Into Deep Space

About a year ago, I started watching Deep Space Nine for the first time. As I've said before, I grew up with The Next Generation, watched the original series when I was in college, and got to Voyager a couple years ago (here's my post on that series). I figured Deep Space Nine would end up being my least favorite (I'm also planning to watch Enterprise eventually, but I literally have no idea what I'll think of that one). It seemed to have too many Ferengi.

While I definitely did prefer Voyager to Deep Space Nine, the reasons for the preference are more complicated. It took me a year to get through the show and it definitely felt like a long time. I had a hard time getting into it and then I lost interest a couple of times and had to force myself back in. Initially, I felt like Sisko didn't really have a defined character; I didn't know who he was. So I figured that was the point. We didn't have a ship; we had a space station. And we didn't have a captain who was the head of it all; we had a commander who felt more like a side character than the protagonist. It wasn't until around the time that he became captain that his character started developing--and the whole turn he took towards the later seasons of becoming Emissary was interesting.

I did like the exploration of Bajor and their belief system. I finally got some context on where Ensign Roe was coming from. Sci-fi tends to portray religions as either primitive of mystical, so it was kind of refreshing to simply have religion be religion. And I like Kira's character. You describe her and she sounds like she would be the stereotypical 1990's fictional female--the strong, independent, fierce figure. But she's all those things and her own person--she's also tender and affectionate and deeply spiritual. I like that combination. And it adds to her strength that she had two love stories throughout the course of the series and yet not in that exploiting way (that feels so stereotypical of Star Trek) of characters like Counselor Troi. I like Bajor; I want to go back and re-watch all the Next Generation episodes with Bajorans in them now.

While I'm on the topic of Kira's relationships, I didn't like Odo. So, yeah, I don't mind that they didn't end up together in the end. His character served as the exploration for what it means to be human in this series. But I didn't care for his character. Maybe I just don't like his hair, I don't know.

The Ferengi, on the other hand, I was surprisingly okay with. Usually I'd have to do the eye roll for a Ferengi-centric episode, but in this show the Ferengi were a little different. We could laugh at the stereotypes but we also got some unexpected character exploration. Quark, who says he's all about greed but also does things that show he genuinely cares about the people around him. Nog, who enters Starfleet because he wants better than what his dad has. Rom, who sees that his son is right and chooses a career that plays to his strengths and interests rather than his people's expectations. Their quest to find humanity I did find interesting.

Is it an unpopular opinion that I didn't really mind what happened with Dax's character? Maybe it's because the contrast was between the tall and strong Jadzia and the smaller, less certain Ezri--and I'm also small and not always certain (the funny part about that is that Nicole de Boer is 5'5'' and I'm 5', so she's rather taller than I am--they just don't cast a lot of actresses as tiny as I am in sci-fi [or maybe in general], do they?).

So we did get plenty of the character exploration that Star Trek has become known for. But we also got lots of battles and that and I don't really care for watching too many battles and that. So that held my interest less. And the fact of raising the stakes was two-sided. Sure, it makes sense that people won't always get along--but you also lose some of that optimism that Star Trek started off with in the 60's. Do we want to be realistic in fiction or do we want to portray our hopes?

The whole series has a rockier feel than the others. The Next Generation came into its own over the course of each season as it discovered what it could be. Voyager had a pretty clear idea of what it was setting out to be. Deep Space Nine was much more of an experiment and it shows. There's some quite good material in there but also some spots where it just didn't hold my attention. So definitely worth watching; it adds to the mix. Just probably not my favorite of it all.

The Star Trek Feel

I always said I would get around to watching the rest of the Star Trek series eventually. I grew up with The Next Generation, watched the original series in college, and got to Voyager last year. Now I've finally started in on Deep Space Nine.

Each new one can take some time to get used to and settle into. I'm not quite settled in yet. And still, from the beginning, I had that feeling of comfort and familiarity.

