Plotlines

It’s that time of year when everything feels a bit overwhelming, even though the year has barely started. It’s a strange feeling because you can’t help but wonder where exactly it’s coming from, even though you already know some of the causes. Unfortunately, these causes often lead to the question of whether it’s worth just throwing everything overboard, leaving it all behind, and starting completely anew.

But this is also the time of year when, in consuming media, you might lean toward something tried and true. This has to do with the desire to immerse yourself in media that takes you back to a time when everything didn’t feel so overwhelming. If I wanted to take the easy route, I could simply insert a “things were better in the old days” here, and that would pretty much be the end of it. But it’s not that simple.

The truth is that things were simply different back then, and that’s partly because we were different people. Not entirely different, of course, but it would be rather tragic if we hadn’t changed or developed since those times.

So why do we return to these old media? Is it because we want to feel the same way we did back then, or is it because we want to be that person from back then again? I believe it’s a mixture of both. On the one hand, we want to feel exactly what we felt back then, even if an inner voice constantly reminds us that it’s unlikely to feel exactly the same. On the other hand, we might also want to be the person we were back then—someone with fewer worries, fewer thoughts, and more enthusiasm.

Even though all this is on my mind, I don’t want to paint it as bleakly as it might sound. I merely want to express a feeling, one that is probably not too unusual for someone my age, especially among collectors of classic media of a similar vintage.

Perhaps this was a somewhat lengthy introduction to the topic, because all I really wanted to say is that I’m currently rewatching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. And after watching the first episode, it’s already abundantly clear to me that I’ve made the right decision.