Less than a month into my 2011 resolution to "Trek-up" HeroPress and plans are proceeding at maximum warp, full speed ahead.
My idea to methodically work my way through The Original Series on DVD before tackling the various Star Trek spin-offs has been slightly derailed by the discovery that Channel One (formerly Virgin 1) devotes every weekday afternoon to four hours of Star Trek (an hour of Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, Voyager, and The Next Generation respectively) while CBS Action has an hour of (later) Deep Space Nine every day as well (although those I catch up with on the weekend omnibus)!
It was simply too much goodness to ignore - and too much to just leave on our already well-stocked Sky+ hard drive.
Every evening when Rachel returns from work you can hear the audible groan as she enters the lounge, to find me sitting in front of the TV, and says: "Not Star Trek, again!"
While my feelings about revisiting The Next Generation haven't really changed, the big revelation has been Deep Space Nine - the spin-off I knew least about. I suspect in my youth I balked at it because it wasn't set on an exploratory space ship, but rather a static space station, and so didn't seem to be "real" Star Trek.
But now, after a heavy dose of episodes, I love it almost as much as The Original Series. I think it's the fact that it's not "typical" Star Trek that makes it so fresh.
At present, I'd rate the different iterations of Trek as follows:
- The Original Series
- Deep Space Nine
- Voyager
- Enterprise
- The Next Generation
However, one question for my knowledgeable readership (which is tied in to a poll on the right hand side of the page): what is the preferred nickname for Trek fans these days?
I'm sure when I was first heavily into Trek, in the heyday of The Next Generation, there was a movement away from the traditional "Trekkie" towards "Trekker", but I haven't seen much use of the word "Trekker" recently.
Trekkie was originally seen, I recall, as a bit condescending and insulting, but have fans now co-opted it as their own designation, thus undermining and removing the stigma associated with the term during the time when people wanted to be known as Trekkers instead?
Please vote in the poll and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
I'm glad to see another fan of DS9!
ReplyDeleteI think it's the best of the modern Treks and like you, rank it behind TOS as my favorite.
I need to revisit it...as soon as I get done savoring TOS on Blu-Ray.
I was an early adopter of "trekker" as opposed to "trekkie". I think originally "trekker" was meant to be a term for fans who were less likely to dress up like a klingon.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of rating the shows, DS9 is probably the best show in terms of overall storytelling, it was paramounts response to Babylon 5 after all. For sheer brilliance of execution there are individual episodes of ToS and TnG that are really special, but surrounded by a lot of drek. Voyager, I'm biased, I hated Voyager. I can't even read novels about Voyager.
Yes, DS9 is the most consistently good of the modern series. There were episodes of TNG and even Enterprise that I thought were better, but neither of those series held together as a whole quite as well as DS9.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea about the nickname though. That side of fandom has never been of interest to me.
Thank you all for comments - and votes!
ReplyDelete@Blotz - I had a low opinion of Voyager going into these recent reruns I've been watching, but the majority of them so far have exceeded my expectations.
The B5 flavour of DS9 is very clear when you're looking for it ;)
@Kelvin - Even Enterprise has thrown up more good episodes than bad in the few weeks I've been watching - Channel One is just getting into the "Xindi Expanse" stories at the moment.
The main reason I wanted to gauge opinion on the nickname is that should the need arise for me to use it in a post, I wanted to make sure I was "down with the kids" and using the right lingo ;)
I love DS9. My favorite group of characters and as a whole the best stories around. I love all that political stuff and there are actual battles, great battles with dangerous species. Not everything is solved by diplomacy. Great villains like Gul Dukat and when Worf comes onboard things only got better. The final year is just about as good as science fiction ever gets with some of the coolest space battles ever put on screen. This series had it all - action, humor, adventure, characters I care about and miss to this day. Fantastic.
ReplyDeleteDS9 was a good show although, for some reason I can't remember, I didn't watch the last season. I'm surprised you put TNG last though - you must be one of the very few to think Voyager and Enterprise are better.
ReplyDeleteAs for your question, I believe they call them "geeks". :)
@Kal - thanks - I'm loving everything about DS9. In a way it's kinda good that I wasn't "into it" before because now it's all new to me :-)
ReplyDelete@ Nimbus - when TNG was first on TV - and was the only new Star Trek we were getting at the time - I loved it. But coming back to it after a couple of decades I find, unlike the other ST shows, it seems really dated. I'm not talking about the costumes or effects, but the writing and attitudes of the characters.
Although perhaps the Enterprise and Voyager are benefiting simply from the fact that more of their episodes are freshers to me because I didn't watch so many of them when they were first on.
I think I lost interest in Enterprise part way through the second season and may have watched one or two later episodes; Voyager I only ever watched sporadically for two or three years and haven't seen any of the later seasons.
What made DS9 great as longer you watch the series the more interesting, developed and in some cases darker the characters became. "I am just a simple tailor" still makes mes laugh...
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, there's an episode of DS9 which is a forty-five minute run-through of the metaplot of Babylon 5 with the serial numbers filed off, but ends with it being a holodeck simulation. I'm sure they did it in response to the claims at the time that DS9 was ripping off Straczynski's show.
ReplyDeleteEnterprise was very very choppy, as they never seemed to be able to figure out what it should be about, but there are some brilliant individual episodes in there. The penultimate episode is a stunning piece of drama, almost spoiled by being followed by the atrocious final episode.
How about we start a push for "Trekinado"?
ReplyDeleteI have trouble ranking the various series. I'm a big Trek fan, and have seen almost every episode of each, but it's been quite a while since I watched the shows. The series tended to have ups and downs. Certain episodes of each series were terrific, but others don't hold up as well. Looking back, I recall interesting character conflicts that didn't go anywhere, characters who were overemphasized, roads that weren't taken that perhaps should have been, and it makes me a little reluctant to go back to the well.
One quick example: I liked a lot about Enterprise. But they had the wonderful Scott Bakula to play with and did very little with him. He had great chemistry with Jolene Blalock, but they paired T'Pol with Trip instead (one of my least favorite Star Trek characters--too dull and vanilla), wasting a lot of opportunity. Poor Bakula got stuck with a lot of scenes with his dog. Sigh...
As I said above, I'm just getting into the Enterprise in the Xindi Expanse episodes and I'm digging this harder edged, darker, more driven Archer.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with Trip, though, but I've always had a soft spot for "engineering" characters as my late father was a telephone engineer for many, many years and I always found it fascinating - especially visiting the old fashioned telephone exchanges when he'd get called out in the middle of the night and mum and I would accompany him ;)
These seemed like immense, sci-fi-like constructs to my seven-year-old brain :D
I think your summation of the "ups and downs" of Trek series in general is spot-on, but revisiting - or seeing them for the first time in many cases - now, I'm pleasantly surprised how well the majority stand the test of time.
DS9, in particular, is a fascinating eye-opener that certainly doesn't come across as over 15-years-old - whereas its peer, Babylon 5, has, on the whole, aged very poorly, in my opinion.
Trekinado has a certain ring to it ;) Not sure it'll catch on though...
ReplyDelete