Incomplete Completionist

We watched Despicable Me 3 last week - picking up the series after several months hiatus - but I'm glad... I think it's possible that I would never have seen any of this entire series if the first one hadn't been released in 2010 - my summer in Miami - when I saw pretty well every single movie released that summer and before... It's not a great movie series, but it's better than good,,, really quite good

Daredevil was for many years the comic book character who I declared as "my favorite!"  I think it's true, too, but even if not, I've loved the filmic variations of the characters.  I think my favorite characteristic of Daredevil's that I never, perhaps, identified as the reason why I loved him - weirdly - is his religiosity.  

This may sound somewhat counterintuitive as I am a generally irreligious person myself - but I think that's why I gravitated toward him when I was young and still full in the midst of full blown indoctrination... to find a hero who was struggling with his faith - often questioning it, but still allowing himself to be guided by it.  I remember when Daredevil showed up on a made-for-tv-movie of The Incredible Hulk and I just about blew a gasket!

It was almost exactly 10 years ago now that the Daredevil series premiered, and - by my calculations - I finished the first season in about a month*, give or take.  The second season, otoh, I didn't finish until March of 2018 - a full two years after its debut, and in the midst of my trying to catch up on the entirety of the The Extended Marvel Universe Chronology.  

I'm pretty sure I started that second season of Daredevil right away, but faded away, losing interest in the whole The Hand sub-plot (though when I did finally go back to it, the development of a new Elektra portrayal made the season worth it on the whole - if still not great).

Once Charlie Cox started showing up in officially sanctioned MCU stuff I still didn't go back and watch Season 3 until now, with the premier of Daredevil: Born Again coming along now.  Season 3 is GREAT, and I'm on the verge of finishing it.  I am starting to suspect that I may not ever finish TV... (let alone movies!), but to have left 'my favorite' behind for so long I feel like I've missed out.

I've got quite a lot of catching up to do with Marvel Netflix Universe (let alone finishing TV), but glad to be starting down the road with some new Daredevil stories.

* I am not a huge binger, especially with material that I have never seen before.  Even if it's not new, if it's "new to me", I like to parse it out, watching a single episode or maybe two and then moving on to something else for a few days.  (It is for this reason that I almost never watch anything wholly with my wife - she generally leaves me behind in a series - gets all the way through it, and then if I'm watching it again later, she'll dip in for a re-watch)

dark matter indeed

{Warning: Spoilers ahead!}

I 'just' finished Dark Matter, Season 1 on Apple TV+* and I think it might be my strongest television recommendation possibly since Lost (!?).  I will say that this show is not for the faint of heart.  It's not scary, precisely, but the philosophical implications of this particular theory of multiverse are somewhat harrowing.  

The show (and evidently Blake Crouch's novel from which it was adapted) seems largely based upon^ my own personal theory of the multiverse, which was initially a bit surprising, but as the season progressed, made it comforting.  The wrinkle I hadn't anticipated (and what I found most disturbing about the show) was the extent to which navigation of the multiverse is dependent upon Mind.  

I'm not sure I find the science too compelling (a bit too human-centric {self-centric} for my taste), but for the sake of storytelling, the plot mechanic is inspired.  Jason Dessen (the protagonist, played by a very good Joel - Joel Edgerton) is a physicist in Chicago who has invented The Box, a giant version of a box several versions of him have invented that allows particles to exist in superposition (in this case existing within multiple iterations of the multiverse simultaneously).

The big Box allows not just a particle to exist in superposition but a whole thing - a person, say or even a couple of people - to enter the box and navigate through the multiverse.  The tricky bit is that the way that you determine which of the infinite realities you are going to emerge into when you once again open the box is based on your mind - not just your conscious thoughts, but your unconscious and subconscious state of mind when you open it (plus all of the same of those who you might be traveling with!).

Source: https://tinyurl.com/564drzcz

There's a bunch more plotty bits that happen that make for a really great season of television, but what struck me hardest was the moment when Jason emerges into a Chicago in a world that has been ravaged by plague.  He makes his way back to his house to find his wife, visibly ill, shocked to see him (because this world's him succumbed), and she is wrecked.  It's a very realistic glimpse into what a truly catastrophic outbreak might look like at the street level in America...

I'm most of the way through Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History, a sweeping chronicle by Kyle Harper of how all of human history has been shaped by (or guided by) the micro-organisms that have made us sick.  Alternately it's a history of how human civilization has created and caused the uniquely massive variety of tiny little things designed to (and actively getting better at) kill us because we've gotten so good at existing... The book is really a constant questioning of which of those definitive interpretations is more true at any given time in human history, and emphasizes the degree to which our collective Thrownness operates not just on an individual level, but also at a biological level (and also at a cosmic level, naturally).

The version of you that you get to inhabit is inherently arbitrary, but certainly doesn't feel that way to us.  Choice - Action - Self... These are the things from which we build our narrative - our lives, right?  The idea that it is chance and circumstance where we find ourselves runs contrary to our modern American sensibility.  We work harder and harder to get further and further away from The Uncomfortable Truth** by filling our attention with screens and faiths and mantras, but the reason that the uncomfortable truth is truth... well, it's because it is, right?  

But I think it's easy to interpret The Uncomfortable Truth as something akin to Nietzschean nihilism, but the comfort (!!) of Humanism is its clear antidote.  We may not be much, us, here toiling away at living on this small out of the way planet - but our over-arching trend, tending toward progress for more of us - and constructing our grand Civilization, which endures and attempts and evolves - that is the thing that we're all here for.  What is a civilization but a narrative - a collection of all of the little narratives, most forgotten (heck, most of them were side quests to begin with!). 

So I suggest that you enjoy your story - if it's not exactly the version of it you were hoping for, rest easy in the knowledge that there very might well be another one where it's that, but you can soak up what you can here... maybe strive for a bit more of that other preferred one, but as Jason/Joel learns when he gets in the Box, you may like the look of another version, but you were made (or perhaps you made yourself) ready for this one right here, and no other.

Enjoy it (and by it, i also mean Dark Matter... it's really good).

 

* It seems to me that Apple TV+ produces nothing but bangers - like they just aren't interested in getting content out for the sake of content, but everything is really quality.  (That's not to say that I have seen all of it, nor that all if it is necessarily my thing, but I just went through a list of their productions, and everything on it that I've seen some or all of is really quite very good!).  In this era of lapsing quality in all things, that is really quite remarkable, but I'm going to put a pin in it for the moment, and move back to my starting point.

^ keen observers will note that Crouch's novel hails from 2016 whereas my own theory wasn't articulated fully on Roman Numeral J until early 2018.  

** I've been reading around a bit as well in the self-help and satirical self-help genres (it's often hard to tell those apart) in Mark Manson's Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope, and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and reading Lead it Like Lasso earlier this year as well as a bit of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits.  Generally these are not my types of books - but I've been on a bit of kick on the concept of "Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable" and working on a project, for now it's just a PowerPoint presentation, and I'm figuring out if it's enough to be even that, or maybe something more - a blog post, perchance a little book (!?)...

a work in progress...

There was once a place on the erstwhile internet called "Seen Reading" (which seems now to have become a book, because, sure, I guess, let's print off the whole internet!).  The premise was a brief observation of a person, usually on public transit, who was reading a book, noticing what page they were on in that book, and then quoting on that page.

This premise of seeing where a person was - both in their reading journey of a particular book and in transit - I suppose it's a bit fanciful, but it feels like we might gain some insight (imperfect and incomplete to be sure into a person who we see where they are in their journey.

When Tim asked me (a bunch of us really) a month or so ago what we were currently reading, I answered him a list of 7 books - a sort of typical number that I'm usually in the middle of.  So I thought a current reckoning - not only of books, but of shows (and perhaps any movies too) that I'm in the midst of completing.

I've been on goodreads quite a bit more in 2025 than ever before, because I'm planning on writing a short review of each book I finish this year, not just cataloging them.  They have a feature of the "currently reading" list called 'tabled', so I'll go through my active reads and watches, and then see if I can complete a catalog of tabled texts as well:

Books (Updated 7/7/25)

[I thought it might be fun to occasionally revisit this list from time to time... and indeed it now seems an opportune moment, half a year later, and having just finished the last of the original five books just this weekend...]

1. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
2. The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix
3. American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures, by America Ferrera
4. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
5. The Quest For Tanelorn, by Michael Moorcock
6. Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain
7. Swan Song, by Robert McCammon
8. Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor, by Lynda Barry

[It may be that I just revisit this list with books going forward... I did manage to finish both How I Met Your Mother & Dark Matter from the previous "tabled" section, and at least a few of the shows & both movies, but I feel like the "tabled" section overall grew, and maybe that it and the books bit is the only relevant part to come back to]

tabled (still or now...)

[I'm not sure if I intend to finish some of these, or most of these or what, but l started them all with that in mind, I'm sure.]

Wallace & Gromit: Murder Most Fowl

Time Bandits

Franklin

What If, Season 3

Northern Exposure

The Sticky

Castle Rock, Season 2

Pop Culture Jeopardy

The Magic Island, by William Seabrook

An Island Away, by Daniel Putkowski

The Journey of Natty Gann

Dune: Prophecy, Season 1
Star Trek: Prodigy, Season 2
No Good Deed, starring Ray Romano & Lisa Kudrow
mr. & mrs. smith, Season 1
The New Yorker Presents, Season 1

Books (Original Posting)

[This feels like a fairly low number of active books for me, but in part, I don't have any of my typical encyclopedic works that I am working through, of which there is usually one or two]

1. Light in August, by William Faulkner
2. Frank Talk: The Inside Stories of Zappa's Other People, by Andrew Greenaway
3. I Cheerfully Refuse, by Leif Enger
4. The Hunting Party, by Lucy Foley
5. Plagues Upon the Earth: Diseases and the Course of Human History, by Kyle Harper

Shows 

[of course there are many shows that I am between seasons for - I've watched 3 seasons of Barry, but not the 4th again.  I watched The Bear, Season 1, but not the rest,,, yet]

1. Dune: Prophecy, Season 1
2. Laid, Season 1
3. Fast Friends, hosted by Whitney Cummings
4. Star Trek: Prodigy, Season 2
5. The Decameron, created by Kathleen Jordan
6. No Good Deed, starring Ray Romano & Lisa Kudrow
7. mr. & mrs. smith, Season 1
8. The New Yorker Presents, Season 1

Movies 

[I may actually adjust this list before I hit "Publish", as I'm working my way through one of them now]

1. The Raven, starring John Cusack
2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, starring the BeeGees!

tabled 

[I'm not sure if I intend to finish some of these, or most of these or what, but l started them all with that in mind, I'm sure.]

Wallace & Gromit: Murder Most Fowl

Time Bandits

Franklin

What If, Season 3

Northern Exposure

Dark Matter

The Sticky

Castle Rock, Season 2

Pop Culture Jeopardy

The Magic Island, by William Seabrook

How I Met Your Mother

An Island Away, by Daniel Putkowski

The Journey of Natty Gann

baby please hang on...

I have undertaken A Song of Ice and Fire (now that I'm driving most nights I couldn't come up with any more excuses why not to start {except for the fact that the books [at least the first two!] are ridiculously popular on the library circuit with a typical wait time of several months}) and am attempting to watch along again the HBO adaptation as I'm reading along.

My understanding is that this is easy to do with the first season and first book of the series, and damn near impossible to accomplish thereafter.  I'll try to do it anyway - watching as much as I deem aligned from what I've read, and will try to comment along the way as I go.

But as I am approaching the end of the first book (and first season), I'll make some initial comments, and observations then add (either to this post or in the comments) as I make my way along.

Unlike some other recent takers on of this challenge, I watched all of Game of Thrones as it was airing, and highly enjoyed the series (and yes, even the deemed bad last season, which seemed in a damned hurry, but I thought was overall satisfying).  As it turns out, I may never watch through the entire series again, although all reports are that Mr. Martin is in acceptable enough health he still has two doorstops to write to round out the (planned) 7 book series.  After Stephen King's near death encounter with a van in 1999, I think I sort of made an agreement with myself to not risk an epic fantasy series again that hinges on an author's mortality.  Better to deal with authors who are either safely dead or series that are neatly wrapped up, 

But here we go again - and so far, I'm quite enjoying the ride.

A Game of Thrones (Book 1) / A Game of Thrones (Season 1)

My favorite surprise discovery so far has been the characterization of Tyrion, which I thought as I've been reading through the first book was quite different than the tv series.  I thought of all the casting and acting decisions made for the series that perhaps they had made with Tyrion one of their few mis-steps.  Not that casting Peter Dinklage was a mistake - he is magnificent in this role - but I thought as I was reading through that his take on Tyrion was more grand and epically heroic than the novel was making him out to be, but I realized as I watched the first few episodes that I was mistaken and my memories of Dinklage's take on the character must have been from later seasons.  In this early going, Tyrion is quite as small, in every sense, as he is made out to be in the novel.  Clever and cunning to be sure, but also petty and pitiful - a far cry from the "I drink, and I know things" hero he will grow in to.

The show and novel have some differences to be sure (e.g. in the novel it is Catelyn who insists that Ned Stark must take on the role of Hand of the King, whereas in the show it is Ned's own honor that compels him), but for the most part this is a one-to-one transliteration of the novel, both equally enjoyable and well executed. (7 January 2023)

A Clash of Kings (Book 2) / A Game of Thrones (Season 2)

By something of a fluke of schedule, I began this round by reading nearly a third of the book before even starting in on episode one.  When I did finally get back to the show and watched episode 1 (the only I've revisited up to this point) it felt a bit like a speed round of the book, quickly covering nearly everything I'd read up to that point.

As the season and book have moved along, it has been a fairly even split, and it seems like they may eventually catch up with each other.  There is a lot (as always) that has to be skipped or skimmed over for the filmic version, but what is shown is mostly shown as it was in the novels except for a few specific choices:

• when Arya is brought to Harrenhal, in the show she serves as cup bearer for Tywin Lannister because it makes for better for TV with her interacting with a primary character rather than the way she takes up the role once Roose Bolton and the north take back the castle.
• This difference is exacerbated when Arya asks Jaqen H'ghar to help them free the Northmen to take over Harrenhal in the book, but only asks him to help them escape (which totally is not nothing!) in the show
• So too where Jamie Lannister finds himself in the show in a war camp prison is not so nearly as horrible as the dungeon he is being held in at River Run when he is freed by Brianne of Tarth & Catelyn Stark.
• A fascinating conversation between Davos Seaworth and his son a few minutes into episode 9 of Season 2, where his son is blindly faithful to the Lord of Light and their imminent success, where in the novel Davos's sons are all on separate ships and far from him, but he worries for them as the battle for King's Landing is about to start.

in every iteration (so it seems) Tyrion turns out to be a hero of the night of Stanis' attack on King's Landing.  The Hound - it seems - might be a different case, where he is heroic in battle, but ultimately loses his position (but mostly, like all of us, because he deems himself unworthy rather than anyone else doing it for him...).

The TV show ties up most of the loose threads and aligns fairly well with where this second novel ends, with a few exceptions.  Bran's party remains together at the end of Season 2, whereas in A Clash of Kings, Osha takes Rickon while Bran & Hodor head off in another direction (to keep at least one of the boys safe, the hope is).  Robb Stark also marries a woman in the final episode who (I think) has not even been introduced in the novels as of yet... but mostly we are still aligned at this point. (7 March 2023) 

A Storm of Swords (Book 3) / A Game of Thrones (Season 2:10 - Season 3 - Season 4 - Season 5:1 - 6)

The opening chapter is the perspective of Jamie Lannister (his first of the entire series), and is almost entirely (although very differently)  portrayed in this book 3 while he travels south to King's Landing under the protection of Brienne of Tarth, which almost entirely occurs in the final episode of Season 2..  This final episode of Season 2 also seems to contain a lot of storyline that feels a ways off in the novelization (and the third novel's early chapters seem to have a lot of filling time that never made it to the show). 

As Season 3 of the show begins, the scene north of the wall seems to echo the prologue of Storm of Swords, but the Nights Watch who are far north of the wall are heading home rather than planning a stand against the Wildings - much of the other scenes in the first episode match up to the first 20% of the novel or so.

• Theon Greyjoy's narrative seems to moving forward more quickly in the show than the novel, but it's possible that this is just an illusion as he no longer has any chapters following his progress in the book.  It's possible that as he makes his transition to Reek, he may no longer get a perspective in the book, so his story is ended...
• In this novel - the Red Wedding happens just past the half way point, whereas I just started episode 5, and we won't see it on screen until the penultimate episode of this season.  In many ways, though, this season seems again a straight-up adaptation of this third book - some things are happening out of order from the other, but I think these versions of the same story are both unfolding at about the same pace.
• The Purple Wedding is just a short while after the Red one in book 3 (and in actual show time, I think ends up just being a few episodes after it), so it seems that Book 3 will be taking us well in to Season 4 of the show, without any major noticeable storylines that are far behind the novel.
• Gendry gets taken by Stanis' Red Woman in episode 6, and here's maybe the first point where the show is starting to conflate portions of the novels - Gendry and Robert's bastard from Storm's End whose blood the Red Woman uses get condensed into one character
• As I enter the final 10% of the third novel it has already blown past the end of the third season of the show, and further (I'll figure out exactly how far once I get there as I'm currently on episode 3:8).  The one aspect of the book that is much farther ahead of the show at the end of the third of each iterations is the Wildings and the Wall - the battles at Castle Black and trying to take the Wall have progressed much further in the book and seem to be leaving the show behind. 
• The "Mhysa" moment is a lot more affective in the show because it is the finale of Season 3, whereas its buried in the lost middle of Book 3.  However, Daenerys's story seems to occur in a different order in the books from a show, but hits all of the same notes. 

Book 3 ends AMAZINGLY, and it did not make the show (might have made the Tom Savini version of the show).  I do appreciate that the show gives us the chance to see a lot more perspectives, not just the points of view of the primary characters.  We see the Wildings build-up to their attack on Castle Black and the Wall in a way that it only gets explained afterward when Jon goes to play diplomat / assassin after the attack.  And we get an insight into what Theon Greyjoy's transition to Reek has been like (although, I do sense that this storyline is moving faster in the show than in the book - just as Night's Watch {and particularly the White Walker's} storylines are further ahead in the book than in the show).

Now that I am well finished with the book, and just catching up on episodes it looks like I will reach the end of Season 4 before I run out of material from A Storm of Swards, and while that is undeniable, I am not sure that there is anything happening in the show that hasn't happened in the book yet.  It occurs to me that what is ahead in the show as I watch episode 4:4 seems to be Tommen & Margaery's story - in the book, Tommen is a boy of 8, and while all of the children in the show are older than in the novels (lest the show be banned!).  Jamie also sends Brienne out in search of the Stark girls (or at least Sansa) to bring them to safety in a way that never happens (yet) in the books, and we get the adventures Brienne & Podric!  Stannis and Davos also venture to Bravos in the show (to try to get a loan, exciting banking adventures)

Bran is also way ahead of schedule in the show - he is reaching the Children / (the big GodsWood) by the final episode of Season 4, but isn't anywhere near that in Book 3.  (The Three Eyed Raven seems a lot older and a bit more "Big Trouble in Little China" than I recall him being...).  Right on schedule as the Season 4 finale closes is Tyrion who is in a box on a ship leaving King's Landing with the aid of Varys (24 May 2023)

A Feast for Crows (Book 4) / A Game of Thrones (Season 4:10 - Season 5:1 - 10 - Season 6:6)

Season 5 of the show begins much as Book 4 does - in part - Tywin Lannister's funeral and power-brokering in King's Landing, but the other storylines feel a long way off (either back from Book 3 or things that seem a long way off).  Interestingly, there are no chapters in Book 4 for Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, Bran Stark, nor Daenerys Targaryen - whose stories are moving forward in Season 5, so it seems some of the storylines will be a long way off by the end of this book.

Book 4 has had a lot of storyline that mostly never made it in to the show for Brienne on the trail of Sansa Stark (a quite long storyline in the book that gets wrapped up neatly in about 11 minutes of screen time in Episode 2); Cersei recombobulating her power basis in the wake of her father's... wake; the politics of Dorne, and the fate of Princess Myrcella and her King's Guard protector (which seems to have gotten translated into Jamie Lannister heading southward to insert himself in their scene); Samwell's trip to Old Town, which is just a carriage ride in the show, I think (I haven't seen it again yet), but is an arduous boat trip in the book, where he runs in to Arya Stark!; and the Iron Born's sorting out of their new king.

• The religious fervor around the new, more lowly, High Septum and all of his Sparrows is evident in both the book and show, although in the book the church's army is explicitly rekindled by Cersei, whereas their power in the show is a bit more looming and lurking and softer power. (Oh, no, it turns out it's just as explicit on the show once we get a few episodes in to Season 5).
• The battling through this religious fervor is fought through Marjorie in the books, but Ser Loras takes the initial brunt in the show
• Sansa's story is far ahead of things in the show, getting married to Ramsey Bolton, and sending Brienne off.
• And now, after having just finished the book, frack!!, I know TV series (or movies) have to oversimplify plots and sometimes combine characters, but the TV show seems to mark any character with a Valerian Sword for the Last Battle (at least as I recall it now), but a lot has changed here...
• Also, Sansa's betrothal in the book, is all to do with the politics of The Vale (maybe the Boltons are off in her future, but for now), she is being promised to the future heir to Jon Arryn's domain...
• Jorah Mormont takes Tyrion captive to bring him where he's already going in the show, which is a delightful moment that hasn't happened in the book at all.
• Arya (aka Cat of the Canals) seems to actually be on track here in Season 5 / Book 4... she gets blind, and I haven't seen the results of that in either version yet...
• In the book, Jamie Lannister heads to take out the Blackfish (instead of rescuing his daughter from Dorne), and that happens in episode 6 of Season 6

This is the best guess of episodes (Season 5: 1-6 & Season 6:6) for this book, and I've honed and revised as I watch more and start in to the next book, but because A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons happen concurrently, there is just too much happening in the show that hasn't been hinted at yet in the books, I am going to stop watching any more episodes for now, but I feel like episode 6 of Season 6 is worth watching (even if it's a big jump for some bits): 

• Sam is arriving home (in the last chapter of Book 4 he arrives at Old Town, with a plan to return to Horn Hill next) 
• Margaery is playing the devout prisoner, which she is also beginning to do just as Cersei is first imprisoned (not sure if that has happened in the show yet or not).  Margaery's crimes in the books are much more inflated and Ser Loras is the one who is truly accused in the show, rather than him being killed retaking Dragonstone
• Jamie gets sent off to Riverrun...
• Benjen Stark saves Bran & Meera (which may never happen, or is at least a long way off in the books), but it seems to fulfill his role that he had for Sam & Gilly in Book 3, I think (16 June 2023)

A Dance With Dragons (Book 5) / A Game of Thrones (Season 5:1 - 10)

It's funny, the first scene from Book 5 that happens (kind of) in Season 5 is Tyrion getting out of his box, and immediately finding some wine to drink, promptly vomiting that wine, and then drinking some more wine.  While this happens, Vaerys is explaining whose house they are in, and the large cabal that he is a part of (which becomes a huge part of Book 5 with a second Targaryen claimant to the throne, Griff, {aka Prince Aegon Targaryen} none of which will happen in the show).

• Drogon shows up at the end of episode 5:2, which is being hinted at a lot by the book, but ever seems no nearer.  Given the title (ADWD) I suspect all 3 will be running wild, and protecting Dany's interests by the end of Book 5, and probably at least by the end of Season 5 
• There is a lot less religion in Book 5, at least a lot less of The Seven - maybe there's a bit more of the Lord of Light, and in the mid-going of Book 5, Bran Stark is learning a lot more about the Old Gods & the Godwood Trees than we ever learn in the show. 
• Sansa (the real Sansa) is the substitute in Season 5 for a fake Arya in Book 5 who is set to marry Ramsey Bolton.  In the books Sansa is disguised as Alayne, and Arya is actually Jane Poole.
• The death of Ser Janos Slynt in the show feels a lot more shocking having seen in on the show (Season 5:3) and the politics of The Wall are more complicated in the book, more factions and betrayals (and re-betrayals?)
• For Daenerys, it seems things happen a bit out of order - Ser Beresten dies in episode 4 (or just before episode 5) of Season 5, but he's still alive and kicking through nearly 90% of the book.  And Drogon shows up very excitingly in the book, whisking her away, which I remember now will happen in the show (but hasn't yet in episode 6).
• Tyrion, meanwhile has almost completely caught up to his narrative in episode 6, getting captured by Ser Jorah Mormont, and then sold into slavery with him (minus Penny, which is a whole other thing), and then blows right past the books in the show, taking up the role of advisor to Queen Daenerys.

