Let’s face it, Star Trek is an objectively silly show. Kitschy, low budget, often poorly acted and on occasion downright terrible.

But I love it dearly, madly and irrationally.

This irrational fan love is probably one reason Leonard Nimoy had a notoriously difficult relationship with his best-known character.

He famously denounced the role in his memoir I Am Not Spock and even asked to be killed off in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. But not even Spock could stay dead for long.

Nimoy later came to embrace the role in the book I Am Spock and finally lived long enough to become the beloved elder statesman of Trek in a way that William Shatner couldn’t.

My memory of “Star Trek” resides in the fuzzy nostalgia of youth, but not some idealized Leave It To Beaver happy times. I was a depressed, unhappy, outcast teen.

Watching “Star Trek” was one of the few things that made me happy. Every day after school at 4 p.m. It’s a cliche, I know, for the nerd to get lost in outer space. But it did.

If you were to ask me what the best movie ever made was, I’d say 2001: A Space Odyssey. That’s what I say to show off. If you were to ask me what my favorite movie is, I’d say without pause Star Trek II. I’ve watched it probably 100 times or more and never get tired of it.

My irrational love of Star Trek is woven into my being.

That’s where my thoughts turn to Nimoy. We’re often burdened with a role that others want us to play, and that was something that Nimoy bristled against.

But even if he didn’t want to be subsumed by his role, it was the one he played most of his life. And he was beloved in ways the few people ever are.

I hope he knew what he really meant for people like me. RIP.