What is your favorite Star Trek series?

What is your favorite series

  • Star Trek The Original Series

    Votes: 10 27.0%

  • Star Trek The Next Generation

    Votes: 21 56.8%

  • Star Trek Deep Space Nine

    Votes: 13 35.1%

  • Star Trek Voyager

    Votes: 3 8.1%

  • Star Trek Enterprise

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • Total voters
    37
The Dutch Ghost

The Dutch Ghost

Grouchy old man of NMA
Moderator
Hello all,

I have been on a bit of a Star Trek binge again lately and it got me curious which series NMA members that are also Star Trek fans consider their personal favorite series.
You don't have to select one of course, you can also go for several (or all but that kind of defeats the purpose of this poll)

I myself find it difficult to decide, I got intro Trek through The Next Generation but later watched the Original Series and its movies, and I was there when Deep Space Nine aired for the first time, and rented the pilot and episode tapes from the video rental store when they came out.
I also got a bootleg copy from Enterprise but the premise alone about this show plus such plot devices like the Temporal Cold War raised serious doubts in my mind.

A long time ago if someone had asked me what my favorite Star Trek series was I would have said 'Voyager!', especially around Season 3 and 4 when the show finally started to take off and become more interesting with what it depicted.
But as the series started to 'drag on' after Season 4 (the later seasons did have their occasional gems), even an obsessed Star Trek fan such as me started to realize that the quality in story telling was dropping and that the actors really hammed it up sometimes.
Now looking back on it I understand now how potential others had mentioned in their own opinion pieces about the premise was never realized and how much of a TNG rip off it became.

On the other side I never had much of an interest in Deep Space Nine because of its focus on more political and religious subjects, leaving little room for mystery and exploration. (also couldn't stand the 'angry black man' captain, and not because he is black)
But as I watched some of the later season episodes of that show I realized it wasn't so bad and that some episodes were well put together and definitely attention holding while with Voyager in the later seasons I sometimes walked away from the TV.

Enterprise. Man I seriously disliked that show as I felt the whole Prequel approach was done because Lucas had just released his Star Wars Prequels and and the people of CBS thinking that they should jump onto the same bandwagon.
It didn't help that Season 1 and 2 were really a chore to get through as the subject of the episodes, the dialogue, the acting, sometimes tedious pace, and the contradiction really got on my nerves. (I never watched all episodes, only occasionally turning one on). My only weakness I have to the first two seasons is "Regeneration" as it featured the Borg and that basically comes down to as "Star Trek porn"

I skipped out on Season 3 as I disliked a pointless war arc that would never be mentioned again (they should have focused on the Romulans instead of yet another species-of-the-week), and I still don't feel like watching it.

But Season 4 after the hokey "Hollywood-Nazis-meet-time-traveling-aliens" double parter actually was somewhat enjoyable as the new producer and writers started to look at Star Trek history for interesting premises for episodes made little arcs to allow a story to run better. (perhaps having a bit to much length to run sometimes)
Not all episodes were gems of course, especially the individual ones, and I could have done without the Mirror Universe double parter but I guess people who love that concept had to get something as well.
Had Enterprise started out more like that and continued on it I don't think it would have lost as much audience as it did. (It started with 11 million and ended with 2 million watchers)

I find it rather difficult to get back into The Next Generation, especially the first two seasons that with a few exceptions ("Q who" for example) were plain awful.
As some people wiser than me pointed out the show eventually became some what soap drama (Picard's son, LaForge's mother, Data's father) and also rather nihilistic (the Prime Directive was originally about advanced civilizations not exploiting lesser advanced ones, it did not forbid actually helping them but in such a way that it would not lead to the more advanced culture getting more influence or control. TNG made it all about that less advanced civilizations should not be helped because helping them might give rise to Space Hitler (Sorry all you German NMA members, needed an example, alternatively Space Stalin. Or it could interfere in a Divine Plan)

Which is my favorite series today?
I don't think I would pick any single series any more and it really depends on what mood I am in at the moment. (sometimes I just want fun exploration and mystery, sometimes I want strong dialogue, character development, and intrigue)
Personally I think each series has its good episodes that are worth watching and re watching.

I hope that when people tag their choices here that they can also tell a little about why they picked this or that series, what they liked so much about it and what they perhaps dislike.
 
Tie between TNG and DS9, hands down. All series had their strong points (especially in terms of character interaction), but TNG especially just excelled in storytelling in my opinion. DS9 then freshened it all up with a great new setting and new conflicts. The final two seasons were a bit too action-packed with the Dominion war, but it was really nice to see a less shiny and nice world of Star Trek after all the squeaky clean high-brow ethical philosoph of TNG. And, let's face it, the friendship of Bashir and O'Brien was the best in all of Star Trek.
I used to like Voyager, but really, it often feels like the Doctor is the only thing saving it from mediocrity.
Enterprise had a good premise, but their insistence on adding all sorts of stuff that's only supposed to happen later in the timeline and that whole temporal cold war kinda ruined it.
 