I'm not sure how to follow the goings on in Dorne - with Jamie Lannister and Bronn there - a lot of the political machinations surrounding Myrcella seem to rhyme, and I expect they will both end similarly, but having Jamie there, when in the books he is up retaking Riverrun (and MEETING AN OLD FRIEND!!!) tends to muddy the adaptation a bit.  The Iron Born's story has also been almost entirely ignored in the show so far, except for Theon's suffering.  It seems to me that I need to watch at least as far into the show to see some of that.  Theon & Yara Greyjoy have just been reunited in the book with just a few chapters to go.

I've just about finished up the book this evening, with just the Epilogue to finish, and as I now begin my long wait, here is where things seem to stand:

• The trip to HardHome has been much talked about in Book 5, but has now happened in the show (Season 5: Episode 8)
• Stannis's camp is attacked in the night by Ramsey Bolton in the show (5:9), while in the book Ramsey sends a dire letter to Jon Snow, claiming to have killed Stannis, and ended his claim to the Iron Throne.  In the show, his attack on Winterfell fails, but his ultimate end comes from Brienne, who avenges Renly's death.
• So there's some stuff in the books that could never make it into a show, it's so horrible, but the one thing that isn't in the books (yet at least), but happens in "The Dance of Dragons" (5:9) is that King Stannis burns his daughter alive, as a 'blood of kings' sacrifice.
• While Tyrion did get to her a little early, Daenerys gets saved by Drogon in 5:9, too.
• Cersei makes her walk of atonement in episode 5:10.  Interestingly, in the Epilogue of Book 5, her uncle, Ser Kevin Lannister promises that his niece Cersei will get up to no more in the future.  Needless to say, in the show, she does, a lot, so we will see how that plays out in the Books to Come...
• John Snow is left for dead at the end of episode 5:10, he hasn't gotten up again in the books after he met the same fate in his final chapter, so if Season 6 ever sees him rise, I will perhaps pause, but there is more (I think more from Book 4 than 5) that is missing in the show from what has happened in the books, so I'll venture forward at least a bit, as I finish Book 5.

And so, the book has ended, and now my watch begins - the Epilogue (as several of them have been) was full of unexpected twists and turns.  Lord Varys makes an unexpected appearance (at the end of the show as well), but half a world away), and seems to be throwing King's Landing into chaos.  I will start Season 6, but feel like I won't get very far before almost everything gets ahead of things from the books. 

The Obligation of Cinematic Nostalgia

2021 was a banner year in content creation - content maximization, really - for the MCU with 4 new movies (its most ever) and 5 original series on Disney+.  In 2022, 5 separate Star Trek series will release new episodes: FIVE!!!  

Source: medium.com

When The Matrix: Resurrections was released on HBOMax, I decided to sign up for a month of the service to see the new movie.  Before I did, I decided to watch Reloaded and Revolutions again, because I was sure I had seen the original movie several times, but each of the sequels maybe as few as twice each.  Upon starting Reloaded, I was completely lost, and realized what I was expecting to see was actually the back half of the original, so I went ahead and took most of my month's purchase time to get through the full trilogy again, and then - finally - watched Resurrections on the last day that it remained streaming on the service (for now).  The reboot / sequel / most recent installment was... okay.  Pretty good in fact, with a fun and inventive central conceit... but really just the same again as before (which I really think is kind of the central unintended theme of The Matrix franchise).

The Matrix was released in 1999, which was hands down the peak year of movies in America (and don't take my word for it).  My personal filmic consumption was also at an all time high, so I was hooked on most anything that was being doled out.  Ergo, The Phantom Menace (which I first saw pirated on a desktop computer because I was living in Germany, and it wasn't releasing there until the fall {by which time I was going to be back in the States!}) was such a pleasure when I first saw it - seeing the Jedi at their peak (or their early decline) - rather than something to be scoffed at.  

In a year when Fight Club and Office Space were working to undermine contemporary late capitalism in America from opposite ends of the spectrum (and at a time where the political spectrum wasn't the only spectrum - rather the spectrum in this case is Fight Club's chaotic, anarchic direct action on one end and Office Space's radical, satirical inaction on the other) and realities of all sorts were called into question (whether it's cyberspace v. meatspace {The Matrix & eXistenZ}; spiritual reality {The Sixth Sense}; temporal {Run Lola Run}; documentary v. fiction {Blair Witch Project}; cosmic {Being John Malkovich}; or gonzo-comedic {Man on the Moon}), most of the main modern mythologies were at or near their (then) peaks. 

Since that time, of course, we've had the dawn of the MCU, plus the continuation of the Star Wars prequels and expanded universe, Star Trek trying out a prequel series and then a reboot, before its full establishment of an STU, The Walking Dead becoming a cable tv phenomenon and then (likely) overextending its reaching to create a fuller, awesomer universe, and now everything wants not just a movie deal, but a whole universe that can be endlessly capatilistically exploited.  The Harry Potter Universe (HPU), the DCU, even the dream of the SKU.  Did you know, for example, that Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead happen in the same world?

But it's not just that the maximal capitalistic exploitation feels so oppressive - it's the compartmentalization of it all.  Streaming has only made it more ex-stream! - the ability to only consume the same thing that you always want to consume.  Discovery+ is the most extreme version of this (only because most of it is not my speed), but it's the logical, cultural extension of the political media self selecting that has been talked about for decades.

And the outcome, like the natural outcome of late capitalism, is alienation... we will forever become more separate from each other (on a referential level, but also a relational level), and that alienation is helpful for capitalism (especially late capitalism).  The less we notice the suffering of those immediately around us (not our families, but our neighbors - or if you're weird and still friendly with your neighbors, then I mean the people who live two houses down from your neighbors... yes those neighbors) and the more that we feel that we are alone in our own*.

So, as I'm watching an episode of Star Wars: Rebels, and two Lasat survivors identify a location of a new homeworld for their people, my first thought is <<what is a Lasat again?  Have I encountered these before and why do I care?>> and then <<ok, yeah, I care even if I don't know who they are, because I'm a) invested in this universe and b) generally care about the well being of anyone who isn't always already known to be a prick>>.  

It turns out it's easy to love what you love.  When Discovery zapped its characters into the late 32nd Century, the emotionality of the series ramped up to 11 - at least for those who were invested.  The dismantling of The Federation in the 900 years or so since the crew came through is tragic, but the melding of Vulcan and Romulan species in the newly formed Ni'Var is sublime.

But the trick, i think, is 

* our own suffering, that is...

this is a prat

 15 years ago today... I saw a dude at my Barnes & Noble (is that link still working?) who I knew from TV...

I guess it's possible that I have grown up (just a small bit), but in reading my proto-hot-take on Mr. Matt Geiler from that day in 2006, it feels a bit judgy (or at least a bit dismissive of his interest in astrology). It's not to say that my feelings about astrology have evolved any (although the world's penchant for bullshit and pseudo-knowledge has expanded exponentially since 2006, so maybe astrology should be given a lot more space today than then        ¯\_(ツ)_/¯          ).  We are so enmeshed in an era of faux-expertise where wealth is misidentified as success, credentials are misunderstood to be knowledge, and time passed in any capacity (regardless of quality) merits respect. 

We are in an era where scientific certainty is on the wane (to be clear, scientific knowledge is - and almost literally always has been - at an all time high, so while our scientific models get better and better, the more data we have the less sure we can ultimately be about the final answers or outcomes.  Ergo, the best scientists try to ask better and better questions, rather than giving better and better answers.), outward statements of certainty and expertise, from basically anybody are at an all time high.  In fact, our economy (and essentially our entire culture) is one of grift - figure out a way that you can get people to think you know what you're talking about and then fleece them for everything you can.  This is most obvious in our new crypto and NFT economies, but also in the job market (see "recruiting" as a "profession), and especially consulting, and then again most definitely in the retail economy and in the RobinHood app options economy and in the real estate inflating economy.

And so our lives are now such that you would be an absolute utter moron (economically speaking) if you didn't spend all of your working life trying to scrape and take and fleece every shred of value from any customer or company or rube, rather than spending any of your working life (idk) doing something good or worthwhile in the world, let alone something you care about or enjoy (ha!, as if).  Perhaps best most recently said by Mr. Ken Klipstein (who I do not know).

And bully to Mr. Geiler for carrying on with the comedic career!  Best of luck to you!

Gracegiving

 Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

We're sitting here watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while our turkey grills out in the garage (yeah, turns out that a thing!!).  Hoda and her partner just tried to sell me a bunch of NFTs (it's ok tho, it's for a good cause), and a pirate gravy boat float sponsored by Heinz just floated by followed by the Sinclair Oil dinosaur balloon (causing Brooke to ask if that is their mascot because the oil is derived from fossil fuels, namely oil created from the bodies of decrepit dinosaurs!?, and yes, that is true, although they tend not to talk about it much anymore)...

And I KNOW iknowiknowiknow that American Thanksgiving has been commercialized and exploitative for generations now (this is the 95th annual rendition of it being Macy's Thanksgiving), but it's all just ew, right?

With the eldest Boomers turning 75 this year, I'd like to propose a modest adjustment to our American holidazzle traditions.  While the name of the holiday naturally suggests the lame tradition of going around the table and saying what we're thankful for, I'd like to submit that this practice is actually quite self serving.  Coming off of 15 - 20 years of New Deal policies in action as they came of age, the Boomers (who I expect started the bone-headed tradition of saying out loud what you're thankful for once each year rather than actually appreciating and being grateful for the civilizational wealth and prosper that you have been fortunate enough to be born in to) benefited from a society that valued individual sacrifice at the expense of our collective health and wealth.  Looking at everything you have, and saying thank you for it is well and good, but ultimately it's all about yourself and what you already have.

I'd like to propose, in this era of divisiveness, polarization, and derisiveness, that instead of thanks, what we really need to give everyone - and especially those who we are particularly divided from, enraged by, and/or derisive of - is grace.  Grace is the simple (and yet uncanny) ability to recognize and believe that every other individual human in the entire world is a total and complete being with their own thoughts, feelings, and drives, and to respect those entities - all of them... even the ones you very much disagree with and want not to respect.  Grace for the unvaccinated, the mean spirited, the lost and the over-woke.  Imagine there's no bad people... just bad information and bad outcomes.

golfing in the end times...

 I've decided to watch The Walking Dead from the start again with the final season starting this week. I'm well over 2 Seasons in, and quite an awesome thing occurred to me: I need to work on my golf game.

I know it's not where everyone's mind goes to while getting re-acquainted with the Governor and his Woodbury gang, but in one episode, he has set up a tee off the top of their wall, and whacking balls out into the street and at any oncoming walkers, and it occurs to me that after the end times come, and the breakdown of society (whether it be zombie-caused or Super-Flu or something else totally unexpected), we are all going to have a lot of time on our hands.

I know leisure time is not what we generally see depicted when people tell apocalyptic stories - it's all busy busy gather gather fightfightfight. Because activity is helpful to narrative, however in reality, once you're holed up somewhere there will be a fair amount of down time.

The Governor's impromptu driving range is hardly the first golf go-round for a zombie-infested world. When we meet Bill Murray in Zombieland he's just come back from "playing nine holes on the Riviera". Robert Neville, when he waits each day at noon at the Manhattan piers opts to do some practice driving rather than playing a full round (although I'm not sure there actually are any golf courses on Manhattan Island where he is stranded).

And it's not just zombie-ravaged worlds where golf seems like a good hobby to take up: even Hugo sets up a short course on their island on Lost. It's Hugo's course that I modeled the proposed Turtle Greens Golf & Beer Club (or TGBG) after in the Hellwaukee setting - after everything fell apart, it's a great place to unwind.

Evidently, my prescience on this issue had spawned an upcoming hit video game on this very theme.  I'm realizing that this post may need to become a perpetual post, as I think I have run out of examples of golf in apocalypses, so I'll add them as I find them, and please let me know what I haven't thought of yet!

In support of The Random

In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, I had an idea for a TV show that I think could quite possibly save the world.  It's a U.S.-based show, so in fact, perhaps, it might only save our country (but given our nuclear arsenal and disproportionate influence around the world, mayhap the world is right!).  

The concept is (and, I officially submit it here for consideration): 

A weekly news / talk program which features three guests and a host / moderator (ideally me, but if someone else takes on the project, I just ask for an associate producer credit {as well as the asidementioned 0.003% of all profits}).  The guests are completely randomly selected from across the country (and of course, because of my self-sabotaging tendencies my primary focus thus far on this project has been on how, precisely*, to define a randomly selected person in America), and each of the guests would be asked to submit a topic for conversation - whatever they are either most interested in or feel they would most like to cover - and then the four of us (3 guests plus the moderator) spend an hour or so talking about those topics.  Prior to each episode, the moderator would generalize and contextualize the topics enough so all guests could contribute (and the audience would care)^ and that's the show.

I have long suspected that randomly selected people would generally be better at most (general) tasks (like talking on TV or governing, say), if given the opportunity, than those who do it currently who have foisted themselves upon us.  I dare say that if we were to repopulate the entirety of the Halls of Congress (as well as all of the state legislatures and city halls) with randomly selected citizens of their respective states and districts a lot more generally good things for most people would get done more often.  I'm not the first to have this idea, and I must admit that in our current hyper-polarized climate I would be more than a little worried at who, exactly, would get selected in the first few cycles.  Information is the gasoline for a democracy, and we are currently living in a bad information age (think sugar in the tank).

Although we are living in the age prophesied by The Colbert Report - and beyond, where truthiness has given way to Choose-Your-Own-Truth-Venture where what you want to be true becomes true, because it supports your already existing pre-conceptions.  However, I don't think the state we find ourselves in just now needs to be permanent or even particularly long-lasting.  The main problem we have in our current culture is the monetary value of leveraged truths.  Getting people to believe your version of the truth is worth so much money to so many interests in terms of media messaging, political fundraising, and expenditures in our managed economy (i.e. which winners & losers we pick going forward) that the practice of swaying opinion is more important in most parts of our civilization today than actually studying to learn any particular truth.  A debate over whether Climate Change is real is worth much more to capitalism writ large than actually investing in combatting climate change (which, for the record, is real).

This doesn't need to be a permanent state of affairs, however, it needs to start with a majority of humans deciding and then actively advocating for the fact that improving the lives of the majority of humans is more important than continual marginal gains year over year in the Dow Jones Industrial and everyone's 401(k)s and capitalism's perpetuation.  That doesn't even have to mean, necessarily, that we need to end economic growth or overthrow capitalism... it just means that we have to agree that helping out the vast majority of humans so they can have adequate food, shelter, and dignity is at least slightly more important than 6% annual growth in your (and EVERYONE's) portfolio.  That's it, that's the ask, and it is astounding to me (and yet hauntingly familiar to me) that this is not a consensus proposition in America... at all.

* The random selection process would be a part of the weekly broadcast (or a separate "mini-episode"), and would entail some pomp & circumstance.  Because not every person in America will willingly partake, I think the best way to select a person is to first choose a community randomly (which can be done by a series of "weighted rolls" - e.g. if California is 70 times more populous than Wyoming, it would get that weighted probability and so too would every other state; from there, a county is chosen in the same way and so on down, until we get to a specific neighborhood, village or city block).  The plan would be to offer a month of free, high-speed wifi in their area as well as a goPro or similar easy to use, low-cost web cam to the chosen guests both as a thank you and a way to convince people to take part.

^ Ergo, if guest #1 says what is most important to him is his neighbor's tree branches encroaching on his yard and dropping leaves all over his yard and he should be able to make his neighbor come over and rake because it's the latest tree to drop leaves in the whole city, and always after the city's yard waste pick-up has ended and I hate MY NEIGHBORS AND THEIR SCREAMING KIDS IN THE BACKYARD... ahem... - that conversation for the panel may be neighbors and community changing over time from front porches to fenced-in back yards to NextDoor...

There is no date in history

I've posted "on this date" posts since the very earliest days of RNJ (at least after one full cycle around the sun), and I feel like they are a vital part of this blog project.  I have often returned in this blog to the theme of nostalgia, and made a few contradictory arguments about it, I think...

 As I looked back on my March 2nd posts, I found one that has now got me quite flummoxed... It's a post from March 2, 2009, and it reviews the "new" Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.  It also includes a brief comments conversation, also dated in early March 2009.  As I was re-reading the post, I thought to myself, "wow, I can't believe Fallon has been hosting this show for 12 years already," and then I really pressed myself and thought that no, it simply wasn't possible that it has been that long... 6 or 7 years, maybe, but not more than 10.

[side note: I have now reached an age where these sorts of things occur to me frequently, and I think to myself things like, wait, this or that event in history (personal or writ large) cannot be as far away in time as it appears to be, and yet it usually is.  Time has gotten tricky, but this time, I felt like I must be in the right.]

joel is baffled

And, it turns out that I was -  Fallon took over the show in 2014 (specifically 17 February 2014, so I could have been writing on March 2nd of that year, but the tone of the post is as if it's happening presently, not looking back a couple weeks).  In 2009, Conan O'Brien did take over The Tonight Show, but not until June of that year (and the post is all about Fallon, not O'Brien).

So now, I am baffled, and feel like I can't trust any dates ever again, and wtf is going on?  I enjoy calendrics and synchronicities and rhyming history, but now I'm not sure of anything anymore.  

In the end, it's okay, as I'm not actually typing this post (at least this part of it) on March 2nd anymore anyway, but I did originally have the thought to post this then, so there it will be forever classified.  I hope this warns us all to not let time slip away from us any more than we can help it.  It's a funning thing about time - you can spend it or you can pass it, you can definitely waste it (see Roman Numeral J).  I am hoping "Having Enough Time" wins the inaugural Tournament of Greatness (although it would be quite the upset as a 10-Seed).  

I remember the time that Tim sang the Hootie & the Blowfish song "Time" at karaoke, and it quickly became clear that it is the worst of the Hootie songs generally available to choose as your karaoke number.

The Debate

It's clear to me now - that the reason that Bernie and Elizabeth can't fully get their message across is because the two of them know just how much money the top 1% of wealth-holders in our country have siphoned away from all of the rest of us.  Most people can't fathom these amounts.

** 7:48 **

I can't believe Delaney has come back with his "my dad..." line.  That's kind of awesome.

** 7:49 **

Talking 'bout my generation.  Mayor Pete has called out his generation several times.  He's a few years younger than me, but he's in the Cusper mini-generation.  I was born in 1978 so technically I had a few years before the "Reagan Revolution" kicked in.  Pete did not.

He has literally lived his entire life in an era when money has floated upward (it's more like steam than "trickle down" water) and decimated the middle class.

** 7:54 **

Just realized that i had paused to fix a drink and chase the puppy around the back yard and stop him from eating all the freshly cut grass, so I'm a few minutes behind...  Which will make this post hard to track.

I'll try to remember when i'm caught up after a commercial.

** 7:56 **

Ugh... The CNN format is really unfortunate.  Bash and Tapper (Lemon hasn't spoken yet, it seems) are being prosecutorial, but getting stuck on dumb points of argument.  "But are you going to raise taxes!!!..."  "But should we decriminalize crossing the border!!!..."

They seem to think they are on a Sunday show trying to stick one guest to a specific answer.  It's like they think they all are the guy from The Newsroom.

** 8:03 **

Mayor Pete made himself seem young again!  He was in high school during Columbine!

But Amy is seeming tough.  She's cool  A bit conservative for my taste, but yeah - she would win.

** 8:05 **

But yeah, Governor  Bullock - he will likely lose.

** 8:06 **

I wonder how you say "drain the swamp" en espanol?
(that's a Beto joke)

** 8:12 **

Almost caught up now... And, yeah - Hickenlooper is still on the lose list.
He is a look-back candidate.  He's grown up and gonna make things nice, but not shake things up too much.

Governor Hickenlooper, please listen - nobody likes their health insurance company.  They may want to have health insurance (rather than not!), but everyone hates the company that bureaucratically manages their insurance.  They don't even care about insurance.  They care about health care.  That's what they want without going broke.

** 8:15 **

Ugh, now CNN has the question written "is Senator Sanders too extreme to beat President Trump?".  Fuck you, CNN.  That's so CNN of you.

** 8:19 **

Delaney is getting a lot of screen time...
It's mostly grinning waiting to talk time.
When he talks, he really hurts his chances.

(the Delaney haiku

{and NO!, haikus don't need to be a specific number of syllables - it's about being able to say within a single breath [though, i'm not sure if that's each line or the whole thing, in which case mine may not apply]})

** 8:26 **

Starting with Delaney on the climate crisis.  He seems to be getting a lot of time...  Maybe that means Yang will tomorrow?

I hope he tells about what his dad used to say about the sky.

** 8:32 **

Oh God!!!  Tim Ryan, i like you and the funny way you say some of your vowels.  But NO!!!  Let's not base our future plan on "making things in 'Merica again".

Robots should be making things.  And yes, we will have a lot of people - a whole generation of people who work and worked with their hands.  And you want them to elect you, but don't lie to them.

Those people need to be given health care and food and a UBI (a "freedom dividend!"), and then they can work in other industries.

** 8:45 **

Sorry, paused for several minutes and am behind again.

** 8:46 **

"Look, Bernie..."  Bullock doesn't seem sure that climate change is real yet.
Ugh.
And Beto, stop talking about jobs.  Work, democrats should talk about work and not jobs.
But Mayor Pete scores!  Pete v. Don and how Pete wins...

** 8:47 **

Where have all the 60 second questions gone?

** 8:50 **

I expect that my groups will change in terms of who will win and may lose to The Donald.

** 8:53 **

"Domestic Terrorism" and "I Have a Plan" - It's hard to not see Warren as the natural choice to take the nomination in 2020 for Bernie voters of 2016.

I love Bernie - I actually love a lot of these folks tonight... and will vote for any one of them who wins.  But, Warren is a serious political plan person and also a movement candidate (not a revolution candidate - though she's that too, but a movement candidate).

Warren reminds me a lot of my mom - she's an earnest broker.  She's honest, she is tough and she is kind.

** 9:01 **

Oh my gawd - Tim Ryan STILL wants to give me another boss - a Chief Manufacturing Officer.  I have caught up somewhat, but still behind.  And starting to realize that this is a fucking 3 HOUR debate!!!

wtf CNN?

Like, I'm a political nerd, but 3 hours?  6 hours of debates?

** 9:04 **

Delaney loves TPP... Who's down with TPP (oh, just John Delaney).  Also Hilary Clinton (until she wasn't) and Obama, and probably Biden (i wish we could find a way to ask him)...

** 9:06 **

Love a re-direct to Beto... Yeah, i'm sure he'll know.
Nope, he doesn't, but bueno efforto, mi amigo.

** 9:10 **

Buttigieg is still young.  Younger than you (statistically).
And he knows scripture!

** 9:12 **

a softball "my dad" question for Delaney.  He has mentioned his family.  But turned it around to capital gains move.
Yes, he's exactly right (and also totally wrong) - capital gains should be taxed at (or higher) than a working rate of tax.

** 9:32 **

Can we use nuclear bombs?
                   - CNN 7/30/2019

Argle Barlge!!!!  Stop it.  Why are you so bad at this!?
If you don't understand global nuclear politics, don't talk about it, please!

I use the same policy for our fool president.  He shouldn't talk about nukes publicly, because he doesn't understand (can't understand - hasn't the empathy).

** 9:38 **

Just starting back up - and we're to closing statements!

So, it's only 2 and a half hours!

Bullock - "Bootstraps!"
Williamson - "down with Corporate Overlords!"
Delaney - "Can't we all just get along?"
Ryan - "there is some difference between the center lane and the moderate lane, right?"
Hickenlooper - "it's possible you may die tomorrow"
Klobuchar - "It's not your fault" (repeated ad goodwill hunting-ium)
O'Rourke - "Texas could be in play?"
Buttigeig - "Rut Roh - but i can fix it"
Warren - "I understand your life, and I can help"
Sanders - "I'm Bernie Sanders... wtf, why not vote for me at this point - seriously?"