The style of not just the uniforms but the clothing in general. The types of characters (in a good way and a bad way). The ships. The stars. The techie/sciencey talk. The style of the aliens. And the music. Not the same music but the same type of music that I know. Maybe it was the music that made it feel so familiar.

It's weird. I always said I'm not a huge Star Trek fan . . . but that I do like it because I grew up with it. And it's so true. It's almost like I reluctantly find comfort in it, the way you turn to your favorite junk food that you usually don't buy but have to cave in and get sometimes.

I don't . . . like everything about Star Trek. And yet that isn't enough to keep me away. It isn't enough to keep me from getting excited to do some more exploring. Which in itself says something about the franchise, about the unique world that it established. It's a created world like that of a fantasy story, something tangible and recognizable and distinguishable from other worlds.

Trekking through stars, endlessly exploring.

Voyages in Star Trek

I'll repeat again: I grew up on Star Trek: The Next Generation, so that show will always have an extreme familiarity for me. It wasn't until later that I was able to look at it and see the individual things that I did or didn't like. In college, I finally got around to watching the original series, and while I always intended to get to the others at some point, it's taken me a while. While perhaps I should have started next with Deep Space Nine because it was the next one to start airing, I went with Voyager instead because I got the idea that I would like it more.

I could never watch Voyager before because when I watch a show, I have to sit down with it from the beginning--and with the intention of moving through to the end. Clips of Voyager never much held my interest, but watching the show from the start was completely different. In some ways, it's a little more to my taste than The Next Generation.

There are three main things I noticed. First, they took what they'd learned from TNG and built up from that. TNG had a weaker first couple of seasons and didn't start really developing its most memorable aspects (those deep looks at humanity) until the last couple of seasons. So Voyager was able to start off knowing just exactly what kind of sci-fi they were making. They were able to start off with characters that they knew they could develop and well, characterize. At first I thought I was just seeing their version of familiar faces: Janeway for Picard, Tuvok for Data, Paris for Riker, Kes for Troi, etc. But they quickly showed themselves to have their own unique characteristics--and character dynamics as a group, as well. I think also these characters were meant to be less archetypal. Did they start off too archetypal in TNG and then later develop things more? Characters aside, the Star Trek universe was also more developed by this point (that is, post-TNG): we already knew the background on the Federation and their part of the universe, so time didn't need to be spent developing that. Instead, the show was able to move forward with new spaces.

The second main thing I noticed was a greater coherency and smoothness in the overall arc of the series. Instead of the show finding out what it was and seeing, hmm, what should come next, I felt like the creators always knew where it was going. This wasn't just a ship going on various missions. This was a ship with one goal--and all of the little adventures that came along with heading toward that goal. As such, the series has a beginning, middle and end in a way that TNG never could (I'm not saying that that makes it better; I'm just stating the fact). And this time, instead of jumping from episode to episode, there were more plot lines that continued coming in and out of focus over the course of many episodes. Encounters with a certain species, for instances. TNG tended to have two mini plot lines in each episodes: maybe the ship was helping out a planet while Data was exploring some aspect of his humanity on the side, for instance. With Voyager, everything tended to be tied in. The ship has a smaller crew and they're together for a while, so they're a close group. If they're on a mission, that mission is directly tied into whatever character development is going on. If the show is focusing just on character development, that development affects the whole ship. In that way, the format felt less experimental.

The third thing was that this truly is a different group of characters. Janeway is less gruff and curt than Picard. She's still strict and sort of . . . classical in her style, but she's very much about supporting her crew on an emotional level, even more so after they get stranded. It's hard to imagine Picard stranded in another quadrant: the Voyager crew develops a more informal camaraderie that I don't think Picard would have favored. They make jokes on the bridge and tease one another about personal topics. They make group agreements to ignore the rules. And they're always talking about personal things because all they have is one another: they don't have families on board or waiting at a nearby starbase or planet. It makes for what I want to call a more modern approach, something that reminds me more of recent sci-fi shows.

