Exasperated Calculator

On February 11, 2012.

The more observant of you will have noticed that the Trekathon stalled a little bit back in June at the end of TNG Season 6 and DS9 Season 1.

There are a lot of different reasons, which I won’t go in to.

And looking forward I have a big holiday coming up, and next year I’m going to be studying part time. So the ‘free’ time for Star Trek has been eaten up.

So, here’s the new plan. The new Star Trek movie comes out on 29 June 2012. That’s 601 days from now. As I had 457 episodes to go, that means that I need to watch a bit less than one episode a day. So early in 2011 I’ll be getting back on the wagon at a lower pace.

I’ll probably be doing some other posts on the blog from time to time as well.

Season six feels like a year where the writers were willing to take chances. And while there are some failures (Aquiel, anyone?), when it works it really works.

Another trend of this year was a move away from ensemble episodes and more towards single-character focused episodes. So we have episodes like Frame of Mind or Birthright, Part II that barely have any of the other crew members outside of the focus character. That’s probably an artefact of the contract negotiations for people on a show as long-lived and popular as this one, but it makes for a nice change of pace.

Overall it’s the strongest year of TNG so far, and hence the strongest year of any of the series. Out of the 26 episodes I had 14 down as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’, and only 1 as ‘very bad’. Even Season 3, the previous best, only had 7 in the top half, although it did manage to avoid the ‘very bad’ category.

That brings the rankings so far to:

• TNG Season 6
• TNG Season 3
• TNG Season 5
• TOS Season 2
• TNG Season 4
• TOS Season 1
• DS9 Season 1
• TNG Season 2
• TAS Season 1
• TOS Season 3
• TAS Season 2
• TNG Season 1

That’s 280 watched, 12,609 minutes down, 38.67% complete. 45,665 words written. And 457 to go. Next, the final year of TNG, and the sophomore year for DS9.

The traditional end-of-year cliffhanger brings back both the Borg and Lore.

The usual ‘two-parter’ syndrome is not as evident as usual here, thanks to the plot thread involving Data and his investigation of emotions. The other strength is the callback to I, Borg, and the long overdue examination of Picard’s actions there.

But there’s a severe case of ‘enemy decay syndrome’ happening with the Borg here – maybe it’ll be explained, but the crew are able to deal with large numbers of Borg without the problems they’ve previously faced dealing with only one. It’s always hard to deal with near-invulnerable enemies, but it doesn’t help if you just weaken them.

I liked this episode, but I’ve forgotten what happens in Part 2, and I could very easily end up changing my mind based on how this is resolved. A lot has been set up, but so far there hasn’t been a single season-opening resolution to the cliffhanger that has lived up to Part 1.

280 down, 457 to go.

So far it’s fair to say that Deep Space Nine has a lot of promise, but so far has only showed a couple of attempts to really grasp it.

The thing this season has done really well is avoid awful. There were really only two ‘bad’ episodes (The Passenger and If Wishes Were Horses). That’s impressive for a new show, when a lot can go wrong with early episodes. But that’s been done by avoiding risks, and the vast majority of the season was ‘ok’, not ‘good’ or ‘great’.

But there are still signs of great potential, especially with the episode Duet, which is an example of taking risks, and of taking the show in a direction that TNG doesn’t.

Overall it was a strong first season – not quite enough to edge ahead of season 1 of the original series, but very very close.

That brings the rankings so far to:

• TNG Season 3
• TNG Season 5
• TOS Season 2
• TNG Season 4
• TOS Season 1
• DS9 Season 1
• TNG Season 2
• TAS Season 1
• TOS Season 3
• TAS Season 2
• TNG Season 1

The first season comes to an end with a bang.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Anyway, in the tradition of the best episodes of this season, once again the focus is on Bajoran politics. This time the religious angle is at the fore, and the underlying differences between Bajor and the Federation are the main thing. The setup is a little too obviously a ‘ripped from the headlines’ Star Trek take on the debates over the teaching of evolution, and that struck me as being a little too overtly political for Star Trek’s normal approach.

The political part of the episode aside, the procedural investigation side rolls along nicely, and the personal touch in having O’Briens assistant (seen in the previous episode as well) as the assassin. It’s a strong season finale, but a lot rests on whether the threads begun here are carried through or dropped.

279 down, 458 to go.