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I now consider myself a Trekkie
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Locut0s
Lifer
Let's see, I didn't care for Nelix, Kes, Kathryn Janeway, or the Doctor. Hmm that's just about 1/2 the cast right there. Seven of Nine was definitely nice to look at but that doesn't make up for bad writing, and poor choice of characters. They tried to be humours far too often and ended up being just corny and or goofy. I never felt like I cared for the series story arc like I did in DS9.
StinkyPinky
Diamond Member
TNG
VOY
DS9
ENT
TOS
VOY
DS9
ENT
TOS
LongCoolMother
Diamond Member
I'm probably the only person on ATOT who actually liked ENT. Yeah, shoot me. But c'mon. T'pol FTW.
ForumMaster
Diamond Member
why do people hate voyager so much? cause the captain is female? i'll admit that first season wasn't that great, but from the second season it was great. many ethical moments that actually made it a truely classic star trek series.
enterprise wasn't so good for the first two seasons cause it was confusing to many who suddenly face the temperal cold war witht he xindi and the suliban. it was ok though.
enterprise wasn't so good for the first two seasons cause it was confusing to many who suddenly face the temperal cold war witht he xindi and the suliban. it was ok though.
JujuFish
Lifer
Voyager is the series that turned me into a Trekkie, so that's probably why I like it more than most. My order would be:
TNG
VOY
DS9
ENT
TOS
Unlike the OP, I thought the writing in TOS was absolutely horrific. I really like it, though, because the cast worked so well together. It was also truly groundbreaking in its time.
PricklyPete
Lifer
I would state this at a party...statements like this don't exactly attract the women.
SinfulWeeper
Diamond Member
Star Trek is kewl. Even if Alba says it sux.
In fact space sci-fi in general is kewl till people like Richards comes around and fucks it up.
In fact space sci-fi in general is kewl till people like Richards comes around and fucks it up.
I agree with you about Kes, I just couldn't really get into her character. Nelix annoyed me at first, as well, but I got more used to him as he took on additional roles during the series. Janeway.. eh.. she's not Kirk or Picard .. but how do you follow those two? I agree that she may have been a bit weak sometimes. I do completely disagree about the Doctor though.. loved damned near every minute of him. I do agree that Voyager seemed to be "less intense" .. maybe the same way you describe it as more corny? It seemed more like a sitcom sometimes than ST. However, I still enjoyed it even with these aspects - so I guess I'm just a bit more forgiving. shrug.
rockyct
Diamond Member
I'm more talking about the overall story for each episode rather than the quality of the script. Take the Menagerie for example. I'm amazed at how they took the original pilot and created a two part episode that basically saved the series. I think it was almost brilliant at how they did that and created such a good story.
MotionMan
Lifer
I was thinking about this thread today and realized that in order to REALLY close the circle of being a Trekkie you have to see Galaxy Quest.
I have yet to meet a Trekkie who did not LOVE that movie.
MotionMan
I have yet to meet a Trekkie who did not LOVE that movie.
MotionMan
BradAtWork
Senior member
Who cares. Babylon 5 ownes all trek anyway.
Where do I buy my flame suit?
Where do I buy my flame suit?
DainBramaged
Lifer
TNG was the best. Even so, I'm not a huge Star Trek person.
irishScott
Lifer
I like DS9, Voyager, and TNG equally, followed by Enterprise and TOS. That said, I still enjoy them all, although TOS gets pathetically corny.
Skyclad1uhm1
Lifer
I liked most of TOS, but never liked Kirk much. Nor the fighting scenes.
AnthroAndStargate
Golden Member
Deep Space 9 is first ALL WAYS. Instead of namby pamby galavanting around quoting Shakespeare it has war, politics, religon, culture tension, intrigue, and to quote Sisco.... BASSEEEEEBALLLL *sisco wink*
CrimsonChaos
Senior member
My rankings:
TNG / DS9
TOS
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Voyager
Enterprise
I thought TNG and DS9 were both great series and are tied in my book. Both start out kind of slow, but really become great after the first couple of seasons. TNG introduces the Borg and Q (though he was rather annoying), and of course Picard is great. TNG has a great supporting cast, with Worf, Riker, Data, La Forge, and even Deanna Troi sometimes. Both Crushers (Beverly and Wesley) were irritating, however.
DS9 was fantastic and a totally different style of Trek. It introduces the founders, the Jem'Hadar, the Vorta (Weyoun is great), and as AnthroAndStargate pointed out, it just has a lot of great "warring Empires" type of scenarios. DS9 does show a bit too much of the Ferengi (especially Quark), and that one Bajoran (Kira) was pretty annoying with her constant tough-girl-cause-of-my-rough-life act.