Some of the traits that I disliked about TNG appeared a little less in Voyager and also felt more neutral here because they usually appeared along with humor. For instance. The Enterprise crew were always going off on their vacations to Risa, and at first the Voyager crew were copying them with that holodeck program. But at least they always made fun of the program when they used it--and at least it also stopped being featured in episodes after a while. Seska also turned into the type of character I'd expect from Star Trek (in a negative sense), so I was kind of glad when she stopped appearing.

Most of the other characters, though, I liked, in general. I thought that the relationship between Paris and B'Elanna was handled much better than that of Riker and Troi or Picard and Doctor Crusher. "Lineage" explored some territory both interesting and serious. Actually, there was quite a bit of serious material in here, in addition to this question of passing on to your child what has been hard for you to accept about yourself. Depression and suicidal thoughts (separately) (in a different way than TNG with Worf's attempted ritualistic suicide), the morality of saving your people or someone else's, and of course personal identity in all its multi-faceted forms. While I don't know what I think about Seven of Nine in theory, she did work well in the show. Tuvok never really served Data's role because Data was all about trying to be human and Tuvok was just trying to contain emotions; so it ended up being, instead, the Doctor and Seven who fulfill that role of trying to find humanity in themselves (the Doctor joyfully and Seven regretfully).

While it's hard to mind Seven by the end, I do kind of mind that the Borg don't feel like as much of a threat anymore. When you would see Borg in TNG, that meant, game over, you're dead. But Voyager keeps running into them so often that they don't feel too different from any other enemy anymore, and I kind of regret that loss. It was also a shame that, after so long anticipating Voyager's return to Earth, the finale episode just tried to copy TNG's finale with the whole mixing up timelines thing. It worked by the end, but I would have preferred getting to see the actual homecoming. I wanted to see Naomi Wildman meet her father for the first time, I wanted to find out what Starfleet had to say to Seven and what Icheb had to say to them, and I wanted to see the crew sort of step off the ship and look at one another and smile with all the bittersweetness that comes from finally attaining what you've wanted for so many years (and what will end the new life that you've built during the waiting). And I don't fully understand the Seven/Chakotay thing. It was like they just threw it in there last minute because they wanted to tie up Seven's character arc. But I thought that Chakotay and Janeway had an understanding--and there were no hints of Seven and Chakotay until suddenly we're hearing about them getting married. It felt like a too-hasty and therefore odd way to end the story.

That's just the end of the series, though. Overall (since, in all my ramblings, I still haven't had time to actually say much), Voyager was a good addition to the Star Trek universe and I'm glad I finally got around to watching it. It fit into the franchise while also establishing its own territory (it's helpful that the show literally covers new territory).

Thoughts on Watching Star Trek: Generations Again

No, no, I'm not talking about the new Star Trek movie; I haven't even seen it yet. I'm talking about the movie that bridged the original cast with the cast of The Next Generation. The thing is, I grew up watching this movie from a young age. Young enough that I used to confuse Doctor Crusher and Counselor Troi, or that I simply had no idea what was going on at certain points. In fact, it took me a long time to straighten out the plot simply because I was used to not understanding it.

For instance, I remarked a few weeks ago that I had no idea why the script called for Picard's brother and nephew to die, and in such a cruel way, as well. I found it very counter to the episode in the show ("Family" from Season 4) when Picard goes to stay at his brother's house and you see their dynamics and you see what the nephew is like and what he means for the future. It just seemed very random to me for the script to suddenly give word that they had died in a fire.

And then I watched the movie again recently and it made complete and perfect sense, so obviously so that I wondered why I hadn't noticed it before. You've probably noticed it before.

Because of the Nexus plot line, it was necessary to give Picard something he would regret and want to change, something that he missed and wanted back more than anything. Picard has always been a solitary figure. He has friends and lovers and some manner of family. But he's mostly just a lone figure and he doesn't really form close, lasting relationships other than the work relationships he has with his crew. So the closest thing the script had to draw from was his relationship with his nephew--a relationship that is as much about symbolism as anything else. And the symbolism, in fact, works better.