Night Two!

** 7:17 **

Why was Michael Bennett talking so slowly?  Is that all he came up with for his minute, and wanted to make sure he finished too soon?
But De Blasio was on point... "Tax the hell out of 'em" makes for a good bumper sticker.

** 7:20 **

We're going back, to the Future!

** 7:24 **

Not sure what the protesters were yelling...
But Yang was very likable and articulate in a way he wasn't in June.

** 7:27 **

I like how Biden's campaign is a "they" for Harris's health care answer, but her planning is done by an "I"

** 7:34 **

Is anyone else kinda bored?  It's like all the back and forth, but none of the knowledge.

** 7:37 **

Tulsi quoted Marianne Williamson...

** 7:42 **

It seems that these candidates watched last night's debate, and are trying to do it again - but don't know as much.
Are they intentionally ignoring Andrew Yang?

** 7:45 **

Yang nailed his first question!

** 7:50 **

Biden says "Anyway..." and basically said, "my time is up..." again.

** 7:55 **

Oh, going back to Biden?
Neat.
Also he can't seem to remember anyone's names.  And Castro had to tell him that he could go on, and that "that things on" and we can hear him.

** 8:03 **

Had to make a vodka tonic, so i'm a bit behind now.
But Yang!, man.  I wonder if he is going to be the one to finally stop the Marianne Williamson bubble nonsense from last night.  He is saying totally different things than anyone else, but it's not malarky (ha!, see what i did there?)

** 8:08 **

I kind of wish FiveThirtyEight was tracking mentions of Obama, too... because Biden seems to say Obama most times he talks tonight...

** 8:11 **

He said "Shit!"

** 8:12 **

Fuck, seriously, you're going back to Biden!!!

** 8:13 **

Biden's teeth are super white.
And wants to teach prisoners how to read and write...
Fuck, and now he cut himself off again and volunteered to stop talking.

** 8:15 **

And now he seems to have mistaken Cory Booker for Barack Obama...

** 8:19 **

"I want to bring in Mr. Yang.  I want to bring Mr. Yang!!"
            - not any of the CNN moderators, that's for sure

** 8:23 **

Oh, right - Kamala Harris is here, too...
I totally forgot that you go here!

** 8:26 **

Shit, Biden looked up some facts about how racist Harris and Booker are.
That looks not great, n'est ce pas?

** 8:28 **

Yeah, Harris being a former prosecutor is not going to wear well as a democrat.  It's a better job for republican candidates, methinks.
I'm not sure what a fancy position on a stage is...

** 8:31 **

Yang is the 4th highest polling candidate on the stage.  I don't think he has received the 4th highest number of re-directs or direct questions to him.
I'm not even in the #yangGang yet, but see this as mass media prejudice against radical thought.

** 8:35 **

Huh, so MLK DID support UBI... #freedomDividend

** 8:41 **

Why won't anyone look at the fucking camera!!!???

Well, now they switched cameras, so at least Biden is in the general direction.

** 8:51 **

I read on Five Thirty Eight that Elizabeth Warren showed up in tonight's debate too... hearing a lot of blah blah blah so reading a bit further afield while they catch up on screen.

** 9:11 **

Fuck - just got woken up when Biden tried to jujitsu the lady question by bringing up his dead wife...

** 9:31 **

ok, i'm back for closing statements:

De Blasio: "tax the hell out of 'em & taxTheHell.com"
Bennett: "___" (forgot i was listening)
Inslee: "but this time, it really matters..."
Gillebrand: "I'm a rich, Christian, white person who cares about economic divides, religious divides, and racial divides, for serious."
Gabbard: "World War 2 is over... we're gonna go home now..."
Castro: "adios to Donald Trump"
Yang: "I hate ties...  and i should win"
Booker: "back to the reality tv show!"
Harris: "you've got to prey just to make it today..."
Biden: "3-0-3-0... what was that?"


A summary image, again, from 5-38:

Yang's (of course last, because of alphabetical, but nobody is talking about the alphabetical-disparity in the two night's debates!  The second latest letter in the alphabet is I!  Fracking I!  Two Americas indeed.) is kind of a sentence or a thought...

Bennet's might be better, actually, but the rest of these candidates make absolutely no sense!

Mike Judge - Prophet

Two of the more brilliant films of all time in my life have been Office Space and Idiocracy. 

The two films anticipated life on earth as i have come to know it... in many ways.
We all suffer the times that we are born into.  Gandalf, perhaps, said it best, when he explained to Frodo:

Frodo: "I wish the Ring had never come to me. ... Gandalf: "So do all who live to se

Source: https://ktismatics.wordpress.com

e such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Judge's films imagine eras that seem so familiar, but were both (in their way) revelatory of a future state that we all knew was coming but didn't want to believe. 

I am a man of odd emotional effusions.  Shiva's death on TWD in many ways was in many was sadder than those of the rest of the Kingdom earlier in the episode.  I can't watch or hear any part of Emma Gonzalez' speech last week without crying.  Deep Impact, ID4, Jurassic Park - action movies often work to elicit lame emotional responses (or pile ons), and i am afraid i'm often susceptible to them.  Real or simulated, pop song or news broadcast or Hallmark movie...

Humor, like melodrama / sob stories, are emotional manipulators.  A comedy film allows itself to make extreme arguments without being scrutinized.  In Con Air, Steve Buscemi's serial killer character says that even though he is seen as the crazy one, his definition of insanity is reporting to the same job for 40 years only to be told one Friday that you're redundant, being let go, and left to flounder.  Office Space makes much the same argument.

Idiocracy is a movie that makes the argument that US Americans are de-evolving.  Becoming stupider due to a decades-long anti-eugenics program.  It's essentially Republicanism run amok.  The Trump presidency looks a lot like 2 or 3 administrations prior to President Camacho.  Idiocracy was a funny movie when it came out - and prescient.  It felt right, but now it feels like it's actually unfolding in front of our eyes.

Comedy is an opportunity to say out loud - to scream!!! - everything that you see that is wrong with the world.  When i saw Ricky Gervais a while back, he talked about growing up in a funny family (i, too, was raised in a funny family).  He said there was one rule when he was growing up... that was, "if you think of something funny to say, you must say it."

... part of the background

Multiverse theory has been a part of science fiction literature for a long time.  It's part of my underlying philosophy, and, as an amateur theoretical physicist, it is the core of my understanding of the world.

I know "amateur theoretical physicist" isn't a thing as we ordinarily think of things.  Marshall McLuhan (and Robert Oppenheimer) knew that our obsession with specialization and expertise would be our undoing.  As leading experts in each and every field refine their skill and knowledge, their focus sharpens and their view tightens. An entire flowchestra of new ideas and different thinking is lost in this honing. And capitalism pours gasoline on the spreading conflagration of narrowing knowledge.

And so it is that I am an amateur theoretical physicist. As such, I have created a theory of the universe, and in particular, of dark matter, which has yet (to my knowledge) to have been disproven. I devised this theory in the late 1990s, wrote it down on a scrap of notebook paper, and promptly lost that piece of paper – but the theory goes something like this:

We live in a multi-dimensional universe. Sharing our same space are other us-es and more of what is ours and on which we stand, it’s simply not perceivable to us because we are ‘out of phase’ with it in some fundamental way. (This phasic concept is something articulated well in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it’s not anything that I’m beholden to with regard to this theory).

Source: www.bnox.be

These neighboring universes may well be the product of probability (i.e. each time Schrödinger’s Cat is dead, it’s also alive in the universe right next door). If this is true, then these multiverse are also the product of choice – that is, when I turn left I also turn right and the two near twins split ways. As you continue down that rabbit-hole, all possible (and perhaps impossible?) worlds exist.

It’s also plausible that these neighboring universes are (perhaps also) a copy of our own, but at a different moment in time (this was the theory of that short-lived Terra Nova show, that stepping into the faraway past was not moving back in time in one's own universe, rather it was stepping into a parallel universe, which was existing at that long-ago moment).

Regardless of the makeup of all of these alternate realities, my theory is essentially that all of the matter and energy that makes up all of 'those universes' is perceived (though not seen or felt) as dark matter and dark energy in our own familiar world. The vast amounts of stuff in all the infinities of the multiverse outweighs the somewhat less vast (but not insignificant) amounts of the dark stuff in our universe.  It's 'dark' because our ability to perceive through the veil between universes is virtually non-existent.  The vastness of the amounts of it all gives us the glimpse we have. 

I account for this theory because it is an important part of my background noise.  My purpose in setting out today, though, was to investigate to what extent multiverse theory has become a part of most everyone's background radiation.

Not so long ago, any voicing of serious statements regarding an alternate reality was met with glances toward the wings (expecting madman collectors with those big sticks with hoops on the end to enter, naturally).  Of course still today, it's a scoffed at science, but the conversation can be entered speculatively.

More than any other response, I find that after a bit of mental drubbing - people eventually come to a point with regard to alternate realities where they say, essentially, "well, if they're inaccessible and can't be observed in any way, what difference does it make whether they're real or not?" 

I find this question both conclusive and inconceivable.  Scientifically, asking a question that may not be able to be answered (because it can't be tested, investigated, or observed) is an empty exercise.  Philosophically, cosmologically, theoretically, spiritually, psychologically, and in most other ways I think any interesting question is worth asking.  Particular when that question is central to the nature of our existence.

Star Trek - the Chronology

An attempt (again, wildly incomplete until it's not) to watch the Star Trek Universe chronologically.  A straightforward version exists on Wikipedia.  Others have put together lists as well, which do good work.  I'm curious about how such a viewing alters the experience - not recommended for the uninitiated.

I would love some help with this, if anyone is a Trekkie novel buff, for example.  There is real value in seeing things in new ways.  Seeing  the Star Trek world in its imagined unfolding, from our past to our present and future, helps envision what Roddenberry's world might have to offer us, if we were to work toward inhabiting this future.

I'll make note of when to watch in particular episodes in [bold face in brackets].  Real world dates will be outlined in 'far left' bold italics.  I'll track watching //within slashes//, both in the timeline and viewing notes.  There are also several instances of non-actual time travel (either possibly fraudulent {usually by Q} or more of a memory or reference to the time in question).  These will be marked in Green, and non-required viewing.

The Big Bang (approx. 13.8 Billion Years BCE)

"Death Wish" - ST:V (Season 2:18)

• The Wikipedia timeline didn't add this one initially, so I've needed to now come back around and add it out of order unfortunately.  It's approximately a 30 second visit so i didn't go back and start over.  [9:10 into the episode (until around 10:30?), they pop back to the Big Bang when Q (Quinn?) is trying to hide]  //3.17.2020// //8.30.21// //3.22.25//

3.5 Billion Years BCE

"All Good Things" - ST:TNG (Season 7:24-25)

• Q and Jean Luc (JL) Picard bond at the erstwhile beginning of life.  [Around 2.5 minutes near the end of episode 24 (starting 23:17 min. from end on Paramount +)] //4.27.14// //4.29.23// //3.22.25//
• On reviewing in the real time of TNG, the impact of this moment is quite compelling, where Picard causes the extinction of all humanity. //5.3.20// - just realizing that this isn't the proper moment to watch this, rather, I'm seeing it while watching the finale as part of "Encounter at Farpoint". 

sometime around 101,001 BCE

"The Chase" - ST:TNG (Season 6: 20)

• Early in the episode, an artifact from this era is discovered, and a holo-recording of a progenitor of all humanoid life in our part of the galaxy appears to all of those taking part in "the chase" [the 39:50 mark for about 2 minutes] //4.17.24// //3.23.25//

100,000 BCE (approximate)
"The Girl Who Made the Stars" - ST:D (Season 2 - Short Trek 5)

• Michael Burnham's father (Mike Burnham), comforting his young daughter afraid of the dark during the night, tells the tale of a young girl in Ancient Africa who braves facing the Night Beast, and thereafter creates stars and becomes a warrior. [starting at the 1:40 mark until about 6:10 (with a brief reprise)] //1.22.20// //3.25.25//

43,000 BCE (approximate)

"Tattoo" - ST: V (Season 2:9)

• The alien who Chakotay encounters near the end of the episode provides him a vision of their visit to earth 45,000 years prior where they encountered the ur-anscestors (The Inheritors) of those who would become the Native American tribes of the Western Hemisphere [at about the 39:25 - 40:20 mark] //8.25.21// //3/25.25//

3841 BCE
"Requium for Methuselah" - ST (Season 3: 19)

• Mr. Flint is born [Spock estimates his age around the 28:15 point; subsequently Mr. Flint confirms the exact date at 37:00] //4.4.25//

2731 BCE Era (approximate)
"All Our Yesterdays" - ST (Season 3: 23)

• Spock and Bones bounce back to some Ice Age era, when humans may or may not exist in the world (and it may not be earth). [starting at around the 8:00 mark alternating back and forth until about 2:00 minutes before the end of the episode.]

Spock's ability to overcome his primal instincts, which are taking over throughout the episode, is the earliest (chronologically, at least) example of the common Star Trek theme that people are a product of their environments much more than they are innately good or evil (or greedy, etc.).  This is an important Utopian theme that runs throughout the series.  The implication is that if we can successfully build a good and just world, people will become good and just naturally.  It's an argument for creating the change that we want to see in the world, and trusting that we inhabitants of that world will deserve it, eventually. //4.29.14// //3.21.20// //4.4.25//

500 BCE
"How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth" - ST: TAS (Season 2: 5)

• Kukulkan visits earth, influencing and giving direction to the Mayan civilization. Kirk and his fellow crewmembers get to see a version of an ancient city on Kukulkan's ship. [starting around 8:30 until 13:30]. //4.4.25//

late 1100s (or Q's approximation thereof)
"Qpid" ST:TNG (Season 4: 20)

• Whether the crew are actually transported back to 12th Century England or just a facsimile, they get to play out a fictional history (of an already likely fictional history) of Robin Hood and his Merry Men saving Vash. [starting at 21:45 through to right near the end of the episode at 41:15] //11.13.20// //4.7.25//

1150s (or thereabout)
"Anomaly" ST:E (Season 3:2)

• The Sphere-Builders are beginning their work at this time... [T'Pol explains right around the 32:15 mark for a half minute or so] //4.8.25//

1334

"Requiem for Methuselah" ST (Season 3: 19)

• Mr. Flint recalls the rats in the streets of Constantinople of this era... [Just after the 5:00 mark, you see the expression on his face as he remembers] //4.11.25//

mid/late 1300s

"Inner Light" ST:TNG (Season 5: 25)

• Picard experiences a life within the culture of Kataan for most of the episode as Kamin, an iron weaver. Kataan's sun went nova about 1,000 years [Data discloses this at 29:55] before the Enterprise encounters a probe that is sent out at the end of Kamin's (Picard's) life on the planet. [starting just after the 1:00 mark until just before 13:00; then 14:10 to 22:45; 23:45 to 26:10; 27:10 to 29:15; and finally 30:00 to 40:20]
• The story is really about scale - Picard is experiencing a planet and entire civilization that are preparing to die while also experiencing life joys and tragedies that make up our day to day lives. 

I think as the episode ends, and Picard starts playing the flute that he learned to play over his mediated lifetime, there is an argument for the fundamental value of mediated experience. A life that you haven't, actually, lived can be equally as impactful and meaningful having experienced it in another way (say watching, reading, or otherwise inhabiting it) //12.13.20// //4.11.25//

1484
"Dragon's Teeth" ST:V (Season 6: 7)

• We meet a couple of Vaadwaur who are preparing to put themselves in statis in the midst of a massive battle.  The couple plan to enter statis for 5 years, but end up being out for 892 years until Voyager's crew find them and wake them up. [pre-credits teaser scene] [Kim estimates this date around 7:15] //7.28.22// //4.13.25//

16__ (very approximate)
"All Our Yesterdays" - ST (Season 3: 23)

• Kirk lands in a sort of late-17th Century version of the English Restoration-style religious fanaticism.
• The dates of the eras for "All Our Yesterdays" are very approximate, in fact, because, it assumes that the planet of the Library developed at approximately the same rate as earth's history. [starting just before the 8:00 mark and then on and off again throughout the episode until around 34:30]    //3.21.20// //4.13.25//

1691 (?)
"The Magicks of Megas-tu" - ST: TAS (Season 1: 8)

• The Enterprise crew arrive during the Salem Witch Trials (or an approximation of them), and are put on trial by the Megans, who last encountered humans during the trials and felt they were too barbaric to be allowed continued existence. [starting at 14:30 until around the 21:15 mark]  //4.1.20// //4.14.25//

early 1860s (?)
"The Q and the Grey" - ST: V (Season 3: 11)

• This is made quite clearly NOT the era of the American Civil War (Q admits as much), but Janeway & Q spend some time in the American Civil War (albeit one happening within the Q Continuum). [starting at the 17:30 to 22:50; then 25:05 to commercial break right before 27:00; just before 28:30 to 33:45; 35:50 to 43:00]//12.8.21//

Late 1800s
"North Star" - ST: E (Season 3: 9)

At some point in the late-19th Century, the Skagarans take a number of humans back to their new colony as slaves.  Eventually, the humans overthrew the Skaggs, and made them into the second-class citizens.  An interesting line, in the third act, about how humans have long memories after Archer says that it's been 300 years since the humans were brought as slaves to a new world.  Imagine similar lines being spoken on earth in the present day had slave revolts resulted in an overthrow of the dominant Western culture. ||Alternate history where the Southern United States is overthrown in the late 1790s and earliest 1800s and the South, the Caribbean and some of Central and South America form an Afro-Latino American nation, which becomes a Western Hemisphere rival to the US.|| [around 20:45 Bethany tells Archer the story] //3.2.17// //4.18.25//

1893
"Time's Arrow" - ST: TNG (Season 5: 26 & Season 6:1)

• The Enterprise crew is forced to travel back to 1893 San Francisco to unmask an alien incursion into Earth's past. [In the Season 5 season finale just before 18:30 Data wakes up in San Francisco until 27:15; then back to Data at 31:05 until 40:00.  At the end of the episode, the rest of the away team follows the alien interlopers back through a time portal]
• "Maybe it's worth giving up cigars for, after all"- Mark Twain ca. 2369 (in response to Counselor Troi's explanation of how the 24th Century has eliminated poverty, despair, hopelessness, and power run amok generally). [The Season 6 premier starts in 1893 and continues in that when until 25:45 when most of the crew (plus Samuel Clemens!) jump through the time portal; back to 1893 at 27:50 until 29:30 to Picard who remained behind to tend to an injured Guinan, forging their friendship; then again just before 33:30 until 34:40; then back and forth starting around the 41:00 mark until Picard returns to his time at ]

One of the 19th Century's greatest humanists remarks on the achievement of the humanist project (at least seemingly) in the Star Trek universe.  //5.5.14// //12.13.20// //5.3.25//

1920s

"Past Tense: Part 2" - ST: DS9 (Season 3:12)

• Kira and O'Brien bounce back on their search for our lost heroes in time to a street outside a speakeasy [Just after 10:05 until 11:00]  //6.1.20// //5.6.25//

1930

"The City on the Edge of Tomorrow" - ST (Season 1: 29)

• The re-write of this episode famously has Kirk making the ultimate decision to allow his new love, Edith Keeler, to die, rather than his being held back from saving her (to the detriment of the entire future) by Spock. [Spock and Kirk jump through at the 14:00 mark (Bones had gone through a few minutes earlier, but we don't see him come through till later .  We stay in 1930 until 48:12 after 'completing the mission'.] //5.23.25//

1944

"Zero Hour" - ST:E (Season 3:24)

• Archer & Enterprise are hurled back to the mid-20th Century. [Enterprise emerges into this time as they are released from the Xindi Carrier Ship (around 38:30 until the end of the episode)] //6.23.23// //5.24.25//

"Storm Front" - ST: E (Season 4:1-2)

• An alternate history in which Germany occupies the Eastern United States during the Second World War. [Starting immediately after the "previously on" at the opening of the episode and through the entire two-parter]
• Daniel's shows up in Sick Bay looking TERRIBLE! [starting around the 10:30 mark, and occasionally through Part 1] and he is in some kind of temporal flux.
• The coolest bit is that the main characters from Guys & Dolls seem to have formed the resistance movement in NYC when Germans invade the East Coast and the US government has retreated into the heartland. [At around 39:35 of Part 2, Archer meets Daniels outside of time in some version of the "circuits of time", emerging back in their own time around 40:45]

At times it's obnoxiously Utopian, reading the racist/sexist American 1940s as magically cured by a common enemy. //7.7.23// //6.1.25//

July 1947

"Little Green Men" - ST: DS9 (Season 4:8)

• A rare Ferengi-centric episode, in which Quark, Rom and Nog find themselves trapped in post World War II American paranoia (in a little place called Roswell, NM).   [Much of the episode occurs in "real time". Time displacement about the 14 min. mark, and return to the DS9 timeline around the 42 minute point]

For some reason the most intentionally politically relevant Star Trek series tended too often toward 'joke episodes'. Some small critique seeps through in the selection if the paranoid Red Scare America, but overall a lazy episode.  Some small critique of American greed and gullibility (culpability) is here, but without teeth (even sharp Ferengi teeth). Cute but not memorable. //8.26.15// As it turns out, I saw this ep in the "real time" of DS9 on the exact same day of the year 6 years later! //8.26.21// //6.3.25//

early/mid 1950s (estimated)

"Far Beyond the Stars" - ST: DS9 (Season 6:13)

• Ben "Benny" Sisko suffers another bout of Orb-itis, and spends the episode in a Prophet-inspired vision of himself and the DS9 crew as pulp sci-fi magazine writers (among other professions - e.g. Worf is a pro-baseball player named Willie).  Benny receives an illustration of DS9 from his editor, and agrees to write a story about it - he sees himself, a black captain of a remote space station.  The episode is a poignant examination of what is reality and what is fiction (and where do we find ourselves in that spectrum).  He begins to see more and more visions from his future self. [He emerges at 4:00 but comes back 30 seconds later; then back a bit after 5:00 and there for most of the rest of the episode until 41:05] 
• It is an impressive look from the 1990s backward and forward to the constant threat of institutional police violence against communities of color that threatens our world through to today {hopefully, someday, I can rescind this commentary} //8.27.15// //2.7.22// //6.7.25//
• Also, it offers a grand mind-fuck of a conclusion... which is as good as anything...

"Shadows and Symbols" - ST: DS9 (Season 7:2)

• [Starting at about the 28:30 minute mark until 30:15; then 33:00 to  (with a few back and forth moments); and again at 36:15] Ben "Benny" Sisko is back - but this time, he finds himself committed in a psych ward, writing his stories of Captain Benjamin Sisko on board Deep Space Nine on the walls in pencil. In 2375, The Prophets are having a bit of a crisis with the closure of the Wormhole.  As the scenes bounce back and forth between the scenes in the 1950s & the 2370s, the implication is that Sisko's actions (on both sides of the time divide) will determine the fate of Prophets.  Eventually these visions from the 1950s are revealed to "false visions", but I record them here as lived experience nonetheless. //3.22.22// //6.7.25//

1957

"Carbon Creek" - ST: E (Season 2:2)

•  T'Pol tells the story of real "First Contact", in the form of her great grandmother and her crew crash landing in a sleepy town called Carbon Creek.  While waiting for a rescue they're not sure is coming, they settle into daily life in the town, taking odd jobs and becoming part of the community.  In the end, one of the crew opts to stay on earth, and the crew claims he died in the crash  [The 1950s storyline begins immediately after the opening credits through to the end of the episode, with a few storytelling breaks...]

Another "novelty" episode.  This time with Vulcan - Ha!  A critique of the traditional nuclear household  (in a threesome of Vulcans), but there's also a proto-Spock story here, too.  All Star Trek aliens are ultimately different kinds of humans, and the final message we take away from this incident is that balance is key.  Americans are clearly crazy (Humans in Star Trek narratives are Americans, and upstart civilization late to the game, who without noticing how it happened are somehow in charge now, I guess...), but to tilt too far any other direction (French Vulcan intellectuals or Russian / Germanic Klingon pride/honor people) is to lose out on the uniquely-American gumption that (so the story goes) leads to the development of the Federation.  //8.27.15// //6.7.25//

1967

"Future's End, Pt. 1" - ST:V (Season 3: 8)

Henry Starling sees Captain Braxton's ship crash land on earth in the mountains. [From the start until the opening credits (at 1:05)] //6.4.23// //6.10.25//

1968

"Assignment: Earth" - ST (Season 2:26)

• The Enterprise uses its good ole slingshot time warp technology to study "Earth's most turbulent moment in history", 1968.