TOS of course started it all -- Spock, Bones, Scotty, Sulu and of course Shatner, need I say more??
Voyager was horrendous. Every single character on that show annoyed me. Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Tom, Neelix, all of them. It reminded me of a poorly written soap opera - so since soaps have their share of fans I can see how Voyaager might have also have its fans, but seriously -- steer clear of this series if you're thinking it'll be anything comparable to the first three.
And yeah, Enterprise is even worse. This series of Star Trek starts feeling like Babylon 5, and that isn't a good thing!
TNG / DS9
TOS
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Voyager
Enterprise
I thought TNG and DS9 were both great series and are tied in my book. Both start out kind of slow, but really become great after the first couple of seasons. TNG introduces the Borg and Q (though he was rather annoying), and of course Picard is great. TNG has a great supporting cast, with Worf, Riker, Data, La Forge, and even Deanna Troi sometimes. Both Crushers (Beverly and Wesley) were irritating, however.
DS9 was fantastic and a totally different style of Trek. It introduces the founders, the Jem'Hadar, the Vorta (Weyoun is great), and as AnthroAndStargate pointed out, it just has a lot of great "warring Empires" type of scenarios. DS9 does show a bit too much of the Ferengi (especially Quark), and that one Bajoran (Kira) was pretty annoying with her constant tough-girl-cause-of-my-rough-life act.
TOS of course started it all -- Spock, Bones, Scotty, Sulu and of course Shatner, need I say more??
Voyager was horrendous. Every single character on that show annoyed me. Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Tom, Neelix, all of them. It reminded me of a poorly written soap opera - so since soaps have their share of fans I can see how Voyaager might have also have its fans, but seriously -- steer clear of this series if you're thinking it'll be anything comparable to the first three.
And yeah, Enterprise is even worse. This series of Star Trek starts feeling like Babylon 5, and that isn't a good thing!
SlickSnake
Diamond Member
I was a child of the 60s. Does that date me? I sure hope so. Jealous? You should be.
STAR TREK
If it wasn't for Lucille Ball and Desilu studios, there would be no Star Trek. And likely no Star Wars much later, too. She saw something in Gene's vision that no other studio could. She saw the future.
NBC showed tepid interest in a space type western like a Gunsmoke in space, so Gene eagerly sold them on this idea. But Gene really had other ideas.
Just think about the majority of sci-fi movies and TV series made before Star Trek. Except for the few stellar examples like Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still or even The Time Machine, most sci-fi movies were absolutely idiotic. Which is why Mystery Science Theater was so hugely successful.
Unfortunately, Lost in Space even as a youth just didn't click for me, at all. Neither did Land of the Giants. Or Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Sorry Irwin Allen. Does not compute. But Time Tunnel did have its moments. Yet among all this sci-fi drivel there was one shining star on NBC, Star Trek.
On Star Trek the writing was amazing. The casting, actors, sets, costumes, special effects and makeup was astounding. But Gene's biggest weakness seemed a bit of a flair for the over the top melodramatic acting. He really seemed to encourage the actors to just push the acting as far as the scripts would allow, completely unrestrained.
This over acted directing style really showed in The Menagerie. Thankfully he toned it down a lot, when the completed series was finally aired. But many times, you would still see him allowing the guest stars and lead roles just hamming it up as much as they could, like Kirk at times. Why did he do this? Higher ratings, of course.
For a contrast, just look at the constrained acting styles on Lost In Space. Major West was about the only bright spot on that series, besides the over the top neurotic Dr. Smith. And they happened to play antagonists against each other. What would the show have been without them? Canceled the first season? Mom, Dad, Judy, the robot even usually Will, were just completely barren of emotion and utterly forgettable. Flipper could have taught these guys a thing or 2 about acting. Even the guest stars on the show acted like they were trying to downplay their acting skills and not be noticed too much, even when they were the evil villains out to kill the Robinsons.
If you can get around the fact that the actors on Star Trek were trying to individually stand out like in Shakespeare rather than merely blend into the scenery like a Lost in Space vegetable garden, you will enjoy it a whole lot more.
THE NEXT GENERATION
Then, when The Next Generation came out, Gene somewhat returned to this over the top acting and directing style. Sort of like the new kid in school trying to be liked by everyone. He didn't want to be canceled after several seasons again. Would you? But after some initial episodes when he felt more secure, you will notice the actors get more subdued and laid back. Especially after the third season when he finally gave up directing and producing altogether due to health reasons.
