it's that time of year again. spooky szn has ended, and in this incredible age of new STAR TREK episodes airing all year round, for the next couple of months we're... well, we're on the kids show. not that it's a bad kids show, it's a great kids show! but what are we who come to STAR TREK at least in part for the post-scarcity interspecies future pansexual horniness to do?

oh that's right, there's still a zillion other frakking STAR TREKs. let's get into it.

shoutout to my all-time favorite STAR TREK podcasts, TREKS AND THE CITY with alice and veronica, and ALL THE ASIANS ON STAR TREK hosted by phil yu.

LOWER DECKS

LOWER DECKS seems to be settling into a pattern of fun, silly episodes in the first half of the season and big swings in the back half... and i liked all the big swings this year. (even peanut hamper.) but i honestly can't remember anything i wanted to write about or point out, even in the final two episodes that i know i adored, because... WE WENT BACK TO DEEP SPACE NINE!

or as shax calls it, the "tacky cardassian fascist eyesore." an understandable reaction from a bajoran resistance fighter, but incorrect. it's beautiful. i'm getting a DEEP SPACE NINE tattoo.

my heart, people. we saw the station again. we saw the promenade again. we saw kira and quark, so many years later for us but barely a few for them. did i cry when my best friend died? no. did i cry when the family dog died? no. did i cry when the DS9 theme played while the cerritos flew slowly around the station pylons? ...yes. did it rip my soul in fucking half when colonol kira entered sisko's old office to begin her workday by watching the entrance to the celestial temple open outside her window? you're goddamn right.

references (junior reporter!) to the past aside, the best part of HEAR ALL, TRUST NOTHING was that it felt just like another lighthearted, pre-dominion war DEEP SPACE NINE adventure -- a quark adventure at that! -- with the absolutely delightful addition of all our favorite LOWER DECKS characters. can't there be a LOWER DECKS-style DEEP SPACE NINE spin-off? ...and can i write on it?

VOYAGER (AND OKAY, FINE, PRODIGY)

TNG, DS9, and VOY were the "big three" when i was growing up, and they will always be the holy trinity of STAR TREK. it ended up taking literal decades to see them all, which would probably disappoint childhood me -- sorry kid, adult life is long and weird.

i'm proud to have finally made it through VOYAGER. yes, a lot of the writing was as bad as i had heard (mostly from robert beltran, commander chakotay himself), but of course the truth should have been obvious -- the cast always made up for it. they're all too fucking good and they're too good together. i know i'll do it all again someday, just for them. and there were still some truly great STAR TREK episodes a couple of times a season!

i was shocked to find that the 100th episode of VOYAGER, TIMELESS, starred none other than the criminally underused forever-ensign harry kim. i was even more shocked to find that it was perhaps the best episode of the series. garrett wang was a fucking star and carried the emotional arc of the story so well and i'm surprised (and yet not) that the VOYAGER writers didn't immediately put him front and center in more episodes.

shoutout to garrett and robby's VOYAGER podcast THE DELTA FLYERS.

we had to wait 20 years for the janeway/chakotay ship to keep sailing, but oh boy is it afloat on PRODIGY as the hook to keep us non-parent millennials watching this STAR TREK show for kids. how do they get me every fucking time? i bet robert beltran's sexual magnetism is somehow going to shine through even in animation.

i know some people mock the idea of chakotay/seven as a couple that was introduced at the end of VOYAGER, but you know that raw sexual magnetism STAR TREK always wanted us to think kirk and riker had? chakotay actually has it and it's ridiculous the show didn't do anything with it! of course seven would have a little fling with all of that while she was discovering herself. hello??

VOYAGER was my (dead) best friend jordan's favorite TREK series, and i'm happy we can now have many imagined conversations about it. (he didn't see DEEP SPACE NINE before he died, so i'll never get to win the "best STAR TREK series" argument. a particularly cruel joke on his part.) i remember we watched the VOY series finale ENDGAME together when it originally aired back in the blogger days, and i know having been a fan for years he deeply felt that anti-climax of not actually spending any time with our crew once they made it home. i wish i could tell him that it's not so bad in this all-new-all-STAR-TREK-all-the-time world where we've seen the continuing adventures of tuvok, chakotay, paris, janeway, and seven.

speaking of seven...

