Ten Forward: Pets In Space

Since one of my cats vomited on the kitchen table this morning, I began to ponder how Klingons deal with vomiting targs, or how Vulcans react to their sehlats’ peeing on the kitchen floor. Was Picard’s fish the former ruler of a distant planet? Did Spot ever shred Data’s ankles with her claws?

Despite some of the exotic animals from different planets that appeared or were mentioned in some version of Star Trek, most of petdom in science-fiction in the past 10 years has been rather mundane. Still, there may be some deeper issues to consider when it comes to sci-fi pets.

I present the following list of ten series from the last 10 years with featured pets for your consideration.

10. "The X-Files" - Fox Mulder’s fish. Yes, I know Mulder’s fish weren’t in outer space, but there was something strange about them. To me, fish are boring, and definitely not worth all the expense of tanks and filters and thermometers to gauge the temperature of water, etc.

Still, Mulder’s fish always seemed to be a good excuse for Scully always hanging out in his apartment, even when Mulder was thought to be dead. In the last few seasons of the series, Scully was always staying at dead Mulder’s apartment to feed his fish.

Why someone would continue paying rent and maintenance on a dead guy’s apartment to house his fish is more of a mystery to me than anything involving alien hybrid super-soldiers.

9. "Stargate: Atlantis" - the doctor's cat. Rodney McKay has a cat. Or has had a cat. Or at least he mentions his cat. McKay reveals “the truth about pets” in this this clip..

8. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" - the witch's cat. Miss Kitty Fantastico was an adorable kitten that showed up in an episode geared toward revealing more of the relationship between Willow and Tara. I wondered how Tara could have gotten away with having a kitten in her college dorm room, but thought it was kind of cool that she got away with it.

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