What's your favorite Star Trek show?

[Lizuka #BLM]

I've been in a pretty big mood for the series of late, and recently crammed through Lower Decks and Prodigy, so kind of just in the mood to talk about it and been wondering about taking a deeper dive than I really have before soon.

Only shows I've really seen a lot of (have seen at least something of pretty much all of them but SNW) besides the two I just mentioned are TNG and DS9, and of those TNG is my preference (though granted other than stray episodes it basically takes until season 3 for TNG to actually be good) though I probably shouldn't vote given that, even if I doubt I'm really missing much from the others besides TOS and maybe SNW.

[Zone Was Wrong]

Deep Space 9 easily. Really matured the franchise and introduced some great morally grey characters. Sisko's monologue after the Romulans joined the Dominion War was brilliant.

[darbus alan]

Deep Space Nine, though it takes a couple of seasons to become consistently good. Granted the early seasons still have some excellent episodes like Duet.

Only thing is that what sets DS9 apart is how un-Treklike it can be. Until Discovery, DS9 was the only Trek series that was serialized for a lot of its run. Rest of the shows (save for season 3 of Enterprise) were mostly episodic and mostly self-contained. And while I wouldn't call it outright dystopian, it's much darker in tone than other Trek series. DS9 also has, IMO, the best singular villain in Trek history in Dukat.

If you can get past the 60's-ness of TOS in both terms of aesthetics and some certain attitudes, I'd recommend checking out a lot of the better episodes like "Amok Time," "The Trouble With Tribbles," "Mirror, Mirror," "The City on the Edge of Forever," "The Doomsday Machine," "Balance of Terror," "Space Seed," and "The Enterprise Incident."

[Lizuka #BLM]

Mar 9, 2023 22:12:54 GMT -5 Zone Was Wrong said:

Deep Space 9 easily. Really matured the franchise and introduced some great morally grey characters. Sisko's monologue after the Romulans joined the Dominion War was brilliant.

I think the big problems I have with DS9 are that while its highs are high, its lows are often pretty brutal to sit through, and it feels like as it goes along the show loses sight of a lot of what actually makes its core narrative beats interesting and simplifies a lot of them down to a more basic good vs. evil that makes them significantly less interesting. It's a great show but I kind of can't help but look at its missed opportunities and times it seemed to go out of its way to water down issues that were previously more complex. Which are certainly also accusations you could make of the other shows but I kind of find it easier to dismiss how ultimately wasted Lore was in his last appearance than how they kept Dukat around well past the logical end of his character, for instance, probably since other shows aren't quite as narratively-driven as DS9 is so it doesn't stick with you as much.

Also I kind of just don't like its aesthetic. Dunno what it is but it kind of perpetually looks like a Sega CD game to me.

[ace]

The original series. But I liked Strange New Worlds first season a lot too. Probably because it felt the most like TOS.

[FinalGwen]

DS9 is the one I have the most nostalgia for, but really clicked with Discovery as well. The cast is phenomenal and while its early Klingon-war story wasn't the most engaging, it's done some really inventive stuff since.

[Mighty Attack Tribble]

It's a tough call. Probably a coin toss between TNG and DS9, but each show has its own strengths and weaknesses.

The Original Series
A lot of this show simply hasn't aged well. The wooden sets, recycled plots (I mean, how many God people can one crew meet?), outdated social politics, hammy acting, and a massive drop in quality in the third season all need to be overlooked, but it does have a few gems. I'd say there's enough good episodes to fill one season.

The Animated Series
It has a charm to it and captures the spirit of TOS, but there's really not much there.

The Next Generation
The first two seasons are abysmal and the seventh has an air of "We're just filling time until we can start making the movies" but the intervening seasons are some of the best, if not the best, that the franchise has to offer.

Deep Space Nine
The show broke so much ground. It virtually mastered the art of serialised storytelling while having almost every episode still be watchable by itself.

Voyager
Certainly the weakest of '90s Trek, and undeniably a failure at making the most of its premise, it still had some phenomenal episodes, and in The Doctor one of Star Trek's best written and acted characters.

Enterprise
Nowhere near as bad as it is made out to be. The first two seasons are just sort of bland and forgettable rather than outright bad, while the third and fourth are actually pretty decent.