Regarding Voyager and its characters, yeah. I wanted to write down what some of the problems were with the other characters but I think you have already heard it before.
When the show focused on Captain Janeway or Seven of Nine the results were not always good.
The rest of the characters were just there because some ship positions needed to be filled up, occasionally they got a bone thrown to them.

And I seem to have forgotten to mention that pointless temporal cold war sub plot in Enterprise that went absolutely nowhere despite being one of the series' focuses. It was just some high concept idea either Braga or the Executives came with but no one had any idea of how to play that one out.

What we fans really wanted to see was first encounters with species such as the Andorians, Tellarites, and Orions, while the Enterprise was on given exploration assignments, diplomatic missions and so on while slowly building towards the Romulan Wars, not seasons with 'Plot of the Week' episodes like in VOY.

I honestly hope that the newly announced series will continued more with mini arcs and perhaps season arcs with better character development.
 
DS9 hands down is my favorite. I loved how it just has grit to it that a Federation centric Star Trek just doesn't have. DS9 also had a far better cast of reoccurring characters like the Grand Nagus and Sloan from Section 31.
 
My first impulse was to vote DS9, but I don't have the best memory of TOS or late TNG since I watched them all about a decade ago and the narrative made them harder to remember than the other three. So I guess it will be a while until I'm able to make a final decision.

At first I was repulsed by the idea of a Star Trek series which took place on a space station, but ended up liking DS9 as it allowed for a greater focus on non-federation characters. Garak is probably up there with Picard as the best character in the series, the Quark-centered episodes were always good, and the recurring characters such as Dukat and Weyoun also grew on me.
However, two things always bothered me.
The first would be the Dominion. While I loved the whole Dominion War storyline, I could never get over how weak they really were. I mean, we have an empire controlling a huge chunk of the Gamma quadrant which prioritizes conquest and military matters, and yet they are not all that better at war than the Federation. The Jem'Hadar are made to be lean mean killing machines, their only role being that of the soldier. So these ferocious badasses beam onto the Defiant's bridge. Oh, no! What's going to happen? Why, not much. The crew will defeat them in hand to hand combat, because for all their genetic engeneering, training and warrior culture, their strength still doesn't match that of Sisko. I know that Sisko doesn't take shit from anyone, piss him off and he'll genocide an entire planet just to get you. But you get my point.
The second is Dukat. The whole Pah-Wraiths narrative was stupid. They took the best antagonist the series had and turned him into a typical bad guy. Why did they have to do that? As far as I'm concerned, the show would have been just fine without the Prophets and Pah-Wraiths.

I read somewhere that Voyager makes a lot more sense if you watch it under the premise that Janeway is in fact schizophrenic. I can't say that it's not true.

Enterprise would have been fine without the pointless retconning. And Nazis.
 
Illuminati Confirmed! You just nailed something I completely forgot; the prophets and the pah-wraiths.
At first I did not mind them that much, seeing them as simply very advanced aliens that the Bajorans happened to worship, but as Sisko got more and more involved with them and the Bajorans I started to cringe until in the last season it was revealed that Sisko's mom was actually possessed by a prophet in order to hitch up with Sisko's dad and produce Sisko (making him partly prophet and basically Bajoran Jesus)

My first thought after seeing that was "Bullshit! You can't do that". And afterwards I remained pissed about this revelation.

And like you said, Dukat suddenly becoming the embodiment of the 'evil prophets', bent on destroying the Celestial Temple (and in the books the Pah Wraiths even want to destroy existence) moves away from somewhat believable sci fi adventure deeply into 'space fantasy'.

Sadly Janeway probably is somewhat schizophrenic. I am sad how poor Voyager turned out to be, especially as one of the best Star Trek games; Elite Force was based on it.
 
Voyager suffered from some terribly inconsistent writing, sadly. It was actually the first Star Trek show I watched, really, because it was the show that was on back when I was getting into Science Fiction. I watched it every week and taped it when I couldn't watch it (I think my parents still have Year of Hell on VHS somewhere), and I still have much less animosity towards it than die-hard fans, but without the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, its writing just lacks severely.
 
Yeah I think you really have to have 'grown up' with Voyager in order not to dismiss it completely.
Until Season 5, which still had some very good episodes in my opinion the show was doing reasonable, finally getting a bit better after the first two rather boring seasons but still not making full use of its setup, but then the episodes despite sometimes high concepts became worse.
To much focus on the Borg (the Collective was great in Scorpion 1&2), useless holodeck episodes like "Fair Haven", and I really can't recall much of the rest.
"Equinox" despite an obsessed Janeway was a pretty good two parter (the last good one now that I just read the episode list again)

Sometimes I think I should all series to their best episodes and ignore the rest.
 
I still remember the very first episode of TNG that I watched at a mates home many years ago on old VHS cassette he recorded from TV, had to wait like 60 whole seconds to fast-forward through the advertisements! :P

Season 5, Episode 18: "Cause and Effect" - it's still one of my favorite episodes - no matter how many times I've watched it - it's always good.

Fave scene is them playing poker at the beginning and Riker has doubts about Data shuffling the cards super-android-style...

Riker [to Worf]: "Sometimes I wonder if he's stacking the deck."
Data [to Riker]: "I assure you, Commander, the cards are sufficiently randomized."
Worf [menacingly, to Data]: "I hope so."

