Hey everyone! Happy Friday! How's your week been? Mine's been pretty quiet actually. Given how insane last weekend was anyway. Today I decided to write about a topic that I've been considering for a while. As a geek in 2021 I'm expected to watch and read every comic book and movie and show in particular franchises in order to keep up and I just can't even with the amount of time that I have on my hands given that I don't have a job and run this blog full time. But it wasn't always like that. Which is what I'd like to talk about today. So let's get into it.
Back in 1991 I was only 4 years old, turning 5 that December. I was going to school at OCTC and I was limited in what I watched to what was on TV, what my parents rented for me from the video store, and what my family bought for me on home video. There was no Netflix, no Disney+ none of that. CDs were just becoming a thing though cassette tapes and vinyl records were still the primary forms of listening to music outside of the radio. The biggest comic book movie to date was Batman (1989) and people were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Tim Burton's second Batman movie, Batman Returns. On the TV side of things the only two super popular comic book shows at the time were The Flash and Superboy. The only geeky franchise I was aware of at the time was Star Trek. I hadn't been introduced to comic books yet, I wouldn't see the Star Wars Trilogy for another five years though I was watching Droids and Ewoks and wouldn't know about superheroes until reruns of Batman started airing on YTV the following year. There were other geeky shows on TV and movies coming out, but I wasn't aware of any of them. I was also 4 years old so I was more focused on cartoons like Ewoks, Care Bears, The Real Ghostbusters, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, and Inspector Gadget as well as kids shows like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Sharon, Lois & Bram's The Elephant Show, and Mr. Dressup among others. Even then, I watched what I wanted to watch and it didn't matter if I watched other shows and movies.
Even people who were between the ages of 13 and 35 (and older but most of my friends are in their thirties now) were limited by what was on TV or what they could rent or buy from the video store and if you missed an episode of a TV show and didn't tape it then you had to wait for the episode to come on again in reruns, or hope it would get released on home video, which most shows didn't have a complete set of home video releases. In fact the only shows I know of that did were Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. At that time anyway as Sailor Moon would have a complete run up to the end of the English dub of Sailor Moon S (season 3) in the mid 2000s. Which also coincided with the show's early DVD releases. But back in 1991, the first two Star Trek shows were the only ones to have full series sets of home video releases, with TNG starting it's VHS run that would last until every episode had been released in 1996. Every other show that had home video releases only had a handful of episodes released, maybe a complete season if we were lucky.
But there was no pressure to watch and read ALL of it. You watched what you had access to and read what you had access to and, especially here in Canada, if you didn't see it on the channels you got on your TV, whether you had cable or not, you didn't even know about it, even when magazines like Wizard, Entertainment Weekly, Nintendo Power, The Official Star Trek Fan Club Magazine (which became Star Trek Communicator), and Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine (which became Star Wars Insider) were the sources of information for many of these shows, movies and games.
Ten years later things had begun to change. DVD and the internet had become a thing as had internet message boards, though social media was still five or six years off. Netflix was around, but it was a DVD rental service back then. Because, let's face it, most of us were still on dial-up in 2001 with so little bandwidth that streaming services would've destroyed the internet if they'd been around 20 years ago. But being this geeky, autistic, physically disabled kid from Canada, I was never on message boards or anything like that until the late 2000s. So my geekdom was limited to my group of friends at school and my family. DVDs of complete seasons of TV shows started coming out around this time, but they were extremely expensive at the time, so I was still limited to what was on TV at the time as TV shows, with the exception of animated shows, weren't being released on VHS anymore.
In terms of where geekdom was at the time, our options were starting to grow. X-Men had been released the year before to critical and financial success and Spider-Man due to be released the following year. While DC Comics lacked representation in movies, it was being represented in various animated shows, and Smallville was about to become a huge hit, particularly among the teen drama crowd who enjoyed shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson's Creek. Unfortunately Marvel wasn't being represented on TV outside of the animated series, X-Men: Evolution and there weren't really any other comic book based TV shows out at that time either though Mutant X was about to debut. Science Fiction was huge with Star Trek ending it's nearly fifteen year streak on TV with Star Trek: Enterprise though other shows like Andromeda and Stargate SG-1 were huge at the time, with others like Lexx and Farscape coming into being. And while comic book based movies were basically limited to the Marvel movies, Star Wars was in fully swing with the prequel trilogy being made and was being hotly debated amongst fans.
