Dave’s Star Trek Reviews

I’ve been a Star Trek fan at least since I was 12 years old. The original series ended before I was even born, and TNG would not debut until my eighth grade year, but my dad took me to see each of the first three original-cast movies in the theater when they came out, despite my being far too young to understand them at the time. I also began reading (non-canonical) novels when I was in sixth grade. Thus, I’m both old enough (albeit only just) that when Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in the fall of 1987, I saw it as a new-fangled successor to a beloved classic that would need to prove its worthiness to bear the name…but also young enough that TNG was ultimately much more formative for me than “classic” Trek had a chance to be. The latter’s central characters embedded themselves in my consciousness from an early age, and I adore (most of) the TOS movies, but the actual original series has always felt kind of “retro” to me, and struck me as a very imperfect realization of a world that I came to know better through later iterations. (This is not to suggest that TNG, or any other incarnation, achieved a “perfect” realization of Trek’s potential, nor am I even really trying, here, to assess the different shows’ relative merits; this is more about my my personal relationship with Trek, as shaped by when I happened to be born and by how I encountered it in the various stages of my life.)

At any rate, Trek has been hugely important to me for most of my life. I came of age as a Trek nerd, and I have continued to care about Trek as the years have gone by, despite the many times and ways that it has disappointed me (in recent times, to be sure, but honestly, even during what I would call its peak years). There are TV shows, and other fictional worlds, that are much better, overall, than even the best incarnation of Star Trek—but there are none that have been comparably formative for me, or that I have spent anywhere near as much time watching, thinking about, or otherwise engaging with. And so, at some point, I started writing reviews. Mine will never be a comprehensive collection, both because (to be frank) almost nothing that came after Deep Space Nine is worth my time or effort, and also because, even if I cared to, there’s no way I could ever keep up with the amount of Trek content being produced these days. Also, at least at present, I don’t necessarily plan to ever write reviews of anything pre-TNG, even though some of that content is plenty worthy of my time. But what I have written (and am continuing to write), I present here.

I won’t say much more than that, here on this page. Check out my separate landing pages for TNG and DS9 (accessible below, or via the menu at the top of the page) for more specific thoughts…and of course, ultimately, you can read the reviews themselves. See you…out there!