Over the past year, I subjected Viv to a slow-motion rematch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was well worthwhile. I learned that I had missed huge sections of s07, presumably due to being in a band in 1994, so many of those episodes were entirely new to me. Overall the series held up quite well, persistent issues with overall interior set design choices and alien effects costuming aside. Hotel beige and forehead appliqués!

We moved on to the movies, having started the TNG project after watching the TOS films, and here I am sorry to report just as had been the case on initial viewings on release, the four TNG movies are pretty terrible, mostly for reasons of character adjustment (Picard is not the character seen on the small screen) and big-screen movie drama (wholesale starship wreckage). The films also feature the sloppy in-universe detail management characteristic of Brannon Braga and Rick Berman’s post-TNG series, Voyager and Enterprise.

That said, there are moments in all four films that have stayed with me, notably Data’s final act of self-sacrifice.

We’re weighing what’s next. It’s baseball season now, and both Game of Thrones and Mad Men are running concurrently for the first time for us, so the issue is not pressing. I’m giving some consideration to trying DS9 again, a series that clearly succeeded on its’ own terms to a greater degree than the other two post-TNG shows, but which lost me as an audience member on initial run due to longer story arcs and an insistent focus on a made-up religion. I don’t pay attention to real-life religions, so I could never see a reason to care about something as far from my areas of interest and experience as a fictional one. We’ll see.