 Our heroic rescue from these dangerous times are only thanks, of course, to the interference of a super-technologically advanced planet.  Seems like they could've done something about W. [The entirety of this episode occurs in 1968] //7.30.16// //6.15.25//

1969

"Tomorrow is Yesterday" - ST (Season 1:19)

• The Enterprise first encounters slingshot space travel accidentally and is zapped back to a week before the moon landing. 

Novel use of getting back home and undoing any historical intervention. #holyShit,didTheyJustMurderThatPilotJustAfewHoursBehind!!!??? [From beginning to 47:30 mark or so in this year.]  //7.30.16// //6.17.25//

early 1970s?

"Past Tense: Part 2" - ST: DS9 (Season 3:12)

• Kira and O'Brien bounce in to the same street in San Francisco.  Run into a couple of "flower power" kids [starting at 23:45 until 24:40] //6/1/20// //6.17.25//

late 1970s

"Mercy" - ST:Pic (Season 2:8)

• The FBI agent's memory of encountering two Vulcans while out wandering in the woods at night.  He stumbles upon them and then flees, but they catch up to him and try to erase his memories via a mind meld, but it is interrupted by their being beamed away. [Opening scene of the episode (after the "previously on" segment) until 2:15, then at 36:45 until 38:45 and through until memory is completed at around the 38:35 mark.] //4.21.22// //4.8.23// //6.17.25//

1982

"Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus" - ST:LD (Season 3:8)

• The team find themselves in a holographic version of Sydney, Australia, chasing the Romulan triplets who are the villains of Boimler's movie. [starting around 13:45 until 14:45] //3.9.23// //6.17.25//

1986

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

• The Enterprise crew (this time aboard a Klingon Warbird) uses its good ole slingshot technology… this is sounding familiar. Going back in time to save the world with the help of two humpback whales. 

Comments made "recently": http://stogie10.blogspot.com/2016/07/celebrating-american-hope.html?m=1 //7.11.16//

• On the subsequent pass through, the first thing that's apparent is the comedy ("Do you two like Italian?" & Scotty ranting about traveling millions of miles from Edinburgh to visit the plexiglass company.)
• This also marks, I think, the first very explicit morality tales in the series.  There were probably a few episodes in TOS & TAS that you can point to that critique present day social problems (in this case the ecologically destructive ways of the late 20th Century).  This is a staple of later series, but this may be the first example of it in the whole run.
• Also, smoothie Kirk has time to futureGoogle & memorize a D.H. Lawrence quote about whales to impress (and surely eventually seduce) the 80s doctor. 
• "...ahhh, the Giants" [starting at the 31:45 mark until 1:38:30] //4.26.20// //6.18.25//

1992 - 1996

• The Eugenics Wars were to have happened during this time (ST).

1996

"Future's End" - ST:V (Season 3: 8-9)

• The Voyager is sucked back to 1996 after being attacked by a 29th Century vessel. 

Star Trek has always had its own time as the subject at hand. When they do so explicitly it's always a bit clumsy and hilarious. In 1999 - companies with names like ChronowerX, money-grubbing executives, hacker-culture as dominant.  

• On re-watch the temporal paradox implications are most noticeable.  ChronowerX's existence is the entire reason for the information age.  In our universe (which is more parallel to theirs than most, I expect), Henry Starling is Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. [Voyager arrives around the 6:20 mark and spends most of the remainder of the 2-parter until 43:30 of Part 2 when they get back to the present] //11.29.21// //6.24.25//

1999

• Voyager 6 is launched (see Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

2000
"11:59" - ST:V (Season 5: 23)

• Neelix becomes interested in earth history, and explores the relationship between mythic and social history.

More commentary on the small-mindedness of our own time.  This and the next several entries in the timeline (and the past several come to think of it, 1930 - 2040 or so) explore the philosophical question of history and fate.  All past events lead to the present, and these episodes call into question how we reach the future - the hopeful future of the Star Trek universe.
All evidence in our current world speaks to the contrary of the hope of finding a way to make things work - to accomplish the goal of allowing our technology to save us from ourselves.  It's clear that we could make a better world, with what have available to us.  But the only way we can imagine getting there is through some great turmoil. [Janeway's story begins to unspool starting at 2:20 until 17:35, then back 21:35 until 29:50, and finally 34:35 until 42:45]
 //8.3.16// //7.19.22// //6.24.25//

2004
"Carpenter Street" - ST:E (Season 3:11)

• Highlight of the typisch Amerikanisch stereotype has to be in the opening sequence when he eats the last piece of pizza in the box, which is in the bathroom sink...
• The real story is about how dark the aughts and the present time is.  Recognizing how far gone most of us are in the modern era - that we are so immersed in the capitalist endeavor, that we will sell out others for our own gain.  That we will sell others for our gain. [Starting at the opening of the episode until 7:45 when we get back to Enterprise's time, then Archer & T'Pol go back to 2004 around 12:10, and we are there for the rest of the episode (with Archer & T'Pol returning to Enterprise around 40:30), then back briefly from 41:15 to the end of the episode.]

//8.5.16// //3.2.17//  //6.20.23// //6.24.25//

2022
"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" - ST:SNW (Season 2:3)

• La'an and James T. Kirk get blasted back to 2022 Toronto and witness a terrorist attack on a bridge that they both remember from history, and discover a sinister Romulan plot to change the future in the past. [Starting just before 9:45 until around 54:15] //7.2.23// //6.30.25//

2024
As it turns out, two years from now is kind of epically important year for the Star Trek Universe, with the turning point seeming to be The Europa Mission, which includes in its crew none other than Renée Picard.  When I first learned that Picard's second season was going to occur mostly in 2024, I had hoped that what they would need to fix was somehow to be responsible for starting World War III, which starts in 2026 in the STU (and, given Russia's current activities in Ukraine, possibly also ours as well!), but 8 episodes in to the new season it seems perhaps even a bit more diabolical than all that.

ST:Pic (Season 2:3 - 2:10) 

• Almost immediately upon arrival in 2024, we lose Elnor, and it's not clear whether restoring the timeline will save him.
• Agnes attempts a mini-assimilation link up with the Borg Queen, which will be significant later, but mostly, Cristobal, Seven, and Raffi find themselves in the Southern California  of our world (almost) and that of the Northern California (almost) Sisko and Co. will encounter later this year.
• We learn that an ancestor of Picard's (Renée Picard) is an essential part of the Europa Mission, which will be essential in humanity's development toward the Star Trek Universe we know, and away from the tyrannical military dictatorship we saw at the start of this season.  It's the choice between following Europa's mission of exploration versus Adam Soong's vision of genetic manipulation toward a more perfect humanity. 
• And Q... Q ends (it seems at least) in 2024. [Starting at around the 10:00 mark of "Assimilation" (ST:Pic,  Season 2:Episode 3, shortly after the opening credits break) the Crew jumps back - Kirk Style - to 2024; to solve the problem that Q has created; at the 26:00 mark, 3 of our crew beam down to different locations in Los Angeles.  They stay here in 2024 until the 34:00 mark in "Farewell" (episode 10)] //4.21.22// //7.7.25//

August 30, 2024

"Past Tense, Pts.1 & 2" - ST: DS9 (Season 3: 11-12)

• "Past Tense" is a bit of a hilarious (and quite thoughtful) philosophical experiment and behind the curtain commentary on Star Trek time travel plots.  Most explicitly, the scenes when O'Brien & Kira are beaming through time in an attempt to find Sisko & Co. who've been lost in one of the formative historical moments of the early 21st Century.  They beam into the 1930s & the late 1960s in random searching of 12 possible moments in history when they might be lost (naturally, they only have enough chronotron particles to visit 7 or so...).  The two dates seem random, but both are references to TOS episodes that riff on this same theme: Making (or not un-making) history anonymously. //9.18.16//

• Reviewing the episodes on the next go round in "real time" (which is to say, the real fictional time of 2371 where the DS9 characters are coming from), this version of 2024 feels a lot more prescient than it did in September 2016. It feels a bit like perhaps where we might actually be in three more years had Trump won a second term (or his doofus coup had been successful). 
• This is also an instance of my YOUTH (1996/7) looking forward to my MIDDLE AGE (now, 2024/5) and imagining a darker future.  {Octavia Butler is another good source of this sort of stuff}.Also, THE NET is a big thing in this era, which is so cool...[Sisko first wakes up in 2024 at 2:50 mark until 7:30... The narrative switches back and forth between timelines, next at 8:45 to 26:20 (with a brief break around 14:43), when the future start trying to find them... Back to 2024 at 27:05 until just before 38:00, then 40:05 to the end of Part 1 to the start of Part 2 until just before 9:00, then again at 11:00 and throughout the 2 Parts until 43:25] //7.26.21// //7.8.25//

2032
"One Small Step" - ST: V (Season 6:8)

• We see the initial incident of the Ares IV in the pre-episode set-up, then later we get video footage from the 21st Century Ares IV mission, which Chakotay, Paris and Seven try to recapture the module within a spatial phenomenon. [Opening sequence before the credits, then; 12:30 minute mark for less than a minute; again starting just before the 31:00 - 34:00 minute mark (audio and some more video continues until just before 38:00 mark)] //7.25.22// //8.7.22// //7.8.25//

2037

"E²" - ST: E (Season 3:21)

• Enterprise is blasted through a vortex over a hundred years into the past, where they turn themselves in to a generational ship to help the present day Enterprise succeed in its mission with the Xindi. [starting at the 9:30 mark until 10:10 with occasional scenes continuing for a few minutes until 11:30] //7.6.23// //7.8.25//

2048

"Past Tense: Part 2" - ST: DS9 (Season 3:12)

• Unshown scene of Kira and O'Brien who return back from this era "worse than any period in earth's history that actually existed" [We only get the reaction to the era when they return to the present time at 36:10] //6.2.20// //7.8.25//

2050
"11:59" - ST:V (Season 5: 23)

• The photo of Shannon O'Donnell Janeway and her family that Neelix gives Captain Janeway as a gift briefly comes to life. [Right around the 44:50 minute mark at the tail end of the episode] //7.19.22// //6.24.25// //7.8.25//

2053
"New Eden" - ST: D (Season 2: 2)

• Stained glass depicting the early era [around the 18:00]
• World War III occurs on earth, and the church and signal emanating from the planet in the Beta Quadrant begin at this time. [Footage from the moment when the church was transported to the Beta Quadrant begins at around the 41:15 mark at the very end of the episode, recovered from a soldier's helmet camera]

On a second viewing while catching up on Discovery in the lead-up to the 4th season, this is one of the episodes that really stand out in a bit of a lost sophomore season. //11.30.21// //7.8.25//

"mid 21st Century"
"The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail" - ST: SNW (Season 3: 6)

• We learn that explorers from earth left after WWIII because they felt the environmental crisis was more than earth could bear - so they left to try to find somewhere else. [at the 43:00 mark we see a photograph of the explorers who left earth at this time] //8.29.25//

2063

//8.5.16//

Star Trek VII: First Contact

• This is no time to talk about timelines, but a quick word about timelines.  Like "Past Tense", First Contact starts early with the complete unexisting of "our timeline" - that is, the threat of unmaking the world we know.  Again, fortunately, the Enterprise is caught in a chrono-temporal bubble or some such, so while they witness the change in the timeline on the planet below, but are able to go back in time and "fix" things.

It's this notion of fixing, that I think is key to all of these time travel stories (as well as to the new alternate timeline movies with Chris Pine Kirk).  Fundamental, is the idea of "belonging" - that is, you belong in your own specific timeline.  The Enterprise crew that we know don't belong in a timeline where all 9 billion inhabitants of earth are Borg.  That said, based rules established by the Star Trek multiverse, each of these universes inherently already exists.

The question is, in these temporal bubble moments, is the timeline that our Enterprise inhabits being changed, or are they being moved into a parallel timeline/universe where whatever conditions they observe always already (threw in some Heidegger!) existed.

More comments made recently. 
//9.20.16 & 7.20.16//

• On the re-watch from the Enterprise-E's time perspective, the Star Trek future history of the 21st Century feels more and more plausible. The first time around in 2016, "Past Tense" felt like a stretch, and First Contact's World War 3 that sets up the world Zephraim Cochrane's people find themselves in seemed entirely impossible.  Now with American democracy more and more likely on the wane in the next couple of election cycles, some sort of massive war event seems prescient. 
• Around the 36:00 mark, Data gets captured by the Borg, and the film takes on a Star Wars "trio of drama" structure with Riker, Troi and LaForge trying to make history happen down on the surface of the planet (Montana doesn't look that dissimilar to Endor!); Data and the Borg Queen in a battle of...wits; and Picard and Alfre Woodard dancing, spacewalking, and diagnosing their way to beating the Borg drones scattered around the Enterprise.  [Enterprise enters this year at 13:55 and they remain through the entire movie] //1.5.22// //7.9.25//

2074

"Time's Orphan" - ST: DS9 (Season 6: 24)

• Near the end of the episode, 18-year-old Molly returns through the time portal she first fell through on the planet Golana, and encounters her 8-year-old self, and directs her back home. [starting at 39:50 until 41:20] //3.5.22// //7.9.25//

late 2070s

"Memorial" - ST: V (Season 6: 14)

An episode that is very much a precursor to "The Inner Light" of ST:TNG.  The civilizations in these episodes have developed some kind of advanced memory altering technology.  Both feel at least fascistic (and this one here highly militaristic).  Perhaps a warning of where we deploy our resources?...

• The crew, starting with Tom, Neelix, Kim, and Chakotay, experience memories from a massacre that occurred around 300 years ago.  We see some of the time unfold in the crew's minds on board Voyager, but several moments when we see moments of the actual battle. 
• An exploration of trauma (from the late 1990s and the 2390s) that feels prescient. #traumaBeacon #virtueSignalling  [starting around 4:10 when Paris is watching TV alone, late at night until 7:20, when he's awakened.  Then at 8:10 until 8:55 when Kim starts hearing the same battle.  Around 11:05 we're taken to the battle in Chakotay's dream until 12:15 when he wakes up.  At 17:35 the narrative starts alternating from there to Voyager (retelling the tale) until 22:00.  Later at 25:45 Janeway begins (who wasn't on the away mission!) begins to experience the same memory until 27:20.]
• [At  just after 37:00 Tuvok reveals when all this occurred]  //8.20.22// //7.9.25//

early 2080s

"Terra Nova" - ST: E (Season 1:6)

• A photograph of the original settlers appears for a few seconds. [early on in the episode] //7.11.25//

2119

"Broken Bow" - ST: E (Season 1:1)

• A video clip of Zephraim Cochrane talking about the development of higher Warp engines and humans setting out to explore the galaxy. [starts just after 18:05 and continues (audio, then video again) for about 30 seconds] //6.8.23// //7.9.25//

2121

"Broken Bow" - ST: E (Season 1:1-2)

• Jonathan Archer, as a boy with his dad, and he is working on a model starship. [first 0:50 of the episode and again at 18:40 - 18:55, and then just after 52:20 to 52:55, and finally in the closing seconds of Part 2 starting at 1:25:35 of the two-parter] //6.8.23// /7.9.25//

2143

"First Flight" - ST: E (Season 2:24)

• Archer in his youth competing with other pilots of the day to fly the first Warp 2 Flight. We also get to see Archer and Trip meet for the first time! [6:35 to 10:15, then 11:05 - 14:35, and again at 16:05 until 23:50, then 25:50 to 28:30, and 30:00 until 37:15 and finally 39:40 until 41:05] //7.22.25//

2146

"Vanishing Point" - ST: E (Season 2:10)

• Trip tells Hoshi the story of Cyrus Ramsey, an early casualty of transporter technology in Madison, Wisconsin [starting around 8:30 - 9:15] //7.21.25//

Real time of Star Trek: Enterprise -

2151

"Shockwave, Part 1" - ST: E (Season 1:26)

• Daniels brings Archer back to the night before Enterprise's first mission to tell him the disaster at the start of their episode isn't their fault. [starting at at 15:40 until 20:00] //6.10.23// //7.9.25//

Star Trek: Enterprise (Season 1:1-20)

[starting just before 0:50 of episode 1 and throughout the season] 

• Season 1 of Star Trek: Enterprise includes a lot of one-off, standalone, "alien of the week" episodes, which is typical of a new Star Trek series - needed to explore new characters and explore what works and what doesn't in a new series.  A few gestures toward the Temporal Cold War, particularly in "Cold Front" and the season finale, but this new prequel show spent a lot of time looking backward in time - to the 90 years of fictional time since first contact and the Vulcan's tendency to hold back human progress into space.  The show also looks back the 55 years since The Original Series, and nostalgically re-introduces some themes and species (Andorians, anyone?). //7.18.25//

2152

Star Trek: Enterprise (Season 1:21-26)

It's not entirely clear when Earth's New Year's Day occurs, but each season of Enterprise spans a school year or so - just about 150 years in the future of the air date. Season 1 ends 10 months after they deployed on their original mission in "Broken Bow". //7.19.25//

Star Trek: Enterprise (Season 2:1-19)

Season 2 of Enterprise is more one-off episodes - 'rut-roh, Hoshi's disappearing!' - and also a further exploration of the Temporal Cold War, but it also starts experimenting with a continuing narrative: "Dead Stop" (ep 4) only happens because of the damage that happened in "Minefield" (ep 3); Doctor Phlox's particular obsession in "Singularity" (ep 9) centers on what happened to Mayweather in "Dead Stop".  There isn't usually a direct mention of the previous event - and certainly no knowledge of it is required, but there is a definite sense that this is a continuing story.  

The Suliban feature prominently, and time is a common theme.  Time travel, storytelling, abandoned minefields, past rivals returning... The series is the closest in time between the time it aired and the era its portraying - 150 years.  I think this relative proximity makes it harder for the showrunners to simply imagine 22nd Century humans as inhabiting an entirely different headspace. (Although, looking back at 1875 Earth - even just 1875 Americans, it seems quite easy to understand the complete mindshift...)  //2016// //7.22.25//

2153

Star Trek: Enterprise (Season 2:20-26)

Again, it's not entirely clear when 2152 ends, but episode 20 ("Horizon") is in the first couple weeks of 2153 when Travis returns to his family's cargo ship just after the death of his father. It was the early Aughts, so hearing a parent saying "I'm proud of you" was a bizarre and enlightened future vision of family dynamics... //7.22.25//

Star Trek: Enterprise (Season 3:1-15)

Season 3 is a fantastic re-direct; really revitalizing the show from its loss of steam.  Rather than a lot of one-off episodes and a Temporal Cold War that was hard to get invested in as a major arc, the cliffhanger from Season 2 kills off millions of humans in Florida with a Xindi attack on earth.  The Xindi, this season explains, are several related species who live in the Delphic Expanse.  As it turns out (have i mentioned this post contains spoilers?), the Expanse is an attempt by transdimensional beings to take over our space, and they convinced the Xindi that humans were destined to destroy them - thus the attack on Florida (well, they were trying to destroy earth, not just Florida, but were stopped mid-attack). Season 3 is about trying to thwart the next Xindi attack.

2154

Star Trek: Enterprise (Season 3:16-24)

Enterprise is successful in averting a war with the Xindi, and fall back in to the Temporal Cold War. [Until the 38:30 mark of the final episode of season 3] //7.26.25//

Star Trek: Enterprise (Season 4:2-17)

[All of episode 1 and most of episode 2 occur in 1944; leaving the past around 39:45] Season 4 starts in the midst of the Temporal Cold War, with Archer stranded in late-WWII America, and trying to re-set things right by getting the pesky alien-assisted Nazis out of North America.  The season as a whole has the sense of being rushed and thrown together - as if Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were looking over their shoulders at the looming cancellation and trying to cram all of the story-lines they had plotted for seasons 4 - 7 or so into one fun season.  The Eugenics Wars holdovers - the Augments - get an arc; the complete overthrow of Vulcan political order gets an arc; Andorians, Tellurites, Vulcans and Humans trying to forge a complex peace treaty (which will lead to the Federation) gets an arc; plus the reason that Klingons looked suspiciously like spray-tanned humans in TOS gets a fun and kinda hilarious arc.  Plus the mirror universe; anti-alien (i.e. globalization) radical organization Terra Prime.

• Re-watching Season 4 in particular redeems the quality of Enterprise.  While it was on, it was fun to have Star Trek back on the air, but i think Season 4 shows that this could have been every bit as good a series in the long run - great major story arcs coupled with fun and exploratory in-between eps.  Enterprise was the first series since TOS that really tried to dig through the real fears of the era it was created in.  In retrospect, Enterprise forsaw even Trumpism to some extent... Earth wasn't ready for the Federation... but it needed it.  The U.S. (which has always been represented by humans in Star Trek) isn't ready for globalism... but it needs it.  

