The Next Generation: All good things

Icelandic television has always bought television shows in sindicate, except just in the last few years with things like 30 Rock and Jay Leno, which only air a day later than they do in the United States. Still, what is missing here is the sort of marketing extravaganza which accompanies television shows in the United States, both to hype new series, to boost ratings for sagging shows (like when ER went live for some episodes), or just to feed on the popularity of a show (often just before it goes into sindicate).

The funny thing is though, that sounds a lot more capitalistic and cynical than it feels in practice. In practice, all of this has a wonderful emotional dimension to it. Television shows are the way that many Americans manage to have small chat with one another over the office water cooler (because we have nothing else in common). Like the equivalent of gossiping about the neighbors, gossiping about Ross and Rachel makes people feel connected.

I have never been a big TV watcher, or a big follower of this or the other show. I did not start watching Seinfeld until season 5 I think, and then came to appreciate it through the re-runs shown in sindicate on all the cable channels. But I do remember being really excited when I heard about Star Trek: The Next Generation. First of all, I thought it was interesting they were going to pick up on a series that was more than 20 years old, usually those sorts of spin offs (like Joani loves Chachi) are done right after the fact. So I was curious (at 14 or whatever I was, always a weird one) how they were going to pull off the segue, whether or not they were going to have it look like the original or what and looked forward to the premier. Though a few Icelanders do seem to be fans of Star Trek, the original series, I am rather sure all the emotion surrounding Gene Roddenberry's vision for the future does not quite carry over here. Plus the show had a militaristic and scientific discovery bent to it, two things that are NOT big in Iceland.  

I however, being rather American, liked the show immediately, though I admit I may have kept watching it because the producers had wisely included young ensign Wesley Crusher for nerdy girls like me; he was quite the cutie.

The first season tried to stick to the formula of the original, a mix of campy humor, girls in tight outfits, and weird aliens. But the show became more intellectual, smarter, more complex, more willing to grapple with tough issues and philosophical musings. I must say watching the show felt like an education.

But at the same time, the producers never lost their understanding of the emotional role they were playing in the lives of their viewers. Star Trek fans are over the top fanatic, they really love the show, love the characters. For some of them, it is their whole life. Even I would make sure to be home when a new episode was about to air.

So when the producers decided, after 7 years, to stop making the weekly shows, I think (and in fact I read an interview with one of the producers to this affect) that they felt a very sincere obligation to "leave" their fans in an appropriate way. Unlike Seinfeld or Friends, the fans of Star Trek wanted an ending that was not just sufficiently quirky or narratively neat, they wanted an ending that was appropriately intellectual.

The final episode was entitled "All Good Things....", thus the viewers had to be savvy enough to know the Shakespearian reference and fill in the rest of the quote. The episode went on from there and did not disappoint for one moment. Three enterprises from three different time periods united the past, present, and future, giving us a chance to say goodbye to old crew members and get a glimpse of what might happen to the crew were their stories to continue. This was emotionally satisfying and narratively interesting. But the producers did not stop there. They knew science fiction fans are also budding physicist and astrologers whose intellectual curiosity tends towards the scientific. And so there was an astrological anomaly threatening to destroy mankind, and Jean-Luc had to fix it (Q helped him by jumping him into different time zones).

Anyhow, that episode was so unbelievably perfect, it stays with me as one of my all time favorite television moments. Here is the last few minutes of the episode.

Unless you've seen the whole thing it might not seem very impressive, but trust me, it was.

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