Discovery
Enjoyable enough, but the huge upheavals in the writing and production staff in the first season really hurt it, as does it's heavy focus on Michael, to the extent where few of the other characters truly get any time to shine.

Picard
The first season is something of a chore, while the second starts promisingly and then just falls apart. The third season has been outstanding thus far, but time will tell if they stick the landing.

Lower Decks
An acquired taste, but it's made with so much love and care for detail it's hard not to be charmed.

Strange New Worlds
The best debut season the franchise has ever had.

Prodigy
A kid's show it may be, but it's a damn good one.

[Hit Girl]

1- DS9
2- TNG
3 -TOS

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

On an objective level, Deep Space Nine

But I have a massive soft spot for Voyager

[Starshine]

I'm not a massive Star Trek fan and even I know it's objectively DS9.

[tirtefaa]

I'd say Deep Space Nine just for it being consistently good. There's only like 2 bad episodes overall...and even then, they're just bad by comparison to other episodes. It's very hard to me to pick a favorite character, and Sisko is by far the more interesting Captain.

Next Generation probably has some of the best singular episodes of TV of all time, but while it gets incredibly good in the middle, by comparison the first couple seasons are rough and season 7 has some really bad points too. Still, The Inner Light is my favorite piece of TV of all time.

Voyager is a good show plagued by bad decisions with how to approach several characters and several plot elements that could have been handled better. Neelix is without a doubt the most annoying character that Trek ever had.

The Original Series is pretty good, but I was only exposed to it after TNG, so it's really not fair to compare, but unfortunately while I enjoy it episode by episode, there are a lot of dated episodes or just bland episodes. But this show pretty much lives and dies by it's three leads. It's a miracle that Jeffrey Hunter decided to not reprise his role, otherwise I doubt this show would have the impact that it's had.

Enterprise...I guess I like Phlox? I can't believe this lasted for 4 seasons without exploring more of the crew. Just about everyone other than Trip and T'Pol got almost no development.

I didn't watch much else of any other series. Either it's too streamlined for a modern audience for my taste with it's humor and dialogue, or it just has too much bad language, which I don't care for. There's just other similar options out there for alternatives, whether it's Stargate SG1, Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica.

[Ultimo Gallos]

TOS for me. But I can remember a time when it was that,the 70s cartoon and the first feew movies.

TNG I forced myself a few years ago to watch first 3 seasons and yea not a show for me.

DS9 another I forced myself to watch 2 seasons. Not for me.

Only other one on the list I have seen is SNW and I like what I saw.

[Wilfred]

TNG is number one for me. I’m in season 2 of DS9 right now, it finally clicked for me after years of trying to get into it. I see why people say it’s their favorite. But I also enjoy Enterprise, Strange New Worlds and Picard season 3 at the moment. Didn’t care for Discovery and haven’t watched TOS or any of the animated stuff yet.

[Limity (BLM)]

Mar 10, 2023 0:14:27 GMT -5 YAKMAN is ICHIBAN said:

On an objective level, Deep Space Nine

But I have a massive soft spot for Voyager

That soft spot is a brain tumor. Have it removed.

[Lizuka #BLM]

Mar 10, 2023 1:01:50 GMT -5 Ultimo Gallos said:

TOS for me. But I can remember a time when it was that,the 70s cartoon and the first feew movies.

TNG I forced myself a few years ago to watch first 3 seasons and yea not a show for me.

DS9 another I forced myself to watch 2 seasons. Not for me.

Only other one on the list I have seen is SNW and I like what I saw.

Honestly with TNG it's kind of in a weird place trying to judge it by the early seasons because the show pretty much doesn't get good until mid-season 3 at the earliest, beyond a small handful of highlights in season 2. From there it's pretty much consistently good until season 7 (which still doesn't get as bad as the first two seasons, more just clearly devoid of ideas), but it is a bit much to overlook how like the first third of the show sucks.

[tirtefaa]

Mar 10, 2023 1:06:20 GMT -5 Limity (BLM) said:

Mar 10, 2023 0:14:27 GMT -5 YAKMAN is ICHIBAN said:

On an objective level, Deep Space Nine

But I have a massive soft spot for Voyager

That soft spot is a brain tumor. Have it removed.

Voyager is actually pretty good. As I mentioned, they just didn't do enough to develop certain situations or characters.

