What I like watching

I thought since things were early on with this blog, I'd do a series of posts on the sort of stuff I enjoy. At the moment I can think of four or five posts to go into the series, but who knows where it will end. I'm going to start here by talking about what I enjoy watching - the sort of films and tv I would choose.

Probably the majority of what I'm interested in fits into the category referred variously as 'genre', 'nerd culture' or 'sci-fi & fantasy'. When you start talking about this, there's one big dividing line that has to be discussed - Star Wars or Star Trek? To which I say meh. I like some bits of both, dislike others. My first serious experience of reading was in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (more on that later), but the last real Star Wars media I absorbed was probably Episode III. I am annoyed at the direction the prequels took for telling that core story, and wish that Lucas had been in a position to allow himself to be critcally edited, but there are things to enjoy in all three, and walked out of them all very entertained. (I need to rewatch Phantom Menace at some point to see how it's matured) I was born came into it the franchise late enough to realise that there are significant problems with parts of the original trilogy.

I like the rare bits of Next Generation, have only seen a few episodes of the original series. I liked the concept of Voyager, but hated the execution and missed opportunity of it, and eventually burnt out on it when the Borg became a regular and not fear inducing opponent. I left Enterprise by the end of the first series, having realised that it had become 'what reason can we find to get the hot Vulcan lady in the decontamination shower this week?' show. I've seen all ten* of the trek movies, but liked maybe four of them. The one shining jewel in the pantheon is DS9 - a show that cared about continuity, plot and character development.

DS9 is in fact an excellent example of of the sort of tv series that I prefer. A show that rewards you for sticking with them, which sees people act as actual people by learning and growing from it. A show with an epic scale, where actions have consequences beyond the 43 minutes. It'll not surprise you given the above that the series of the nineties I really enjoyed was Babylon 5. This is a show with a well built, well planned but flexible framework for it's entire life. Sure, some of the acting was a bit ropes, and I expect that if I were to return I'd find the CGI painful, but the core story that it's based around? Wonderful.

This has expanded a bit more than I expected, so I'll pause it there, and look to continue into the modern period in a future post.


* there are only ten, right? I mean I know there was talk about a fan project to round off the Next Gen crews' story, but I'm sure nothing came of that...