I'll agree with you about the women. Catherine Hicks? Meh. And Nichelle Nichols was getting a bit older at that point (no longer wearing the micro-mini).

But I think Dean's movie-and-TV-loving geekery would have been in full - and obvious - bloom pretty early on. Watching TV in the room probably occupied a lot of their time growing up. Let's see - maybe Sam was occupied with soccer at the time the movie was showing on HBO. Or some school project.

Or maybe wee!Sam got all upset when they killed Spock, then got so angry at the cheat of bringing him back that he refused to watch any Star Trek ever again.

Or maybe he decided to become a Star Wars fan and disavowed all things Trek.