eschaton in his/her post pointed to a Netflix rewatch result. There may be others but that does not remove the relevance of it. Maybe there is something to be learned from it??
Will Discovery stand up to repeat viewings as the others do??
- Thread starter WraithDukat
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I think that’s partly true..I had to come back to VOY and developed a love for it that had vanished around series three first run. Seven turned out not be just some tits, I was amazed. Joking aside...I think actually VOY, for people of a certain age (mid to late twenties) is the Trek on TV when they were a kid. Same as TOS was, same as Tng was (Ds9 overlapped both, so that and it’s different approach kind of discount this influence. ENT kids are a rare beast and are presumably still out drinking and having fun, not settling in for nostalgia viewing runs.)
It’s also the last Trek that is relatively ‘family friendly’ in that ‘I watched this when I was a kid, we can watch it with the little one in the room’ (though like previous Treks there are some episodes you don’t want to watch with a little one in the room...) which is something that simply won’t happen with DSC. Firstly, it’s unlikely any little ones will grow up with it as ‘their’ Trek. TV barely works the way it did, and DSC is too ‘adult’ and tucked away on a streaming service. You aren’t gonna channel surf onto an episode and end up watching it. Even Farscape and B5 have both been edited and stuck on TV in breakfast slots here...they will pick up more young fans or returning viewers than DSC ever will.
But that just makes me echo what others are saying...there’s nothing I want to commit a three hour chunk of my time to watching in DSC to go back for a rewatch of individual segments of the story. I am actually more likely to use that chunk for the end of DS9 (the only bit where really you have to watch a chunk at once to get a satisfying beginning middle and end...everything else you can take pretty episodically.) as I simply like those people more. Viewing habits, and return viewing habits have changed (I own this box set and therefore watching it represents a return on investment, or an intent, vs I subscribe to this streaming service and it’s on there....but so is everything else.) while season one of tng might be something we got free when we paid for the later better episode we wanted, DSC is something we get with every series of Trek, plus some other stuff we might like. (Its on Netflix here. I am currently more likely to watch Top Gear on it than DSC. Plus I like watching VOY on there because waggling my fingers behind my iPad while watching TV from my teenage years gives me a real sense of living in a technologically wonderous world.)
There’s a NuBSG Blu Ray set opposite me. It was a Christmas present to my wife over a year ago. It’s still in the shrink wrap, and we keep talking about a rewatch and never do. Because it’s a time commitment we can’t make, if we want to see it through. DSC May one day be like that, but I can’t imagine even buying the box set for it at this point. It feels unlikely to feel as special (disclaimer, or justifier, I also don’t own TOS, EnT or the JJ films on physical media. Oh..got a free DVD or Beyond with a digital purchase to see it actually. Which is good. I actually like Beyond.)
The best DSC can hope for in its current set up, is DS9 status in the wider world.
Netflix looked at data from over 100 million subscribers, in 190 different countries, to see which episodes of “Star Trek” were the most popular.
The streaming site has all six iterations of the “Star Trek” series...
1) 'Endgame: Parts 1 & 2', Voyager
2) 'The Best of Both Worlds: Part 1', The Next Generation
3) 'The Best of Both Worlds: Part 2', The Next Generation
4) 'Scorpion: Part 1', Voyager
5) 'Scorpion: Part 2', Voyager
6) 'The Gift', Voyager
7) 'Dark Frontier: Parts 1 & 2', Voyager
8) 'Q Who?', The Next Generation
9) 'Time and Again', Voyager
10) 'Clues', The Next Generation
The streaming site has all six iterations of the “Star Trek” series...
1) 'Endgame: Parts 1 & 2', Voyager
2) 'The Best of Both Worlds: Part 1', The Next Generation
3) 'The Best of Both Worlds: Part 2', The Next Generation
4) 'Scorpion: Part 1', Voyager
5) 'Scorpion: Part 2', Voyager
6) 'The Gift', Voyager
7) 'Dark Frontier: Parts 1 & 2', Voyager
8) 'Q Who?', The Next Generation
9) 'Time and Again', Voyager
10) 'Clues', The Next Generation
Which establishes people really like the Borg, and the two episodes that don’t have the Borg are VOY and TNG...which means among the demographic most likely to have Netflix and use it, these are most popular Trek series.
