I am experiencing Star Trek!

[anghraine]

For context: my best friend J is an ultra-ultra-dedicated Star Trek fan. I saw re-runs as a kid and had a lot of lingering goodwill towards TNG in particular, but not especially clear memories apart from First Contact (J and I had a beloved English teacher in high school who assigned it to our class :D). I haven't watched much of the newer stuff, even. I saw two JJ Abrams films (the first seemed a perfectly fine film if slightly vacuous—it felt rather more like SW than ST in some ways, but not enough to be fully satisfying as either, while the sequel sucked in a "we should have seen TROS coming" way). I haven't seen any Discovery, Prodigy, Lower Decks, or Picard episodes, just two episodes of SNW that were okay, but not really my thing. They're polished, but struck me as rather unambitious in a ST context. That said, J really, really loves other ST (he considers it basically his religion, despite decidedly rough patches such as Picard) and I hadn't seen any of the older stuff in ages, so I was thinking vaguely of catching up with some old school ST.

Meanwhile, we were negotiating our next Media Experience awhile back, and he really wants me to watch Andor. In part, this is so we can talk about it, and in part because he genuinely thinks I'd like it apart from his admission that it handles Cassian oddly given his characterization in Rogue One, but he thinks I could overlook this in the face of the show's greatness. (He does not do social media and does not fully grasp the extent of my Rogue One!Cassian stanning.) We were talking it over and I was trying to evade committing myself to watching Andor and was suddenly struck by a burst of Machiavellian genius.

him: I think you really would love it if you'd give it a chance.
me: I have a counter-proposal, since the last thing we watched was also your idea.
him: ...yeah? A different Star Wars?
me: No. Star Trek.
him: ...
him: ...
him: O_O
him: ...like, Discovery or...?
me: No. I've been meaning to catch up with the older shows, since I don't remember them very well, except bits of The Next Generation.
him: Wow. Okay. Um, well, which one ... it can't be Deep Space Nine because we're watching that later in the summer, and Voyager is, well, I love it, but like a three-legged dog. I can't really recommend starting there. But we could watch some highlights of TNG...
me: I wasn't really thinking of a highlights reel experience...
him: O_O
him: I guess we could actually start with the original series, though there are some complications with the early episodes and multiple pilots and everything, and, well, sometimes it's extremely 60s...
me: Okay, let's see!

So while this originated in a cunning plot to evade Andor by throwing in all of Star Trek in front of him like a red flag in front of a bull, I didn't want to only be using his favorite thing as a delaying tactic, obviously. I definitely wanted to give ST a fair shot and think about it and try to engage properly, etc.

I don't always have time for it, but so far we've watched the following episodes (in this order):

1. Where No Man Has Gone Before - pretty good! I like this Kirk better than fanon Kirk, like the significance of compassion, was somewhat ambivalent about the handling of the psychiatrist but liked that she was rightly remembered as a hero, and already came away more interested in TOS than SNW.
2. The Man Trap - quite liked it and really felt the pathos of the creature. It's also nice to see more familiar faces now! My fave is already Spock, surprising no one, and it's interesting to see various familiar ideas still coalescing.
3. Charlie X - intriguing, unsettling, and weirdly funny at points (though a bit repetitive in terms of the malevolent godling thing). I like basically everyone except Charlie himself (and didn't dislike him as a character, just personally). I had no memory of Uhura hitting on Spock quite so much from basically day 1, and it's interesting to see his varied reactions to her. J and I had an interesting conversation about the depiction of masculinity here—the way Charlie looks up to Kirk and feels threatened by Spock, etc.
4. The Naked Time - absolute delight, omg. J was worried about my reaction to the Irish-American(?) crew member getting space drunk, and it could be problematic at some level, but given that basically everyone gets space drunk and whatshisface just starts cosplaying Irishness in an extremely recognizable way (speaking as an Irish-American!), I mostly thought it was both pretty accurate and honestly really funny when not just sad. Spock's guilt over not connecting with his human mother and his shame at his friendship with Kirk was fantastic and, wow, y'all were seriously not joking about the queer undertones.
5. The Enemy Within - messy at best, though I actually gave it a bit more charity than J himself. The idea that a certain amount of rapeyness is inherent in command and decisiveness, and just has to be suppressed by higher judgment but is still essential to male leadership is a whole lot, for sure. I did find the secret evil doppelganger dog space creature that is totally not a dog with a horn taped to its head extremely funny and appreciated its presence, given how heavy everything else was. I also thought it genuinely interesting that awful rapist Kirk is not only the source of Kirk's ability to command, but is the part of him that feels terror, while impotent cerebral Kirk feels compassion, concern, ambivalence, and anxiety, but not really fear per se. But still, hella yikes. And poor Rand is always getting harassed. I do not like that. :(
6. Mudd's Women - first TOS episode that I actively disliked. I hated almost everything about it, especially the convenient yet entirely unexplained and baffling absence of all women on the ship except Uhura (and Uhura's lack of involvement in the plot was also deeply confusing, given that everyone behaves as if they've never seen an attractive woman on the Enterprise, yet she's right there and frankly more staggeringly beautiful than anyone else in the show; the best thing I can say is that at least Mudd didn't have the opportunity to contribute to her or Rand being harassed again). The inner confidence conclusion made everything even worse than it already was. Spock's indifference is weirdly racialized but at least something of a relief, and his summation of the whole thing as tedious was pretty much the only highlight of the episode. Well, and I enjoyed the revelation that Kirk's private quarters are also hot pink. But seriously, being like "trading people for fuel is morally untenable" and then just ... doing it ... and this being framed as some weird happily ever after was truly awful.