As an example, they could have had Maquis and the Voyager crew clash, perhaps a big insurrection at one point where Chakotay and Torres' loyalty is tested.

Then you have characters like Chakotay and Harry, both of whom shouldn't have even been kept around given they were given next to nothing to do. Tom on the other hand was given almost too much to do, and was a savant at just about everything. Neelix should either have been marooned or spent the majority of the show in brig, especially after he nearly gets the crew killed after he made cheese. Kes was interesting, but unfortunately Garrett Wang somehow ended up in People magazine, so she got axed instead. Torres was okay, but it felt like once she got with Tom, they stopped doing anything with her. Seven of Nine was good, although it's too bad she only had 4 seasons to develop. Janeway was an absolute monster and despite that, I still enjoyed her despite likely being a war criminal. And finally, the Doctor was just great.

Voyager was just so bizarre in that you could have a great episode involving a mind meld....right after a ridiculous episode where Tom and Janeway evolve into salamanders and breed. Then there's episodes like Living Witness , which is yet another example of TV at it's best. Fast forward a bit, and you have a World War II reenactment with reptile Nazis. Talk about a roller coaster.

[Lizuka #BLM]

Mar 10, 2023 1:35:42 GMT -5 tirtefaa said:

Kes was interesting, but unfortunately Garrett Wang somehow ended up in People magazine, so she got axed instead.

For what it's worth it's since come out that that was a myth; they never intended to kill him off while the reason they got rid of her was due to personal and drug issues.

[Mozenrath]

DS9 is probably more consistently good, and I do love the cast, but TNG is probably the one I overall prefer. I like Picard more than I like Sisko, though both are excellent characters for different reasons, both being kind of self-righteous in their own right as a character flaw that is explored in different ways.

[tirtefaa]

Mar 10, 2023 1:46:39 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Mar 10, 2023 1:35:42 GMT -5 tirtefaa said:

Kes was interesting, but unfortunately Garrett Wang somehow ended up in People magazine, so she got axed instead.

For what it's worth it's since come out that that was a myth; they never intended to kill him off while the reason they got rid of her was due to personal and drug issues.

I mean, they may have changed their mind about killing off Harry since his virus thing he got was rather quickly resolved when the show returned. It is a shame about Jennifer Lien's problems, but they did the character dirty in the end. That said, they could have killed two birds with one stone by ridding themselves of Harry as well. Nothing against Garrett Wang, he seems like a super nice guy and did what he could with the stuff he was given, but the writers clearly resented his character, making him look like a fool any chance they got.

[Futureraven: Beelzebruv]

Mar 10, 2023 1:35:42 GMT -5 tirtefaa said:

Mar 10, 2023 1:06:20 GMT -5 Limity (BLM) said:

That soft spot is a brain tumor. Have it removed.

Voyager is actually pretty good. As I mentioned, they just didn't do enough to develop certain situations or characters.

As an example, they could have had Maquis and the Voyager crew clash, perhaps a big insurrection at one point where Chakotay and Torres' loyalty is tested.

Then you have characters like Chakotay and Harry, both of whom shouldn't have even been kept around given they were given next to nothing to do. Tom on the other hand was given almost too much to do, and was a savant at just about everything. Neelix should either have been marooned or spent the majority of the show in brig, especially after he nearly gets the crew killed after he made cheese. Kes was interesting, but unfortunately Garrett Wang somehow ended up in People magazine, so she got axed instead. Torres was okay, but it felt like once she got with Tom, they stopped doing anything with her. Seven of Nine was good, although it's too bad she only had 4 seasons to develop. Janeway was an absolute monster and despite that, I still enjoyed her despite likely being a war criminal. And finally, the Doctor was just great.

Voyager was just so bizarre in that you could have a great episode involving a mind meld....right after a ridiculous episode where Tom and Janeway evolve into salamanders and breed. Then there's episodes like Living Witness , which is yet another example of TV at it's best. Fast forward a bit, and you have a World War II reenactment with reptile Nazis. Talk about a roller coaster.

Voyager is a lot better when you forget what it "could" have been and just take the episodes for what they are, generic Trek.

It does have some really good episodes, but it can be hard not to have an air of disappointment over its use of the concept and how it overlooks most of its characters.