I may not have kept up with movies or books in 2017, but I sure did watch some old TV. Still not as much as last year, when I watched 13 seasons worth, but given how much new TV I’ve crammed into this year, getting through 9 seasons is saying something. (Probably that I don’t get out much, but that’s okay.)
Without further ado:
Tonight, Star Trek Discovery will show its sixth episode, but it’s the first I won’t be worrying about watching any part of. Because last week was the week I realized I just didn’t care about this show to watch more than the first five minutes or so and my TV plate was too full to keep trying something I wasn’t really liking. The worst part is that I still feel like Discovery is something I could like, but early strikes just killed it for me.
I just finished the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery.
The short, unspoilery version: I had a lot of doubts after the first episode, because the main character was just super unlikeable, but it picked up a little in the second episode. Not enough for me to actually say I really liked it, but enough for me to want to keep trying it. Of course, the teaser for all the stuff to come did a much, much better job of enticing me. Because mostly? These episodes committed the sin of being deeply boring for at least 75 percent.
Spoilers from here on out.
I spent the last little while speeding through Star Trek Enterprise at the rate two, three and sometimes five episodes a day, and what I’ve come to realize is that — despite being a show I fell away from after its first season and didn’t pick back up until 16 years later — it just might be my favorite installment of the Trek franchise.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I grew up on The Next Generation in the late 80s to mid 90s. It has characters and episodes that I adore to this day. But it has a bunch of episodes I don’t love. Like, Worf’s cool and all, but Klingon honor gets real tedious, real fast. And please don’t throw me in an oil slick, but I never cared for Tasha Yar. And much as I adore Data, I’ve got to be in just the right mood for “Law & Order: Starfleet (Does Data deserve rights? Y/N)?”
On Enterprise, however, there’s not a single character I don’t like, and only a handful of episodes that risk losing my attention. Plus, I just really like what it brought to the franchise. Well, most of what it brought.
So, what started as a general attempt to catch up and keep up with Mark Watches (because sometimes it’s nice to have more than myself to talk to) has become a full-on Star Trek Enterprise binge. And E2 (alternately E-squared) might just be not only one of my favorite episodes of Enterprise, but one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek ever.
It’s one of those that I watched it, immediately wished for fanfic and then was still thinking about it the next day. Unfortunately, still thinking about it the next day does bring some of its problems into sharper focus.
So, I’ve had a time of it. It’s been just over two months since my last post, and in that time I’ve lost a job, got a new job, packed up my apartment, made what felt like a half-dozen trips between Oklahoma and Kansas, exhausted the data on my phone twice and stared in utter bewilderment at the piles and piles and stuff I now have to find a new place for.
And somewhere in there I dug my heels in with my internet provider until we reached an agreement on acceptable pricing.
The point is: I haven’t been watching a whole lot or really doing much an anything that warranted posting over unpacking, sleeping or snuggling my cat. But I’ve had internet again just long enough for some random observations about a few shows.
The Leisure Time Blog 