I guess I'm in again
Aug. 25th, 2020 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseImmediately on the end of Discovery S2, I said I wasn't interested in watching the next season until the whole thing had aired. I didn't want the slow-motion disaster again, the feeling of watching something I love slowly, agonizingly fall apart.
After watching only about the first third of the Picard series, I felt even more certain about that decision. That show was... very much not what I wanted. Which is not surprising since even when it was announced my reaction was "Thanks, but I really don't want more TNG, and I get plenty of old white men's opinions and stories in my government." I didn't much care about any of the characters except Laris and Hugh (okay, and also the unnamed mohawk-Romulan security guard in the second episode, who I... for some reason developed a deep and strong attachment to the minute he showed up, and then felt pissed off when Boring Romulan Who Looked Exactly Like Ethan Peck Spock turned out to be the focus instead, and only my beloved writing partner understands exactly how on-brand it is of me to immediately be like "Yes, that random background character, he is the one for me!").
Anyway. Other than that, I didn't give a crap. I watched the heist episode with Seven of Nine and then said "Y'know what? Fuck this nonsense."
So after all that, I was very ready to ignore the shit out of Discovery until it had finished a season and I could, like, hear what they were doing and decide if I was interested.
But then the premiere date for the season was announced. And it is my birthday. My late-thirties-this-pandemic-year-has-sucked-and-I-have-no-life-because-baby birthday.
Now, I already feel like I'm being cheated on my birthdays, because the theatrical release of Hamilton was supposed to happen on my birthday next year, and I was really excited about that, particularly about the idea that we could leave the baby with his grandparents and get dressed up and have a date night and go to a "Broadway show" at the local independent movie theater. That sounded awesome. But then the pandemic happened and Disney saw a cash grab moment and released the theatrical cut on the streaming service we don't pay for and also the local movie theater will probably be bankrupt by next year and basically fuck everything.
And then my favorite show announces it's coming back on my birthday this year, except my favorite show decided to make a disaster of itself in its last season and I have no idea what kind of shitstorm we're walking into this time. And I was pissed. Like "why not just at me, I came here to have fun and I am feeling so attacked right now" kind of pissed, which is very silly to feel about a tv series, but there we are.
But then... I don't know, I guess the memory of how much I fucking hated S2 has faded, and my indignation about the new Pike series has faded into "oh ffs, whatever, at least they're not all going to be on Discovery anymore," and... the feeling that's left is that feeling of "This is my show and I will love it no matter what" that I started Discovery with. The helpless defensive feeling I had where I clung on to the characters I loved all through that first season even though it seemed like half the world was yelling about how awful everything was. And even though now I'm the one bitching about it and feeling wounded and annoyed... I did say I'd love it no matter what. And last year had that whole firing-producers-because-of-a-toxic-work-environment thing going, so maybe some (most?) of the disastrous writing decisions came out of that?
I liked a grand total of, like, four things about last season. Two of them were left behind at the end of the season and I am not going to be forgiving that any time soon because... one of them involved some pretty poor writing and out-of-character decisions on the part of one of my favorite characters. But Burnham's still there, and so's Stamets, and I hear Reno might be coming back which would be great. And, fuck it, I really need things to look forward to right now, especially in the fall because everything leading up to the election in the US is going to be miserable, and the results might be damned apocalyptic. So I resignedly told The Boy, "I think I'm going to have to watch Discovery as it comes out after all."
"Yeah," he said. "I kind of always assumed that would be the case."
Because he knows me.
After watching only about the first third of the Picard series, I felt even more certain about that decision. That show was... very much not what I wanted. Which is not surprising since even when it was announced my reaction was "Thanks, but I really don't want more TNG, and I get plenty of old white men's opinions and stories in my government." I didn't much care about any of the characters except Laris and Hugh (okay, and also the unnamed mohawk-Romulan security guard in the second episode, who I... for some reason developed a deep and strong attachment to the minute he showed up, and then felt pissed off when Boring Romulan Who Looked Exactly Like Ethan Peck Spock turned out to be the focus instead, and only my beloved writing partner understands exactly how on-brand it is of me to immediately be like "Yes, that random background character, he is the one for me!").
Anyway. Other than that, I didn't give a crap. I watched the heist episode with Seven of Nine and then said "Y'know what? Fuck this nonsense."
So after all that, I was very ready to ignore the shit out of Discovery until it had finished a season and I could, like, hear what they were doing and decide if I was interested.
But then the premiere date for the season was announced. And it is my birthday. My late-thirties-this-pandemic-year-has-sucked-and-I-have-no-life-because-baby birthday.
Now, I already feel like I'm being cheated on my birthdays, because the theatrical release of Hamilton was supposed to happen on my birthday next year, and I was really excited about that, particularly about the idea that we could leave the baby with his grandparents and get dressed up and have a date night and go to a "Broadway show" at the local independent movie theater. That sounded awesome. But then the pandemic happened and Disney saw a cash grab moment and released the theatrical cut on the streaming service we don't pay for and also the local movie theater will probably be bankrupt by next year and basically fuck everything.
And then my favorite show announces it's coming back on my birthday this year, except my favorite show decided to make a disaster of itself in its last season and I have no idea what kind of shitstorm we're walking into this time. And I was pissed. Like "why not just at me, I came here to have fun and I am feeling so attacked right now" kind of pissed, which is very silly to feel about a tv series, but there we are.
But then... I don't know, I guess the memory of how much I fucking hated S2 has faded, and my indignation about the new Pike series has faded into "oh ffs, whatever, at least they're not all going to be on Discovery anymore," and... the feeling that's left is that feeling of "This is my show and I will love it no matter what" that I started Discovery with. The helpless defensive feeling I had where I clung on to the characters I loved all through that first season even though it seemed like half the world was yelling about how awful everything was. And even though now I'm the one bitching about it and feeling wounded and annoyed... I did say I'd love it no matter what. And last year had that whole firing-producers-because-of-a-toxic-work-environment thing going, so maybe some (most?) of the disastrous writing decisions came out of that?
I liked a grand total of, like, four things about last season. Two of them were left behind at the end of the season and I am not going to be forgiving that any time soon because... one of them involved some pretty poor writing and out-of-character decisions on the part of one of my favorite characters. But Burnham's still there, and so's Stamets, and I hear Reno might be coming back which would be great. And, fuck it, I really need things to look forward to right now, especially in the fall because everything leading up to the election in the US is going to be miserable, and the results might be damned apocalyptic. So I resignedly told The Boy, "I think I'm going to have to watch Discovery as it comes out after all."
"Yeah," he said. "I kind of always assumed that would be the case."
Because he knows me.