But because I was still in my own little bubble, I didn't feel pressured to watch all of it, or really even any of it. I watched Enterprise because I loved Star Trek. I watched the Star Wars movies because I loved Star Wars. I watched Justice League because Batman and Superman were in it. Heck, a few years later I watched Power Rangers Dino Thunder because Jason David Frank was returning to the series as Tommy again and I missed Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, particularly season 1 as I didn't have any of the few VHS releases the original series had, and there were no DVD releases for it or reruns on TV. Though I still had a VHS tape full of six season 1 episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that a former classmate of mine had taped off the TV for me back in 1994, which I watched, with three of the episodes having Tommy in them as the Green Ranger. I watched Sailor Moon and Digimon on YTV because I loved both of those shows. But this was also the period where I was a teenager with hormones and being a geek got in the way of getting a girlfriend, even though I couldn't let go of the shows and movies that I loved.
Fast forward to 2021 and there are three (soon to be four) Star Trek shows on with all three airing throughout the year, dozens of comic book based movies and TV shows from every comic book publisher you could ever think of, each of them being successful to varying degrees. Science Fiction is steady in both movies and TV shows, though the genre is much stronger on TV than in movies. We have dozens of streaming services each with their own brand of original programming. Anime is huge and not as underground as it used to be, thanks to the efforts of Studio Ghibli and franchises like Sailor Moon and Pokemon continuing to entice fans to this day. Social media and YouTube keep fandoms alive and connected to the creators of our favourite shows, movies, comics, novels, and video games. And in the last ten years there's been this growing belief that being a geek means you have to watch and read EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA BEING RELEASED!!!! And so it's become a huge pressure.
Because of the amount of content that people are putting out there, it can be overwhelming for alot of people to try and watch and read everything that comes out. Especially if you're a blogger like me who does this for fun, or a YouTuber who reviews entertainment media and get paid to do it as their job. Which is never something that I even thought would happen back in 2012 when Arrow aired and the MCU exploded due to the critical and financial success of The Avengers, which was released mere months before Arrow aired. I don't do the gaming thing as I made the decision a long time ago that financially I couldn't support that hobby, even if it was retro gaming, which has gotten more expensive. But, before the pandemic I was seeing pretty much every comic book movie based on Marvel and DC and every Star Trek and Star Wars movie that came out on opening weekend, if not opening night. Because we share the same interests for the most part, as soon as he was able to, Brad would take me to the movies. And for the first four years of the 2010s I was also seeing every movie produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, except for Winnie the Pooh (2011) and Wreck-It Ralph (2012). I ended up seeing both of them on home media platforms. Big Hero 6 (2014) is the last one Brad and I ended up seeing together and it was the last WDAS film that I saw in theatres mainly because Disney's slate of other movies, like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe began to pick up speed by 2015, with the Star Wars movies coming out around Christmastime, which is when the Disney animated movies had been coming out and I had to choose between the Disney franchises that I was most interested in.
Since the pandemic hit early last year and my interest in both the MCU and the DCEU started to wane, I began to become way more aware of the fact that I just can't keep up with it all despite the pressure to do so from the world around me and the fact that I run this blog where I, you know, review movies, TV shows, novels, and comic books. There's too much of it and I don't have the money or the time or the interest to put into EVERY movie, TV show and comic book to come out anymore. I dropped Supergirl way back during that show's third season, Arrow is over, I dropped The Flash after Crisis on Infinite Earths wrapped up last year, and I never had any interest in the Marvel Netflix shows, or most of the Star Wars shows that have come out. So I've decided to pull back on alot.
Season 2 of Star Trek: Lower Decks debuted last week, and I had planned on reviewing the season premiere, and I didn't because, without going into detail as I'm not THAT kind of blog, the show did something that upset me immensely to the point where I couldn't bring myself to talk about the episode as a whole because of that one element. And this week's episode just didn't click with me the way the first season did, despite the fact that Boimler had a solid storyline in the episode. But I feel better about dropping Lower Decks because there's a ton of Star Trek that is out, and is coming out, these days that I'm not concerned about missing out on brand new weekly Star Trek. And it's the same thing with everything really.