Maybe in a year or two we will get that post Nemesis series, featuring the Borg, launched by cameos by Pat and Jeri.
Criticism of character growth in VOY always has three rebuttals, Tom, The Doctor, Bells. An extra for Seven, but she’s a mid game substitution whose whole purpose is character development.
The best response to this is usually Harry Kim and Chakotay. But I think VOY has more character growth than people commonly suspect.
Maybe someone can dig up VHS sales figures. I think overall though, it’s very fragmented...all Treks up to ENT were given the same level of TV exposure here in the nineties, which makes them have a different appreciation among the non-fan public to what they get in the US for example. ENT had its first terrestrial showings on a different channel in a different time slot to the others, and I know for fact in my case they affected whether I could be bothered with it. (Technically, it was in pretty close to the old Lost In Space and Land Of The Giants reruns timeslot, and in terms of its spacing has more in common with say Seaquest DSV than Trek over here. Make of that what you will. It’s first run showings over here, on SKY, were in the usual Trek slot, usually part of the two hour block of genre shows that had included things like The X Files, but also the dearly departed one-hit wonders like Nowhere Man, Vr5, etc. I think Highlander May have been in the same program block at one point, but that was before I had Sky, and I suspect it was more likely the later in the week slot that La Femme Nikita inhabited...both of which end up in ungodly hours on Terrestial TV, along with War of the Worlds and Baywatch reruns by the late nineties.)
I actually suspect more of the general populace in the EU, particularly the UK and Germany, have a simple love for Trek, especially modern Trek, than you get in the US. You guys seem to really hate some of it. Even ENT here suffered at worst ambivalence.
What was the actual statistic? I thought Netflix never released figures.
I have noticed Voyager is frequently in the 'trending on Netflix' list in the app, but what that's actually based on (and whether it would show the same to someone who didn't watch loads of SF/F) I don't know.
People's tastes really baffle me sometimes.
That really does shock me. Voyager was the only Trek to disappoint me regularly. Loved the premise. Cast was good. Just never did execute that well IMO. Trapped in Delta Quadrant trying to get home was a great idea but endless supplies of everything to include weapons and making super advanced shuttles kinda negated most of the drama for me.
I tend to agree. However, my entirely anecdotal experience is that Voyager is, in the UK, the most popular of the modern series, or at least the most popular post TNG. People who aren't Trekkies tend to be most familiar with it, or remember watching it the most. I can't remember now how Voyager originally aired, but I think it was probably on terrestrial in first run which ENT wasnt, so that's one advantage. But why it is so much better known than DS9 I don't know. Maybe serialisation is part of that.
Speaking personally, If I own something on DVD and it's on Netflix, I'll choose Netflix every time. Part of that is that I don't own a TV and do all of my media watching on computer, and it's become very tricky watching some DVDs on computers due to anti-piracy protections. But even discounting that, DVDs have the long loading time and menus to go through, while Neflix is zippy as hell, provided you have good bandwidth.
Tom Paris had a legit character arc over the series, from bad boy to family man. You absolutely have a point there.
Everyone else though? No, no no. They had good episodes, which simply weren't followed up on.
A great example of this is Torres. Barge of the Dead was a fantastic episode, at the end of which we were meant to presume that she had "found religion." Yet in the next season, in Prophecy, when she comes face to face with real Klingons practicing their religion, she's a skeptic once again.
The Doctor and Seven were two of my favorite characters. However, they didn't show "growth" even if they had development. The Doctor would have random "setbacks" where he would behave more like a hologram (and less like a person) or where people (particularly Janeway) would start treating him like an object again if needed by the plot of the week. With Seven, they pushed forward rather quickly with humanizing her initially, then they dialed it back until almost the end of the show, because they realized that if her character was allowed to fully develop, they had no further ideas what to do with her.
