As promised, full write up or the epicness that was finishing the eight-part series conclusion in one emotionally draining afternoon.
We've been watching this show as a family for upwards of six months. Six months, people. I'm not sure whether that seems like a forever's worth of the same thing every night, or a fantastically short amount of time to have sped through seven seasons. Back when seasons were more than six or twelve episodes long.
As difficult as it is to admit, I'm a trekkie. Can't get away from it, and this? This is the one that really did it. You don't exactly have to be die-hard to get into Enterprise (I mean, really people. Trip Tucker?), which is the first series we watched, then there was a brief stint with Voyager (we found it, well, annoying), and there have been others over the years, but this one is the one I've really fallen in love with.
It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, though.
There's the acting, which, compared to a lot of other Star Trek stuff I've seen, is really, actually, good. It's really good. And really good acting goes far with me.
The writing is top-notch too, which is a huge contributor. There were a couple of really clever decisions made early on that allowed it to stay really good for really long. I mean, Enterprise got rubbish around season three. DS9 made it seven seasons and held my attention to the end.
There were several major story arcs, and countless minor ones, that were developed by turns throughout the series; all of which were cleverly woven together near the very end, so that everything terminated satisfactorily at the same time.
A similar trick was used with the characters: there is no one protagonist. Seriously, you could chase yourself around in circles for hours saying, "It's him! No, it's her! No, it's got to be him." And that's the thing, it's all of them. There were eight or nine "protagonists," all equally well-developed, all equally well-rounded.
Setting the series on a space station rather than a starship did wonders for the character development. Allowing the characters to be more stationary, keeping them in one place, together, for an extended period of time, living something vaguely like "normal" life gave opportunity to make the characters deeper and more complex. We really watched each individual, and all of their relationships, change and develop naturally over time.
So with a variety of plot-lines and characters to choose from, a great setting play them in, and the endless adaptability and repeatability of the science-fiction genre, it really could've gone on forever; which made it all the more admirable that they ended it when they did. To stop something at a show at the right time, even when you could've milked another couple seasons out out of it at least, is one of the most honorable things a series can do in my book. Second, maybe, to killing the main character.
DS9 also had one of the single-best (perhaps the very best) instances of an unresolved-sexual-tension, will-they-or-won't-they relationship of ALL time. If it's second to any at all, it would be Mulder and Scully on the X-Files. The recipe is simple: set up the perfect couple, get viewers emotionally invested, cruelly wrench viewer's heart out at every given opportunity, repeat as necessary. Such a plot device is sure to keep viewers (especially female viewers, especially female viewers within a certain age bracket) coming back for more no matter how awful the show is, or what other junk the writers try to shove at you. I mean, seriously, I don't think I ever had any other reason for reading Nancy Drew books than to see if Ned was ever going to break down and propose. How much more so when the rest of the show is actually really good.
Meet Doctor Bashir and Lieutenant (I think?) Jadzia (at least, at first) Dax. The relationship is introduced in, literally, the very first episode of the very first season. We, or at least I, fall in love with the couple from square one. We watch each character grow and develop; watch them fall more and more in love with each other, fume as other; one-episode love interests crop up for one or the other of them. Standard stuff? Well, at first. Then they marry the girl off to another guy, and then they kill her off, and they still managed to get themselves out of it in time for a declaration and a kiss in the turbo-lift on the second-to-last episode of the seventh season. Talk about dragging it out!
So needless to say I have enjoyed this series immensely, and then today we had to go and finish it. The conclusion came in eight parts, the last of which was a two-hour special, so it took essentially the entire day, but we managed it. I'm wishing now we hadn't. It was sort of that Day-after-Christmas let-down, or turning the last page of a really great book. Cool, but slightly depressing.
.....so we turned around and watched the first episode of Stargate: SG1................
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