End of another Cycle
They finished repeating Star Trek: Next Generation on ELEVEN tonight.
Just now, after that, they're also showing a "wrap-up" special hosted by Jonathon Frakes that would have been current when the show ended - it proudly announces a new show called "Voyager, due to start airing in January 1995! This is great because I don't recall seeing this the first time around. Like everybody else I've been watching Trek since about 1967. I used to be a life member of Westrek, a fan club which at its height was 300+ members strong and had monthly showings of old episodes (they used to hire out a large hall). When I left Perth for good it was reassuring to find in Newcastle an equivalent called Novatrek, smaller in size but very much the same in spirit.
Like Dr Who there's something about watching Trek episodes "live" for me, even if I record them and watch them later. I guess because Trek has always been produced for commercial channels, the advert breaks have also been a part of the stories, with the action or plot reaching a crest just before the ads. I've watched all the Trek TV shows, and these were of course repeats since there's no current show on air right now. But Next Gen is a but different. When the TEN Network first showed repeats of NextGen I have a video recorder and was taking the episodes. Then in 2001 the World Trade Center got attacked. In the morning I fast forwarded through the tape looking for Trek, but amazed at the "special effects" for the episode of The West Wing that'd been on before it! Took a little while before the penny dropped on that.
But then Next Gen went off free-to-air entirely (it and the other Trek series went to pay TV). I'd been left hanging at Time Squared and it wasn't until the other year that the network started showing it again - this time on a digital channel ELEVEN. I decided to skip all the episodes until the one after that, The Icarus Factor. Over that period they started showing double episodes and then triple episodes and it became a pattern for me to record all three and watch them as I drew webcomics in the lounge room. Better to watch something one knows than new material. Doing that I discovered that Next Generation held up well over time. It was the last Trek series that Gene Roddenberry worked on and in many ways more fully realized his vision than the original series.
While NextGen's been repeated, the Ten network also abortively tried showing Deep Space Nine and sometimes Old Trek, but neither stuck. Voyager is currently being repeated in triple episodes on Saturday nights, but somehow it's a series best recorded and watched on my bedroom TV. I don't know what they intend to show next Thuesday night in the timeslot (DS9 would be nice) but somehow I feel like this cycle is now complete. It's a good feeling.
Just now, after that, they're also showing a "wrap-up" special hosted by Jonathon Frakes that would have been current when the show ended - it proudly announces a new show called "Voyager, due to start airing in January 1995! This is great because I don't recall seeing this the first time around. Like everybody else I've been watching Trek since about 1967. I used to be a life member of Westrek, a fan club which at its height was 300+ members strong and had monthly showings of old episodes (they used to hire out a large hall). When I left Perth for good it was reassuring to find in Newcastle an equivalent called Novatrek, smaller in size but very much the same in spirit.
Like Dr Who there's something about watching Trek episodes "live" for me, even if I record them and watch them later. I guess because Trek has always been produced for commercial channels, the advert breaks have also been a part of the stories, with the action or plot reaching a crest just before the ads. I've watched all the Trek TV shows, and these were of course repeats since there's no current show on air right now. But Next Gen is a but different. When the TEN Network first showed repeats of NextGen I have a video recorder and was taking the episodes. Then in 2001 the World Trade Center got attacked. In the morning I fast forwarded through the tape looking for Trek, but amazed at the "special effects" for the episode of The West Wing that'd been on before it! Took a little while before the penny dropped on that.
But then Next Gen went off free-to-air entirely (it and the other Trek series went to pay TV). I'd been left hanging at Time Squared and it wasn't until the other year that the network started showing it again - this time on a digital channel ELEVEN. I decided to skip all the episodes until the one after that, The Icarus Factor. Over that period they started showing double episodes and then triple episodes and it became a pattern for me to record all three and watch them as I drew webcomics in the lounge room. Better to watch something one knows than new material. Doing that I discovered that Next Generation held up well over time. It was the last Trek series that Gene Roddenberry worked on and in many ways more fully realized his vision than the original series.
While NextGen's been repeated, the Ten network also abortively tried showing Deep Space Nine and sometimes Old Trek, but neither stuck. Voyager is currently being repeated in triple episodes on Saturday nights, but somehow it's a series best recorded and watched on my bedroom TV. I don't know what they intend to show next Thuesday night in the timeslot (DS9 would be nice) but somehow I feel like this cycle is now complete. It's a good feeling.