And this really has less to do with the scripts, and more to do with the proper directing of the actors. But the more secure and mechanical the actors became through the years the farther away it was from the original Star Trek style. And the closer it got to a Lost in Space style of acting. Which is why TNG at the end of the series couldn't bring the ratings in like it did initially.
DEEP SPACE NINE
Then came along the zombie bastard step child Deep Space Nine. What a horrendous attempt to overcompensate for the perceived failings of TNG by the studio. Let's make a soap opera in space! And rather than have any real action going on most of the time (expensive CGI) let's have episode after episode of plodding mind numbing character development stuck in one place (cheaper sets) about characters no one really gives a crap about, anyhow!
And when that don't work (low ratings alert!) we can take old TNG characters who need a job, and bring them over to help anchor the tedious, boring and convoluted plot developments! Needless to say it was mercifully canceled before it killed off the Star Trek franchise permanently.
VOYAGER
Then when Voyager came out, they took the opposite approach of DS9, once again trying to fix the presumed mistakes with the first 3 Star Trek series. Instead of one broken down space station that hardly works right and never does anything, let's warp a cutting edge ship clear across space and make a whole new set of aliens and problems to bring people back to Star Trek.
But just don't forget the Borg, because fans love the Borg. And then let's put a sexy Borg in a skin tight suit with big Borg knockers, for the ratings win! Which in this series worked well with this premise, actually. It gave the writers virtually unlimited fodder for their imaginations to run wild. And they did. And you better not leave Q out.
The only reason Voyager really died, was the special effects budget killed it, more than the mediocre ratings did. And bad sitcoms were a whole lot cheaper to make, for the same mediocre ratings. Never mind the demographic watching Moesha and other brain dead mush was entirely different. Sci-fi fans fled to other channels like the Sci-fi channel in a mass exodus (duh).
ENTERPRISE
Then we come full circle back around to Enterprise, a prequel to Star Trek. OMG, we can already tell how many ways this is going to fail, just on the premise alone. The studio cut the budget substantially in a effort to reign in costs on Voyager. And since Enterprise took place before Star Trek, they could now go light shopping at Home Depot for Enterprise set lights. Hurray! 😉
But this series did have some good actors in it, in spite of strained budgets, and it was filmed in wide screen, and even in HDTV and digital in the final seasons. Some of the story arcs were actually interesting, and the writing overall was as solid as Voyager, thankfully. But it just did not look like the prequel to Star Trek, and it was hard to get around that fact, at least for myself.
And the theme song on Enterprise STUNK. How anyone could like that annoying mess of a song is just beyond me. I think the video is great for it, but the Bon Jovi style throat cancer vocals just make me ill. 😕
So that sums up my Star Trek series companion. :sun:
Now the Star Trek movies are a whole different antimatter. I might follow that up later. But the original series helped spawn it all, and motivated studios to finance huge sci-fi gambles like 2001, Star Wars, Aliens and Dune, to name just a few.
STAR TREK
If it wasn't for Lucille Ball and Desilu studios, there would be no Star Trek. And likely no Star Wars much later, too. She saw something in Gene's vision that no other studio could. She saw the future.
NBC showed tepid interest in a space type western like a Gunsmoke in space, so Gene eagerly sold them on this idea. But Gene really had other ideas.
Just think about the majority of sci-fi movies and TV series made before Star Trek. Except for the few stellar examples like Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still or even The Time Machine, most sci-fi movies were absolutely idiotic. Which is why Mystery Science Theater was so hugely successful.
Unfortunately, Lost in Space even as a youth just didn't click for me, at all. Neither did Land of the Giants. Or Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Sorry Irwin Allen. Does not compute. But Time Tunnel did have its moments. Yet among all this sci-fi drivel there was one shining star on NBC, Star Trek.
On Star Trek the writing was amazing. The casting, actors, sets, costumes, special effects and makeup was astounding. But Gene's biggest weakness seemed a bit of a flair for the over the top melodramatic acting. He really seemed to encourage the actors to just push the acting as far as the scripts would allow, completely unrestrained.
This over acted directing style really showed in The Menagerie. Thankfully he toned it down a lot, when the completed series was finally aired. But many times, you would still see him allowing the guest stars and lead roles just hamming it up as much as they could, like Kirk at times. Why did he do this? Higher ratings, of course.
For a contrast, just look at the constrained acting styles on Lost In Space. Major West was about the only bright spot on that series, besides the over the top neurotic Dr. Smith. And they happened to play antagonists against each other. What would the show have been without them? Canceled the first season? Mom, Dad, Judy, the robot even usually Will, were just completely barren of emotion and utterly forgettable. Flipper could have taught these guys a thing or 2 about acting. Even the guest stars on the show acted like they were trying to downplay their acting skills and not be noticed too much, even when they were the evil villains out to kill the Robinsons.