I want to get back to watching shows and movies because I want to watch them not because they're a DC thing or an MCU thing or a Star Wars thing or a Star Trek thing so I HAVE to watch them or because I have to review them. Like my sister and I are going through The Orville this year because she hasn't seen the second season yet and I'm having fun getting to watch the show with her. Especially this week because we got to "Identity Part I" and "Identity, Part II" and that was the MASSIVE two part episode that had every Star Trek fan on the edge of their seats when it initially aired back in 2019 because to those of us who are fans of The Orville and Star Trek, who were too young to really remember seeing "The Best of Both Worlds" when it originally aired on TV back in 1990, that two-parter was our "Best of Both Worlds" only we didn't have to wait three months to see the conclusion. I vaguely remember seeing "The Best of Both Worlds" on videotape because my dad taped it for me as I was in the hospital and didn't get CHRO on my tiny bedside hospital TV set and the only thing I really remember was the saucer separation sequence and Worf and Data retrieving Locutus from the Borg Cube during that battle. But, I digress.
My point is, I don't feel like I'm less of a geek for not watching, reading, and playing EVERYTHING under the sun just because it's a geeky thing. In fact, I actually feel like I am myself for picking and choosing what I watch and read going forward, because I've always had to be choosy. Either because network television is different here in Canada than it is in the United States, and so we don't get every streaming service ever, and not every show appears on traditional TV or the streaming services that we do have here. That's how I've always lived my life, either because I had limited access to things, or because my own personal interests have kept me away from the things I wasn't interested in.
Movie wise there really isn't much that I can actually see right away since I don't want to pay $30 to see movies on Disney+ or iTunes, and despite being fully vaccinated, even without the Delta Variant floating around, I'm not comfortable going to the theatres yet so while there are certain movies that I would like to see, like Pixar's upcoming film, Turning Red, I'll wait until the theatrical run is over and it's on Disney+ to see it, there aren't any upcoming MCU films coming up that I'm interested in seeing so I won't see them, I'll watch Hawkeye when it drops later this year, but most other MCU Disney+ shows are ones I'm not interested in so I won't watch them. On the DC side of things I'm going to continue to watch Superman & Lois and I'm going to give Titans and Stargirl a try as I have season 1 of both shows on iTunes, but otherwise I'm dropping DC shows and movies as well. For Star Wars, I'll see Rogue Squadron when it comes out in two years, and I'll watch Obi-Wan Kenobi when it drops and possibly Lando and season 3 of The Mandalorian but only Obi-Wan Kenobi is a guaranteed watch for me. As for Star Trek I'm dropping Lower Decks but will try out Prodigy when that drops later this year, presumably after season 2 of Lower Decks ends in October, and the Captain Pike series, Strange New Worlds whenever that drops, and will continue to watch Discovery and Picard because Discovery is starting to become really good and I'm intrigued by the plot of Picard season 2. Particularly by Q's involvement and John De Lancie's return to the role that he's become beloved for.
As for this blog, I'm changing it completely to nostalgia and writing about movies I had on VHS when I was a kid, comics and books that I read, and albums that I remember listening to. Because, let's face it, I can talk about the past way better and more passionately than I can talk about the present. And all of those things helped shaped who I am today and where my interests lie. I'm not going to talk about all of Doctor Who the way I ambitiously planned on doing it. Instead I'll talk about the things that got me into the show like The Day of the Doctor, Twice Upon a Time and Series 11 (as I get to them in my watch through) as well as aspects of the series that I find interesting, like the Companions, the Doctor as a character and each actor's run as I go through them and things I am excited to see. So these won't be formal reviews so much as ponderings and discussions as I continue my journey through the world of Doctor Who. I promise that will be more fun than me reviewing every single season as I finish them. Though if there's a particular season that stands out to me I will definitely talk about it.
And that my friends is it for me for today. I'll be back next week with more reviews and posts including some Star Trek stuff that I would like to talk about pertaining to Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager as they are my favourite Star Trek shows of all time, but you never know, I might return tomorrow to talk about the first couple of episodes of Doctor Who which I'll be putting on as soon as I've finished here. Stay tuned if you'd like to find out. Until then, have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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