The problem with Voyager was that most of the cast had no defining characteristics or personality traits whatsoever. Chakotay, Paris, Harry Kim, B'Elanna, Kes, they were all ciphers.

But do check out the time travel episode with Ed Begley Jr. and Sarah Silverman just for its weirdness.

@1 that is far and away my favorite episode! Hilarious!!!

Nope, you're right about DS9. Although it had some rough first seasons, it quickly became the best series with its complex, multi-episode story lines and its willingness to look into the seedier side of the Federation in ways that TNG only touched. Garak and In the Pale Moonlight are the best examples.

Although it was a group effort, DS9 was basically Ronald D. Moore cutting his teeth for Battlestar Galactica.

Enterprise is far worse. It's the Star Trek: The Motion Picture of the Trek TV shows.

TNG FTW

It's fun to watch Janeway look for her mark on the floor, walk to it, then stand up straight and start Acting.

Don't give up yet! Season 6 and 7 are the best ones...which, well... I mean in terms of Voyager. I loved the Doctor! Some of his best episodes are still to come.

I have a soft spot for this series..as glaringly bad as it could get at times. And who doesn't LOVE the episode where Captain Janeway and Tom Paris evolve into giant salamanders and have babies...and never, ever, ever mention it again...

@4 I am 3 seasons into Enterprise now, have seen every episode of TNG, VOY, and DS9, and most of TOS, and I must respectfully disagree...

Enterprise grows on you. It took at least most of the first season to get into the characters, and for the show to find it's footing in general, but once they enter the expanse the show really finds it's stride.

I think it does a great job at connecting the futuristic worlds of the other series to our modern day society. Plus most of the characters seem much more like real people than humans from other series

also, @1 is right about lame personalities on Voyager... really drags down the show.

And please, just skip Enterprise and watch every episode of Stargate, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe...if you haven't already...

DS9 for sure is the tops. The huge plot arcs spanning multiple seasons cannot be beat.

TNG is of course quite solid for what amounts to a WELL WHAT PLANET ARE WE GOING TO VISIT THIS WEEK AND WHAT HIJINKS WILL ENSUE!? format.

the thaw was my favorite episode by far, the one with the clown

(Though maybe I never gave Enterprise enough of a chance...so perhaps you could listen to @8, perhaps... But Scott Bakula? Really?)

I had family who worked on Enterprise, and all I can say is that show was a study in missed opportunities. Instead of exploring the many back stories of ideas that were introduced in the original series (e.g.: exactly WHY was there a prime directive? What kind of colossal fuck-up lead to it?) they introduced a lame "time war" plot that was pointless and boring.

It could have been on par with the Battlestar Galactica reboot, but slavish devotion to the Roddenberry cannon squeezed all the life out of it.

And Enterprise highlighted just how pivotal the captain character is to all of the series. Bakula was great as the "everyman" trying to do right in Quantum Leap, but terrible as the dithering, consensus seeking captain.

On the plus side, I loved, looooved the Altarian vs. Vulcan storylines, which were a cruel, tantalizing glimpse of what the show could have been.

I just this morning watched the episode where Paris & Janeway "evolved" into giant newts and had babies. I am still laughing hours later.

THERE'S COFFEE IN THAT NEBULA *BARFS* *NEVER WATCHES ANOTHER EPISODE OF VOYAGER*

That's the story of me and Voyager. Me and my friends were huge TNG nerds, and enjoyed what we'd seen of DS9, and when Voyager came out, we would watch every week, and slowly we would drift away. That was the episode that I stopped watching.

You are 100% correct that Voyager is the worst series. I know that every show, especially Star Trek has a rough first season, but Voyager's was irredeemable.

TNG took the old show and re-framed it, fleshed it out, and made it so much better. None of the other series would have worked without it. DS9 was more of a day-to-day, darker look at a specific conflict in the ST universe and really allowed the characters to grow.

The only way Voyager got any better than that first season is by completely destroying Borg canon of a hive mind in service to provide a more interesting narrative/better TV. And that doesn't even happen until /several/ season in. I liked Janeway and having a female captain (even though her hair was always atrocious!), but the rest of the show went backwards on the camp scale and relied on a premise of "lost in space" for longer than the writers could keep it interesting.

@14,

Do you mean Andorian?

