Star Trek: The Nostalgic Generation
Thanks to a generous loan from Ernie, I've been exposing L to one of my favorite childhood television shows: Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was shocked (shocked!) when I realized that she had barely watched any ST:TNG when she was growing up, given that it was such a staple pastime in my family.
You see, while I was growing up, my family would spend huge amounts of time up in the mountains of rural Idaho. Fortunately, we had an old color television, solar power and batteries to gather around once the day's work was done. Unfortunately, our little antenna only received one station with at least marginal quality. However, it just so happened that station was FOX, which ran current ST:TNG episodes. Pretty soon, it had become a family ritual to gather in front of the tube every evening to catch the latest episodes and reruns.
Thus, I have wonderful memories of ST:TNG, associated with family togetherness and especially of great times with my brother. ST:TNG was a jumping off point to many other things, including collectible card games (picked up at our first Star Trek convention), roleplaying games (first one we ever owned was an old used copy of the original ST:TOS RPG), and science fiction in general.
So, it was with great expectations that I revisited ST:TNG with L -- and those great expectations were met mostly with disappointment. It turns out that my tastes in television shows have evolved, mostly spoiled by the likes of Six Feet Under, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. While I do get a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia, it's still a bit sad to me that ST:TNG doesn't inspire me like it used to. It hasn't changed, but I certainly have.
I'm curious, what media (shows, movies, books, etc) from your childhood disappoints you now that you're an adult? Surely we all have things we remember as being frickin' awesome when we were young, but then when we see it again as an adult, its no longer frickin' nor awesome.
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