PICARD

before any of you found out, i knew that seven of nine was returning on PICARD. was i proud that after living in LA for twenty years i finally had insider knowledge that mattered -- STAR TREK news? you bet your fucking ass. but i was also bemused. i hadn't watched VOYAGER yet and PICARD was a TNG sequel. why would seven be there?

well, after two seasons of PICARD that were absolute nonsense other than seven (and seven/raffi), thank fucking space koala that seven is on PICARD, right?

despite simultaneously sucking and blowing so far, i'm excited for the TNG crew to reunite next season and fight their big final battle against a villainous member of the plummer family just like THE ORIGINAL SERIES crew did way back in THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. rock on.

DISCOVERY & STRANGE NEW WORLDS

the next seasons of both of these shows are going to be amazing, and might be one of the few things i have to look forward to in a difficult 2023. though i guess there's no need to clarify "difficult" in front of years anymore. they're fucking all gonna be difficult.

THE ORIGINAL SERIES & ENTERPRISE

hahaha just kidding, fuck these shows.

no, no, of course the 5 to 10 classic episodes of TOS are perfect, timeless, and incomparable, just like the best episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. and even the bad episodes of STAR TREK have uhura, sulu, and the deliciously weird and delightful kirk/spock tension tumblr makes all those gifs out of.

while we're on the record, the six original STAR TREK films are unrivaled even now... though STAR TREK BEYOND came close. this year's restoration of THE MOTION PICTURE (THE DIRECTOR'S EDITION) was a thing of beauty, and as it remains the most "gene roddenberry" of any STAR TREK movie ever made, it was inspiring to see his bizarre vision come to life with all the technology and splendor it deserved.

speaking of gene, there's a story that after the premiere for THE FINAL FRONTIER (that's the one where they meet god) he was obviously displeased and called it "apocryphal." that's his smart-person version of me saying, "that ain't fuckin' canon." well, i can now proudly say that i've seen every single episode of every STAR TREK series... except for ENTERPRISE. i will never, ever watch ENTERPRISE. fuck you, bakula. you and your show are... *checks notes* ...apocryphal!

and you ain't fuckin' canon.

DEEP SPACE NINE

like VOYAGER, my journey with DEEP SPACE NINE has ended. i began this rewatch sometime during the tr*mp presidency and really, really tried to take my time and savor it. it was the best escape from the real world i could ask for. and this wasn't like VOYAGER where i paid my bills and texted my friends and edited photos and watched porn and wrote for this very site while watching it. i paid attention to DEEP SPACE NINE. it was so fucking good that i really do want to start it right from the beginning again, like i mentioned on the last some kind of STAR TREK.

i'm not going to go off with the superlatives. you know the drill, by the last few years of this show every frakking episode is astounding. the simple fact that it ends on a ten-parter makes the series finale of every other series (STAR TREK or otherwise) pale in comparison. they hit every emotional beat you would ever hope for with their characters. they revolutionized and redeemed the previously villainous (or at least shady) cardassian and ferengi cultures and cemented a place in the universe for the bajorans. they set up and explored and did just about every single thing you could do with the giant box of toys we call STAR TREK. what an amazing feat.

DISCOVERY making the president of the federation -- hundreds of years later in the story -- a half bajoran/half cardassian is a beautiful grace note to what DEEP SPACE NINE accomplished.

every actor who appeared on DEEP SPACE NINE deserved every award there was. the main cast, the supporting cast, the supporting supporting cast... the world the actors, writers, and crew created was so absolutely fucking real. i believe in DEEP SPACE NINE. this show turns us all into benny russell in FAR BEYOND THE STARS, doesn't it? that's its power.

i followed the series up with the WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND documentary, which was a beautiful way to say goodbye to the series and everyone involved in creating it, especially since some of the actors have left us since the doc came out. and it's undeniably powerful to witness clips from the show in HD and glimpse how truly timeless and gorgeous the series might look someday if paramount and CBS take the money we keep giving them and invest in bringing DEEP SPACE NINE and VOYAGER to the modern age.

shoutout to cirroc loften and the late aron eisenberg, jake and nog, hosts of THE 7th RULE podcast which has been keeping me company on my late night dog walks. i miss you already, aron. nog's journey from thieving ferengi teen to starfleet war hero remains one of the highlights of DEEP SPACE NINE

i wish i could thank everyone involved in this show personally for what it means to me, for what it meant the first time ten years ago (it's literally why i'm an "adult obsessed with STAR TREK" -- we meet on wednesdays, it's awkward) and for how it meant even more this time around in the strange new world we've found ourselves in. in the decade between my first viewing of DEEP SPACE NINE and this one, it somehow grew only more relevant, sometimes tragically so. but like all great STAR TREK, even in the darkness, it gives us hope and something to aspire to.

...and i really am getting that DEEP SPACE NINE tattoo.

2022.11.04