@17,

Are you referring to the Borg Queen? That part of the canon was destroyed by Star Trek: First Contact, not by Voyager.

I grew up on Next Generation (yay for Patrick Stewart appearing at Emerald City Comic-Con!)

Watched almost all of DS9 years after it ended, in a binge while living abroad. Not as good, but some pretty decent arcs.

The other series are pretty much unwatchable in my opinion, although I did have a boner for Seven of Nine back in the day, like any respectable 13 year old nerd.

The best part of Voyager is that it took all of Rick Berman's and Brannon Braga's attention so they left Deep Space Nine in Ira Steven Behr's hands. This allowed Deep Space Nine to have coherent story lines, well developed characters and a depth that the other Star Treks lacked. Otherwise we might have had Sisko and Dax turning into lizards and creating babies after they went through a wormhole.

@18 D'oh, yes Andorian.

Voyager lost me in the pilot episode (if memory serves correctly) when after the Voyager was sent a zillion miles away from the federation zone because of something something (space time continuum, wormhole, whatever) Janeway meets an alien race? individual? (can't recall exactly) and right off the bat decides to risk the lives of her crew, the ship, and any chance of return/survival to help out some alien guy (who had an attitude problem as well, as I recall) with some long-shot rescue plan. Of course everything works out fine in the end, but Jeezus, WTF? I get it, Star Trek is all about morality, doing the right thing, blah blah blah but doesn't she owe her crew more than just a shrug of the shoulders? Is that what they taught in Space Academy? On top of that, the shape of the Voyager ship reminded me of some kind of female hygiene product. Exactly what, I'm not sure, it just does.

Voyager was a hoot. Loved it. Best line ever: "Get this cheese to sick-bay!"

The Distant Origin Theory episode was quite good.

But far and away the best character from Voyager was Tuvix, from the episode of the same name.

Though I voted for TNG, I have a soft spot for Voyager as well. It does have some memorable episodes: "Blink of an Eye" with Daniel Dae Kim, and "Year of Hell" with Kurtwood Smith. (Just a few more calculations!)
We used to have a weekly Star Trek night with our neighbors back in the day (before we all just consumed media in isolation with laptops and headphones.) Maybe the key was our enjoyment of green leafy material, but we always enjoyed the camp, not to mention the hilarious "techtalk."

Anyone who votes for TNG should be sentenced to subscribing to the twitter feed 'TNG Season 8'.

Which btw, is hilarious.

Voyager vs Enterprise is a tough call. Voyager was consistantly irritating throughout its run. Enterprise suffered more from radical shifts in tone and direction from season to season, because the ratings were terrible and the Powers That Be were trying to find something that would work.

I second the above recommendation for Stargate. Even after it got "bad," it was still better than the best of Voyager or Enterprise.

Going back to read the results of DS9 poll (which I missed at the time, and which apparently went apeshit for the largely lifeless, characterless Jadzia Dax) has undermined my faith in all Slog polls ever.

Holodeck ftw!

Totally agree with 14. STE could easily have been the best just by doing backdrop for TOS.

The backstory of Vulcan was excellent and explained why Vulcans are they way they are. The Vulcan v Andorian plot was awesome! They could have delved into the establishment of the Federation, war with the Romulans, war with the Klingons, the arrival of the Tholians, etc .. They had ample and fertile ground for great stories. Instead they took a lay way out: TIMEWAR. Ugh. (Which JJ Abrams did much better with imho)

However, I really enjoyed it. It is still my fave of all the series. I especially liked that stories took more than one episode to tell, and the characters kept coming back. Even though the TIMEWAR plot was crap, the episodes and stories were really good.

STE is the best. Followed by the last seasons on STV, then TOS, the last three seasons of TNG. DS9 is just a holiday inn in space. Blech. The only redeeming part of DS9 is "Trials and Tribble-ations."

Even though Enterprise has its problems (does it ever!), and can be terrible (does it ever!), it's at least better than the relentless blandness of Voyager.

And for best character in Voyager, I voted for Kes, because at least she had the common decency to go away.

While TNG will always, always have my fealty (and the role of personal ambien - put an episode on past 11pm and I am asleep by the opening credits) I have held that if I could pick any captain to be assigned, I'd pick Janeway in a heartbeat. She was more militaristic and tough than the other captains ever showed. Maybe she's written that way due to the circumstances of the show, but Kirk would have just banged new space babes and Picard would have been lost philosophizing while Janeway was focused on the long-term survival of her crew and getting them goddamned home. Every other character is rubbish.

