First off, this has been a ton of fun for me. And since it took from March 15, 2017 to October 19, 2018 to accomplish, it looks like I won't be done any time soon. I also want to point out that I've enjoyed reviewing the bad episodes as much if not more than the good ones. Some of my favorite episodes of Trek are the worst ones, if that makes any sense. I just don't ever want someone to think that because I ranked an episode as bad that I don't still love it. Weird, huh?
When I set out to do these, I came up with a couple rules for myself that I thought would help make the reviews feel consistent. One was that I would always refer to the characters strictly by their last names. Some characters are more often called by their first names in the show, and maybe that's why I have to fight myself to be more formal with them. For instance, "Geordi" just feels right to me, but since very few people ever call the captain "Jean-Luc," I'm not comfortable doing so either. I still mostly stick by this rule, but have relaxed it over time and from this point on am relieving myself from the burden altogether. Going forward I will call the characters whatever I think is appropriate at the time.
Another rule was that I wouldn't use the actor's names, because my reviews are strictly about the show, not the making of the show. As stated in the "About" page, I really have no insights into the behind the scenes stuff, so I thought that I would be safer just strictly commenting on in-universe aspects. However, I have relaxed this a bit too, as it often adds to a review to note that a particular actor's performance was good or bad, or that some familiar face is making a guest appearance. So while I'm not changing my overall policy on this, I've cut myself enough slack to make comments such as "Patrick Stewart is amazing" or "holy crap that's Jason Alexander from Seinfeld!"
Now let's talk a bit about how my style has evolved. Early on I was focused on coming up with clever captions for each picture, but dropped this as I thought it broke up the flow of the review. But after reading some of my reviews with captions I rather like them, so I might revisit this. I think I have failed to bring one consistent gimmick to my reviews and may in the future look for something, like re-titling every episode in my own words. Also in my early reviews, I tended to write a full synopsis. But not too far in I realized that this wasn't necessary, because complete recaps are readily available elsewhere and in my opinion add little to a review. After I write my reviews I scan the web to read what others have written, and I always get annoyed and basically skip any synopsis included in those reviews. So I tried to pepper my commentary throughout the recap, but lately have abandoned that format more and more and just dive right into what I thought. These reviews are meant to be read by people that have already watched the show anyway.
Speaking of people, I might as well get it out of the way now that no one is reading these. Which is fine, it's really just for my own amusement anyway. I also realize that a blog with 12 reviews on it isn't as interesting as one with 1200, so I'm hoping that as my volume grows eventually someone will see it. But one of my favorite sci-fi reviewers that has a huge catalog of material and a much better platform than mine usually doesn't even show up on the first page of Google results, so I realize that there's little hope for me. I'm fine with that. It is not my intent to monetize this site.
Now on to the stats! Let's look first at which series I've been watching:
It's no surprise that my reviews have mostly been TNG and Voyager, as these are my favorites. Also I naturally watched all of Discovery as it came out. The original series viewing has been sparse, as has the animated series, and I've only watched DS9 and Enterprise when it somehow tied into an episode that I just watched in one of the other series. For instance, I watched DS9's "Q-Less" right after TNG's "Q-Pid" just to see whatever happened to Vash. The one episode of Enterprise that I have reviewed I only watched because there was a tie-in to Discovery and the mirror universe.
Next let's look at overall Trek ratings:
The results seem to be disbursed about how one would expect. Less Fantasic and Horrible episodes, more middle of the road episodes. If I could figure out how to make this data into a curve, I suspect it would look like a typical bell. It's worth noting though that the episodes that I choose to review are not random, so there's no reason to suspect that these results are representative. Sometimes I specifically choose an episode that I know will cause my eyes to roll, sometimes I look for a good episode, and other times it truly is random. However, I think 100 episodes is enough of a sample to get a decent average from.
Now let's look at the rankings of the individual series:
What stands out to me is:
- Voyager has the most Good episodes, seemingly borrowed directly from the deflated Adequate category.
- TOS seems to be the most polarizing, with large Fantastic and Horrible categories and no showing for Good
- My reviews of DISCO may be a bit tainted by my excitement for the new series, resulting in a large Fantastic category and no Horribles to date.
- I really don't know what to do with TAS, and usually just end up thinking "sure, that was fine"
Now, if we weight the categories with Horrible=1, Meh=2, Adequate=3, Good=4, and Fantastic=5 to come up with an overall score for each series, here are the results:
Disco scores the highest with a 3.5, followed by TAS at 3.25 (but with a small sample of only four reviews), then Voyager at just over 3, and TNG and TOS basically tying at 2.8. I think we can throw out DS9 at only two reviews and ENT at just one.
So what does all this mean? I don't know, but it was fun for me to exercise my spreadsheet skills and analyze it! I'll update you in another 100 reviews. Until then live long and prosper!
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