
As you may know, I am a nerd of the Star Trek franchise. I’ve watched every episode of the original series with Captain Kirk, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise at least five times…probably more. I signed up to CBS All Access a few years ago so Natasha and I would be able to watch the newest Star Trek series of Discovery and Picard, and wait on whatever else was to come. It had been our ritual to watch an episode or two of Star Trek every night, almost without fail, knowing what the characters were going to say or do, laughing at horrendous costumes, yelling Klingon Qapla (success!) at the TV, or encouraging a Star Fleet officer to throw the bad guy/woman out of the airlock. That last one never came to fruition .
Then came the pandemic and a realization that working and staying at home for months on end would require change, creativity and living “outside the box” in order to keep our minds engaged in a pattern of “different.” Natasha and I stopped our nightly Star Trek ritual and started watching other shows that were of interest to both our sensibilities.
I know, that’s some sort of blasphemy that I will never admit to a rabid, impassioned, dialogue-quoting super fan at a Star Trek convention. It would be like admitting to Jesus that I don’t remember the day of his birth.
With a little research and wandering around in Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming platforms, we began finding other entertainment. It began with Hell on Wheels, Turn, and Outlander on Netflix, and kept going with Vikings on Hulu and a return to Netflix with The Last Kingdom. For whatever reason, we chose a plethora of historical fiction that included blood and guts, many interpretations of love and a villain so bad that Natasha and I actually yelled “Kill him! Kill him now!” several times at the TV screen. The villain (from Hell on Wheels) was called “the Swede,” and it stuck with us so intently that it is now our moniker for all bad men and women.
It was around November or December that Natasha and I agreed to watch all of the Marvel movies and available TV series in a specific order that would lead us to make sense of the Marvel universe. What ended up making sense to me was that Thor most certainly existed as a Norse god because who could deny his muscly muscles, chiseled features, and flowing golden hair. (Good gawd, I may be old, but I’m not closed-minded or dead yet.)
We have since watched all of the Marvel Universe movies, are currently engaged in four TV series and will move on to the X-Men movies at some point. What comes after may hopefully be spring and summer and longer evenings spent outside with a friend and/or a beer, but that’s for another day.
In the meantime, Natasha and I have discovered an issue with the many shows we’ve watched, as it pertains to retention.
It’s called remembering stuff or the lack of it.
With Star Trek, remembering characters and their names, episode plots, who’s doing what, who’s going to live or die, and the parts we can point a finger at and laugh come easy to us. We’ve been there far too many times, in this universe, their universe and the mirror universe that darkens those characters with beards and Swede-like behavior. We don’t need help here.
With everything else that Natasha and I have been watching, it’s been more difficult to make sense of everything and to remember it from movie to movie, show to show. We come up with questions like, “Who is that person? Did we see her before? What happened to so-and-so? How does this connect with the other movies and shows and characters? What did he say? Where are they now? What’s happening? Where did that thing come from? What is it used for? Why don’t they throw the bad guy out the airlock or off the bridge?”
On and on, it goes. Night after night. Sometimes Google is helpful, sometimes not.
On several occasions, I suggested a large white board on the living room wall, complete with disturbing photos, nonsensical diagrams, newspaper clippings, playing cards, and connecting arrows that remind us of the story line, the characters and how everything is woven into something that requires a photographic memory to keep up with it all. Lacking the sustainable memory in this case, Natasha and I would do better to take turns with a dry erase marker, noting the important pieces of the puzzle on the white board, so that we could revert back to it when questions arose. We could be the nerds of the Marvel Universe and streaming TV shows. We would know everything about everything, recite lines with super power ease, and regurgitate things that make our friends and family wonder if we take showers and leave the house.
Natasha and I mull over the pros of having a white board, but that would never happen. Scribbling on it would take the fun out of watching TV, which is supposed to be entertainment, an escape into whatever makes us happy and willing to come back for more. As part of our TV watching, we want to be relaxed, sitting in our favorite Sheldon spot on the sofa, having a gluten-free snack, making silly or barely appropriate comments, or laughing at the heavy Jamaican and Scottish accents that neither of us understands.