Personally, my experience with each of the shows:
TOS: would watch reruns when it was paired with new TNG on Saturday nights around 91-92. Then weeknight reruns when they aired at 7pm in the 90s. Now, I pick a random episode once in a while. Probably first or second choice for a random episode watch.
TAS: random episodes. I recently went through to see which episodes I wasn't sure I'd seen to make sure I had completed the series. Probably my third or fourth choice for a random episode watch. It's short and TOS-light, but not quite as good as the other shows.
TNG: started watching in late 4th season as it aired, then rewatched on weeknight reruns at 7pm in the 90s when TOS reruns weren't airing. Now, I pick a random episode. Probably my first or second choice for a random episode watch.
DS9: I watched each episode as it aired from start to finish. I did another rewatch from 2009-2012 when Netflix only had it as a disc option and not streaming. Now, I pick a random episode to stream on Netflix. My favorite series, but probably third or fourth choice for a random episode watch, mostly because I have to think harder about choosing something that's stand-alone.
VOY: I watched the first five seasons as they aired and stopped when I went to college, then I watched the finale. The only series I haven't finished, I've been tempted to give it a rewatch, but have only watched random episodes...very rarely.
ENT: I watched the first few episodes of season one as they aired. Then I watched the first few episodes of season two as they aired, then the finale as it aired. I did a full rewatch in 2013, then curated a rewatch for my girlfriend in 2015, who's much more into DS9/TOS/TNG, in that order (particularly stories involving Kira, Vulcans, or Romulans). Though I like the series okay, I don't tend to pick ENT episodes for rewatch.
Movies: I've seen every movie since Generations in the theater, and tend to pick the TOS movies for rewatch more often. I've only seen Into Darkness and Beyond once each, but the others several times. I'm waiting for the Kelvin movies to end before buying a box set on Blu Ray or whatever format I have by then (maybe 4K?)
DSC: I've watched each episode at least twice, usually the same week as they're released. I think I'd be inclined to pick "Lethe" and "Magic to Make the Sanest..." for rewatch, as those seem the most stand-alone. But I've been thinking of having people over for a binge, and would likely exclude the more stand-alone episodes so as not to keep them there too long.
TOS: would watch reruns when it was paired with new TNG on Saturday nights around 91-92. Then weeknight reruns when they aired at 7pm in the 90s. Now, I pick a random episode once in a while. Probably first or second choice for a random episode watch.
TAS: random episodes. I recently went through to see which episodes I wasn't sure I'd seen to make sure I had completed the series. Probably my third or fourth choice for a random episode watch. It's short and TOS-light, but not quite as good as the other shows.
TNG: started watching in late 4th season as it aired, then rewatched on weeknight reruns at 7pm in the 90s when TOS reruns weren't airing. Now, I pick a random episode. Probably my first or second choice for a random episode watch.
DS9: I watched each episode as it aired from start to finish. I did another rewatch from 2009-2012 when Netflix only had it as a disc option and not streaming. Now, I pick a random episode to stream on Netflix. My favorite series, but probably third or fourth choice for a random episode watch, mostly because I have to think harder about choosing something that's stand-alone.
VOY: I watched the first five seasons as they aired and stopped when I went to college, then I watched the finale. The only series I haven't finished, I've been tempted to give it a rewatch, but have only watched random episodes...very rarely.
ENT: I watched the first few episodes of season one as they aired. Then I watched the first few episodes of season two as they aired, then the finale as it aired. I did a full rewatch in 2013, then curated a rewatch for my girlfriend in 2015, who's much more into DS9/TOS/TNG, in that order (particularly stories involving Kira, Vulcans, or Romulans). Though I like the series okay, I don't tend to pick ENT episodes for rewatch.