2155

Star Trek: Enterprise (Season 4:18-21)

Archer delivers the great speech of the future of The Federation at the end of episode 21 at what appears to be a hotel lobby of a Hilton (not a fancy one) in Boise, Idaho... [through the end of episode 21] //7.28.25//

The Geneva Conventions are updated and re-affirmed as confirmed in ST:D (1:3) [discussed around 37:45]. //8.12.25//

2158

Commander Thy'lek Shran allegedly dies. (ST: E - 4:22)

2161
"These are the Voyages..." - ST: E (Season 4: 22)

• The real time of this episode occurs in 2370, during Season 7 of Star Trek: TNG.  Riker is Hamleting a decision, and procrastinating by going to the holodeck to watch Jonathan Archer's mission while en route to the founding of the Federation. //4.29.2017//
• Re-watching this episode from Riker's perspective during "The Pegasus" episode of TNG reemphasizes just how unjust a finale this is for Enterprise. Painfully short shrift for a series that was better than it was given credit for at the time. //3.24.21//
• This would have been such a kick ass episode, but it's such a lame send off for this underrated series, to make it an 'extra' TNG episode, but alas, so it was. [At least the episode is mostly in Enterprise's time, first at the start of the episode until 1:05; then 4:00 until 10:45; and 12:20 to 23:00; then at 25:05 until 41:15] //7.28/25//

"Zero Hour" - ST:E (Season 3:24)

• Daniels drags Archer to the founding of the Federation to convince him not to take any risks on this mission, and give it to someone else. 
• Seems like it's definitely after the ceremony in "These are the Voyages. [starting around 10:00 until 11:50] //6.23.23// //7.28.25//

"Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus" - ST:LD (Season 3:8)

• Rutherford disarms a bomb at the Founding of the Federation event previously seen in the Enterprise finale. [starting around 17:30 until 19:15] //3.9.23// //7.28.25//

2164
The USS Franklin is lost, as seen on some grainy footage in Star Trek Beyond. [At the 1:01:05 point in the film until 1:01:35 when they LITERALLY stop paying attention...] //7.28.25//

early 2170s
The crew of the USS Defiant are sent back to this time when a temporal accident occurs on board, and they crash land on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant in "Children of Time" (ST: DS9 5:22). //7.30.25//

early 2200s (very approximate)

"Battle at the Binary Star" - ST: D (Season 1: 2)

• T'Kuvma tells the story of discovering the Sarcophagus as a child while speechifying to bring the 24 Houses of the Klingon Empire together in a common goal of declaring war on the Federation.  The flashback is depicted in this episode. [scenes occur at the beginning (6:25 to 7:20) and then a few snippets near the very end of the episode (starting around 34:45 for 30 seconds or so)] //11.18.21// //7.31.25//

2233
Star Trek

The opening scene of Star Trek also opens an entirely new timeline, in which we see James Kirk born and George Kirk die.  [Start of the movie through 11:30 or so until the opening title shot; also briefly during Spock's retelling around 1:18:30]. //3.26.23// //7.31.25//

In the standard, non-Kelvin universe, Kirk is born in Riverside, Iowa.  In the 2009 movie, he is born on the USS Kelvin.
//9.23.2017//

2234-ish
"The Girl Who Made the Stars" - ST:D (Season 2 - Short Trek 5)

• The realtime of this episode where Michael Burnham's father (Mike Burnham), comforts his young daughter when she is afraid at night and tells her a story... //1.22.20// //8.1.25//

early/mid 2230s (probably)
"Perpetual Infinity" - ST: D (Season 2: 11)

• Michael's memory of the death of her father (she thought it was both of her parents, but her mother leaves from this point into the future).  This date is also in her mother's first log entry. [starting just after the "previously on" segment around 1:05 until 3:00, and again after opening credits at the 9:22 mark until she jumps forward 950 years around 10:00]
• Several scenes through this year and the next decade or so, where Michael's mom is remembering the scenes in her life when she was observing Michael's development.  //7.10.19// //7.10.23// //8.1.25//

"Project Daedalus" - ST: D (Season 2: 9)

• During an argument with Spock, Michael has a flashback of her sitting in a closet, crying, while the attack on her parents is occurring. [at 24:00 to 24:15] //12.3.21// //8.1.25//

"Light and Shadows" - ST: D (Season 2:7)

• Michael returns to Vulcan, and has a flashback to a time when she and Spock are starting to connect [7:25 until 8:35]. //8.1.25// 

"Brother" - ST: D (Season 2: 1)

• A flashback to Michael's arrival on Vulcan when she first meets Spock (an in-auspicious beginning). Also her reading Lewis Carroll with her adopted mother. [starting at 1:15 to 4:25, then 18:50 to 19:30] //1.28.19// //8.1.25//

"Light and Shadows" - ST: D (Season 2:7)

• Michael returns to Vulcan, and has a flashback to a time when she and Spock are starting to connect [7:25 until 8:35]. //8.1.25// 

"Unification III" - ST:D (Season 3:7)

• A brief snippet of Michael and Spock as kids, with Spock teaching Michael the Vulcan Salute [sometime before 11:35 to 11:50] //7.22.23// //8.1.25//  

"If Memory Serves" - ST: D (Season 2:8)

• Michael and Spock experience an earlier moment on Vulcan, when Spock rescued Michael (perhaps led by the Red Angel). [18:45 to 19:50] //12.1.21// //8.2.25//

"The Vulcan Hello" - ST: D (Season 1: 1)

• A flashback to Michael's education on Vulcan, where the testing computer asks Michael about the last Klingon attack on human colony (wherein her "parents" were killed). [21:20 to 22:50] //8.2.25//

"Battle at the Binary Star" - ST: D (Season 1: 2)

• Another flashback of Sarek mind-melding with Michael after a terrorist bombing at the learning center. [13:00 to 13:50; and again a brief wisp at 15:27] //11.18.21// //8.2.25//

Late 2230s (estimated)

"If Memory Serves" - ST:D (Season 2:8)

• Michael runs away from home; Spock catches up with her.  The scene is viewed via Michael's memory (via Talos IV's natives).  Michael displays the unique cruelty of an older sister of the middle school age. [43:10 to 45:00] //10.11.20// //8.2.25//

"Memento Mori" - ST: SNW (Season 1:4)

La'an has memories of a Gorn attack when she was a child. [Flashes of the memory occur throughout the episode with longer memories starting at 37:30 until around 42:30] //5.26.22// //8.3.25//

"All Those Who Wander" - ST: SNW (Season 1:9)

• La'an's memories as a child aboard the SS Puget Sound when it is attacked by the Gorn, and her brother saves her. [Around the 31:10 minute mark] //7.7.22// //8.4.25//

"Hegemony II" - ST: SNW (Season 3:1)

La'an has memories of a Gorn attack when she was a child. [starting around 12:30 for a minute or two, and occasionally throughout episode at 15:45, then 35:00,  ] //8.26.25//

2239

"Yesteryear" - ST:TAS (Season 1: 2)

• Spock travels back through the gate called The Guardian to recover their own timeline. Traveling to Vulcan, and meeting himself as a 7-year old preparing to undergo a coming of age trial. 
• Reclaiming some of these in betweens (now viewed out of order), because individual episodes of The Animated Series didn't have their time travels included in earlier lists. [starting at 7:45 until 21:40] //3.22.20// //8.4.25//

"The Sound of Thunder" - ST:D (Season 2:6)

• We briefly see Saru send his signal using Ba'ul technology, which eventually reaches Phillipa Georgiou, presumably this same year... [starting at ] //8.4.25// 

"The Brightest Star" - ST:D (Season 1 - Short Trek 3)

• Date is estimated, but Saru makes contact with Philippa Georgiou (unknown to him at the time). She is not yet a captain, so I'm guessing this is perhaps 10-15 years prior to her introduction to Michael Burnam in 2249. //1. 24.19// //8.5.25//

early-2240s (?)

"Ad Astra per Aspera" ST:SNW (Season 2:2)

Una remembers a moment from her childhood when she had been injured, and her parents are debating whether to seek medical care for her, which would expose her genetically altered status.  [immediately after the "previously on" scene until around 1:45 mark, and again momentarily around 38:25]. //7.2.23// //8.5.25//

Mid-2240s

Star Trek

Post-title sequences in Star Trek featuring a tween-age Kirk totally totaling his step-father's classic car.  Subsequent scene is Spock's own adolescence, and the pains of being a half-human on Vulcan.  [just after opening title shot until the 17:15 mark]. //3.26.23// //8.5.25//

2245

Admiral Jonathan Archer dies.

2247

"New Eden" - ST: D (Season 2: 2)

• A yearbook signature "recording" from her classmate, Mae Ahern, is shown briefly [near the end of the episode, starting at 34:10] as Tilly is trying to discover the nature of the apparition who has begun haunting her. //11.30.21// //8.5.25//

2249

Michael Burnham graduates from the Vulcan Science Academy. {Some time before this, perhaps this very same year or in the years prior Sarek is seen choosing Spock's future over Michael Burnam's when he is told that only one of his non-pure-blood Vulcan children will be able to be part of the Vulcan Expeditionary Group.  ST: D (Season 1:6)}

"Lethe" - ST:D (Season 1:6)

Also around this time would be the scenes of Sarek's memories. [starting at 10:45 until 12:25; then a few back and forth from 22:25 to 24:30; and again starting at 28:00 to 31:30] //8.5.25//

ST: D (Season 1:2).

• Sarek drops Michael Burnham off at the Shenzhou.  [0:45 to 3:05] //8.5.25//

Sometime in the 2240s or early 2250s (or possibly any time prior to 2255)

"Project Daedalus" - ST: D (Season 2: 9)

• We see Ariam and her husband Stephen walking on a beach (probably in Hawaii), laughing, and announcing to friends that they eloped, and that they are coming home soon. [first seen immediately following the opening credits {10:15 - 10:45} and then again the same scene is viewed in her eyes in the closing moments of the episode {51:20 for brief moments} (and briefly reprised in the following episode during her funeral)]. //12.3.21// //8.5.25//

Sometime between 2249 & 2254

Star Trek

Spock turns his back on the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, eschewing their offer and choosing to enter Star Fleet.  [starting around the 17:20 mark until 19:45]. //3.26.23// //8.5.25//

Closer to 2254
"Q&A" - ST:D (Season 2 - Short Trek 1)

Spock is newly assigned to the Enterprise as an ensign, and meets Number One (not that one) and they get stuck in an elevator. And they sing songs... //1.22.20// //8.7.25//

Even closer to 2254
"The Trouble with Edward" - ST:D (Season 2 - Short Trek 2)

The Enterprise's science officer leaves (to make room for someone else!) to also (ha!) take command of a science vessel, and they "accidentally" create the Tribbles //1.22.20// //8.7.25//

2254
"The Menagerie" - ST: TOS (Season 1:11)

Scenes from the pilot on viewscreen [in part 1, starting 27:05 to 27:50; then 28:45 to 35:10; then 36:55 to 45:30] mostly from the pilot, but possibly some extra //8.8.25//

"The Cage" - ST: TOS (Season 1:1)

100 years after Season 4 of Enterprise.  The pilot that didn't make has a lot of elements of the series - a "Bones" figure, who is the elder mentor to the captain.  Pike has the same discontent that will haunt Kirk later in the series - not sure whether he should be here at all. //8.7.25//

"The Menagerie" - ST: TOS (Season 1:12)

Scenes from the pilot on viewscreen [in part 2, starting at 0:45 to until 1:50; then several scenes 3:55 to 12:30; then again with a few breaks starting 13:30 to 35:55] mostly from the pilot, but possibly some extra //8.8.25//

Also the year when Pike leads a disastrous away mission to Rigel VII in "Among the Lotus Eaters" (ST: SNW 2:4) [description of that time starts at 4:15 until 5:15] //8.9.25//

2255 (estimated)
"Terra Firma" - ST: D (Season 3:9 & 10)

• Georgiou is sent through a door by The Guardian of Forever to the day when Lorca attempts to overthrow her, and she is given the opportunity to remake her historical path. [Starting at 24:40 of Part 1, these eps are entirely in this year until Georgiou returns passing out / dying at 31:45 of Part 2] //12.7.21// //7.28.23// //8.10.25//

Star Trek (2009) 

Bar fight and subsequent enlisting of James T. Kirk into Starfleet.  Kirk meets Uhura & "Bones". [just after opening title shot until the 19:45 mark until ...] //3.26.23// //8.10.25//

Real time of Star Trek: Discovery (Seasons 1 & 2)

mid/late 2250s
"Ask Not" - ST:D (Season 2 - Short Trek 3)

• A mini-Kobayashi Maru for an Enterprise applicant where Pike tests her, and then hires her as an engineer for his ship.  No good way to know when exactly this falls (before or after "The Cage", but this is a best guess. //1.22.20// //8.10.25//

May 2256
ST: D (Season 1: 1-2)

There has been an "easy read" of the first couple episodes of Star Trek: Discovery as a Trump-America allegory where a nationalist Klingon Empire regroups and begins to mess up everyone's happy socialist utopia.  Sucks.

But it's useful to recall, that even in this reading, less than one lifetime later (namely James Kirk's lifetime), Klingons and the Federation are on the border of peace and understanding (see Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country).

It's easy to read Star Trek as meaning something; and especially something that you want it to say.  But even at the most cynical - our current struggle with understanding what is happening in America, Star Trek's clear answer is that the end result will be resolution and progress.  Worf will serve on the Enterprise, and there is unfortunate history that leads up to that (see 2024!, both Star Trek's and ours!)...

The best, simplest take-away is to always assume progress and togetherness.  We will win.  But it will take time.  That said, who wants to be on the wrong side of history?
//10.1.2017// //8.12.25//

"Under the Cloak of War" - ST:SNW (Season 2:8)

• Nurse Chapel and Doctor M'Benga are on J'Gal during the Klingon War with their memories  [Right after the opening credits until 13:00, then starting just before 15:30 to commercial break at 16:30, a short scene from 20:15 to 22:35, then just before 26:00 until 29:45, and again just before 31:15 to 32:35, then the perspective shifts for a brief 20 second scene at 35:20 to Admiral Dak'Rah's, then back to Chapel & M'Benga at 36:50 until about 38:00. And finally at 39:10 to 40:30 we're back with M'Benga using Protocol 12 before he goes into his (unseen) battle...] //7.31.23// //8.14.25//

November 2256 - 2257
ST: D (Season 1: 3 - 6)

While each episode is building an exciting arch in a way that no previous Star Trek series has, the first several 'real-time' episodes of the series are also moral and ethical vignettes - doing what's right vs. following orders; recognition of a sentient "creature's" inalienable rights; familial obligations and standing up to racism in an evolved, logical society. //10.23.2017//

• Elon Musk gets a mention! in episode 4!

ST: D (Season 1: 7-9)

Episode 7 is a hilarious fun-fest, and at the same time a serious project in character development.  The next two episodes are heavy, and get to the mid-Season finale (yeah, other Star Trek shows didn't have these...) at the peak of exciting insanity. //11.20.2017// //8.13.25//

• Harcourt Fenton Mudd is re-connected with his lost love, Stella.

ST: D (Season 1: 10-15)

The crew heads to the mirror universe and back.  On their return (because tracking timelines in two universes seems a bit obsessive...), they're 9 months further in the future, and the Federation has all but lost the war with the Klingons.  Thanks to the Terran Emperor, the Federation wins (or at least ties), and life goes on...

What's not clear, is which life we're operating in here.  This could be the standard Star Trek world we've come to know, or the Kelvin timeline (nothing major enough has occurred - Vulcan has yet to be destroyed, etc.).  It may also be its own separate timeline - which would be a waste, I'm afraid.
But this may very well be the orthodox Star Trek world, but if so, it is telling how close the Federation came to losing the war.  Kirk's racism against Klingons in the movies, and the underlying animosity, is understandable to some extent. //2.15.2018//

"Runaway" - ST:D (Season 1 - Short Trek 1)

• Date is again estimated, and we see Tilly making her start on Discovery as an applicant to the command program. //1. 24.19// //8.14.25//

2258
Season 2 of Discovery starts with the "red signals" and Spock is at the center of the mystery.

ST: D (Season 2)

The second season of Star Trek: Discovery takes place very near the same time of the Kelvin Universe's primary conflict - the destruction of Vulcan.  In Michael Burnam's universe, the crew discover another existential threat, Control (or perhaps C.O.N.T.R.O.L.?).  They trace The Red Angel through space and time, chasing 7 signals throughout the galaxy, and eventually find the answer in the past and the future. //7.11.19//

• We learned from the Trek display at ComicCon 2019 that Michael Burnam's disappearance takes place in 2257 (at the very end of season 2).  Unlike the convention established by all previous Star Trek series, where each season takes place over the course of a calendar year, allowing actors to grow a year older as their characters do, it seems Discovery is happening much closer together (well except for now, when the U.S.S. Discovery is blasted into the far far future!) 

"Unification III" - ST:D (Season 3:7)

• An image of Spock, in emotional distress (seemingly sometime after Discovery departed for the future) //7.22.23//  [just about ten seconds starting at 11:25] //8.18.25//

The "present day" of Star Trek (2009) - 

Star Trek

This update is a rare joyful sequel long after the previous iterations.  It allows for a new timeline that has started, but at the same time shows us how our old friends first (might have) met and become so vital to each other's lives.  I challenge you to watch this movie (or this series) and then not see the built-in camaraderie (albeit in a differing timeline) in the first season of TOS (which is a bit lost in its characterizations, but a lot might be made up for in this sequence of movies...)

• A fascinating entree into our familiar characters.  Seeing them as younger versions of themselves trapped in an alternate timeline.
• Crisis on Vulcan & Jim Kirk's got crazy chubby hands!
• Most interesting is the moment when the characters come to realize [about 1:10:45 in] that they are actually in an alternate timeline.
• Also, seeing Kirk become captain of the Enterprise for the first time ever and at the same time watching Spock (and Michael Burnham's) mom die (in Winona Ryder form here), while also live on in subsequent seasons of Discovery is...fascinating.  //2.6.19// //3.26.23// //8.18.25//

Real time of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

2259

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 1: 1 - 10)

We get to meet Spock's wife!  And Pike's (?) girlfriend? (also Spock's girlfriend?) before the Enterprise is put out a few days/weeks earlier than planned. 

• "Take me to your leader..." //7.8.22//

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 2: 1 - 8)

I love learning more about the back stories of TOS crew intermingling, like Spock and Nurse Chapel's history of sexytime, meeting an alternate timeline Kirk through almost an entire episode, and Uhura meeting the Smoke Monster from Lost (?) (plus, we get to see Spock and Kirk's first ever meeting!) [closing moments of episode 6].

• The beginning and end of Season 2 seem to imply that the Gorn (a sort of absurd TOS holdover) were going to become the main enemy of the Federation in this brief mini-era. 
• The season is a great balance - even a straight alternating - between zany / fun and deep / philosophical, with time traveling back to the 21st Century, Spock becoming human, animated guests from the Cerritos, and Star Trek's first musical episode!
• Also, we possibly see Boimler spoil the romance between Spock and Nurse Chapel. //8.24.25//

Real time of Star Trek Into Darkness

Kirk loses the Enterprise, just around the time when he is earning his first First Officer opportunity aboard the Farragut in the prime universe.  

• It's hard to say what has shifted in Star Fleet here in the Kelvin Timeline, but there is an insinuation early on that there may not have been a Klingon War yet ("War with the Klingons is inevitable..." [maybe around the 30:00 mark?] //8.24.25//

2260

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 2: 9 - 10)

• We see Spock's transformation back to the commitment of Vulcan logic [his number leading up to 45:00 in episode 9]
• And the cliffhanger!, my gawd! the choice we won't get to see resolved for at least a year... //8.22.23// //8.25.25//

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 3: 1)

• Season 3 starts with part 2 of the season finale... solved for at least a year... //8.26.25//

2261

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 3:2 - 10)

• Episode 2 starts off three days prior to the Federation Centennial (at least 3 months since the end of episode 1). 
• The holodeck exists! (thus, it makes sense that it exists in The Animated Series)... just needs a bit of testing
• 
  

likely in the early 2260s

2263.02
Star Trek: Into Darkness shows this as the day/month/week (not sure how stardates work!) of Spock's death in the Kelvin timeline.

2264

Tuvok is born.

2265
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" - ST (Season 1: 3)

Real Time of Star Trek: The Original Series

2266 - 67

"Through the Valley of Shadows" - ST: D (Season 2: 12)

• Christopher Pike encounters a time crystal, which causes him to experience a future memory of a disaster aboard his future ship, which results in his being injured, paralyzed, and his face deformed as he appears in "The Menagerie" (ST:TOS 1: 11 & 12). [26:25 to 27:00] //8.17.25//

"Strange New Worlds" - ST: SNw (Season 1: 1)

• Captain Pike experiences the future memory of his near death experience that will happen before James T. Kirk takes command (timing is a little iffy while they retcon this new series into the canon). //5.12.22//
• Another flashback to the moment of Pike's maiming [some time around 17:00 and again briefly around 20:15 (?)] //8.19.25//

Star Trek (Season 1, episodes 1 - 14)

• An episodic "monster of the week" season.  The show was created during a point in television history when any kind of over-arching narrative for a series was not done.  Television needed to be episodic so fans could come and go as needed.  Nonetheless, the first season establishes much loved characters and relationships.

Each episode grapples with social, psychological, political and philosophical questions through alien species, amazing technology, and not yet understood powers and phenomena.  "The Menagerie" anticipates The Matrix, and demonstrates why the preference for the blue pill isn't always a bad thing.  "What are Little Girls Made Of?" grapples with fascism and eugenics.
We also get to meet Harvey Mudd, again... for the first time.

"A Quality of Mercy" - ST: SNW (Season 1:10)

• Captain Pike encounters another time crystal - and finds himself living out his captaincy seven years in the future, and a few months after the accident that would nearly have killed him. //7.8.22//

"Ephraim and Dot" - ST: D (Season 2 - Short Trek 4)

• An adorable episode, which starts here in 2267 and continues a bit crazily through unto Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  It's a really fun ride, that spans much of TOS crew's run.  //1.22.20//

Star Trek (Season 1, episodes 15 - 29)

• The back half of this season wanders at times into zaniness frequently (Alice & her Wonderland rabbit showing up in "Shore Leave"; a Gorn battle in "Arena"; and a lovey-dovey Spock in "This Side of Paradise"), but also features some of the greatest episodes in the entire series like "Space Seed" and "City on the Edge of Forever".

• Most of this series occurs exactly 300 years in the future of the actual time of the series.  //8.9.19//

2267
Star Trek (Season 2, episodes 1 - 15)

Season 1 introduced the Klingons and the Romulans, and established most of our character relationships.  Pavel Chekov joins the crew on episode 1 of the second season (he was meant to be the Davy Jones of the group)...

The stakes feel higher in the first few episodes... (Spock kills Kirk!  the Greek Gods were powerful space aliens!  NOMAD, our own creation, returns with plans to destroy all of us!  The Mirror Universe!).

Star Date 4523.7 ("a Friday", according to the guys from Temporal Investigations)

"Trials and Tribble-ations" - ST: DS9 (Season 5:6)

Written during the 30th Anniversary season of Star Trek.  I watched "The Trouble with Tribbles" from TOS and this episode in real time - switching between them as i recognized landmarks.  The best moment, perhaps, is when Bashir is truly baffled when they encounter Klingons on the station without the forehead ridges. //12.21.19// //11.17.21//

2268

Star Trek (Season 2, episodes 16 - 26)

Season 2 has continued to focus on big stakes "monster of the weeks", but also several more encounters with the Klingons.  One episode, "Return to Tomorrow" features Diana Muldaur, marking her first appearance of many.  I must admit that many of these episodes feel unfamiliar to me - I know that i've seen them (in fact, my ArFives assure me of it), but I don't know that I know well what comes next in them.

2268 - 69
Star Trek (Season 3)

Now, I love Star Trek (I hope that's clear if nothing else is on this damnable blog), but Season 3 starts to occasionally jump the shark a bit.  "Spock's Brain"!, Knives!, Uhura sees herself as old! (ok, it's mostly just "And the Children Shall Lead").  Oh, and Abraham Lincoln shows up.

• This season is at times so dumb, but then you get an episode like "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" (itself a kind of dumb episode), and Spock's soliloquy when he is merged with the bodiless Medusan near the end of the episode gives us a profound moment when he bemoans the utter loneliness of the human condition of having a body.  This is what Star Trek (and sci-fi writ large) give us - an ability to see outside of ourselves.  And therefore back in to ourselves.
• I do not mean to overstate the nature of such thoughts, but these kinds of mini-philosophizations are scattered throughout all of the series and movies.  The idea that the fact of having bodies makes humans inherently lonely (as compared to species that might share everything or at least much more of their actual existence with each other) is significant and profound.  It makes you think about the fact that no matter how connected you may be to family, friends or others around you - you are you and only you, and most of you doesn't ever get out and we base a civilization around that.  Pretty fucked up...
• As the season progresses, though, I do feel like they start to figure out character development.  Episode 19 - "Requiem for Methuselah" for example, builds the future McCoy - Spock love/hate relationship.
• The series goes out with a bang with frackin' Abraham Lincoln, time travel, and a huge step backward for feminism (see episode 24 :( ) //3.21.20//  

2269 - StartDate 5943.7
"All Our Yesterdays" - ST (Season 3: 23)

• Spock recognizes (and accepts) he can't go back to the ice age he's been longing for...

Real time of Star Trek: The Animated Series

2269 - 2270
Season 1 revisits several locales and characters from the original series.  Harry Mudd makes an appearance, and the crew revisit the "amusement park" planet from the TOS episode "Shore Leave".  The animated format (and Saturday morning cartoon style) allowed for even more extreme plot lines and antics.  Por ejemplo, "The Terratin Incident", in which the crew all turn tiny and have to operate the Enterprise while they're an inch tall and shrinking!  Some new convenient inventions, like personal force fields in place of space suits.

• Particularly of note in season 1 are episodes written by Walter Koenig and Larry Niven (as well as Trek alumni D.C. Fontana & Marc Daniels and more...) //4.8.20//

2270
Season 2 is brief, and much more of the same.  An introduction of the holodeck - it existed long before we first meet Data there in nearly 100 years.  Sad that there were so few episodes, and the run feels cut short. //4.19.20//

early 2270s
"Flashback" - ST: V (Season 3:2)

• The false childhood memories that Tuvok experiences during this episode would have taken place around this time when he is age 10 or so... 
• Of course, it turns out that the memory is actually a virus that lives within memory patterns, and has infected Tuvok, but lain dormant for 80 years, but we do get a view of a childhood version of Tuvok (then Janeway, followed by Tuvok's former colleague, Dmitry who is killed in 2293. //11.14.21//

Real time of the TOS Movies - (comments)

2273
Star Trek: The Motion Picture

• It's easy to bemoan the grandeur of some of the scenes, with Scotty & Kirk taking fraking FOREVER!!!! to park the shuttle, but it's easy to forget that it had been more than a decade since we had seen our friends in the flesh.
• These theatrics also serve to create the optics of the future of Star Trek.  As Kirk is first finding his way around the ship, it looks like Next Gen hallways he is making his way through, and Engineering sets the scene for the climax of Part 2
• The movie also takes place 3 years after our Enterprise crew were last seen.  McCoy and Spock both seem to have gone through the full on hippy experience (albeit for different outcomes, i'm sure).
• On returning, Spock seems like an old friend who has done a bit too much LDS... he's lost, but i think by all but attaining the Kolinahr, and then saying, "meh", we recognize full Vulcan / Human fusion potential in the new Spock.
• Bones seems to have experienced a severe case of GTFO, but then gets (wait for it, 1970s!) DRAFTED (ha).  This might be the earliest support of the argument that Star Fleet (and therefore Star Trek) isn't always on the up and up and all to the good...

