When you don't have TiVo, what comes next?

Last December the family and I discovered the joys of watching television series on DVD instead of playing slave to the network schedules. I also give full marks to Television on Demand – another great innovation. My issue is that I tend to fall asleep early in the evening as a rule and rise at an incredibly unfashionably early hour. I struggled to fight my own biological time clock to stay awake to watch Deadwood last winter and in spite of my best efforts and desire usually woke around 4am having only memory of the first 15 minutes. This year I decided to save myself the hassle and futility of watching season two and will wait for it to come out on DVD.

A friend whose viewing habits mirror my own tastes somewhat suggested that I watch Stargate: Atlantis which I finally finished watching Friday night. Did that ever peeved me. The season ends in the midst of a Wraith attack and the city is going down in spite of the marines showing up at the last minute – talk about cheap improbable cheesy cliffhangers. Apparently, my friend's husband nearly broke the television for that one (22 years in the US Marine Corp) but I know how he feels. Now I have to wait for next year or so to see season two to see if the Marines are actually beaten and forced to evacuate the city to another planet.

Everyone who knows me knows I am a sucker for science fiction. Some women read trashy romance novels; I read Sci-Fi and have for years when I want escapist fiction. I was hooked to the original Star Trek in the seventies and between that and the Apollo missions I have remained hooked for life. I never really caught the fever for The Next Generation or Deep Space Six, in spite of the Klingon; the characters are too metrosexual for my taste. Imagine the future where PC speech, thought and dress rule – too much dry toast for me to watch though I did like the Ferengi.

It was from the original Star Trek that I was inspired to read Milton. Anyone remember the original Wrath of Khan episode when Captain Kirke asked Khan why he and his people would take exile to a hostile planet and Khan replies, “It is better to be the ruler of hell than a slave of heaven.” Thirty-five years later and I can still remember how that thought awed me; though I am more of a Heinlein, Bradbury, Donaldson, Goodkind and Frank Herbert kind of gal. I remember being outraged in the early 80’s when Frank Herbert had a heart attack at 60 and died; leaving me high and dry in the midst of an intergalactic war between the Reverend Mothers and the Honoured Madres without a resolution. I have had many internal dialogues with G-d for his atrocious timing for that one – and I remember thinking that Margaret Atwood would have been a better choice.

I never caught the Star Wars fever in the seventies and I still haven’t though the boys have made me watch all the episodes over and over again but I made my stand on The Attack of the Clones. I promised to draw first blood if I had to watch that one over and over again in the living room. Between the bad physics and engineering, horrendous dialogue, poor acting and a chick who changed her clothes every few minutes on the screen, I took a stand; go watch it in your room. I don’t understand the prohibition of having televisions in the bedrooms of children. All of them have their own and we all still spend the greater time of our television viewing in the living room arguing what we all will watch.

I didn’t go to see Revenge of the Sith and I won’t. No doubt I will watch it once to fulfill my parental obligation with the sons when it is released on dvd but The Sons went with a group of their friends and all converged afterwards at my house. I gather that they enjoyed it as the testosterone level got so high that The Last Amazon and I had were driven to seek sanctuary in our bedroom till the Jedi Masters were picked up by their respective mothers and it was safe to then lurk freely about the house again.

So here’s my question; is the original Stargate worth watching on dvd? I admit to being intrigued as there are 9 seasons available on dvd but should I bother? What about Firefly or Charlie Jade? Done Doctor Who and is the current season worth waiting for on dvd? Or should I go for something different and take a chance on Millennium?