Movies: I've seen every movie since Generations in the theater, and tend to pick the TOS movies for rewatch more often. I've only seen Into Darkness and Beyond once each, but the others several times. I'm waiting for the Kelvin movies to end before buying a box set on Blu Ray or whatever format I have by then (maybe 4K?)
DSC: I've watched each episode at least twice, usually the same week as they're released. I think I'd be inclined to pick "Lethe" and "Magic to Make the Sanest..." for rewatch, as those seem the most stand-alone. But I've been thinking of having people over for a binge, and would likely exclude the more stand-alone episodes so as not to keep them there too long.
Ah, now this is a walk down memory lane... accompany the rewatch question with personal experiences of what, when, and how we originally watched! I'll play...
I was too young to have caught TOS or TAS on their original runs. I discovered Star Trek in after-school syndication sometime in 3rd or 4th grade. It stood out from the other options (mostly PBS kids' shows and '60s sitcoms), and I instantly became a fan. I remember the first episode I ever saw was "Catspaw."
The movies: I've seen every one on its original theatrical release. I was still in grade school when TMP came out; high school for TWOK and TSFS; college for TVH and TFF; and law school for TUC. (During my middle school and high school years I was also a regular at the local library, and devoured the James Blish TAS adaptations, Bjo Trimble's ST Concordance, and any other Trek-related reading I could get my hands on.) As the TNG films came out, I was gradually more disappointed with each. I remember going to see ST09 with friends in a state of excitement about seeing a fresh new take, and walking out in a state of shock and disappointment.
TNG I watched from day one. It was one of the very few TV series I followed in college (when you're a student you have better things to do). I wasn't alone in this; there was usually a big gathering in the dorm's TV room. Later, in law school, I had a couple of classmates who were also fans, and we used to gather at one of their homes each week to catch the new episode. (It was during those same years that I started accumulating the Trek novels from Pocket, courtesy of a local used bookstore that had a huge collection of them.)
DS9 I also watched from the beginning. I was out of school by then. I kept with it until the late '90s, around the end of S5, a period when I (mostly) gave up on TV in general for a little while.
VOY I also watched from the beginning, but never enjoyed, and gave up partway through S2, definitely before I stopped with DS9.
ENT I also watched from the beginning, but also gave up partway through S2.
DSC: I've watch each episode as it's come out, the first couple with a friend and then (after he gave up) on my own. I feel like the season as a whole was a very mixed bag; it improved until mid-season, then slipped rapidly downhill again.
And that's my history with Star Trek. Long story short, I think the franchise was pretty great for its first thirty years, and much of that material justifies rewatching... and then took a nosedive, and most of what came after doesn't.
I was too young to have caught TOS or TAS on their original runs. I discovered Star Trek in after-school syndication sometime in 3rd or 4th grade. It stood out from the other options (mostly PBS kids' shows and '60s sitcoms), and I instantly became a fan. I remember the first episode I ever saw was "Catspaw."
Rewatch: I've watched every episode countless times over the years. I bought the DVD box sets that were released in 2004 (the ones in the plastic boxes, pre-remaster), and did a methodical production-order rewatch with my then-girlfriend. We did the same with TAS when it was released in 2006—my first chance actually to see those episodes, rather than just read about them. (We did the same sort of thing with box sets of Babylon 5, and Buffy, and The Wire and lots of other shows... not just Trek nor just SF.)
The movies: I've seen every one on its original theatrical release. I was still in grade school when TMP came out; high school for TWOK and TSFS; college for TVH and TFF; and law school for TUC. (During my middle school and high school years I was also a regular at the local library, and devoured the James Blish TAS adaptations, Bjo Trimble's ST Concordance, and any other Trek-related reading I could get my hands on.) As the TNG films came out, I was gradually more disappointed with each. I remember going to see ST09 with friends in a state of excitement about seeing a fresh new take, and walking out in a state of shock and disappointment.
Rewatch: I have the box set of the special editions of the six original-crew films, and I'll pull one out to watch with friends (or occasionally solo) on occasion. I don't own any of the movies after those, nor have any desire to.
