If I had been paying attention, maybe I could have remembered that today was not only Star Trek Day, the day that the first episode of the original series aired, but its also the 60th anniversary of the show. It kind of feels like I should write something up for a prestige anniversary for one of my favorite TV series…es. Is it still just series?
Probably part of why I missed it was that I have never been a huge fan of The Original Series. I actually have never watched all of it, though I started to and it fizzled out a bit a few years ago. Most of my love for TOS comes from the movies, and more specifically, movies 2-6. Yes, all of them. Even though Search for Spock is a bit meh. I have probably watched The Wrath of Khan a few dozen times though. I think I even saw The Undiscovered Country in theaters.
My real love of Trek came from Star Trek The Next Generation. Back in the 90s it was one of those shows I would watch anytime it was on. The early episodes are a bit rocky but the series as a whole is great and has the best crew and overall balance. Well, it was the best, over time I have come to better appreciate Deep Space Nine and its probably my favorite show these days. I kind of like the “dirtier” side of Trek more and more. Some of the later episodes of Discovery went there too and I found those episodes pretty enjoyable as well. Planets, ships, and spaces that aren’t mostly greed fields and perfect architecture, that sort of thing. DS9 was full of shit that was constantly falling apart. And being out in “Deep Space” there were a lot more seedy characters coming and going doing seedy activities on the station.
I watched Voyager, mostly, but I don’t remember ever being super into Voyager. I think.partly because I found a lot of the crew there kind of off putting. Not just Kes and Nelix. I also more or less skipped Enterprise. I want to go back to that one as well.
I also really enjoyed the more recent shows. I have not gotten to Picard yet, which kind of feels weird since I enjoy TND a lot, but also, I have heard iffy things about Picard and frankly, I kind of dislike Nostalgia bait style shows like that. Maybe… I mean, I also love Lower Decks, but Lower Decks isn’t really Nostalgia Bait so much as a subtle build on established canon events. Like it had tons of references, but they are more integrated into the plot in a new way, and not just “Hey look, its that thing you remember!”
But even Discovery and Starfleet Academy were good. Discovery got better once it jumped to the future for sure, which is where it should have started, but both shows were really good. I am looming forward to the next/final season of Academy. I am disappointed that basically all current Trek everything has been wiped clean. I think the new stuff got a lot of very loud backlash from a minority of people and its going to taint whatever comes next. I will admit that sometimes Disco got a little TOO off track for its own good, and had its very bad parts, but none of the bad had anything to do with being “woke”. It was just trying too hard not to be Star Trek. That’s part of why I liked Starfleet Academy, it had the new flash style of Discovery, but stuck a lot closer to what makes Trek what it is, it felt a LOT more like a Star Trek show than Disco.
Anyway, here is to 60 years of Star Trek and hopefully many more that don’t lean too hard into some weird TOS nostalgia trip.
