Re: Star Trek: Discovery

[bomaye]

All of the above. My dad and my cousin were into it so I saw parts of TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT while they aired (the space channel in particular aired a daily block of TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY reruns around high school after most of them were already over so I did see quite a bit of it then) buuuut I never watched the full series until I was older (except Voyager, I've probably seen at least half of it and maybe 2/3rds of it all together, I kind of don't want to watch it all because then it's truly over ;_

[KMR]

My older brother discovered TNG shortly after we immigrated to the US in '92 and then got me into it. So I was about 7 years old when I first started watching it. I watched whatever episode reruns I could catch (although when I was a kid, they would usually be on at 11 pm and I could rarely stay up late enough), and I saw all the TNG films in theaters. My brother and I watched DS9 as it aired, starting somewhere in season 3, and also watched all of Voyager. Only got a handful of episodes into Enterprise before giving up on it, and I had to push through multiple times to finally watch the whole thing some years back. I didn't watch TOS until several years ago, though I'd seen all the films back when I was young.

I also went through a phase during my middle school years where I was reading nothing but Star Trek novels. :-/

[Enail]

I was around 9 or 10 when I first saw TNG, as a rerun, but caught up and watched it as aired pretty quickly, most people I knew who got into it were my sister's age, early teens. I picked up TOS and the movies (never did watch V) along with TNG reruns, watched most of DS9 and the first season or so of Voyager and VI and the TNG movies (gave up after a couple) as they aired and then picked up the rest of DS9 and a little Voyager a little later on.

Middle school was a lot of Star Trek novels for me too! Though I did read other things. Did you read novels for all of them or just specific serieses, KMR? I mostly read TNG and TOS, I wasn't as into them by the time DS9 novels were coming out.

[KMR]

Mostly just TNG novels, and maybe one or two DS9 novels. I was all about TNG back in those days, it wasn't until I did a binge-rewatch of DS9 in college that I moved into the "DS9 is the best Trek series" camp and never looked back. But I was a slow and not-so-frequent reader, so I didn't end up reading a large number of Star Trek books overall, it just was the only thing I happened to read for a time.

Did you ever read the book that was a TNG/X-Men crossover with Picard side-by-side with Professor X on the cover?

[Enail]

No I didn't! I didn't know it existed! But I tend not to like crossovers, so I probably wouldn't have read it anyway. It seems more awesome now that Patrick Stewart is both.

[KMR]

It was a weird book, and I don't think I bothered to finish it, but it piqued my curiosity so I had to see what it was all about. The only thing I still remember about it is that there was a scene where Wolverine went into Ten Forward and asked Guinan for "a warrior's drink, like something Worf would drink" and she gave him prune juice.

[bomaye]

There was a TOS/X-Men crossover comic too, they made the obvious Dr McCoy joke (Someone says "Dr McCoy" and Bones and Beast both said "Yeah?")

I had a small handful of TOS and TNG books back in the day too. This guy for sure and there's a few others that are familiar but I don't remember if I read them later on or not.

ALSO: A very weird occurrence, the novelization of Star Trek V was actually really good while the movie wasn't.

[KMR]

I'm now caught up on Discovery Season 4. The soft reboot in season 3 really helped turn this show around for me, and I was glad to see this season continue along that same vein. It feels so much more in keeping with the tone of Star Trek... Optimism and aspiring to core ideals and principles! Inclusion and diversity! Story lines focused on science and diplomacy! Ethical dilemmas! Resolving conflicts with peaceful and hopeful solutions! Building on established lore in interesting ways!

My working theory is that maybe the people who were responsible for the more questionable choices from the first two seasons moved over to work on Star Trek: Picard instead.

[Enail]

I really should overcome my resistance (yeah yeah, we all know, it's futile) to restarting something I've given up on, and give it another try from there on.

[KMR]

If they hadn't changed the setting/premise of the show for season 3, I probably wouldn't have bothered to continue, but that gave me just enough optimism to think they might be able to course-correct on at least some of the issues that I had with the initial seasons. I don't expect to fall in love with this series in the way I have with older Treks like TNG and DS9, but it's good to be able to watch some modern Trek and feel positively instead of negatively about it. It had been genuinely distressing me to feel that I'm living in a time when they keep making Star Trek shows that I don't want to watch.

I've been trying to overcome my resistance to giving Lower Decks a try. When it was first announced, I was like, "I didn't ask for this. Was anyone asking for this?" and the trailers seemed to over-emphasize some of the humor in a way that was pretty unappealing to me. Initially, it was getting a mixed reaction, but I've now been hearing enough positive things that make me think it might be worth checking out and getting an informed opinion about it, rather than being prejudiced by my initial reaction. So I'll probably pick it up sometime in the near future.

[Enail]

Yeah, it's been weirdly distressing to me too. I guess Star Trek represents more to me than just a show, it's something about society.

At first I was quite interested in Lower Decks, I thought something low-key, light-hearted and focused more on 'regular' Starfleeters would be a fun way to spend time in the Star Trek world, but the couple of commercials I saw really put me off, it felt more like The Simpsons or Family Guy than anything I'd like to see in Star Trek. But I've seen quite a lot of positive reactions to it lately, so I might someday as well.

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