If you can get around the fact that the actors on Star Trek were trying to individually stand out like in Shakespeare rather than merely blend into the scenery like a Lost in Space vegetable garden, you will enjoy it a whole lot more.
THE NEXT GENERATION
Then, when The Next Generation came out, Gene somewhat returned to this over the top acting and directing style. Sort of like the new kid in school trying to be liked by everyone. He didn't want to be canceled after several seasons again. Would you? But after some initial episodes when he felt more secure, you will notice the actors get more subdued and laid back. Especially after the third season when he finally gave up directing and producing altogether due to health reasons.
And this really has less to do with the scripts, and more to do with the proper directing of the actors. But the more secure and mechanical the actors became through the years the farther away it was from the original Star Trek style. And the closer it got to a Lost in Space style of acting. Which is why TNG at the end of the series couldn't bring the ratings in like it did initially.
DEEP SPACE NINE
Then came along the zombie bastard step child Deep Space Nine. What a horrendous attempt to overcompensate for the perceived failings of TNG by the studio. Let's make a soap opera in space! And rather than have any real action going on most of the time (expensive CGI) let's have episode after episode of plodding mind numbing character development stuck in one place (cheaper sets) about characters no one really gives a crap about, anyhow!
And when that don't work (low ratings alert!) we can take old TNG characters who need a job, and bring them over to help anchor the tedious, boring and convoluted plot developments! Needless to say it was mercifully canceled before it killed off the Star Trek franchise permanently.
VOYAGER
Then when Voyager came out, they took the opposite approach of DS9, once again trying to fix the presumed mistakes with the first 3 Star Trek series. Instead of one broken down space station that hardly works right and never does anything, let's warp a cutting edge ship clear across space and make a whole new set of aliens and problems to bring people back to Star Trek.
But just don't forget the Borg, because fans love the Borg. And then let's put a sexy Borg in a skin tight suit with big Borg knockers, for the ratings win! Which in this series worked well with this premise, actually. It gave the writers virtually unlimited fodder for their imaginations to run wild. And they did. And you better not leave Q out.
The only reason Voyager really died, was the special effects budget killed it, more than the mediocre ratings did. And bad sitcoms were a whole lot cheaper to make, for the same mediocre ratings. Never mind the demographic watching Moesha and other brain dead mush was entirely different. Sci-fi fans fled to other channels like the Sci-fi channel in a mass exodus (duh).
ENTERPRISE
Then we come full circle back around to Enterprise, a prequel to Star Trek. OMG, we can already tell how many ways this is going to fail, just on the premise alone. The studio cut the budget substantially in a effort to reign in costs on Voyager. And since Enterprise took place before Star Trek, they could now go light shopping at Home Depot for Enterprise set lights. Hurray! 😉
But this series did have some good actors in it, in spite of strained budgets, and it was filmed in wide screen, and even in HDTV and digital in the final seasons. Some of the story arcs were actually interesting, and the writing overall was as solid as Voyager, thankfully. But it just did not look like the prequel to Star Trek, and it was hard to get around that fact, at least for myself.
And the theme song on Enterprise STUNK. How anyone could like that annoying mess of a song is just beyond me. I think the video is great for it, but the Bon Jovi style throat cancer vocals just make me ill. 😕
So that sums up my Star Trek series companion. :sun:
Now the Star Trek movies are a whole different antimatter. I might follow that up later. But the original series helped spawn it all, and motivated studios to finance huge sci-fi gambles like 2001, Star Wars, Aliens and Dune, to name just a few.
MotionMan
Lifer
Skyclad1uhm1
Lifer
😀
Kes, Neelix, and 7 sucked in my opinion...
Paris and Kim sucked...
seska or whatever her name is.... the
I can not watch a single episode with the kaizon it in, they were WAY over played especially after sucking so bad at the get go...
The fact that their 70 year trip would take 500 years with the amount of bullshiting around they did...If you want to get home, you can't freakin stop for every little anomaly
Janeway was too sanctimonious...
I guess Torres and the doctor annoyed me the least....
There is no way the one ship could survive out there, fighting the borg as much.
When they originally aired, TNG was my favorite... but now DS9 is by far...
TOS is too cheesy, fake...
Enterprise lost me after the first couple of episodes...
I guess... my order would be
DS9
TNG
TOS or VOY depending on which episodes
ENT
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