TNG I watched from day one. It was one of the very few TV series I followed in college (when you're a student you have better things to do). I wasn't alone in this; there was usually a big gathering in the dorm's TV room. Later, in law school, I had a couple of classmates who were also fans, and we used to gather at one of their homes each week to catch the new episode. (It was during those same years that I started accumulating the Trek novels from Pocket, courtesy of a local used bookstore that had a huge collection of them.)
Rewatch: I don't own TNG on DVD, nor any later series. I've never done a methodical rewatch. I'll occasionally go back and stream a particular episode on a whim (I just recently did that with "Yesterday's Enterprise," for instance), but I find that most of them don't hold up to that very well... the bad acting (especially Frakes) and mediocre writing (Piller-filler and technobabble) test my patience.
DS9 I also watched from the beginning. I was out of school by then. I kept with it until the late '90s, around the end of S5, a period when I (mostly) gave up on TV in general for a little while.
Rewatch: I've gone back to catch most of what I missed, notably including the final stages of the Dominion War. I feel like the show would reward a methodical rewatch, but I've never yet taken the time to do one.
VOY I also watched from the beginning, but never enjoyed, and gave up partway through S2, definitely before I stopped with DS9.
Rewatch: you must be kidding. How much would you pay me?
(Note: a later girlfriend was a huge fan of VOY, apparently because it's the first Trek show she discovered when she was a school-age kid. In particular she adored the Doctor — who really should have been given an actual name, if only to avoid confusion with a much more famous character who goes by the same sobriquet — and I agree he was one of the show's few highlights, but even so, we never attempted a rewatch.)
(Note: a later girlfriend was a huge fan of VOY, apparently because it's the first Trek show she discovered when she was a school-age kid. In particular she adored the Doctor — who really should have been given an actual name, if only to avoid confusion with a much more famous character who goes by the same sobriquet — and I agree he was one of the show's few highlights, but even so, we never attempted a rewatch.)
ENT I also watched from the beginning, but also gave up partway through S2.
Rewatch (after a fashion): years later (I don't recall exactly when), I heard through the grapevine that S4 had a different set of writers and was actually good, and discovered that to be true when I caught up with it via Netflix.
DSC: I've watch each episode as it's come out, the first couple with a friend and then (after he gave up) on my own. I feel like the season as a whole was a very mixed bag; it improved until mid-season, then slipped rapidly downhill again.
I've only watched each episode once. Even if future seasons show improvement, I can't imagine wanting to rewatch this one.
And that's my history with Star Trek. Long story short, I think the franchise was pretty great for its first thirty years, and much of that material justifies rewatching... and then took a nosedive, and most of what came after doesn't.
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It was in the Sky Saturday 8pm slot, which it shared with every other Trek, alternating VOY and Ds9 series by series, then when it went full terrestial it went to the Wednesday evening 6.35pm BBC 2 slot (turn over from neighbours and ignore the news if you are a teen) which had belonged to Trek since the late eighties...TNG series 1-3 then TOS reruns when Sky got the first run license for TNG (best of both worlds had a cliffhanger that lasted bloodyyears if you didn’t have sky) but SKY and BBC worked something out by the time DS9 came along. There was some kind of bidding war for ENT on terrestial, and it ended up in a block with Roswell and Smallville over on Channel 4 at about eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning. Which helped kill it.
SKY and the Beeb both treated everything up to then as prestige...several UK newspapers were basically big supporters (The Sun in particular got behind Generations and First Contact with promotions...may have been the mirror. I will have to check my Ltd edition First Contact phone card collection I diligently saved tokens for, or the Jonathan Ross fronted making of Videos fro generations and First Contact.) When TNG ended it’s run, weetabix were doing trading cards and Star Trek Fact Files were launched at newsagents everywhere. There was a bloke used to sell TNG playmates figures from a stand at Old Street tube station even. The queue for the science museum exhibition in about 95 was the longest I ever stood in, but I sadly missed it when the reconstructed the enterprise d ridge for Star Trek in Hyde Park.