I like this series because it is relatively free of propaganda and religious sentiment. I like the near total outer-space setting of the entire series. Roddenberry really made something special with that. I like all the characters [bar Wesley, he's a bit of a soft touch & Tasha Yar, I thought out of place for Security Officer], they all offered very strong in-character performances.

The main aspect that I admire about Star Trek is the lack of "financial incentive" to do anything - people in this series do what they do for free, because they love doing it, they "are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things" [Material possessions]. That means a lot to me. See the episode The Neutral Zone to see what I mean, the crew find 3 ancient humans in Cryo Pods who are then unfrozen, one of these people is so enamoured with his "bank savings" gaining massive interest over the time he was in stasis that he does not realize money means next to nothing in the 24th century.

Big LOLs at the 'Money Man' I just mentioned when he dares to compare the Enterprise to the QE2 to Capt. Picard :P
 
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TOS is still the best, even though some of it is dated and the 3rd season is so-so. TNG is close. Season 4 of Enterprise showed how much potential that series had. Pity they squandered it on all that time travel nonsense.

It's as if modern ST producers have the idea that because TOS time travel episodes were good, all time travel stories are good. WRONG! TOS time travel stories were good because they had some of the best writers in science fiction writing them.

I can't stand these new movies because they ruined the first one with more time travel drivel. Also, JJ Abrams' approach to film making seems to be, "Screw the story, let's blow stuff up!"
 
Richwizard. I get what you mean with Star Trek and time travel.
What was once an interesting plot device became a focus on the shows, especially Voyager and Enterprise, and yet none of the writers seemed to understand the repercussions of time travel would have on the universe or story telling. They just treat it as a "Now we can send characters to 21st Century Earth and have all kinds of stories in which we can avoid any drastic changes like dead characters or the bad guy winning by just having characters go back in time and change things."

The same kind of goes with parallel universe travel, in other universes main characters can be killed and the status quo can be drastically upset but everything goes back to before when we return to the main universe.

Like you said "Lets blow things up, it doesn't matter anyway, time travel will fix it."
 
The one question that keeps bringing me back to Star Trek is, "How does Federation economics work?"
Gene Roddenberry decreed that there is no money, full stop. This excludes anything like a Federation Credit. But it's clear even he has problems keeping that rule and it's obviously posed problems to writers.

Quark runs a bar on DS9 and it becomes a favorite hangout for our cast. And he's one of the few characters on the station that insist on being paid for his services. Now, he must obviously have some arrangement with Sisko, but he's not the sort of character who keeps to a deal if he can cheat you for more.
 
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DVL said:
The one question that keeps bringing me back to Star Trek is, "How does Federation economics work?"
Gene Roddenberry decreed that there is no money, full stop. This excludes anything like a Federation Credit. But it's clear even he has problems keeping that rule and it's obviously posed problems to writers.

Quark runs a bar on DS9 and it becomes a favorite hangout for our cast. And he's one of the few characters on the station that insist on being paid for his services. Now, he must obviously have some arrangement with Sisko, but he's not the sort of character who keeps to a deal if he can cheat you for more.
Click to expand...

Didn't Sisko actually force Quark not to leave DS9 in one of the first episodes, threatening to throw Nog in jail if he refused?

Quark's is the only place I remember having holosuites in DS9, maybe that's why they wanted him to stay. I don't see the point in encouraging tourism in a society where money doesn't exist.
 
I remember specifically that Sisko did something or other to make Quark stay, since he viewed Quark as something of a community leader from the days of the Cardassian occupation. If it's just for holosuites, he'd have just blackmailed him for that instead. And he keeps tolerating him even though the Ferengi keeps doing things like cutting illegal deals and compromising station security.

Sisko's mission is to act as ambassador to Bajorans, so, yeah I'd say tourism was actually the motivation. Federation citizens would at least be abstractly interested in the culture, if not money per se. And Bajor, slumming in a Ferengi bar and a Klingon restaurant covers those bases nicely. Alien cultures still want to do commerce as well.

Funny thing, even if the Federation doesn't use money, I remember Nog showing that he'd have a surprising aptitude at being the quartermaster type who can get his hands on anything.
 
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I really liked some of the later era ships such as the Sovereign class, Defiant, Akira, Steamrunner, Norway, the Prometheus that was introduced in Voyager (before I came to realize its multi vector assault mode was a bit ridiculous).
I do have a soft spot for the the original Constitution class though.

Regarding Star Trek Enterprise, definitely some of the new alien ships such as Klingon vessels, the Vulcan designs, that very nice looking updated retro Romulan Warbird, and the Borg assimilated transport that was only used one time. (I really want a toy of that thing)
The Enterprise itself was kind of disappointing, I do have the Diamond Select toy of it but I felt it was not as memorable as the other ships of the same name.
The rumor goes it was designed like this because the studio heard how well the Akira class was received by fans.
 
Next Generation. The reason is kinda obvious, I was not born when TOS was around and the other series came after, so the "original" Star Trek of my childhood, the one that got me into the series, is TNG.
 
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