But GOD, there are SO MANY slow pans over the top of annoyingly plastic or electronica looking scenes.  It's like the movie was directed by the set director, but the set director mostly creates RPG miniatures scenes in his basement and is VERY proud of them.

Importantly, I believe this film represents the first visit of the "real time real time" Star Trek universe to visit earth - we see the Golden Gate Bridge, with sweet repulsor things.  Never before, I think, had Star Trek (actual or animated) ventured to earth in what was meant to be the future.  The subsequent movies, and TNG did this a lot, but worth noting how new this is for this universe. //4.19.20//

2278
"Cause and Effect" - ST: TNG (Season 5:18)

• The USS Bozeman encounters a temporal anomaly.  Also, we learn THIS! (and literally{until I came across this next one in 2022!} the next scene we see after Kelsey Grammer is Kirstie Alley) //4.19.20//

2280 (approx)

"Gravity" - ST: V (Season 5:13)

• We meet a teenage Tuvok, who has fallen in love with a Terrellian Ambassador's daughter, and been kicked out of school because he doesn't want to reject emotion in the standard Vulcan manor. [Starting from the opening scene to the opening credits, we are returned to the memory at the 21:00 - 24:00 mark, and again in the last 2 minutes of the episode.] //5.17.22//

2285
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

• So many little parallels to the first movie.  The little man in a spacesuit waving to the Enterprise as it pulls out of space dock.  And a first visualization of the Kobiyashi Maru scenario (although Chris Pine's attempt took place chronologically prior to this).
• The line: "Scotty, we need Warp Speed in 3 minutes or we're all dead" is the core TOS line and mentality.  This is, clearly, the greatest of Star Trek movies, and not least because it is when we lose Spock (for the first time).
• The most important quote from the movie, is the line from Spock: "The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few (or the one)".  This will be an ongoing conversation / debate for the next 100 years, and is revisited in Star Trek: Picard. //4/21.20//

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

• When I was younger, I always thought of Search for Spock as kind of a throwaway, but on a re-watch (or a re-re-watch), it feels more substantial.  
• The first time in our viewing experience (traditionally!), when Star Fleet officers - heroes, really, don't do what they are told... when the concept that Star Fleet isn't entirely perfect and always doing the right thing might first be introduced.
• It feels something like Picard, without the modern day sensibility...
• The mystical-religio parts at the very end are very much forgotten by me... Even from my last viewing, and I find them to be pretty okay despite my skeptical position...
• Also, I was today year's old when i realized that the character Saavik, played by Kirstie Alley was traded to a different actress.  (I expect there is a story there, but it's a shame for Star Trek). 

This also marks the moment of the destruction of the original NCC class Enterprise (NCC-1701) //4.22.20//

2286
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

• It's a simple setup with a few weeks having passed since the conclusion of part 3, and the crew of the newly dubbed HMS Bounty have decided to return home to Earth to face the music of having stolen (and subsequently destroyed) the Enterprise.  A Klingon representative on earth also wants Kirk extradited to Qo'onoS, which is roundly rejected by Star Fleet, but sets up the final movie of the set.
• Also the time travel dream sleep sequence is ridiculously hokey.
• But they get home, and Kirk swims to save the planet earth.  Yay!! //4.26.20//

The Enterprise A (NCC-1701-A) is constructed with James Kirk as the first captain of the vessel.


2287 (aka Stardate 8454.1 {ergo wtf})
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Kirk's opening scene holds up - i think - silly, but kind of harmless fun.  The Nimbus III (even the name, blech) stuff is worse...

• Overall, the movie remains a mess.  The fight with god.  The parallelism of Kirk knowing he was not going to die as he fell from the mountain at the start of the movie, and his certainty that his time has come after sending Spock and Bones back to the ship, because:

"I know, I've always known, that I will die alone"

Oy. //4.28.20//

 - also, sometime in between these two movies the budding romance between Scotty & Uhura is abandoned (thankfully).  It was a silly (and out of nowhere) subplot.

2290

"The Emissary" - ST: TNG (Season 2:20)

The Klingon ship T'Ong crew enters cryogenic sleep.  At this time the Klingon Empire is at war with the Federation, and when the crew awaken 75 years from now, they are ready for a tussle.

2293
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country 

• Sulu is a MF captain!!!  

"Flashback" - ST: V (Season 3:2)
Written during the 30th Anniversary season of Star Trek.  ("Stardate 9521")

• Interesting is that this episode actually bounces around in its own timeline - first starting near the end of VI 
• and then it bounces back to 3 days earlier prior to the beginning scenes of the movie.
• You would actually need to view the latter part of this episode first (in the opening scenes of ST:VI:TUC) and then come back and watch the earlier scenes - although this doesn't fix all of it... it's all over the place. //5.1.20// //11.14.21//

Back to ST:VI:TUC

• There is a moment [at about the 13:45 point (right after Polaris cites regulations to Kirk - a little in-joke)], and we get a glimpse at the helms controls and it looks like an awesome 90s synthesizer...
• What is kinda great about this movie (which is really a good one, maybe 2nd or 3rd best) is that it [appropriately] repositions Spock at the center of the Star Trek universe - supplanting Kirk.  

Star Trek: Generations
Later in the same year (presumably after returning to Space Dock at the end of VI), we see Kirk, Scotty & Chekhov as guests at the launch of the Enterprise B.

• Somehow Tuvok's human twin is serving onboard 
• And Guinan is beamed aboard and "rescued"
• And Kirk saves the ship before getting sucked out into space - and into The Nexus. //5.2.20// //8.3.21//

early 2300s (approx)

"Remember" - ST:V (Season 3:6)

• B'Elanna experiences the memories from this era of Korenna Mirrel via vivid dreams.  The dreams reveal a forgotten part of Enaran history in which they perpetrated the genocide of a portion of their population who they referred to as "Regressives" (people who rejected use of some of their technology). //11.15.21//

2311

The Tomed Incident & The Treaty of Algernon

early 2310s

"The Stargazer" - ST:Pic (Season 2:1)

• A memory is depicted of Picard at around age 7 - 9 in the solarium of Chateau Picard with his mother. [first around the 9:30 - 12:00 minute mark]  //3.4.22// //4.4.23//

"Watcher" - ST:Pic (Season 2:4)

• Brief flashes of Picard's childhood at Chateau Picard with his mother intermixed with Picard and Jurati entering the abandoned estate to find rest and respite. [briefly around the 5:30 until 6:30 mark] //4.6.23//

"Two of One" - ST:Pic (Season 2:6)

• Brief flashes of Picard's childhood at Chateau Picard with his mother. [before and after the opening credits, starting at 2:00 and again later around 17:45, 23:00, and finally around 34:30 in the scenes when he is on the brink of death and when he is reminiscing with Renée Picard] //4.7.22// //4.7.23//

"Monsters" - ST:Pic (Season 2:7)

• Tallinn and Picard are trapped in a childhood nightmare of Picard's while his mother has been abducted (by a monster).  It's a strange, alternate fantasy version of his actual childhood memories. [before and after the opening credits and throughout the episode, there are scenes throughout interspersed with "modern day" (2024) and weird psychology session scenes with old Picard where he's in conversation with James Calliss, which turn out to be sometime later in his life... or maybe never, starting immediately after the "previously on..." scene.  These early 2310s scenes start at 6:30 through to the 32:00] //4.15.22// //4.7.23//

"Hide and Seek" - ST:Pic (Season 2:9)

• As Picard and his crew return to Chateau Picard to stave off the Borg Queen's plan, he experiences the latest memories of his mother with scenes interspersed throughout the episode alongside the real-time scenes in 2024. [starting at 9:20, then very briefly at 15:00, then 17:30, and continuing through the episode with the last moment starting at the 41:05 mark.] //4.28.22// //4.8.23//

2327

"Tapestry" - ST: TNG (Season 6:15)

• Q sends Picard back to a pivotal moment in his personal history - the moment he fights 3 Nausicaans in a bar when he was 21 years old. In the present, he's on an operating table and the artificial heart he gets in 2327 is about to critically fail him, but he takes the opportunity to make the more sensible choice this time around... //1.20.21//

2341

"Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus" - ST:LD (Season 3:8)

• We encounter a holographic version of "The Algae Crisis", an evidently turning point moment in Federation History [starting around 10:30 until 11:15] //3.9.23//

2342

"We'll Always Have Paris" - ST: TNG (Season 1:24)

• In an early insight into Picard's history, we meet an ex-girlfriend of Jean-Luc's.  He visits the holodeck to create the exact circumstances of April 9, 2342 - when he had an evening rendezvous planned, but he skipped out on her because he was leaving in the morning. //5.5.20//

"Tattoo" - ST: V (Season 2:9)

• Chakotay has a flashback to his teenage years when he encounters a symbol on a planet in the Delta Quadrant that he previously saw as a teen while walking through the Central American rain forests with his father. [Flashbacks start at 1:15 - 2:50; 11:24 - 12:50; ... ] {plus some visions inbetween}
• The episode alternates between this moment from Chakotay's adolescence and the present day. Note: exact year is estimated //8.25.21//

2344

Source of the embattled Enterprise C from "Yesterday's Enterprise" (TNG Season 3:15).  We meet the crew, but don't actually see this moment in time, but it is an edifying episode about this point in (future) history //9.20.20//

2346

"Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night" - ST: DS9 (Season 6:17)

• Kira Nerys travels back in time using the Orb of Time (which we're allowing is a thing now, I guess) to Bajor during the occupation and meets her parents (and her 3-year-old self).  We get to see Terek Nor in its early days. //2.27.22//

"Bloodlines" - ST: TNG (Season 7:22)

• Jason Vigo (Picard's alleged biological son) is born after Picard's "brief, but intense relationship" with Vigo's mother back on earth before shipping out.

late 2340s

"Dark Frontier, Part 1" - ST:V (Season 5:15)

• Seven of Nine is reading logs from her parents time observing the Borg, and we get a scene [from about 14:00 to 19:00] on board the USS Raven when her parents begin tailing a Borg cube.  The memories continue throughout the episode with Seven's father, Magnus, observing the Borg from onboard the cube a few months further on from the first scene. [starting at a commercial break at 29:30 to 31:30]. Seven's parents are seen making a practice of beaming drones who are regenerating to observe them directly (alien abduction while you're asleep in bed! I wonder if that is a Borg trope as well?). [56:00 to 57:45].  Another scene with Seven and her parents where they have been detected, and are being pursued by the Borg. 
• This last scene may be into 2350 unless they "slip away" this time, so all of this may be happening in 2349 and into 2350, but it could be a bit earlier at the start, as it seems the Hansen's mission of observing the Borg lasted around 2 years. [110:00 to 112:30 plus a few brief flashes at the 117:00 mark]  //5.26.22//

"The Voyager Conspiracy" - ST:V (Season 6:9)

• The briefest of glimpses of Seven's parents on their mission aboard the Raven as she describes her conspiracy theory. [around the 36:00 minute mark.] //8.9.22//

2349

Professor Paul Manheim departs for his experimental mission, where the Enterprise discovers them 15 years later.

2350

"The Raven" - ST:V (Season 4:6)

• Seven of Nine briefly sees images of herself [at around the 37:00 mark] on board the USS Raven when she and her parents were assimilated.  Throughout the episode, Seven experiences hallucinations which tie back to this moment near the end of the episode. //2.2.22//

Six-year-old Annika Hansen is assimilated by the Borg.

2351

"Eye of the Needle" - ST: V (Season 1:7)

• Voyager's crew communicates with a Romulan science vessel in the Alpha Quadrant via a micro-wormhole, and send messages to Star Fleet (hopefully) via Telek R'Mor, who promises to deliver them in 20 years' time. //8.3.21//

"True Q" - ST: TNG (Season 6:6)

• Amanda summons the image of her parents holding her as a baby [just before the 21:00 mark]

early 2350s (approx.)

"The Emissary" - ST: DS9 (Season 1:2)

• Sisko experiences several of his earlier memories, most notable, perhaps, is his initial flirtations with his wife, Jennifer //12.20.20//

2354

"Scorpion, Part 2" - ST:V (Season 4:1)

• Seven of Nine briefly sees images of herself [at around the 41:00 mark] as a young child (Chakotay actually seems to be experiencing the vision, and describing it to Seven) as Voyager tries to stop her from taking control of their ship and returning toward the nearby Borg ships.

2355

Jake Sisko is born.

late-2350s

"Lineage" - ST: V (Season 7:11)

• a series of Belana's memories when she was young, and on a camping trip with her father and some cousins. [Starting around the 12:00 mark and continuing throughout the episode.] //10.13.22//

2358

"The Pegasus" - ST: TNG (Season 7:12)

• a mutiny occurs aboard the USS Pegasus, where Will Riker served less than a year after graduating the academy.  Described by Will to Picard [around the 25:00 minute mark]

2362

"Identity Crisis" - ST: TNG (Season 4:18)

• In the first few minutes of the episode, we see archival footage of Geordie on a mission with his previous crew from the USS Victory (before he came aboard the Enterprise).  The Enterprise returns to Tarchannen III to solve the 5-year-old mystery. 
• We see a bit more of the video around 16:30 (and again 22:30) in to the episode while Geordie and Susanna Leijten are looking for clues as to what happened, and then Geordie creates a holodeck recreation of the away mission at 27:45.  //11.11.20//

Real time of Star Trek: The Next Generation

2364

"All Good Things" - ST:TNG (Season 7:24)

• "Encounter at Farpoint" - JL's arrival on the Enterprise [Throughout both parts starting at around 9:00 until 10:30, then again at 19:40, 37:40, 49:50, 53:20, 1:01:30, 1:11:10, 1:19;00, 1:22:40, and finally at 1:25:00]

Picard comes across a bit crazy in these moments, which is cool.  Interesting will be to view this episode alongside "Farpoint" when the chronology gets there. //4.26.14// //4.29.23//

The re-write of the events of the first episode is fun - with Picard erratically taking the crew off course, delaying the pick-up of Riker (which sets up the plot of the whole first episode), and eventually leading them to their demise (until they get a reset and rescue) //5.3.20//

"The Bounty" - ST:Pic (Season 3:6)

• We get a few brief glimpses of Riker's first meeting with Data on the holodeck of the Enterprise [in the first half of the episode]  //4.12.23//

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 1)
So, confession time - I Started in on re-watching Season 1 sometime around the end of Season 2 of TOS in this timeline (but just went back & did "All Good Things" & "Encounter at Farpoint" together over the last few days.)

• In watching all of these first season eps together (remember, for over 25 years I've watched this series - my favorite of all of the series - asynchronously), it is surprising how instrumental Tasha Yar is to the show.  And therefor how shocking it was when she dies near the end of the first season.  So harsh and so senseless...
• The season (prior comments available) is a healthy balance of "monster/problem of the week", character development (including the aforementioned Yar) and building out the world (Ferengi, Q, Lore, the Holodeck {seriously, an important character in the series})
• The most crazy fraking thing about this season is that it seems there are two Picard-centric episodes at the end of the season (24 & 25) - well, I had seen the end of "We'll Always Have Paris" with Data demonstrating the Goldilocks Theory of Temporary Anomalies.
• Near the season's end ("Conspiracy - ep. 25), Picard & Riker get to blast the fuck out of Dexter Remmick, the most annoying Star Fleet officer we've met to date this season, i suspect... //5.5.20//

"Shades of Gray" - ST:TNG (Season 2:22)

• Riker is dreaming as he sits facing death, flashing through scenes from season 1 and earlier in season 2.  "He's reliving memories, it's a natural reaction to neural stimulation" //6.4.20//

2365

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 2)
Season 2 is a significant step up from season 1.  It's not peak TNG, but it is quite good.  So much so that I agree with this Twitter thread, which is by a Trek newbie who started watching season 2 as a way to better connect with the series.

• The season does a lot of character building - everyone gets a focus episode - and Guinan is a useful character to emit such development.
• Episode 9 - "The Measure of a Man" - is perhaps the series' best episode (I know, I know you "The Inner Light" fans - it's awesome, for sure, but I think this one may be more important).
• Also, the introduction of the Borg in "Q Who", episode 16, is fundamental to Star Trek of the future.  Q sets the Borg (inadvertently, i think) on humanity.
• "wishing for a thing does not make it so..." 
• Also, this season mark's the Riker's Beard moment for the series, which I was today year's old (9/11/20) when I learned is the opposite of jumping the shark.

By the end of this season, we know and love the core crew.  Doctor Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur, who guest-starred in a couple TOS episodes) was a welcome stand-in for the season (and an old flame of Riker's dad, which is fun!). //6.4.20//

2366
Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 3)

Season 3 begins what I would call the "hey days" of TNG.  Particularly, Riker becomes the sex-with-aliens stand in for Kirk, and Geordi also gets the first of his unfortunate romance episodes (falling in love with a hologram after another shitty holo-date).

• This is the first season of any Star Trek show to feature the "cliff-hanger" ending (part 1 as the season finale and part 2 as the season premiere).

"False Profits" - ST:V (Season 3:3)

• The two Ferengi who are lost on the far side of an unstable wormhole in "The Price" (ST:TNG - 3:8) encounter a Bronze Age civilization on a planet in the Delta Quadrant where they begin a seven-year reign of profit posing as prophets foretold in the civilization's religious writings.

The season continues a strong run with the Ferengi becoming a more regularly occurring adversary, and their species becomes a more fleshed out complex civilization.

"Kobayashi" - ST:Pro (Season 1:6)

• In the closing moments of the episode, we see video footage of Chakotay, who is captain of the Protostar, declaring an emergency, where the ship will be subsequently abandoned.  This moment in time is re-visited in the next episode "First Con-Tact" (ST: Pro 1:7) [in the early seconds of the episode].
• A scene [starting at about the 8:00 min. mark] where the Diviner asks for the Drednok create a progeny for him, and thus we get Gwyn's origin (although not yet, necessarily a full sense of what is going on in Prodigy or what the USS Protostar is doing in the Delta Quadrant.

"Things Past" - ST:DS9 (Season 5:8)

• Upon encountering a plasma storm aboard a runabout, the 4 passengers (Sisko, Dax, Odo & Garak) awaken to their consciousnesses having been awakened within the bodies of 4 Bajorans living on Terok Nor 9 years (plus or minus) earlier.  Their bodies remain in the present, and suffer the physical damage taken in this past time.

The exact position in the timeline for this episode is somewhat estimated, but Garak seems sure it's 7 years ago, but that our foursome seem to be in an alternate timeline, because 7 years ago Odo would have been in charge of security on the station, but they continually encounter his predecessor, Thrax.   //12.6.21//

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 3) - continued

• Also the first season where really get to see more of the characters' foibles
• Geordi's flailing romantic tendencies, sure, 
• but also Riker's lost ambition/career direction/life direction in the finale, but also in an episode like "Menage a Troi".
• Picard also gets one of his more interesting romantic interests, when we first encounter Vash during his "Captain's Holiday".
• Our first experience of Worf as a "fallen klingon", rather than just another "neat alien crew member" //9.30.20//

2367

"The Emmisary Pt. 1" - ST:DS9 (Season 1:1)

• Captain Benjamin Sisko engages Locutus of Borg and the cube at Wolf 359 along with the rest of the fleet.  His wife dies and he and his son, Jake, escape in a pod during the first 4:30 of the episode. 

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 4)

A lot of (even) deep(er) dives into the characters early in the season: Picard goes home ("Family", ep. 2) and fights with his brother; Data goes home ("Brothers", ep. 3) and fights with his brother; Dr. Crusher becomes literally the last (and therefore most interesting) person in the universe ("Remember Me", ep. 5); Worf is a BabyDaddy and meets his son ("Reunion", ep. 7)

• Patrick Stewart directs his first episode in this season ("In Theory"); Jonathan Frakes helms a couple of additional episodes after first directing "The Offspring" in Season 3
• We also get Miles O'Brien and his brilliant wife Keiko as series semi-regulars this season.  His character growth (acknowledging his Cardassian racism; a bit of a lout when it comes to fancy food; jealous type) sets up the more complex character development of future series. 
• In addition to the continual character development throughout the season (particularly for Data), the season also has several episodes that set up what will be the primary arc of the larger Star Trek universe for TNG besides the Borg: the Federation / Klingon / Romulan triad. //11.17.20//

2368

"Survival Instinct" - ST:V (Season 6:2)

• Memories from 8 years in Voyager's past, where Seven of Nine had crash landed with a small contingent of Borg, and they were separated from the Collective [Opening sequence, with additional scenes throughout the episode] //7.22.22//

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5: 1-8)

I think Season 5 is Peak Star Trek... After mopping up a good two-parter with "Redemption"  to start the season, 4 of the next 5 episodes are "Darmok", "Ensign Ro", "The Game" and "Disaster" (I know, that one may not deserve honorable mention, but it's a fun character-building episode).

• Peak Star Trek (or at least peak TNG) perhaps occurs in episodes 7 & 8 of this season with the two-part episode "Unification".  To be clear, "Unification" is not the best episode(s) of TNG (that honor likely falls to "The Inner Light" later this same season, though that's debatable, I suppose), but it is a great episode - and amongst the most important in the entire series with regard to future history. Particularly the import that Romulan & Vulcan (& Romulan & Federation) as featured in...

"Unification III" - ST:D (Season 3:7)

• Video footage from the TNG episode (Pt. 2) [starting at 12:10 until just before the 13:00 minute mark] 

ST:TNG (Season 5: 9-18)

As the season continues after "Unification", it continues to be full of all-time classic episodes like "Conundrum", "Cause and Effect" & "I, Borg".

• "I, Borg" is not only a great episode in terms of its moral implications where Picard and the Enterprise crew consider committing genocide against the Borg, It also sets up a lot of the plot of Star Trek: Picard.

"Old Friends, New Planets" - ST:LD (Season 4:10)

• Nick Locarno and his Nova Squadron are walking Star Fleet Academy grounds planning their Kolvoord Starburst that leads to the inquiry in "The First Duty" [starting at 1:20 until 2:50] //11.2.23//

ST:TNG (Season 5: 19-25)

• The season ends with Data (followed by most of the main crew) making their way back to the late 1800s earth, where they will meet Mark Twain & Jack London and neatly wrap things up in the Season 6 premiere. //12.13.20//

"Time's Arrow" - ST:TNG (Season 5: 26 & 6:1)

• Unless this episode happens to occur over the New Year's holiday, then these episodes close out 2368. 
• 2368 will mark the last year for the next many years when a year is almost entirely dominated by one series (or movie).  For these next several years the order of the chronology will bounce between episodes of the series (first between TNG & Deep Space 9, and later DS9 & Voyager)

2369

Star Trek: TNG (Season 6: 2 - 11)

After "Time's Arrow", Season 6 starts off with this bunch of sometimes fun, but rarely the classic episodes from the previous season.  Scotty shows up in "Relics", which isn't as cool as when Spock showed up last year in "Unification".  

"Before and After" - ST:V (Season 3:21)

• Kes encounters her father, but doesn't recognize him, and as she tries to ask for help with her condition, she flashes further back to her birth, and then her pre-birth and back again. [from 39:30 to 42:00] //12.11.22//

Real time of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (w/ TNG continuing)

Star Trek: DS9 (Season 1: 1 - 5)

After establishing the primary drives of the series: the wormhole that brings DS9 significance, Cardassian resentment after losing control over Bajor, Bajoran extremism after decades of occupation, and bureaucracy outside of the confines of Star Fleet, the series starts off with a couple of character episodes for Kira and Odo.

 remainder of ST: TNG Season 6 & ST: DS9 Season 1 (exact order in the 2nd link of this post)

• The rest of Season 6 of TNG is still close to peak trek (2nd only to Season 5 in my estimation, unless a future season of DS9 changes my mind - which is possible as I don't think I've ever watched it all the way through, and definitely didn't watch it as it aired, because I was in college for much of it).  Some classic episodes include "Timescape" (directed by Adam Nimoy!), "Tapestry", and "Frame of Mind", plus Picard falls in love (although that is off-set by another unfortunate Geordi romance ep)...
• DS9 on the other hand stumbles through what a lot of first seasons of series struggle with, namely figuring out just what the frack this show is really about...  There are some fun episodes (e.g. "Move Along Home" & "The Storyteller"), but a lot of the season is still figuring things out and not knowing some things (like why is O'Brien such a dick for most of this season).