Rene is, symbolically, Picard's future and his home. Rene links Picard to Earth and to France, the place that he enjoyed growing up in (in a way, I think) and the place that he is glad to know is there (even if he doesn't want to be there because he'd rather be out exploring space). And Rene also has his plans to join Starfleet, too, when he grows up; this makes him, quite literally, Picard's future. So to lose Rene is for Picard to lose both his home and his future. It's enough to make him more shattered and uncertain than he has ever been before. It is enough to offer the possibility of temptation from the Nexus. There's also that wonderful line from Soran, when he is trying to convince Picard to let him go back to the research station: "Time is the fire in which we burn. And right now, captain, my time is running out." It's just a phrase Soran was using to express a point, but it resonated exactly with Picard's difficulties at that point (his difficulties with emotion that are reflected so wonderfully in Data's difficulties in handing his newly installed emotion chip).

But the Rene plot also does something else: it reinforces the concept of generations that is so strong in this movie.

I had watched a couple of episodes of the original Star Trek here and there but it wasn't until I was in college that I watched them all (and enjoyed them, too, I might add). I followed with the movies--and that was when I realized that the original cast was making movies right up into the TNG cast's reign. So it was almost necessary to have a passing of the torch moment. Funny how this movie gained such new meaning and emotion once I had gotten to know the original cast and had watched them work their way through the 80's right into this 1994 movie.

It's beautiful, really. One cast passes away into history to make room for the new cast. One generation ends and another begins. (This is the problem with the reboot movies: they ruin the beauty of continuation. It's as if you went and started Doctor Who from the beginning, abandoning the past 50 years of stories and characters. But I digress.) Everyone has their pace, their impact--and time moves on without stopping for anyone. Time did not stop for Rene. And time did not stop for Captain Kirk. But make your life a meaningful one and make a good difference in whatever way you can--that's the message of the movie. Rene is only a reminder.

Star Trek Into What Kind of Darkness?

I sort of grew up with Star Trek.

It was mainly The Next Generation and its accompanying movies that I was around so much--so much that I still have trouble saying whether or not I like them because they're simply familiar. During college (and after seeing the 2009 reboot movie), I watched the original series and its movies (most of which I had probably seen at some point or another). And while I enjoyed that 2009 movie, I have since heard the opposite opinion on it. The problem, according to this opinion, is that the Star Trek universe used to be so consistent. There were a few movies with the original show's cast, then they passed the torch on to the TNG cast and continued onwards. Always, new shows and movies added to the universe, but didn't change it. Then along came this movie to end all the consistency.

I can understand that perspective--but that still isn't even the reason why I was disappointed by Star Trek Into Darkness.

Sure, a good sprinkling of explosions, CGI, and action sequences can add to sci-fi, but I need there to be more than that. The movie had a similar kind of humor as the first one did, but it felt more at the center of each moment than before. I was missing the emotional connection and the reason to care about what was going on.

The characters felt more like ideas of characters than like people. Which, I suppose, works if what you're enjoying is the action combined with the one-liners. But for me, the plot line of Kirk needs to learn responsibility for his crew felt forced and shallow to me. Spock and Uhura in their lover's quarrel was sometimes funny, but otherwise just diminished what could be two great characters (plus the fact that I'm now able to miss Uhura's elegance in the original series).

I guess it was a very American movie. Resistance to authority combined with an ultimate need to remember when responsibility is necessary. Carelessness and recklessness resulting in all that slick, space CGI. Or should I say it's very much a Hollywood movie?

I'm just too weird: I say I grew up with Star Trek, but I can't go along with the glitziness of a summer blockbuster.

Battlestar Galactica: From the Beginning

Battlestar Galactica was one of those things I had been hearing about recently (in addition, of course, to Dr. Who, but I'm resisting watching Dr. Who--though I do plan to get to it eventually); I haven't even been sure if all of the references have been to the original 1978 series or to the more recent one. But being the way I am, I had to, in any case, start at the beginning.

