Most of the second half of 2023 went towards an intense re-discovery of Star Trek. After I got hooked onto Star Trek: Legends (game) on my birthday, it became necessary to somehow rewatch ALL Star Trek. Along the way I discovered that my viewing of Star Trek: The Next Generation was far from complete. I wondered if in the 1990s TV3 had shown all of the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation or if I’d merely missed some because I’d been so busy studying or distracted by other stuff. So far, I think my viewing was quite regular up till season 3 and I DID watch the Locutus episodes but I think my brain expected there would be more (there were only about two). And I identified that I probably HAD watched episodes right up to season 6 (I definitely remembered the episode in which Troi had that white streak in her hair) but probably not season 7. I am now at episode 19 of season 7 and am sad that this particular rewatch adventure is coming to an end.
I finished watching Enterprise last year and was astounded by how emotionally invested I was in it. I was expecting it to be terrible but by the end of the run I decided I even liked the theme song as it fit the ethos of the series. The overly sexualising of T’Pol, not so much. As for DS9 and Voyager: at some point I found a guide (or two) on how to (re)watch all the Star Trek series in sequence. Following from that, I intended to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation until it met with the timeline of DS9 but in the end I thought I would enjoy rewatching each series better if I watched them one at a time. At some point I’ll also return to my rewatch of TOS.
However, I’m currently also watching the first season of Strange New Worlds which I think is bloody good, but that lies outside of the Star Trek: The Next Generation, DS9 and Voyager timelines which are closer to each other, so I reckon I am fine.
The pluses for me as a science-fiction author cannot be underrated. I found myself watching not just as a fan but as an SF academic (yes, I can consider myself one now) and SF author. I found myself analysing the beats and pacing of each episode and wondering how that would translate to effective pacing in SF shorts. I hope this means I’ll finish more SF shorts in 2024.
Non Star-Trek Watching: the second season of The Gilded Age (so good!), Queen Charlotte, The Crown, The Wheel of Time, Good Omens (which necessitated rewatching everything from the beginning), Sanditon (seasons 1-3 in a rewatch before I watched the last season), Clone Wars (up to season 4 now), Ahsoka, White Lotus seasons 1-2, various Christmas Romance films as is usual at the end of the year, some Wong Kar-Wai and other arthouse movies. I’m probably forgetting many other things I’d watched over 2023. Hey, I barely get out of the apartment except to go to work, which means that watching stuff kept me from going bonkers and stir-crazy (if you know how much adventuring I used to do when I was able-bodied and during pre-pandemic times).
Subscription Updates: I resubscribed to MUBI because I couldn’t go without my arthouse movies, and to medici.tv when they had 60% off. Also back on WoW with much relief.
Games I am playing right now: Achaea (My daily MUD/text MMORPG), Star Trek: Legends, Pokemon Go (since September when I returned to it), World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Chess on Chess.com. I’m sad however that most of the games on Steam are now unplayable to me since my OS on the MacBook Pro is 64-bit. At some point I’ll get a games PC and then maybe I can give Witcher III another whirl. But for right now there’s barely time for games. The gacha-type games require low effort so I can play them in downtimes but for more involved gameplay, I have to put that aside. My time in WoW is mostly to go fishing! 😅