I voted for Voyager, even though I hate Janeway. For characters, the doctor and Seven would be tied for favorite. People talk about how pretty Jeri Ryan is (I mean, could that body be REAL?), but I was surprised by her skills as an actress.

Second place for me would be TNG, while third would be Enterprise. In fact (nerd-alert), I own all of the series, except DS9. I liked DS9 just fine, it just doesn't count as Star Trek for me since it's a soap opera in a big enclosed building that just happens to be a space station. Also, Avery Brooks's "acting" was painful to watch, and yet there he was in every scene.
@31, yeah Kes= blegh.

For what it's worth, the DVDs of Enterprise have some of the best bloopers in the Star Trek 'verse.

@6 That is the funniest thing I've read today.

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!!!!!!!!!!

TOS should be winning and I assume its not because of muscle spasms making everyone click the wrong button.

Chakotay and Tuvok...rowr!

DS9 is the best Star Trek series for people who don't like Star Trek. Screw a peaceful vision of humanity, let's have War! Moral compromise! It must be better because it's darker. TNG had the Enterprise crew play many wonderful cat-and-mouse games with the Romulans, but the Enterprise never got into a space battle with the Romulan warbird. DS9 gives many stupid space battles.

I like many of DS9's characters, and I generally can't stand Troi, but Troi's presence as a counselor on the Enterprise is far more of a radical imagining than anything DS9 ever comes up with.

And @4, the Star Trek: The Motion Picture is both great science fiction and tediously boring. Voyager is just boring.

Jesus, what a bunch of Philistines!

STOS is the ONLY Trek.

TNG is only better... for riffing on ala MST3K.

TNG is basically a 1982 biege and burgundy Ramada Inn lobby filled with Politically Correct card bord cutouts touring space looking for forehead acne.

With the exception of Stewart and Spiner and a hand full of episodes it was universally dull and humorless. The first Season is just unwatchable. They had a day care on the ship, for fuck sake!

STOS, while dated by it's 60's vibe and low-low budget, at least was wholly unique, original, and had scripts penned by some of the best sci-fi authors of the time. Plus: SHATNER! End of story.

DS9 is by far the best of the Treks.

I do have a small soft spot for Voyager for some reason but I don't recommend it to anyone.
One reason is that I dated Chakotay's nephew in high school. I refused to believe the guy for months until I saw the family pictures at his place. The fact amuses me to this day.

SPOILERS Maybe...

Also, I enjoyed the Tom/B'lana pairing because I have a thing for arrogant guys and tough chicks. I wanted to be in the middle of a few of their fights...

Voyager was the worst. This is the series that turned what was a lame crutch of the holodeck and turned it into the ultimate terrifying cesspool of lazy and stupid writing. Even worse the episodes of TNG devoted to Data's cat.

Voyager did have some good moments but really, awful writing and character development. DS9 followed by TNG are the best.

If you want to see what Voyager could have been, check out Farscape. Thats being shot though a wormhole done right!

And the Stargate stuff- pretty solid sci-fi adventure

Looking at the list of characters and it's clear that Voyager was weak....DS9's were so much more memorable. And TNG had better stories.

Though Voyager did have that one episode with Nazis on the holodeck. And Seven's catsuit.

@42,

Do you have that stored on your computer somewhere so you can just copy and paste it whenever Trek comes up?

@41,

I like Star Trek in almost all of its iterations (I even suffered off and on through Enterprise, as tedious as it was), and I also like DS9. Why can't it show a dark underbelly of the Federation? We're supposed to believe that a government made up of hundreds of worlds is all sunshine and rainbows? The expanded universe even predating Roddenberry's death shows that not to be true, the writers just chose not to explore it.

And only die-hard Trek fans would suffer through DS9's first seasons long enough to see the different direction the show takes later on.

DS9 was for boys. Voyager was for girls. TNG was for everyone.

I liked Stargate too.

@26 Hmmm, got "bad"...I can't seem to remember that happening! ;)

But then again I think I may have enjoyed Atlantis more than the original series...which I have to assume is blasphemy to someone, somewhere... (Though hard to really compare a run of10 seasons with it's many changes to just 5.)

