Thanks to the addition of Netflix last year, my wife Abby and I have enjoyed catching up on shows we thought we’d lost. Recently we finished watching every episode of M*A*S*H, and every episode of F•r•i•e•n•d•s. It is my hope that we will soon be able to watch all the shows that have characters between the letters in their titles.
Ha ha.

When Friends originally aired 1994-2004, I started losing interest in about 2001. For me, the best part of the show was that the characters were kids just starting out, struggling through that dumb, awkward time between their teen years and the time that ordinary adulthood crushed their hopes and dreams. By 2001, the show was about ordinary adulthood crushing their hopes and dreams. Rewatching Friends confirmed this initial suspicion.
With these two shows watched to completion, Abby started searching for another series for us to share on Netflix. One night a few weeks ago she highlighted Star Trek: Voyager and asked, “How about this?” I watched Voyager when it originally aired on UPN, as well as its Trek universe contemporary Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which my friends and I often referred to as Deep Sex Nine or Deep 69.
So the stage was set: we were going to try Voyager to see if we liked it, particularly if she liked it. “I always liked Star Trek,” she told me the other night. “I liked Trek before you did,” she added, since I am younger than she is and she got a head start.
Our routine the last few weeks was established: I come in from mowing or gardening and she says, “Want to watch a couple of Treks?”
Later she admitted, “I’m addicted to Voyager.” In Trek parlance (referring to the Borg race), she has been assimilated. I have to admit that I had forgotten how good Voyager is, and I am glad we are watching it. Resistance was futile.