We have a better way to watch, which includes letting go of bits and pieces, a little snark and a habitual practice.
When one of us asks a silly question like, “Why don’t they escape out the back door?” or “How come they never have to reload their weapons?” or “Why is there no blood on the floor after he was shot 20 times?” the other has an answer.
Shut up. Stop asking questions. It’s Star Trek!
In layman’s terms that response means to forget about details or white boards or how we connect characters and plots. This is the TV and movie universe: Imaginary, weird, super-natural, outer-space, and creative license place that belies reality. There are times when we need to know characters and outcome, and other times when we simply need to sit back, relax, eat a pretzel and enjoy whatever shows up on the TV screen without question.
Even when the Swede overextends his stay and Thor ends up with an eye patch and haircut.
Why did they put so many glass coffee tables in the Enterprise? I text questions like that to our daughter all the time.
It’s part of the fun of watching and either knowing if not knowing. You take the experience beyond viewing. You bring it into life. I think it’s a good think that you can chime in with a snarky comment.
I hope spring and summer bring us all closer to normal nights. Until then, snark away 😏
Hmmm…I’ve never contemplated on the glass coffee tables, but now I’ll be noticing every single one. We tend to snark on the horrible pillows they get to sleep on and the “beds” in sick bay that are so small that it’s a wonder why no one has fallen out of them. Someone could break a hip.
Yes, we’ll be snarking away at the TV. It’s what we do, in our blood!
Have a great week, Dan!
There’s also at least one glass floor. Seriously, why did they ever have glass anything. I mean they had transparent aluminum 🤔
Stop asking questions! It’s Star Trek! 😁
You’re right. Sometimes, when I ask my daughter a “why didn’t they just…” question, she responds with “because then the episode would be over.”
True. 😀
Can a person who reads mysteries and watches mysteries not be snarky? Say, it isn’t so. 🙂 Hell on Wheels was a great series, intense, but great.
I don’t think you can read or watch any mystery, Judy, and not be able to “comment” on at least one thing that seems amiss or out of place.
I was going to go back and re-watch HOW, but it’s gone from Netflix and only on services I don’t subscribe to. I hate it when that happens!
Star Trek to me it’s like a warm blanket in a chaotic world. It is safe, it is predictable and it’s fun. I am a child of the 60s so I am one of the original Trekkies, and proud of it. I never got into the Marvel world maybe because I found it so confusing. I don’t want to work at being entertained I just want to be entertained.
You’re right, Pam. Star Trek is all of those things and that’s why we keep watching. It’s easier to follow along when a show has been around on TV and in the movies most of your life.
As for Marvel, this has been the reason why I need a white board. While I’ve enjoyed the movies and various TV series immensely, I have been confused a number of times by characters and pieces of the story’s puzzle. That’s when I have to ask Google the hard questions or let it go and enjoy.
LOL. How dare they question Star Trek? Keep having fun, Mary J. Hugs on the wing.
Oh, there is plenty of fun to be found in television and movies, Teagan. Star Trek simply seems to be our main focus. 🙂 Sending hugs back.
This sounds exactly like me except I have no one else to say things to so end up loudly shoot him or kill him to the screen and then think what do my apartment neighbors think if they hear me? 😳😂 or then there’s the funny lines which I often remember when trying to sleep in the middle of the night and laugh. I know what they’re thinking then😁
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Ha! We are also in an apartment and wonder if the neighbors hear when we’re watching TV. Not too long ago, one of our good neighbors texted Natasha and asked what was going on when the program we were watching had a loud intimate scene. We both laughed and kept the volume under better control going forward. We do have to be careful, but have not stopped yelling at the bad guys.
I also moan at them thinking, why did you go in there alone? A lot of English mysteries always show women walking alone at night.