It's always strange watching something you know has a cult following but which you know nothing about. The first part of the three part pilot bored me a bit, but I later wished I had been paying better attention since it sets the scene for so much. I started a pattern of watching one episode every night before bed, discovering after a few nights that I was looking forward to watching. The show is light and entertaining; it made me giggle and smile. Though it is sci-fi, it reminds me as much of a pioneer story.

Which brings me to the "comparisons." Yes, some of the design elements look suspiciously like Star Wars, but they are from the same era and the plot is hardly anything like Star Wars. It didn't remind me much of the original Star Trek series, either; in fact, it reminded me more of The Next Generation, sometimes so much so that I wonder if that crew got some ideas from Galactica. And the pure adventure of Battlestar Galactica almost reminds me more of a Jules Verne novel than other TV shows. With that said, this show seems to stand pretty steadily on its own.

As I said, it has something of the pioneer spirit, of braveness and daring, of responsibility and planning, of undaunted spirit and hope. Despite the Cylons, it stands in stark contrast to today's dystopian stories. And that I think is what makes this show enjoyable. It presents sorrows and hardships, but is never grim. Instead, it presents heroes who will stand up to foes and civilians that choose not to give up hope. Sure, the show obviously had some budget constraints, physical limits that set boundaries to a premise with great potential. Having finished the 1978 series yesterday and only the 1978 series, I say that there is still much to explore. Both with these characters we have been made familiar with and with this created world at large.

I'm nervous about starting in on the short 1980 series tomorrow. I'm thinking that my quick transition from series to series will help me accept each one better (how many are there? four total, right?) than original fans did. But is this a good or a bad thing? That, no one can answer.

Earth 2 & Anti-Sci-Fi

When I was in middle school, we had a prompt on a standardized test to write a science fiction story. I chose the "anti-science fiction" route: when "I" arrived at a new planet in the story, I had to set about pioneer-style tasks as part of the colonization effort. So it was technically sci-fi because it took place away from earth, but the content was a little different. Similar is Stephenie Meyer's The Host, which is categorized as sci-fi because it involves life from other planets, but also includes a great deal of people living in caves in the middle of the desert, where they perform such wonderful actions as growing food.

The mid-90's TV show Earth 2 also follows this type of progression. The premise is that a group of colonists are traveling to a new planet (now that Earth isn't much of a livable environment anymore); there are complications with the landing, though, and they must now travel across the planet to their intended destination over a series of months. It's definitely sci-fi terrain, but the episodes show some of the things Star Trek, etc. don't spend much time on. There are colonists in Star Trek, but the show only visits them in passing, whereas Earth 2 is about their daily trials. There is a bit of mystery, a smattering of cultural and psychological questions, and a nice combination of futuristic technology and pioneering methods (I love VR by the way: it might actually be better than the Holodeck.)

Some of the episodes are good; overall, it is a show worth watching, and one that I don't think has aged terribly in nearly two decades. (It's more than obvious it wasn't made today, but it isn't very "dated.") Some episodes are of less interest than others, but it isn't as if even the giant Star Trek can say otherwise.

It wasn't until a third/halfway through the show that I started to connect with the characters, first Julia and then Morgan (which meant that I also started to like Bess and Alonzo, naturally). Ironically, I had little interest in Devon, who is the most like the main character--Episode 17 "The Boy Who Would Be Terrian King" helped show me why I hadn't quite taken to her character. But what's nice about this show is that the focus is spread throughout the group: each character has a moment, and they all have some kind of importance to what's going on.

Admittedly, some aspects of the "living planet" premise start to drag or feel too far-fetched--this premise is interesting the first time or two you come across it (it's also in Avatar), but can quickly feel forced. So you can't over-think the show. And I don't find myself expecting to watch it again any time soon: I enjoyed it and would have liked a second season, but I never reached the addiction level on this one.

One last note: if you start watching this show on Netflix, you will want to know that the last two episodes are out of order (though that was apparently the order they aired in). What is listed as the third to last episode is actually the finale (can't you tell by the cliffhanger it ends on?). For more info on this, read this Wikipedia page.