@44 Is Farscape really worth it? I can't seem to get into the first season...

P.S. I think the character poll is broken..results keep showing up for Tuvok, Harry Kim, Tom Paris, Chakotay, Kes, Torres...Neelix...

Well Enterprise had its moments. I was happy for 20 minutes the transporter wouldnt be there much. The thing was used the first episode after explaining how crappy it was. I had to FF through the themesong every time but:

I loved that Earth was not powerful, experienced or united in moving out into the Galaxy, that relations with Vulcan weren't all that great and there was at least one episode where they could have saved a whole intelligent species but didn't....because in that episode at least, the prime directive was a big deal, that they completely didnt get the Klingons and the Doctor was pretty cool. The Earth First bunch was kind of scary. I thought the Retcon of why the Klingons changed so much was clever. There was more. I admit a lot of the good bits were sparse but they were there.

@48 Farscape FTW Forever!

Your poll manifests a common problem. The "original" of anything is never as polished, never as slick as its decendents. Yet, had it not been for the appeal of TOS - and the fact that it was such an original departure from the other dreck TV of the 1960s - these other series would never have existed.

So, by definition, TOS should not be compared with its spinoffs unless you define your terms with more care. Better in what respect? More original? Better special effects? More emotional depth?

Why can't Farscape fans manage to say anything more than "YAY Farscape!" in support of it?

TNG may be winning, but I will FIGHT TO THE DEATH for DS9.

DS9 had many lovely things and may well have been the best but there was that whole (forgive me if I conflate stuff):

Bajoran gods played by the actors standing stiffly while shot with a fuzzy lens. In my memory (this can't be right) a baseball is being thrown around by person or persons unknown interrupting Garrack as he tailors a zoot suit for Benny Sisko on his leaving the asylum in the 1940's while Morn coughs up Latinum.

I know Voyager has the Do The Right Thing problem to deal with, but having just watched the first episode: she sacrifices the immediate future of her entire crew for a race we've already been told has a seven year lifespan (IIRC: I see online that it's "nine years") and is being given five years of power in a completely enclosed system.

Arguably, letting the Ocampas fight it out/integrate with the Kazons (and going home immediately) would have been more humane than their choice.

TNG has Picard but (having just completed watching that series) seems tiny and small and disjointed. I look forward to DS9's ongoing plot arcs.

I'm currently working my way through TNG on Hulu, because I haven't seen it in years. The middle seasons, like the middle seasons of DS9, are the best.

DS9 gets my vote for overall best. I stopped watching Voyager after the first couple seasons because it got boring. There was just nothing compelling about any of the characters. I plan to work all the way through that series too, though, after I finish TNG (I have the entire series of DS9 on DVD, so I can watch it any time I want).

@48: So... Farscape is a soap opera in space. For four seasons, it's never going to stop being a soap opera in space. It has been famously summarized by Warren Ellis as "one American's descent into the Australian BDSM scene". There. Will. Be. Shipping.

However, alongside all that, it's also a sci-fi show, and sometimes it sneaks up behind you and clubs you over the head with that fact (but in a good way). I mean, yeah, 90% of the time the show is giving you "cool heist episode... IN SPACE!" and "wait, what did we do last night at the swank nightclub... IN SPACE?". But half the fun of the show is that the "stock" plots are often humorous "reality ensues" deconstructions in disguise. And every now and then, the show uses its sci-fi basis to slap you in the face with a deconstruction so dead-serious it stops you in your tracks and makes your heart skip a beat.

And, uh, yeah, the first season is kind of a special case because the characterizations are all over the map for a while. Once the writers and actors settle down into a groove, roughly by the end of S1 going into S2, the show gets markedly better. It's just a noticeably bad case of the First Season Blues that most sci-fi shows get.

All this ST nerdliness makes me want to cry. It's just so beautiful! I thought I was the only ST nerd slogger.

Jesus it's like coming out all over again!

Farscape is one of the more complex story lines I've seen in sci-fi. You literally have to watch every episode to know what is going on. It's not serious sci-fi like ST can be, it's weird and funny at times, but for the most part it makes some strange sense. Plus, Scorpius is the best villian/ally EVER, 2nd maybe to Gul Dukat. If I were a bad guy, I'd be mother fucking Scorpius!