"Descent" - ST:TNG (Season 6:26 & 7:1)

• TNG's final cliffhanger season finale is a doozy.  Lore returns at the end of Season 6 having arranged the kidnapping and brainwashing of his brother, Data.  It's a great story, but also furthers the development of "the new Borg" that started with Hugh in "I, Borg", gets characterized in Star Trek: Voyager once they encounter 7 of 9, and becomes the predominant Borg culture once we reach the days of Star Trek: Picard.

2370

"Cupid's Errant Arrow" - ST:LD (Season 1:5)

• A flashback of Mariner's aboard the USS Quito where they're telling about a recent event aboard the Enterprise where Lore joins up with the Borg!, and they all have a good laugh before one of them turns in to a shapeshifter parasite.  [About the 7:00 - 8:00 mark] //12.20.22//

ST:TNG (Season 7) & ST:DS9 (Season 2)

The final season of TNG is like a welcome victory lap, while also including a few absolute classic episodes.  DS9 meanwhile lays the groundwork for its own future seasons as well as the future of the Star Trek universe with the two-parter "The Maquis" and the trio of episodes to start Season 2.

• In "Journey's End" we get to witness young Wesley's next phase beginning, when he joins a minor colonial rebellion, and meets The Traveler for another time, and they agree to begin a new journey together.  

Admittedly, this felt a little lame at the time (and still does now), but with Discovery's creation of the mycelial network as an alternative mode of interstellar transport to warp, it starts to feel a bit more like a truly "different path" narrative.

• DS9's second season deepens our knowledge of the Trill, Odo's possible origins, and Cardassian culture and relations with most everyone.  Plus, a new Klingon restaurant opens on the promenade!
• Starting with an alternate future in "Parallels", Worf and Troi begin dating, which lasts about half the season, and is strange, but interesting for both characters.
• Bajoran religious politics becomes a bigger deal this season with the appointment of a new Kai late in the season on DS9.
• Meanwhile, just at the end of TNG's run Ro Laren joins the Maquis.

"StartDate 479.88" 

"All Good Things" - ST:TNG (Season 7:24)

• Worf and Deanna days - JL in a low-cut gray shirt [Throughout Pt. 1]
• Picard sits down to the poker table with his crew, which "he should have done a long time ago".

Finally, we meet the Jem'Hadar in the finale of season two of DS9, setting up The Dominion War over the next few years. //5.23.21// //4.29.23//

2371

ST:DS9 (Season 3: 1 - 7)

As DS9 begins its (very brief) solo run as the only Star Trek show in existence, it does so by creating some large historical framework for the entire Star Trek Universe.  With the introduction of the U.S.S. Defiant, Star Fleet is declaring its militant reaction to the discovered threat of The Dominion (although a temporary peace is established in these first two episodes with the Founders).  Even the fun throwaway episodes in this sequence provide the key characters some world building for each of them (Dax, Kira & Quark x 2!).

Real time of Star Trek: Voyager (w/ DS9 continuing)

"Relativity" - ST:V (Season 5:23)

• Katherine Janeway beams aboard Voyager before the first episode of the series, and near the end of the pre-credit scene, Seven of Nine appears on the bridge.  [From the beginning of the episode until about the 11 minute mark; and she's back again around the 37:45 mark] //7.19.22// //6.3.23//

"Shattered" - ST:V (Season 7:10)

• Chakotay heads to the Bridge, and encounters a Captain Janeway who wants to arrest him, as a Maquis spy who has snuck aboard just after they've departed on their first mission. [Just a few moments after the opening credits] //10.11.22//

"The Voyager Conspiracy" - ST:V (Season 6:9)

• We see Voyager just after it was thrown into the Delta Quadrant [Starting around the 10:00 minute mark, and throughout the episode we get some flashbacks and some video footage of Voyager's first episode.] //8.9.22//

ST:V (Season 1: 1 - 9) & ST:DS9 (Season 3: 8 - 17)

The final Star Trek series of the 20th Century kicks off with another series settling on the "now for something completely different" mantra of exploring non-Enterprise-based stories in the Star Trek Universe, while continuing the tradition of firmly setting these new stories within the canon of the previously existing series. 

• Quark even gets the distinction of being the DS9 character who gets to send the Voyager crew on their way from DS9 as they track down a lost Maquis ship only to get thrown across the galaxy!
• Early Voyager episodes take turns focusing on different crew members, as the other series have done, so we start to get a feel for how Star Fleet brass like Janeway & Tuvok will fit into a crew with former Maquis members Chakotay & Torres as well as brand newcomers like Neelix and The Doctor.
• Meanwhile, DS9 continues build out the mythology, delving deeper into Cardassian galactic-politics (is that the larger form of geo-politics?) and Bajoran religio-politics.
• Of particular interest, I think, is the two-parter "Past Tense" which shows our own near future in the year 2024, which feels much more prescient now than it did either when it first aired or even during my pass through earlier in this chronology. //8.5.21//

"Fury" - ST:V (Season 6:23)

• An older Kes re-appears in Engineering [shortly after the opening credits and through to the 35:00 minute mark] and subdues her younger self and takes her place among the crew while trying to find a way to change her past (and subsequently the entire next five seasons of the Voyager's crew. //9.26.22//

"Before and After" - ST:V (Season 3:21)

• Kes re-experiences her and Neelix's introduction to Captain Janeway as they agree to become a part of the crew early in the first season. [Starting at 38:35 until 39:30] //1.18.22//

Star Trek: Generations

• I find Generations a better watch at this era of the Star Trek Universe than I have on previous viewings.  It's still not one of the better offerings of Star Trek movies, but with all of the new world problems of the Delta & Gamma Quadrants, a Dominion War looming, the Maquis / Cardassian / Bajoran hate triangle, it's kind of comforting to have a story which has at its core a Klingons & Romulans behaving badly plot.
• Of course there's the whole dumb Nexus / Malcom McDowell / Kirk behaving badly thing, which struggles to hold onto its own interior logic (e.g. why is it exactly that to get in to the Nexus you have to be right in front of it, but when you leave you can go {seemingly} anywhere and at any time so Kirk and Picard can go back to right before they stop Dr. Soran instead of a week earlier to stop him blowing up the first sun he succeeded in destroying and setting up everything to blow up the second one, thus getting Kirk killed in a fist fight {and decidedly not alone as he claims he will do in the 5th movie!!!}).  On the upside, though, we get more Guinan who I have always enjoyed learning more about.

ST: V (Season 1: 10 - 16) & ST:DS9 (Season 3: 18 - 26)

Voyager, which finishes its first season before DS9 finishes its third (according to the best episode-by-episode chronology out there), ends on a bit of a whimper with "Learning Curve", an examination of the struggles to integrate the Maquis crew with that of Voyager's. That comes to make sense when you learn that the first four episodes of season two were meant to be a part of this first season, and the inaugural season was supposed to end with the much more interesting "The 37's".

• The way it ends up being structured, however makes this last set of episodes of season 1 have an overall theme of the two crews (Maquis & Star Fleet) breaking apart and then coming together.
• On looking through the Arfives, I discovered that I actually did watch all of Voyager once before - finishing in 2014 - which may actually have inspired this project. I do recall previously thinking that the whole Seska subplot wasn't very well done (what with her deciding to leave Voyager and ally herself with the Kazon), but in the context of the era, and her status as a double agent on the Maquis ship, I enjoyed it much more this go round.

Deep Space Nine in the meantime continues to grow its mythology to great effect. The two-part Cardassian-focused episode, which concludes with a failed attempt to wipe out The Founders by a joint effort between the Tal Shiar & Obsidian Order builds out a bunch of groundwork for the upcoming Dominion War, but also all the way up through what's going on in Star Trek: Picard.

• We also get another mirror universe episode (which I don't feel like I have fully integrated into this chronology yet), which is always fun.
• Even the deeper dive into alien cultures episodes in this set are highly successful in 1) not annoying me and 2) giving us a deeper appreciation of Bajoran ("Shakaar"), Ferengi ("Family Business"), and Trill ("Facets") culture...
• ... culminating in a grand reveal that Star Fleet (and perhaps all of the great powers in the Alpha Quadrant) have been infiltrated by changeling spies sent to disrupt and distract them so the Dominion can conquer. //8.16.21//

"The Sound of her Voice" - ST:DS9 (Season 6:25)

• The audio from Lisa Cusack that the Defiant picks up turns out to be from 3 years ago...  The crew is able to carry on conversations with her, but they're separated by 3+ years so are unable to save her in the end. //3.8.22// 

2372

"Relativity" - ST:V (Season 5:23)

• Seven beams back to Voyager during a Kazon attack, and later Janeway comes back to the same time...  [Around the 35:00 minute mark; and again near the end of the episode in this truly bonkers episode] //7.19.22// //6.3.23//

"Before and After" - ST:V (Season 3:21)

• Kes and the crew tries to start treatment for her (future) chroniton-radiation contamination. [Starting around 36:00 until 38:35] //12.11.22//

"Shattered" - ST:V (Season 7:10)

• Chakotay is treated by the Doctor, where he gets a chroniton-based treatment, which allows him to move anywhere on the ship, regardless of which timeline he's in.  Later (after a visit to the Bridge in another year), he goes to Engineering after the two bridge security officers who were bringing him to the Brig disappear in a temporal anomaly. [Immediately following the opening credits, and again a few times throughout the episode] //10.11.22//

ST: V (Season 2) & ST: DS9 (Season 4)

DS9 gets off to a rather dark start this season with Worf joining the cast amidst a Klingon invasion of Cardassian space, and the cancellation of the Khitomer Accords, followed by Jake's future suicide, and Bashir and O'Brien's falling out of bromance.  Voyager, meanwhile, starts off with "The 37s", which was originally meant to be the finale of season 1, and it has that feel of a grand episode.

• Watching these two series in this way, switching back and forth between episodes (with an occasional set of two or three in a row from the same series) provides an insight into the overall tone of each individual series as well as giving us moments when the shows get their chance to go against the grain like the spooky episode "Persistence of Vision" for Voyager and DS9's "Little Green Men".
• DS9 returns to Earth in "Homefront", which is one of the deepest dives into 24th Century Earth, as well as the worst Star Fleet corruption at the highest levels when a military coup is attempted in response to a perceived Dominion incursion. 

"Bar Association" - ST:DS9 (Season 4:16)

• By magical happenstance, I got to this episode on Labor Day 2021.  In the episode, Rom starts a union for Quark's bar employees, and organizes a strike. //9.6.21//

Voyager continues to encounter and complicate the relationship with the Kazon, while the remainder of Season 4 of Deep Space 9 heads inevitably toward The Dominion War (which starts sometime in 2373). //10.25.21//

2373

ST: V (Season 3: 1-16) & ST: DS9 (Season 5:1-13)

The first several episodes of this season of Voyager are all jumbled up and out of order as outlined in the episodic chronology project. Voyager gets to connect both TNG & TOS in those early episodes, and in the final episode of this portion of the season (pre-First Contact), we get the set-up for two major turning points in the series: Torres & Paris's relationship and the introduction of The Borg.  Meanwhile Sisko & Co. get their own encounter with TOS cast (and crew!) and DS9 begins delving even deeper into its characters while approaching peak DS9 all while feeling The Dominion War in the background. //1.5.22//

• Despite the Dominion War having started, the early episodes are a lot of relationship building and getting deeper in to what drives our now familiar characters, particularly with Odo (in episodes like "Things Past" & "The Ascent"

"The Visitor" - ST:DS9 (Season 4:3)

• Ben Sisko reappears on DS9 a year after he vanished, believed dead, in a warp drive accident as a result of a once every 50 year inversion of the wormhole. Later in the same year (or early the next year), the station is evacuated due to the Klingon War [from around 12:20 until 14:15 & then 15:15 to 20:00, plus another snippet around 22:15]  //8.23.21// //3.28.23// //5.30.23//

"Shattered" - ST:V (Season 7:10)

• Chakotay and Janeway briefly encounter one of the Macrovirus from "Macrocosm (3:12)" of this season, but escape through another temporal barrier. [Around the 22:00 minute mark] //10.11.22//

Star Trek First Contact

Having just watched "Blood Fever" (V 3: 16), where Voyager has encounters The Borg in the Delta Quadrant for the first time, the "sudden" invasion of the Borg that Picard narrates he has been dreading for 6 years feels a bit more timely.  Before the Borg directly attack Voyager (who they have likely witnessed approaching their territory), they launch an attack on Earth - which they must have been planning for a long time, complete with contingencies (like a plan to head for the 21st Century in case their direct assault fails). //1.5.22// 

ST: DS9 (Season 5:14-26) & ST: V (Season 3: 17-26)

• Voyager has more character and world building for the rest of the season while the Borg loom large in the background until the final episode when they directly engage (and broker a temporary treaty) with the Borg amidst the threat of an even more dangerous species.
• Deep Space 9, meanwhile, prep for the Dominion War, which similarly looms large in the back end of Season 5 - building alliances in the Alpha Quadrant (with the Cardassians primarily, among others) again until the final episode of the season when all out war begins. //1.29.22//

2374

"Before and After" - ST:V (Season 3:21)

• Kes tries to find some data about the chronoton radiation she is exposed to during the "Year of Hell" two-parter (ST:V 4:8 & 9).  [After the 27 minute mark, the episode takes place during the "Year of Hell" episodes the following season; at about the 36 minute mark we appear to join the present time.] 
• After experiencing her childhood, birth, and life as a zygote, she hurtles back forward, landing in the "present" timeline, and based on her knowledge of the events ahead, she starts a new timeline where (hopefully) the Captain and Torres survive the "Year of Hell". //1.18.22//

"Latent Image" - ST:V (Season 5:11)

• Images from 18 months in the past emerge from the Doctor's camera, and later in the episode the Doctor experiences deleted memories that occurred either very early this year or late the prior year (definitely happened prior to Seven of Nine joining the crew. [At 25:00 - 35:00 the Doctor experiences the full memories that have been deleted from his program] //5.2.22//

"The Voyager Conspiracy" - ST:V (Season 6:9)

• The briefest of glimpses of Janeway on board the Borg cube, when she was negotiating a cease fire, and bringing Seven on board to guide Voyager. [a little after the 36:00 minute mark.] //8.9.22//

"Shattered" - ST:V (Season 7:10)

• Chrono-inoculated Chakotay and Janeway meet Borg drone 7 of 9, who they work with to solve the temporal crisis of the episode. (This is also the year in which they encounter unconscious crew in a different time-stream (under the influence of the Dream Aliens); unless it is the following year and they are under the spell of a telepathic pitcher plant. [Later in the episode starting around 18:00 until 21:00] //10.11.22//

ST: DS9 (Season 6: 1-7) & ST: V (Season 4: 1-7)

• On Voyager Seven of Nine is introduced to the crew in episode 1, and soon joins the crew (amongst some early skepticism).  During episode 2, Kes leaves the ship as her psionic powers expand, and gives Voyager the departing gift of propelling them beyond Borg space and 10 years closer to home. The rest of the early episodes (leading up to the "Year of Hell") of this season are problem of the week type stories with the notable exceptions of Torres & Paris fully entering into an acknowledged relationship over the course of a few episodes.
•  Deep Space 9, meanwhile is fully enmeshed in the Dominion War with Star Fleet having lost the station, and reduced to excursions aboard the Defiant, Klingon ships, and a stolen Jem'Hadaar ship.  Odo, Kira, Jake Sisko & Rom, meanwhile, remain at Terok Nor, and (along with Leeta & Quark at the end) form a resistance group, which helps Star Fleet retake the station (just in time for Worf & Dax's wedding at Quark's bar).

ST: DS9 (Season 6: 8-26) & ST: V (Season 4: 8-26)

• I find the relationship between Jadzia Dax and Worf to be one of the most precious in all of the Star Trek canon, and these episodes of DS9 frequently explore the complexities of dating within Star Fleet (and especially on the front lines of the Dominion War) as a side-bar plot, which is very enjoyable. (Especially enjoyable as opposed to having an entire episode about Geordi's or Picard's or Kira's latest fling).  Unfortunately, the back-end of this season also features the Odo / Kira (Kodo?) relationship, which is less fun, but you know... The war goes on and problem of the week episodes go on (with a lot of time travel, oddly, so there are several episodes from this section of the show peppered throughout the past many years of this chronology now). //3.11.22//
• Voyager, meanwhile, starts to hit its stride with several Seven of Nine episodes, and The Doctor (or at least one iteration of his program) finding himself hundreds of years in the future as part of a historical interpretive museum exhibit in "Living Witness", which is actually quite a good episode (and sets up a very plausible guest appearance for Robert Picardo on Star Trek: Discovery if they wanted to do a bit of fan service!)  At the end of the season, it seems that all of of the crew's dreams are going to come true, and they will get home, but then no, they were renewed for 3 more seasons so they just got a 100 light year jump start give or take... 

2375

ST: DS9 (Season 7: 1 - 10) & ST: V (Season 5: 1 - 10)

• On Voyager they just keep on "wagon-training", while adding new allies (mostly) by their interactions with new alien species.  
• DS9's final season jarringly introduces us Ezri Dax, and the series alternates between episodes continuing The Dominion War and enjoyable character vignettes that provide us a chance to start saying goodbye to familiar friends (most notably in this first part of the season in "It's Only a Paper Moon" with the focus being on Nog returning from a battle and experiencing PTSD symptoms). //4.24.22//

Star Trek: Insurrection

The third of the Next Gen movies sees Worf once again show up on the bridge of the Enterprise fresh from his posting on DS9.  This time, however, there is very little pretext for his being here beyond it being a movie, and he's one of the stars.  I have reviewed all of the movies before, and I guess my current take on this one is slightly more positive, but ultimately, I was right - it's top level episode material, stretched into a feature film.  I will say, the theme of a problematic Federation, which is trending toward losing its way at times fits in to the Federation recognizable in DS9, where expediencies are sometimes chosen in the Dominion War rather than the moral true north always being the selected path. //4.26.22// 

ST: DS9 (Season 7: 11 - 26) & ST: V (Season 5: 11 - 26)

• Almost all of the back half+ of the final season of Deep Space Nine feels like an elaborate multi-part episode (particularly the last 7 episodes). The series, perhaps more than any other has done (though I suspect Picard may match, perhaps both for itself and for TNG), has wrapped up neatly nearly all of side plots and character destinies in these final episodes. //7.12.22//
• On Voyager there is a lot of Seven of Nine drama, particularly in the solid two parter, "Dark Frontier", where she re-encounters the Borg Queen, and is tempted to defect. //7.20.22//

mid/late 2370s

"Dominion" - ST:Pic (Season 3:7)

• Vadic is seen kept captive with 9 Changelings at the Daystrom Institute undergoing quasi-Nazi level experimentation in an effort to allow Star Fleet (or Section 38) to create genetically perfect replicas of any of their enemies (or frenemies, I suppose).  (Called Project Proteus?) [brief interspersed scenes starting at the 29:30 minute mark] //4.19.23//

2376

ST: V (Season 6: 1 - 26)

It's remarkable just how much of this season I've watched (all of it), and looking back on it, how little of it I seem to remember.  And yet, it's a very compelling season of Voyager.  The first season where Voyager is out on its own as the sole STU property, and you can feel them trying to make it 'mean more' to the larger mythology (like DS:9 did with the Dominion War), but it's harder because of their disconnect from Star Fleet and the Alpha Quadrant.  It does this by building out the Borg culture (see episodes like "Survival Instinct" & "Collective", and also looks back at its own timeline a fair amount with Kes returning in "Fury" or Seven looking back at the start of their mission in "The Voyager Conspiracy".  Overall it's a fairly good season, which is somewhat forgettable (seriously, you did not need to make Fair Haven a recurring setting!). //9.15.22//

2377

ST: V (Season 7: 1 - 26)

Another uninterrupted calendar year where Voyager is the only STU property to have anything happening, and this season includes 4 two-parters (or technically 3.5).  In a foreshadowing to Picard's focus on artificial life's rights and place in society, the two-parter "Flesh and Blood" begins the conversation about holographic life's rights, which is paid off (although not fully enshrined in Federation Law) in "Author, Author", where The Doctor is given the right to at least own his own creative work.  Tom & B'Elanna have a baby, and Neelix finds a Talaxian settlement where he settles down in the penultimate episode (although he does get a cameo in the finale too!).  It's an okay ending for my not favorite, but a pretty ok instantiation of the Star Trek Universe. //12.9.22//

2378

"Before and After" - ST:V (Season 3:21)

• At the start of the episode, Kes is 9 years old (an elderly Ocampan woman) and wakes up in Sick Bay.  Because of a radical care plan to extend her life created by the Doctor, she experiences this episode in reverse chronological order. [Up until about the 27 minute mark the episode occurs in this year.] //1.18.22// 12.11.22//

2379

Star Trek: Nemesis 

• A  Romulan Revolution occurs and a massacre in the Senate Chambers sets off the threat of a new Romulan War with the Federation.  A Reman-born clone of Jean Luc Picard is the spark of the conflict, and also potentially Picard's start of his special relationship with the Romulans that he has in the Picard series. //12.11.22//

Real time of Star Trek: Lower Decks

2380

ST: LD (Season 1: 1 - 10)

We meet the crew of the USS Cerritos via a few of their ensigns (the Lower Deckers) a la this series' namesake, a final-season episode of TNG.  The season is full of call backs to previous series, with the most common theme of "Second Contact" (sort of a stellar mop-up job for dotting i's & crossing t's after the real ships like the Enterprise have met a new culture and solved one of their problems). //2.10.23//   

"A Mathematically Perfect Redemption" - ST:LD (Season 3:7)

• We see the moment that Peanut Hamper gets left by the Cerritos, and that scene gets expanded on with her existing there until she builds a warp nacelle, and crash lands on a planet where the local bird people see her as a semi-religious figure. [It's not entirely clear how much of these scenes take place in 2380 and when the following year starts, but it starts at the beginning of the show, and we rejoin the present of the 3rd Season around the 10 or 12 minute mark]. //3.8.23//

2381

ST: LD (Season 2: 1 - 10)

The USS Ceritos starts to get bigger and better assignments (although still gets some animal wrangling - "Mugato, Gumato" - and errand running - "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie"), and the Pakleds are growing into the primary enemy of the series.  Plus, we meet the first Tamarian to serve in Star Fleet.

We also meet Jen as a background character, who saves Mariner, and now they're kind of a thing.  Captain Freeman gets to make her first first contact and decides to pass up on a promotion to a larger ship... but instead she is arrested! //3.2.23//

"Seventeen Seconds" - ST:Pic (Season 3:3)

• Picard and Riker are drinking in a bar (or possibly a simulation of a bar?), reminiscing about the birth of Will's first son. [after the opening credits at 4:40 until around 6:45 ] //4.11.23//

ST: LD (Season 3: 1 - 10)

Season 3 seems super-sized with callbacks and tropey good times (both Star Trek and otherwise), starting with swiping a ship from dry dock.  "Bold Boimler" starts a new path (a la Yes Man), and we get a ride aboard the Delta Flyer and a whole episode aboard DS9.

We get one cliffhanger at the end of a follow up to "Crisis Point", an homage to the new rules that apply to Star Trek movies, where we learn that Brad Boimler's transporter clone, William, may not be quite as dead as he was reported to be... And a pretty classic finale to the season where the entirety of the California-Class of starships comes to the rescue of the Cerritos when an AI controlled Texas class ship turns on our crew. //3.12.23//

"Those Old Scientists" - ST:SNW (Season 2:7)

• The crew of the USS Cerritos is exploring a portal that Pike's Enterprise had    [beginning of the episode until Boimler gets sucked through at 4:30, and they return at 45:00 until 46:00]  //7.23.23//

ST: LD (Season 4: 1 - 10)

Great Voyager (episode 1) & Deep Space 9 (episode 3) callbacks early on in the season as some of our ensigns have gotten promoted to junior lieutenants. 

