T w e n t y S i d e d

Ah, Deep Space Nine. Reportedly it’s everything I’ve ever wanted from Trek. I’ve really enjoyed the few episodes I’ve seen. I love the cast. I love the idea of a large, ongoing arc. But I never got into it.

I think part of the problem was timeslot. I don’t remember when the show was on, but I seem to recall it was really inconvenient for me. I couldn’t catch the show, mostly because I was working nights. By the time I had a job where I could watch evening TV, the show was a long way into its run and I had no idea what was going on. (I have this memory that the show kept moving timeslots, making it difficult to watch. But I might be confusing it with another show.) And then I began a family and couldn’t watch television for the next few years. And then we stopped using TV and started relying on DVDs for all our entertainment, since that made a lot more sense with our eclectic schedule.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Trek Week: Deep Space Nine”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Here was a show that seemed to do everything wrong at the start, but somehow pulled it together after a couple of rough seasons and went on to tell some great stories. The Inner Light is some of the best sci-fi ever filmed, as far as I’m concerned. The Survivors was also really goodSir, may I say your attempt to hold the away team at bay, with a non-functioning weapon, was an act of unmitigated gall. I admire gall.. Tapestry was pretty good, too. There were a lot of other gems in the 7-season run, and the finale was a fun bit of fan-service that brought us all full circle.

The first season was so appalling I’m still amazed the show managed to survive. In going back over the episode lists for this series I realized that nearly all of my most hated TNG moments came from that first batch of episodes. Even back then, when I was a dumb teenager with no capacity for analysis and no taste, I still recognized these episodes as rubbish. I can only assume the show survived entirely on the pent-up demand for prime time sci-fi and the gee-wizz factor of the special effects, because the show had nothing else going for it.

The term Flanderization is used to describe the process where seemingly minor character quirks are intensified until they consume the character. TNG sort of underwent a broad reverse-Flanderization. The characters began as simplistic and broad. Data misunderstood everything in the most stupidly literal way possible. Picard was a stiff diplomat. Worf was all growls. Troi was a touchy-feely ninny with nothing useful to say. But as the show grew these traits gave way to solid characterization and nuance. As shockingly dumb as the first season plots were, the shows are even more insufferable to watch now that we’ve seen these same characters mature into something interesting.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Trek Week: The Next Generation”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.