Comments

[lizbee]

CRASHING THROUGH YOUR DOOR AND LEAVING A LIZ-SHAPED HOLE

I love that this is the length you will go to to avoid Andor, but ALSO I am excited for this series!

[anghraine]

1) Given that J and I are about to move to our local big city with a third friend, I'm just imagining our new place with a cartoon-style Liz-shaped hole in door next to an Elizabeth-shaped hole in the same door, distinguishable only by posted signs :P

2) I've got to admit that you're the main Online Friend that J knows about because you're the only ST blogger I fully trust and sometimes we read squiddishly posts together, especially the Voyager ones. And "I don't remember [thing] all that clearly but Liz says..." comes up pretty regularly in our ST conversations, so seeing you pop up in my inbox felt like coming full circle!

3) Haha, I considered just not providing context and going straight to the episodes, but I thought my dastardly cunning might be funny to at least someone else!

4) Thank you very much!! I had originally meant to do write-ups of each episode as I watched, since it's usually only 1 ep a week, so a whole post for each one. I know I had a lot more thoughts and such as I was watching than I put down here (I've already remembered that J and I had talked about the extremely gendered way that Charlie uses his powers against women and I meant to discuss it in more detail...). But still, I wanted to get the general impressions down and I'm glad you're excited for it :)

[alias_sqbr]

Congratulations on avoiding Andor haha (I enjoyed it but I absolutely understand why you want to avoid it)

I watched a curated reclist of TOS episodes many years ago and it was a fascinating experience. Because it's a very dated and uneven show but also sometimes really good in a way still rooted in it's time, and it's not bogged down with the increasing weight of nostalgia which imo can drag down everything else in the franchise, even the TOS movies.

[anghraine]

Heeeh, thank you! It certainly will be awhile at a rate of one episode of ST a week and a plan to watch ALL OF ST EVER. :D

Because it's a very dated and uneven show but also sometimes really good in a way still rooted in it's time, and it's not bogged down with the increasing weight of nostalgia

Yup. J has actually talked about this a bit—he feels that ST getting caught up in its own lore is dangerous not only in the usual way of nostalgic weight, but because at its best, ST fundamentally is not that kind of show—less inwardly reflective and self-referential than outwards-focused in terms of its metaphors, philosophy etc. So there's something very refreshing about ST that is just not terribly interested in cohesive lore and nostalgia so much as "here's a thought experiment, what if [wtf thing I would never have imagined]." It throws all sorts of things at the kitchen sink to see what's interesting and there's something refreshing about just coming up with all these storytelling ideas without anyone talking about the Prime Directive or whatever.

Thus far, it feels like it's never not of its time, but when it's good, it's all the better because of that, if that makes sense!

[alias_sqbr]

Thus far, it feels like it's never not of its time, but when it's good, it's all the better because of that, if that makes sense!

Yes, I feel exactly the same way! And yeah, later Star Trek tends to be too aware of Being Star Trek instead of using the setup as a way to explore interesting scifi ideas.

[beatrice_otter]

Oooh, I hope you have fun! When it comes to TOS, I actually enjoy the novels from the 80s-90s more than the TV show itself; if you're interested, I have a rec list: https://beatrice-otter.dreamwidth.org/417677.html

[anghraine]

Thanks!