A Day In The Life

I woke up this morning with goals in mind, and like I am wont to do, I made a list to help myself along.

Things to do today: Make breakfast. Shower. Get the bread machine going. Take a walk all the way up the hill. Put away the clean laundry. Polish up my final paper. Watch Star Trek in my downtime. Write.

My end-of-the-day list revisit wasn't as successful as I'd hoped it would be, I managed the first four items and put in some time cleaning the kitchen, but it was a spotty migraine day, so the laundry is still looking at me and my paper looms.

So, I spent some quality time with Star Trek today, and I've finally hit the last season. I've made a few notes of what's stood out to me so far:

Season 1: Spock's ears and eyebrows change size and shape from episode to episode, especially the first half of the season. Kirk half walks/half dances through every scene like a cheesy lounge singer and he punctuates his movements the same as he does his lines, with unnecessary pauses for dramatic affect and a smirky half-smile on his face at all times. I keep missing Captain Pike, he was the greatest.

Season 2: Spock's ears and eyebrows seem to have found their happy medium. Kirk's pauses in speech have gotten worse, and have infiltrated the opening credits, along with an out-of-sync cowbell that makes my brain melt if I don't mute it in time. They introduced Chekhov, who is so hilariously a Russian Davy Jones, I cackle when his face fills my screen for the first time. How did so many planets turn into exact replicas of earth history?

Season 3: They let Scotty wear his hair back instead of the doofy forward comb he was rocking for the first two seasons. The cowbell is gone from the theme music, but Shat's "Starship... ... Enterprise," seems to be here to stay. Spock's ears and eyebrows are going wonky again. McCoy's always been cantankerous, but now he's just yelling at people for no reason.

Overall, Spock is the best and Kirk is the worst. I'm glad I didn't form my concept of gender roles from watching this show or I'd be constantly half-naked, smiling blankly, and disregarding whatever professional career I might have as soon as Captain Kirk or some alien-god comes along and smash-kisses me into submission. The show did good things for people of color and women on television, but it also perpetuated quite a few terrible stereotypes. I'm glad I watched it, I've loved the Star Trek franchise since I was a kid, and I'm happy to build my sci-fi education, but I won't purposefully watch it again.

I plan to see the movies next, then move onto the other Star Trek series, in order if I can. It's a lot of content, but I have a lot of migraine days and it's fun to feel like I'm accomplishing some kind of self-entertainment goal when I have to sit/lay down for a few hours and zone out.