the 2009 feature-length series reboot (called, simply, Star Trek). There was also a costume contest, at which Mr. Spock and a Klingon warrior (in the photo, above) walked off with the biggest prizes. A merch table in the lobby was selling black and white balls of fluff for $2 a piece that the guy manning the cash box told us were “faux-tribbles.” We support that, because hunting real tribbles for their fur is cruel.

And then, at 9 p.m., the 19-and-over programming began.

The major feature of the after-dark part of Star Trek Day—for which the organizers had decided to charge a separate admission fee—was nerd burlesque. This is actually not unheard of in Toronto. Last month we saw a burlesque show that was Star-Wars-versus-Star-Trek themed. So, trend?

A highlight was a performance by Kenickie Street, of Nerd Girl Pinups, who, for that authentic alien-girl look, had covered herself in green body paint—well, almost. When she leaned all the way back, Flashdance style, we saw… places…where the paint didn’t go.

But the nerd libido doesn’t discriminate. How else do you explain, like, 95 per cent of the anime that exists?

You’re on the right track, Star Trek Day. Let’s do it again next year.