Voyager was everywhere coming up to its premier, and it was a three hour event Tv on Sky One with the Robert Picardo making of followed by Caretaker (I have it all on VHS still, adverts and everything.)
That’s how big Trek was in the nineties in Britain. Not quite beatles big, but the TNG crew did manage to fill the Albert Hall. We had a theme pub that turned up on the news every time a new film came out, and QVC did a two hour block of Trek items on the last Sunday of every month, with plenty of talk about the series too.
It was a glorious time before ENT killed it. But everyone seemed to like Voyager.
It shouldn't. Seven of Nine is kind of hot.
TOS - At 38, I'm just barely old enough that I remember seeing some TOS episodes in syndication before TNG came on. I'm not sure I ever saw all of them until I re-watched the series a few years back.
TAS - I don't think it was regularly syndicated in my youth, but I definitely caught The Counter-Clock Incident, and perhaps a few others, as a child.
TNG - I remember sitting down to watch Encounter at Farpoint with my family. Both my parents were Trekies, so it became something of a family event in my youth tuning in every week, though by the last season my interest was waning.
DS9 - I watched it religiously in the earlier years. But as HS dragged on, and then college came, I was less interested in setting my schedule around watching TV, even for series I loved. I would occasionally catch episodes from the final seasons, and be very confused because of how much of the serialized plot I missed. I rewatched all of it on DVD via "old Neflix" around 2010 or so, rewatching it again in streaming form more recently.
VOY - I watched a bit of the first few seasons when they came out, but I lost interest, except that it became a joke between myself and my geek friends how bad some of the episodes were. I don't think I watched any of the post-Seven series until recently.
ENT - Aside from watching the pilot I missed this entirely when it was out. I stopped owning a TV at around age 20, and didn't really consume any visual media until I started renting DVDs and watching them on my computer when I was in my mid to late 20s.
DIS - Caught all of it on CBS All Access.
Movies - The earliest I remember seeing in the theater was STV. I may have seen STIV in the theater, but if so I have since forgotten. Still, I had seen all the earlier moves on TV by that point. I saw every following Trek movie in the theater, except for Star Trek Beyond, as my son was in cancer treatment at the time (he's fine now).
TAS - I don't think it was regularly syndicated in my youth, but I definitely caught The Counter-Clock Incident, and perhaps a few others, as a child.
TNG - I remember sitting down to watch Encounter at Farpoint with my family. Both my parents were Trekies, so it became something of a family event in my youth tuning in every week, though by the last season my interest was waning.
DS9 - I watched it religiously in the earlier years. But as HS dragged on, and then college came, I was less interested in setting my schedule around watching TV, even for series I loved. I would occasionally catch episodes from the final seasons, and be very confused because of how much of the serialized plot I missed. I rewatched all of it on DVD via "old Neflix" around 2010 or so, rewatching it again in streaming form more recently.
VOY - I watched a bit of the first few seasons when they came out, but I lost interest, except that it became a joke between myself and my geek friends how bad some of the episodes were. I don't think I watched any of the post-Seven series until recently.
ENT - Aside from watching the pilot I missed this entirely when it was out. I stopped owning a TV at around age 20, and didn't really consume any visual media until I started renting DVDs and watching them on my computer when I was in my mid to late 20s.
DIS - Caught all of it on CBS All Access.
Movies - The earliest I remember seeing in the theater was STV. I may have seen STIV in the theater, but if so I have since forgotten. Still, I had seen all the earlier moves on TV by that point. I saw every following Trek movie in the theater, except for Star Trek Beyond, as my son was in cancer treatment at the time (he's fine now).
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It’s like we are brothers. XD
I can google and get way better. I wasn't a fan of T & A just for the sake of it.Did not like sexed up T'Pol either. They should have left 7 looking pasty and drone like for at least half a season. But they wanted quick ratings.
Hmmm. Looks like you can't go wrong with the Borg...
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