I love the Star Trek universe. It was one of the shows I always watched with my dad… I think we watched reruns to the point of being able to say all the lines! hehehe!
It’s awesome that Star Trek gave you shared moments with your dad. It’s a show that has been entertaining for over 50 years and still going strong.
I own one DVD. It’s a box set of the original Star Trek.
It’s good to have that and be able to watch whenever the irge arises. I hope you have many years of viewing pleasure!
At our house, when one of us becomes too analytical or persnickety, the other simply reminds, “It’s just a movie. Entertainment.” I know Marvel inside and out because my film industry son worked on many of the installments. But The Avengers, Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy, are like family to us. Still, details often escape me regarding planetary connections and extended family relations. I mean when Thor raises the hammer or Peter Quill smiles and takes off his shirt…well…brain cells become numb. 😉
Lol, you’re not dead either, Cheryl! Marvel has many arms of characters, movies and shows and that’s what makes it difficult to keep up. We’re currently keeping up with Wanda Vision and watching the individual series of the Defenders, which I had no clue existed. It can be so confusing!
Absolutely. I stick with the movie franchise because I can most easily keep up. I get my favorites and tend to want to see those only. The Avengers is my heart. But then I have not (please don’t hit me) seen any Star Trek series outside of the original and all related movies to those characters. I think they did a bang up job with the prequels and younger versions of the original characters. I was so in love with Kirk. In high school I briefly watched some of Next Generation but when Picard left I lost interest. Psst…don’t tell Dan. 😉
No worries, Cheryl. I will not punch you in the arm (or rat to Dan) for not being the complete Star Trek fan. We all have different loves and attractions when it comes to TV, movies, books, art, etc. That is part of who we are in life. 🙂
It’s nice to know someone, especially female, who loves Star Trek as much as I do. I only started watching Thor because the same person who plays Thor plays Kirk’s father in the movie. I’ve watched George Kirk saves his wife and son at least 20 times. As far as retention goes, I have a little trouble with ST Discovery plot and have to google some things, maybe because I don’t watch it every night tending to watch live TV with Trek reruns. Though I got CBS all access just for Picard and Discovery. You are very lucky to live with someone who loves Star Trek. My husband prefers practical videos on youtube. But if we ever have an apocalypse or get stranded on a deserted planet, he’ll come in handy with fixing things.
We had to watch the first season of Discovery twice to make sense of it, but season 2 was better and more enjoyable. I’m looking forward to the Captain Pike series in the works, along with the next seasons of Picard and Discovery. I will always be a Star Trek fan, as I believe you will, JoAnna.
Things move pretty fast in the Discovery universe. Star Trek has been in my life since I was 11 years old. Always will be. Looking forward!
Thor is beautiful. Even straight men must know that.
I’ve been watching MASH for nigh-nigh show the last month or so. It pleases me. Comfort for nigh-nigh. I’ve taken in some movies and documentaries lately, but not really a new entertainment series.
When we watched Game of Thrones, especially after waiting the last year or whatever, I’d be like, “I don’t even know who that is. It’s another dark haired bearded white man in a dimly lit room.” FERREAL.
Lol, I didn’t watch Game of Thrones, but I get it. Completely!
MASH is on regular TV here and once in awhile I catch it, realizing what a great show that was. A classic!
Thor…he really is yummy. Totally anticipating the next movie. Don’t care about the storyline, only about Thor. 😏
I am not sexist, I like Voyager because it was Jane Ray advancing into a world that was impossible. She made the best of a bad situation. I was hooked by the story line. I am not really going to follow something based on identity politics. The new voyager discovery took me about 3 seasons before it felt like Star trek to me. It was as though they were trying to hard.
Voyager was a favorite of mine. I also liked the storyline and characters. I know what you mean about Discovery, although it was only Season 1 that threw me. I loved Season 2 with Captain Pike and I’m anxiously awaiting Star Trek Strange New Worlds when it comes out. I think that will have the Star Trek feel from the get-go, or at least I hope so.
Thanks for the follow!