Missed Treks

There have only been two Trek series I bailed on, “Deep Space Nine” and “Enterprise” (“Lower Decks” was a challenge, but once I got it, I really enjoyed it).   But -- in moving forward, it seems nearly every series, including massively time-jumping “Discovery”, kept referencing the two series I skipped.  

And so.

With an empty DVR and way too much time on my hands, I plunged in.

And I’ve come to realize why I never finished them. (Spoilers ahead)

DS9 -- It's bleak.  Really bleak.  The first series where the light levels are low and the connections between the characters are loaded with doubt, insecurity, mistrust and grief.  

I came to like some of the characters a good bit.  Kira, Odo, Dax, Garak, and Nog were favorites.  Even bad guys, like Weyoun, played by chameleon actor Jeffrey Combs.  I grew to like Quark although the similar storylines with him became irritating.  It was great to see an expanded background on O’Brien but I felt like Worf, when brought in, was an opportunity wasted.  A big hole, however, was that I didn't love Sisko.  He's ... broody.  Comes off like a Shakespearean actor who wrings depth out of every word.  Clearly, it was a stab at replacing Picard.  But Picard was a leader who was still part of the group, he set a tone which made you understand why his crew followed him.  Sisko, from the beginning, was "apart".  The group dynamics here are just ... fractured.  Yes, Sisko's family life warmed him up.  Yes, there are various love triangles or whatever.  And there are interesting bad guys with layered motivations.  But it never gelled.  Each episode became a stand-alone.  Oh, let's focus on this character this week and this other character next week.  It turned into -- "this is a comedy, no, it's a historical show, no, it's a murder mystery ..."  And let's not go into the same establishing shot of Cardassia Prime in, like every … single … episode.

The biggest issue, of course, is that there is no ship.  No unknown worlds (exactly …).  DS9 is a way-station -- anchored in space.  Instead of a bridge, which has iconic moments (anyone up for Next Gen's Locutus reveal and Riker's reaction?) you have the equivalent of "The Office" with workers in a pit and Sisko ensconced in a walled office above them.  New characters come in and out for guest appearances but the series is weak on exploration and surprises.  (Oh!  Let’s cause a thing and bring in Klingons.  The Trek audience loves Klingons, right?)  The producers attempted to fix things with the USS Defiant ship, but, in the end, the characters always went home -- and the idea that they are forever changed by their experiences in space was muted.

The ending was … Yeah.  I guess Avery Brooks really didn’t want to keep going with the franchise.  In any case, I get all the references now, but would I go back and rewatch it, as I have the other series?  No.

Enterprise -- ~sigh~  It started … slowly.  Pace, and energy, was a factor throughout much of the series.  But that wasn’t my big issue.  The sexualization of women, particularly the T’Pol character, was unrelenting.  And exhausting.  I had hoped they would back off of that as the show progressed.  They never did.  Near the end of the series, in the Terran universe, comments and treatment of the T’Pol and Sato mirror characters is sickening.  Talk about tone deaf (the first #MeToo showed up less than a year after the show was cancelled).  “Enterprise” struggled mightily, particularly when it came to introducing new species unseen in any other Trek.  Their one shining moment, in my humble opinion, was creating a clever answer as to why TOS Klingons look different.  But character development was weak.  Anthony Montgomery gets an award for most under-used actor for four years straight.  He was clearly a token but made the most of it.  Unlike DS9, the show not only didn’t grow on me, but became a struggle to watch.  People say they didn’t like “Voyager” because of the stolen storylines, but the ripped-off tales here dwarf those of “Voyager”, and were often done proudly (“Mirror, Mirror” anyone?)  And don’t get me started on the “massive” number of time travel stuff.  The first two seasons, which were tolerable, show a certain amount of naivete and clumsiness of humans as the newest members of the galaxy travelling community.  No Prime Directive, no United Federation of Planets, a deep distrust of this newfangled transporter thingy.  Crew cabins are so small the actors had to duck under beams (which got old, fast).  It could have been interesting.  If it had been portrayed with a sense of urgency I might have bought in more, but instead it was like watching a toddler trip over his own feet.  A lot.  And a bunch of time in “shuttle pods”.  They started to lose me with season 3.  The first Trek to be made after 9/11, the whole season, like DS9, was committed to war.  Without any of the humor and love which can exist in the darkest of circumstances, the entire season was just … depressing.  It is a real sign of poor writing when you start using the phrase “I had no choice” multiple times in every episode.  In drama, characters must have choices.  That’s what makes it interesting.  By the time we got to the fourth season, there were no more stand-alone episodes.  Everything was 2 or 3 episodes with “to be continued”.  It was tiring.  I would have given up there and then if not for my pledge to “watch it all”.  When I finally was done, I felt relieved and a tad angry.  A major loss in the final minutes?  Observed by outsiders, so it is as if they wanted to separate the viewers from the emotional tsunami.  Why?  And why say it out loud before it happens so you spend the whole episode in mourning, knowing it is coming?  Prequels often stumble – you know the characters, who is going to live, the big picture of how things end.  “Strange New Worlds” is pulling it off for the most part.  “Enterprise” does not.