The Professor & Others

I was late reading Charlotte Bronte's The Professor.

Somehow, I got the impression that this book would be dry and dull and depressing and difficult and ultimately unsatisfying, in comparison to her other works. I should have known it would not be so.

True, it does not have so much magic as Jane Eyre; nor quite the poignancy of Villette, but it was an intriguing read. I did not find it so different from Charlotte's other works as critics led me to believe, though it does have obvious differences. I found in it a sense of inspiration. Our narrator, William Crimsworth, is called the "self-made man;" in his actions is the assurance that we have power over our own selves and hence over our destinies. Seeing him struggle and feel hopeless at times, but still come through was very encouraging for me.

Aside from this, The Professor is a must simply for being a Charlotte Bronte lover. We all know about the time she spent in Belgium and the, er, attachment she formed for a certain married colleague and how this school helped form the French one in Villette. But in The Professor, you're right there in Belgium. The setting is so tangible, the themes a part of an entire tapestry of CB novels. Amazing to look at.

On the other side, I have been enjoying Netflix and other Internet videos a bit too much. Here are some things I've seen lately:

1) Little Men the TV series, with two seasons. Very bizarre at first. The professor is dead; Jo is a widow trying to keep up their dream by running the school alone. And of course, a certain man comes along in the first episode and becomes the new caretaker on the grounds; let the hints at a relationship begin. Very unlike the book at first. I thought I wouldn't be able to watch the whole pilot, but two episodes in, I found myself enjoying some pure, sticky drama. Dan, Nan, and Nat are all great, though I did sorely miss Daisy. I hate to think of Nat being alone without her . . . I have no idea why she and Demi were kept back at toddler-age. There are other strange things (like Franz being the teacher until he runs off to Arizona to follow his girl), but once you get past them, it's an alright show. I moved through all 26 episodes very quickly.

2) The original Star Trek series. I'm on Season 2, and enjoying it much more than I would have imagined. The potential sci-fi gives for exploration not just of the galaxy, but of human nature can really be engrossing. Not to mention all the seasoning of humor.

3) Twilight in Forks; the documentary about the impact the Twilight Saga has had on the actual town of Forks, Washington. It wasn't too big of a deal; don't bend head over heels to get the chance to watch it. I was glad to see it and I'm sure it will mean even more a few years from now, but the things I got most excited over were seeing Kaleb Nation and The Hillywood Show pop up in it.

4) Back to the Future. I'm not getting the third movie until tomorrow, but I've been enjoying these so much. My memories of them were vague; now I got to return to them with a fresh perspective. "Fresh." That's an apt word to describe the movies, too. There is attention to detail and awareness of how movies and the mind work.

5) A collaboration between The Hillywood Show and Evil Iguana Productions. I don't watch the latter, only the former, but I laughed to tears over this video. Best if you know Twilight and Hillywood, hilariously and uniquely put together.

Fish Names

My brother has a tank of five goldfish, so I decided that I would do him the service of naming them for him. I don't think he actually knows all the names I've come up with, but let's not talk about that. I just have to remind him some more.

I started off naming one "Phantom" because it has an orange cape on its back, like what the Phantom of the Opera wears in the movie. Then I named the runt with funny colors Mortimer, after Mortimer Mouse, who is also a little odd looking. But it's turned out that Mortimer is the biggest fish now and a the only solid, shining orange, so his name doesn't fit very well anymore.

I decided to go ahead and name the rest after characters, also. The one that used to be the biggest is Grendel, as the threatening one of the bunch. Then I decided to go along with the villain theme and name the other one Heathcliff, just because that's such a cool name.

What of the last? It didn't have a name for the longest time, but last night I thought I should do something my brother would appreciate. I thought, maybe something from Star Trek. He'd like "Picard," but that didn't seem right. So I thought about who the villain is on the Enterprise. Q. Yes, Q is the name for the last fish. Not literary or even booky, but it fits.