Tag: The Next Generation

1934: Across the Universe

I’ve been rewatching Star Trek recently and simultaneously introducing Andie to it. At the time of writing, we’re coming up on the end of season six of The Next Generation and a few episodes deep in Deep Space Nine, because yes, I’m one of those people who likes to watch overlapping shows chronologically so the few-and-far-between crossover episodes happen at the “right” time.

I’ve been really enjoying them. I reached something of a saturation point with Star Trek in my late teens and early twenties as it was on TV an awful lot and it was one of those shows I liked to record every episode of on video. I started collecting the official videos at one point and even had some of the more ostentatious box sets — such as the awesome Data one which had a metallic mould of Brent Spiner’s face — but eventually reached a point where I simply parted ways with it, not because I was no longer enjoying it or had seen it all — to date, there’s a significant chunk of Deep Space Nine I’ve never seen, I’ve not seen beyond the first season of Voyager and I’ve been surprised how little I remember of The Next Generation — but simply because there were lots of other things vying for my attention.

With the modern age of video on demand, though, you can watch a show like Star Trek at your own pace when it’s convenient to you, and with no fear of missing episodes because you’re out on Wednesday nights at 6pm or whatever. This gives the shows a much greater feeling of coherence than if you’re watching disjointed — and sometimes out-of-sequence — episodes once a week on the television, and makes it into a much more enjoyable experience as a result.

Although I’m enjoying revisiting The Next Generation — and, as noted above, have actually forgotten a significant amount of it, so rewatching these episodes feels quite “fresh” — the main thing I’m looking forward to is the completely new episodes of Deep Space Nine. For some reason, when I was younger, I and my family regarded Deep Space Nine as “the boring one” in the Star Trek pantheon, with it not getting truly interesting until the fourth season, when they sped up the theme tune a bit, gave Sisko a badass starship to fly around with and decided it was high time the Klingons started being villains again. Watching it with more mature eyes and — I like to think, anyway — refined tastes, I’m liking it a lot more than I used to for its emphasis on characterisation and relationships over tales of derring-do in space. It’s a good complement to The Next Generation, and watching them in parallel as we have been really highlights this.

Also Odo is a work of genius, combining witty writing with some wonderfully deadpan delivery by Rene Auberjonois. I’m especially interested to find out more about his particular story arc, as that’s something I’ve only seen dribs and drabs of here and there; I stopped collecting the videos and watching the show just as the Dominion storyline was getting underway.

There’s still a long way to go before we’ve watched all of them, but I’m not complaining; the shows — with the possible exception of the first couple of seasons of The Next Generation — very much stand up to the test of time and, while occasionally cheesy (rocking camera shots while people throw themselves around the set ahoy!) remain some of the most interesting, enjoyable, dramatic, emotional and thought-provoking television there has ever been.

Here’s to the final frontier.

1839: These Are the Voyages

Andie and I have been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation recently. We started watching from the very beginning (yes, even the dodgy early ones) a while back, but picked it up again recently. I’ve been delighted to discover 1) how well it holds up after all these years and 2) how many of the individual episodes I’ve forgotten about.

I mean, sure, I still remember particularly noteworthy episodes such as any involving Q, Data or the Borg, but I’m finding the episodes in between to be almost as if they’re brand new to me. This is a good thing.

One of the big strengths of Star Trek: The Next Generation — and, indeed, many of the other Star Trek series — is the amount of variety there is between the different episodes. One week there might be an action-packed adventure with lots of space combat, zappy phasers and horrible alien monsters; the next there might be something like the one we watched this evening, which was skin-crawlingly creepy without veering into full-on horror; the next still there might be something that proves to be a genuinely emotional tearjerker.

Part of this variety comes from the fact that the series’ setting has the whole universe to play with; any time things are getting boring, they can just warp the show to another part of the galaxy and bring in another alien race with their own quirks, variations on the “bumpy forehead” look and even, in some cases, languages. There are recurring cultures that have been around since the original ’60s series, of course: the classic Klingons, the insidious Romulans, the devious Cardassians and the proud Vulcans all make numerous appearances. And there are new recurring cultures that have been introduced by The Next Generation: the empathic Betazoids, the symbiotic Trill (explored in considerably more depth in the follow-up series Deep Space Nine) and the deeply spiritual Bajorans (likewise), to name but three. And, of course, the rather upsetting Borg, who remain just as chilling as they did the first time they graced our screens with their biomechanical nature and curious, cube-shaped ships.

This aspect of Star Trek at large is one thing that the ambitious but flawed online RPG Star Trek Online didn’t quite get right, despite doing a lot of other things very well indeed. That variety just wasn’t there, though it was at least partly due to gameplay constraints rather than an unwillingness to be true to the source material. It’s difficult — though not, as we’ve seen on several occasions, impossible — to make a compelling diplomacy simulator, for example; it’s much more fun to give players control of a heavily armed starship and invite them to blow seven shades of snot out of anything that dares to cross their firing arc. (Star Trek Online’s space combat is one hell of a lot of fun, if you’ve never tried it; while it’s true Star Trek feel may be a little questionable, there’s no denying that it’s a fantastically enjoyable space game, pure and simple.)

So, to get back on point: I’ve been enjoying Star Trek: The Next Generation very much indeed, and when the time comes I’m looking forward to revisiting both Deep Space Nine and Voyager and watching them both through to their conclusions — something I’ve never done. Yes, even as someone who would consider himself a bit of a Trekkie/Trekker/whatever you want to call it, I’ve never seen Deep Space Nine beyond the fifth season, and I’ve never seen Voyager beyond I think the third season. While I know the latter in particular is nowhere near as fondly regarded as its two predecessors, I’m curious to finally explore the entire universe in full detail, and thanks to Netflix, I can now do just that without filling up an entire bookcase with VHS tapes.