• The season is largely a Tendi arc, with her eventual return to a life of Orion piracy.  We also learn the original source of Mariner's discontent and self-destructive tendencies stemming from her time adjacent to Nova Squadron. //11.2.23//

early 2380s

(it's not entirely clear when this happens, but after Nemesis and before Prodigy Season 1 is for sure) 

"Preludes" - ST:Pro (Season 1:16)

• We see memories and stories of the crew and their arrival at the mines. [throughout the episode until around 20:00 ] //3.21.23//

"Asylum" - ST:Pro (Season 1:11)

• We witness the USS Protostar's christening with Janeway seeing Chakotay off.  [staring at the 10:45 until 11:30 when we learn it's a holodeck simulation] //3.19.23//

Real time of Star Trek: Prodigy

2383

ST: Pro (Season 1: 1 - 10)

We meet Dal and the new kid crew of the USS Protostar, some kind of experimental ship that our crew discover buried in the mining colony where they have all been imprisoned.  

The first season of Prodigy is broken up in to two parts (actually, it was split in to three by hiatus for seasons of Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks, but logistically it sets up in two parts - the first 10 episodes entails the kid crew liberating, adventuring with, losing and subsequently recovering the USS Protostar. //3.19.23//

ST: Pro (Season 1: 11 - 20)

Episode 11 begins the dual nature of the season, tracking both the kid crew who soon discover their ship has some kind of AI weapon (which looks similar to the Discovery Season 2 villain) that causes Star Fleet technology to attack itself when it interacts with the Protostar and simultaneously showing us Admiral Janeway as she tracks Chakotay's lost ships.

• We encounter a wacky lone Star Fleet officer on a faraway outpost all alone, plus an encounter with a Borg cube
• We re-encounter Captain Okona, who just a couple years ago was DJ-ing at a Star Fleet who's who mixer (see Lower Decks). //3.22.23//

"Future Imperfect" - ST:TNG (Season 4:8)

Riker wakes up 16 years in the future, where he is captain of the Enterprise.  And has a son! [starting at the 3:00 mark before the credits until around the 30:00 mark, when it all starts to unravel] //3.22.23//

mid/early 2380s

"Stardust City Rag" - ST:Pic (Season 1:5)

• A video recording of Bruce Maddox and Agnes Jurati sharing an intimate moment together that must be sometime before the synths ban in 2385. [starting at 11:37 until the 12:30 mark] //3.31.23//

2385

"Broken Pieces" - ST:Pic (Season 1:8)

• We see the beginnings of the planning of the Mars attack on Aia, The Grief World, where the Zhat Vash members experience the coming destruction caused by artificial life (it's not clear if this is the same threat as in Season 2 of Discovery or Season 1 of Prodigy, but it seems like the end of everything), so they plan an attack by synthetics. [starting immediately after the "previously on..." sequence until the around 4:45] //4.1.23//

"Absolute Candor" - ST:Pic (Season 1:4)

• We see Picard in his role of assisting the Romulans in their resettling project. [starting immediately after the "previously on..." sequence until the opening credits, right around the 6:10 mark ] //3.31.23//

"Children of Mars" - ST:D (Season 2 - Short Trek 6)

A rare view of earth, and a rare view of non-Star Fleet life at a school on "First Contact Day" in 2385, just as the attack on Mars begins that sets off the events of the first season of Star Trek: Picard. //3.22.23//

"Maps and Legends" - ST:Pic (Season 1:2)

• We meet the synthetics, and witness their bombing attack on Mars from the inside. [starting immediately after the "previously on..." sequence until the opening credits, right around the 5:15 mark ] //3.26.23//

"Remembrance" - ST:Pic (Season 1:1)

• Video footage of the attack is shown during Picard's interview. [14:00 minute mark] //3.30.23//

"The End is the Beginning" - ST:Pic (Season 1:3)

• We see images of the the attack on Mars, then get a scene later the same year where Picard is railing against Star Fleet, and in the midst of the fight, Picard resigns. [Mars attack until 1:40 mark, then until the opening credits at 6:10] //3.30.23//

2386

"Stardust City Rag" - ST:Pic (Season 1:5)

• We reencounter Icheb as he is being harvested, then momentarily rescued by Seven of Nine, who then grants his request to end his suffering. 
• It feels like a cheap, unnecessarily cruel ending for a character we just got to meet again. [starting immediately after the "previously on..." sequence until the 3:30 mark; a few more passing moments as Seven retells the story around the 33:00 mark.] //3.31.23//

2387

Star Trek (2009) 

Future 'flashback' mind meld (129 years from now) that Nimoy-Spock shows Kirk.  Nero's planet dies, and he wreaks revenge on Spock in the past. [starting around the 1:17 mark through to about 19:40]. //3.26.23//

• Also some scenes from someone who is supposed to be Nero's wife? [starting around 1:07:05]

2390

"Timeless" - ST:V (Season 5:6)

• Harry Kim & Chakotay are 'stranded' in time 15 years in the future after an experimental "slipstream" disaster that finds Voyager crashing into an ice planet.  Harry is war-weary, cynical - Chakotay is the same principled leader he was with the Maquis and as a first officer on Voyager...  plus Geordi shows up! [from the start of the episode until 7:15; again at 17:00 until around 28:20; then around 29:20 to 31:10, and back and forth through the end of the slipstream flight around 36:40 and in the future until around 40:30, when this timeline is erased (though we do see another brief moment of it in a log entry at around 45:00).] //3.16.22// //3.28.23//

2392

"The Visitor" - ST:DS9 (Season 4:3)

• Ben Sisko reappears on earth at the home of his son, Jake, and his wife, Korena. Jake has become a successful author of two books, but at this point, realizing that his father's accident has linked the two of them together through subspace, he decides to rededicate himself to studying subspace mechanics so he can save his father. [starting around 23:15 (interspersed with the 2450 scenes) until 29:20]  //8.23.21// //3.28.23// //5.30.23//

2394

"Shattered" - ST:V (Season 7:10)

• Janeway & Chakotay enter Astrometrics, and meet Naomi Wildman and Icheb seventeen years in the future. [Around the 15:00 mark until about 18:00] //10.11.22// //3.29.23//

2395
"All Good Things" - ST:TNG (Season 7: 24)

• Jean Luc's present - in the Vineyard, and beyond - (25 years after JL and Geordi served together - altAllhough seemingly in this episode's alternate timeline rather than actual reality {where it would have been 2404 or so}) [Throughout both parts, starting at 5:30 till 9:00, then again at 14:45, 31:00, 47:15, 53:45, 1:02:10, 1:12:45, 1:19:25, 1:22:30]. Troi is dead, unmarried to both Riker and Worf.  Picard was an Ambassador (rather than Admiral as the go to honorific).  Geordi's wife is also being appointed the head of the Daystrom Institute (which may also be quite different in this timeline).  Importantly, Data also survives to this time in this timeline! //4.29.23//

2396

"No Win Scenario" - ST:Pic (Season 3:4)

• Picard is at a restaurant when a bunch of Academy cadets crowd around him and ask him about his adventures. [starting immediately after the "previously on" at 2:15 until 4:05, then again at 22:00 until 22:50, then starting around 50:45 and alternating between the present he meets Jack Crusher and crushes him...] //4.12.23//

Real time of Star Trek: Picard

2399

ST:Pic (Season 1: 1 - 10)

We meet an older, retired, and increasingly surly Jean Luc Picard (who learns he's dying in episode 2!), and we get a whole new crew of misfits: his troubled, former protégé, Raffi; Dr. Agnes Jurati; an exciting flyboy captain, Chris Rios; Seven of Nine!; Elnor the Warrior Nun...

Basically, they save the galaxy and Star Fleet from itself... per uzhe... //4.1.23// 

sometime around 2400 (between Picard seasons)

"Mercy" - ST:Pic (Season 2:8)

• A memory of Raffi's where she is speaking with Elnor, and manipulating him into staying in Star Fleet. [from around 32:00 to about 34:00 mark]. //4.8.23//

2401

"Fly Me to The Moon" - ST:Pic (Season 2:5)

• A brief glimpse of the very beginning of this season and Laris's conversation with Picard before he is called away for the encounter with the Borg Anomaly. [right around the 2:30 mark]. //4.6.23//

ST:Pic (Season 2: 1 - 10)

A strange encounter with a reconstituted Borg in the first episode ends in Picard auto-destructing a reconstituted Star Gazer, and he wakes up in the same solarium we last saw him in around 90 years ago. 

We get a brief glimpse in episode 2 of this new Confederation era, and it's terrifying - we're not sure what's going on, but the same ole crew assembles (plus The Borg Queen!), and they realize they need to go back to 2024 to fix what Q has changed (seemingly something even worse than getting Trump elected again... though maybe not, the crowd at the Eradication Day ceremony seems very Trumpist).

[and then from about the 10:00 minute mark of Episode 3 until the 34:00 mark of Episode 10, we're stuck in 2024] //4.9.2023//

ST:Pic (Season 3: 1 - 10)

It's the 250th Anniversary of Frontier Day (a celebration of the launch of Jonathan Archer's Enterprise in 2151).

Remarkably, this is later the same year as the previous season, although it seems like A LOT has happened.  Beverly Crusher, who has been out of touch with all of her friends from the Enterprise for over 20 years reaches out to Picard for help while Raffi is working as a low-level operative for Star Fleet Intelligence (or some sub-contractor of Star Fleet Intelligence). //4.21.23//

2402

"The Last Generation" - ST:Pic (Season 3: 10)

• We get to see all of the regulars from this season "1 Year Later" with Jack getting posted to his first Star Fleet assignment (which happens to be Seven's first command!), and finally one last game of poker. [starting around 49:00 and through until the post credit scene!] //4.21.23//

2404

"Endgame" - ST:V (Season 7: 24)

• The crew are attending a 10-year reunion event of Voyager's return to Earth 23 years after their entry into the Delta Quadrant.  Janeway is working on a project to change Voyager's return trip to the Alpha Quadrant. [Interspersed throughout the episode starting with the first 15:00 minutes of the episode; 22:00 to 28:00; 33:50 to 38:00; just before 40:00 to 42:45] //12.9.22// 
• The premise is a problematic one that is a repeat of several Trek episodes (e.g. "All Good Things", "Timeless" & "The Visitor") where the "wrong" future has occurred, and our heroes work to rectify the problem, thus destroying the current existing history for many of the characters. //5.4.23//

2410

"Firstborn" - ST:TNG (Season7:21)

• Alexander from this era returns from the future to arrange a fake assassination attempt on Worf to change his future, and encourage him to become a warrior (rather than the diplomat he has become) //4.14.21// [He first appears around the 9:00 minute mark, in the background, and he remains central to the whole episode, only revealing his identity around the 38:00 mark.] //5.7.23//

mid-2410s

(it's not entirely clear when this happens, but it's meant to be "a few decades" before Chakotay and his crew are sent to the year 2435 by a temporal anomaly) 

"Preludes" - ST:Pro (Season 1:16)

• The Divner regains his memories of the USS Protostar arriving at their planet "a few decades after First Contact".  [staring around 10:45 until around 13:00 ] //5.30.23//

2422

"The Visitor" - ST:DS9 (Season 4:3)

• Jake Sisko arranges to "get the band back together" aboard The Defiant as another of the once every 50 year inversion of the wormhole is going to occur, and they hope to save Ben Sisko from his subspace purgatory.  They fail, but Jake is briefly able to visit the subspace spot where Ben (evidently) has been spending his time and it becomes clear that Jake has abandoned his life in favor of trying to save his father's. [starting at 31:00 till 36:00]  //8.23.21// //3.28.23// //5.30.23//

2435

"Preludes" - ST:Pro (Season 1:16)

• The Divner regains his memories of the USS Protostar arriving at their planet, after First Contact had caused political destabilization.  The Protostar is captured by his people, and sent back as a weapon to cause Star Fleet's demise  [staring after 10:45 until around 13:00 ] //5.30.23//

"Mindwalk" - ST: Pro (Season 1:18)

• something [13:50]

"Supernova, Pt. 2" - ST: Pro (Season 1:20)

• something [13:25] (exact year confirmed in ST:Pro (Season 1:20))

"Into the Breach, Pt. 2" - ST: Pro (Season 2:2)

• something [12:30]

2450

"The Visitor" - ST:DS9 (Season 4:3)

• The "real time" of this episode, from whence Jake Sisko retells the story of his father's disappearance, which caused Jake to (eventually) quit writing. He is visited by a young groupie who wants to be a writer herself, and she spends the night, so... you know.
• Then, his father shows up, and Jake kills himself in his father's presence in order to return him to the moment of the accident which happened in 2372, thus obliterating this whole timeline for everyone (this includes Jadzia Dax's survival into old age where she had gotten married to Julian!)... [starting at the beginning of the episode until 7:50, and periodically through the episode as Jake continues telling the story] //8.23.21// //5.30.23//

mid-2500s

"Countdown" - ST: E (Season 3:23)

• A Sphere-Builder female from the future is contacting the Reptilian Xindi who have stolen the Weapon on their recommendation, and later several of the Sphere-Builders are hanging out in a cloud land discussing possible timelines. [starting around 16:40 for a minute and a half and then again around 20:00, and finally again around 30:45] //6.23.23//

"Zero Hour" - ST: E (Season 3:24)

• The Sphere-Builder are in their cloud land discovering fewer and fewer timelines that lead to what they want. [back in the clouds at 3:50] //6.23.23//

mid-2550s

"The Expanse" - ST: E (Season 2:26)

• The Humanoid Figure says this is the era when The Federation will cause the destruction of the Xindi World. [meeting happens from 7:30 until 9:10] //6.15.23//

2554

"Azati Prime" - ST:E (Season 3:18)

• The Battle of Procyon 5 
• A Super Tense episode where the crew is preparing for an incursion of Xindi space. The SphereBuilders are waging a temporal (Cold?) War using the Xindi as a weapon against pre-Federation Earth.
• Fascinating episode where Archer's turn from skeptic to diplomat turns the tone of the episode of a desperate attempt to save humanity in its space infancy versus a considered attempt to save The Federation... [starting at 13:00 Archer enters the Enterprise-J, "400 years in the future" until 16:20] //6.2.23//

late 2500s

Source of the time-traveling shuttle in "A Matter of Time" - ST:TNG (Season 5:9). ["Professor Rasmussen" appears around the 2:30 before the opening credits and his ship from this era vanishes back into history at the 44:00 mark.] //5.31.23//

2700s

"Broken Bow" - ST: E (Season 1:1)

• A Humanoid Figure appears in 2151 from this era. [starting just before the 20:00 minute mark for about 35 seconds, and again at the 1:00:30 mark]
• Archer enters the chamber where this guy has been transmitting to, and he seems in some sort of flux, which may be future adjacent. [starting at the 1:14:30 mark and periodically until 1:19:00] //6.8.23//

"Cold Front" - ST:E (Season 1:11)

• The same Humanoid Figure is punishing the Suliban for failing his previous mission, whilst sending him off on a new one (which isn't articulated). [Very beginning of the show until the opening credits.] //6.10.23//

"Shockwave, Part 1" - ST: E (Season 1:26)

• He shows up again asking for the Suliban to abduct Archer. [starting at around 33:30 until 34:00] //6.10.23//

"The Expanse" - ST: E (Season 2:26)

• Several Suliban ships show up surrounding Enterprise, and convince Archer to come aboard and meet our Humanoid Figure friend to explain the attack that had just occurred on Earth. [from 7:30 until 9:10] //6.15.23//

latter-2800s

"Future's End, Part I" - ST:V (Season 3:8)

• A Time Ship from the 29th appears suddenly in Voyager's path, and begins an attack on Voyager, stating that they must destroy Voyager lest they (Voyager) be responsible for the destruction of all of earth's solar system.
• Captain Braxton departs from this era to try to destroy Voyager. [The rift through which Braxton's ship from this era appears around 3:45 and Voyager disappears into (along with the time ship) at around 6:20, then the rift opens again at 40:45 and stays open (or opens and then recloses and then reopens again when a different Braxton shows up) until 43:30] //11.29.21// //6.4.23//

2875

"Relativity" - ST:V (Season 5:23)

• Seven is beamed (through time?) from Voyager just prior to its first mission, and Seven returns to this time period when "she is recruited" for her time heist for a 3rd time.  [Around the 11 minute mark; she returns to this future at about the 23:00 minute mark and again throughout the rest of the episode] //6.3.23//

mid-3000s (maybe around 3052?)

"Cold Front" - ST:E (Season 1:11)

• Daniels brings Archer into his quarters, and activates some sort of timeline machine.  I don't think they're actually in this Century, but the technology comes from this era, and they observe Daniels' source Century on the timeline. 
• We do learn later in the episode that this incident created a tachyon disturbance, so they may have traveled forward in time. [Around the 20:00 mark] //6.10.23//

"Shockwave, Parts 1 & 2" - ST: E (Season 1:26 & Season 2:1)

• Archer appears in the 31st Century, which to Daniels' horror has been decimated. They create a way to communicate with the present [starting at around the 40:00 until the end of the episode, then immediately after the opening credits of the Season 2 premiere and alternating throughout the episode until about 32:45] //6.10.23//

The mysterious vessel at the center of "Future Tense" (ST:E 2:16) is from this era.

mid-3060s

"Terra Firma, Part 1" - ST: D (Season 3:9)

• A Kelpian appears in a distress signal recording that Discovery finds coming from the source of the Burn. [Around 21:10 - 21:55, then 23:10] //7.27.23//

Su'Kal is born (although I don't know a lot about Kelpien gestation, but it's fairly likely that this is the same year that the distress signal was sent from the location of the source of the Burn). 

"That Hope is You, Part 2" - ST:D (Season 3:13)

• We see a holographic recording of the death of Su'Kal's mother, and a few minutes later a message from Su'Kal's mother asking whoever found him to help him through. [starts just before the 47:00 mark until just before 18:15, the earlier scene is from 51:00 to 51:50] //8.2.23//

3074

"Living Witness" - ST:V (Season 4:23)

• The real time of this episode is in this year, just five year's after the start of the Burn.  The episode is a museum tour (at the Museum of Kyrian Heritage) where a species who encountered Voyager sometime (probably in 2374 in fact!), and we see our cast re-created in a "simulation" that the society has created to explain Voyager's war crimes against the Kyrians. [Starting at the opening of the episode, we get "footage" of what's going on in Voyager in 2374, but it's all happening in 3074.  Around 19:00 The Doctor appears in the museum exhibit] //7.10.23//

3100s (sometime in that Century... probably)

"Living Witness" - ST:V (Season 4:23)

• The closing minute of this episode features another museum or academic presentation from the "future" of the Kyrian culture, and The Doctor and his Kyrian cohort are "re-created" in a similar simulation.  Hard to tell if it's 50 years, 100 years, or 500 years later... 

It's impossible to tell whether this later presentation is the "true" real time of this episode.  The real implication of the episode, though, is that learning lessons from history that isn't directly observable (which is to say... history) is dubious as best.  I don't mean to say that we shouldn't learn lessons from history, but those lessons are more often thematic than analytic... [starting around the 44:00 mark to the end.] //3.1.22// //7.10.23//

3176

"People of Earth" - ST: D (Season 3: 3)

• An audio recording of a Star Fleet officer from Earth putting out some call for help. [Starting around the 6:30] //7.17.23//

3178 (approx)

"The Galactic Barrier" - ST:D (Season 4:10)

• Flashbacks of Ruon Tarka during his imprisonment with the Emerald Chain. [they start around the 18:00 bouncing back and forth between present until 22:00, then again 27:00 to 38:45] //7.10.23// //9.4.23//

early 3180s (precisely 950 years after Gabrielle Burnham jumps in the Red Angel timesuit for the first time)

"Perpetual Infinity" - ST: D (Season 2: 11)

• Michael views Gabrielle Burnham's mission logs - the first of which starts the day of the death of Michael's father and Gabrielle's disappearance.  The logs continue as Gabrielle chronicles her jumps (all brief, because she is anchored in this year). [Starting around the 10:00 mark when she first jumps, and Michael continues to watch and listen to logs through to the end of the episode around 45:30] //7.10.23//

Real time of Star Trek: Discovery - (Season 3 {& After?}...)

3188

"That Hope is You, Part 1" - ST:D (Season 3:1)

• Michael Burnham arrives in the Late 32nd Century and meets Booker, a kind of animal empath smuggler guy, who introduces her to the Post-Burn World.  He tells her that all time travel technology was destroyed after "The Temporal Wars".  She meets the Federation Liaison  //7.17.23//

"People of Earth" - ST: D (Season 3: 3)

• Scenes of Michael living through the year [After the "previously on" scene and around 1:10 to 3:30] //7.17.23//

3189

Star Trek: Discovery (Season 3: 2 - 13)

Discovery arrives in the 32nd Century a year after Michael, and immediately it's unclear who is in charge.  Philippa Georrgiao for sure wants to be in charge, and Saru is acting Captain, but Michael is the star of the show, and knows her way around this century a bit more than everyone else...

• The most engaging encounter of Trill that we have ever had, which engages very viscerally and cosmically with memory and trauma and joy.
• Georrgiao begins experiencing 'episodes' in episode 6, after learning (in episode 5) that the Terran universe from whence she comes is getting further away from their prime universe in the 32nd Century.
• "How much of who Spock became was because of who his sister was?" - the 32nd Century President of Ni'Var. 
• The Emerald Chain quickly establish themselves as the big bads of Season 3, and by the end of the season become a vehicle for The future Federation's hope.

God, Ensign Keeley is a bad ass - she becomes Saru's Number One, and shows what a heroic presence she will be (particularly in 3:13, "That Hope is You, Part 2".  I know the end of the episode makes Michael that "Hope", but Michael never gets that opportunity unless Keeley leads the team to do their part getting Discovery to drop out of warp. {weirdly, the very closing moments of Season 3 could have (and would have) been an awesome ending and Coda to the entirety of a series, and a perfect epigraph (is that an end quote?) for our role in humanity and how weird it is that we're here by Gene Roddenberry... //8.2.23//

3190

Star Trek: Discovery (Season 4:1 - 13)

But then there is a Season 4, and there is an Anomaly (The DMA), which (naturally) threatens to destroy all Federation adjacent life in the galaxy.

• Gray gets a body (an update of the Picard golem).
• Some side excursions - like Tilly's venture as a camp counselor in episode 4 ("All Is Possible") to some Star Fleet Cadets.
• Zora gains emotional consciousness, and becomes a life form (and member of the crew!)
• Book teams up with Tarka for a multi-episode arc, which reads as genuine even though it could have been gimmicky.
• The final episode is quite remarkable:
• Truly made of the most Star Trekky material there is, learning the language of an incomprehensible power
• When everyone thinks they are all about to die, Keeley reflects that she is pretty happy with the way things turned out - having made friends and family from friends, and finding purpose in her work ("just imagine, some people never find their purpose," she said). 
• The build-up to the end is poignant and powerful
• Once again, the ending feels as if it could be the full conclusion of Discovery - it feels celebratory and satisfying - it's as if the showrunners always thought they were going to be cancelled... //9.13.23//

the Far Future

Star Trek: Lower Decks (Season 1: 3)

An idyllic outdoor classroom being taught about Starfleet history where Boymler gets mentioned, and we learn that the most important officer in Star Fleet history is Miles O'Brien.

11 years before 4190s-ish

"Calypso" - ST:D (Season 1 - Short Trek 2)

• Craft looks at an image of his wife and child.  We flash back to it in his memories later [7:45 for a few moments, then later around 13:15] //9.14.23//

4190s-ish

"Calypso" - ST:D (Season 1 - Short Trek 2)

• According to the computer - who calls herself "Zora" - almost 1,000 years have passed since the crew of the Discovery abandoned the ship, and she was ordered to remain here.  A lovely, poignant episode, written by Michael Chabon. //1. 24.19//
• Having now gotten to know Zora in Discovery Season 4, this episode is even more enjoyable.  She says she has been trying to evolve herself, but is still computer in her absolute devotion to her orders / programming to remain when she could leave and fly Craft home.
• And we get to SEE her!!!, delightful. A fitting end to the Star Trek Timeline //9.14.23//

*The Goldilocks Theory of Temporary Anomalies states that whenever you find yourself in the midst of a temporal anomaly, and there exists a "middle ground" (or wu wei), that is the appropriate choice for your particular paradox.  For example, if you find yourself as the 3rd in a set of 5 versions of yourself in the course of some set of actions - congratulations!, you are in fact the real you!  In the unfortunate case that there may be an even number of yous present (say 2 or 4), I am sorry to say that in fact, none of you have ever been real... but enjoy the ride, nonetheless!