I recently had the occasion to watch retrospectives of two television shows — Star Trek: The Next Generation and Supernatural. The first of these was streamed by Netflix as its last show for the TNG series. It was shot during the final episode and hosted by Jonathan Frakes. Very informative and entertaining, the retrospective showed clips from throughout the series, as well as behind the scenes action and interviews with the cast and crew. I enjoyed the retrospective so much, I wished it could have been longer. It even got into Deep Space 9 a little and mentioned the “new” series currently in production — Voyager. (As an aside, having just watched the final episode of TNG, “All Good Things”, a two-parter that brought things full circle, I must say that it has to be one of the best finales ever. Now back on topic.)
I enjoyed the retrospective largely because I really like learning about what it takes to make a hit show like Star Trek. As a teen, I read The Making of Star Trek, an insider’s view to how the show was conceived, produced, and sent to our TV screens week after week for three seasons. Now a book entitled These are the Voyages — TOS: Season One graces my coffee table. It’s a rather hefty volume at 648 pages (including the appendices) and I haven’t started it yet, but I’ll be sure to let you know what I think of it when I do. And as I’m sure you’ve realized, it is the first volume in a series of books about TOS. It will take me some time to get through them all.
I had intended to talk about the Supernatural retrospective here as well, but I will postpone that until next time. This post is already a little long, and I have quite a bit to say about Supernatural and my experience with that series. Until then, I will recommend to you the TNG retrospective. I’d like to know what you think.