Enterprise got really good in the last season when they started dealing more with traditional federation species like Vulcans and Andorians. They really did a good job going into their backstory. Klingons too. Plus there is a great Mirror universe story arch and one that sets the backdrop for Kahn.

@27

Yay, someone else agrees that Jadzia Dax was lame. I think I would have to blame Terry Farrell; I liked Ezri Dax.

@48 Farscape is worth it, and the others are right, the first season is choppy but when Scorpy shows up things start to get good.

And while we are talking about alternatives to Star Trek, let me just pour a 40 oz'er on the ground for my dear departed Firefly. You died too soon.

The only thing you need to know about Voyager is "Get this cheese to sickbay."

Voyager had too many pointless episodes and plots. What was the point of the Kazons? I stopped watching I don't know when, though I think I watched long enough to see that they disappeared, but if the point of the show was that Voyager was going in one direction headed for home, the Kazons should not have been the arch-villains at all. And what was the point of the Cardassian spy who was disguised as a Bajoran who stole some of Chakotay's "DNA" while he was unconscious to impregnate herself? Are we going to be renaming spunk DNA in the future?

Voyager was way, way better than people give it credit for, and was honestly much more in the spirit of Star Trek than any other spinoff series, although I will always love Next Gen the most.

The "lost in space" vibe is honestly exactly what Star Trek should be about.

I'm not going to lie, there are some fucking ridiculous Voyager episodes--everyone cites "Warp 10 turns Janeway and Paris into space lizards who totally bone" but I'm personally a big fan of "Space hadrosaurs don't believe they're from Earth until the holodeck proves evolution"--and there are some weak performances, but the ensemble as a whole is outstanding, and Jeri Ryan and Robert Picardo are worth watching for themselves.

That said, Captain Andy Dick of the USS Andy Dick is clearly the best science fiction character ever written.

For me it's a toss up between TOS and DS9. TOS was my first series and I've watched the movies (1-6) several times, with the mini trilogy arc of 2, 3, 4 in the dozens. TOS will always be special. That said, I really enjoyed DS9 and the move toward a darker Trek. Also, the different format of a space station was refreshing after 10 (3 TOS, 7 TNG) years of exploratory missions from the first two series.

Voyager's final episode was excellent - far better than any from the other series

68 posts! Nerds! :D

Thanks for all the Farscape responses...I will make my way through first season/second and see how it goes!

@48 - Again, "bad" is a relative thing. But I personally did not care for the last couple seasons. The dynamics of the original cast worked perfectly for me, and losing MacGyver for the Farscape crew left me a little sour.

And yes, enjoying Atlantis more than Vanilla is definitely some form of blasphemy.

@71 ha ha, knew it! And I regret nothing...

Farscape suffered a horrible amount of flashbacks & hallucinations set in the parking lot outside the Australian soundstage they shot the rest of it in. That got really, really boring.

They did do some amazing stuff with Scifi tropes. When Chiana just lets her duplicate die rather than save her(self), I had a braingasm.

@46

Jesus, what a bunch of Philistines!

STOS is the ONLY Trek.

TNG is only better... for riffing on ala MST3K.

TNG is basically a 1982 biege and burgundy Ramada Inn lobby filled with Politically Correct card bord cutouts touring space looking for forehead acne.

With the exception of Stewart and Spiner and a hand full of episodes it was universally dull and humorless. The first Season is just unwatchable. They had a day care on the ship, for fuck sake!

STOS, while dated by it's 60's vibe and low-low budget, at least was wholly unique, original, and had scripts penned by some of the best sci-fi authors of the time. Plus: SHATNER! End of story.

Nailed it, Mary. Everything.

I begrudge no one for voting for TNG over DS9, but the latter will always be my favorite.

I remember when Voyager premiered (fittingly, the flagship if the new UPN network). I was in the fifth grade, and a rabid fan of TNG and the relatively new DS9. I swear to the prophets that even at that age, by the end of the pilot I sensed something was very wrong. They spend the whole episode (and episodes of TNG and DS9 in the previous year) setting up the natural conflict between the Maquis and Starfleet crews. Two crews who will have to work together to survive an impossible and punishing journey home. But by time the credits roll, they're in SF uniforms, holding hands and smiling on the bridge, ready to sail off on their 75 year journey with hope and friendship in their hearts. This is a template for the universe of missed opportunities and lazy writing which were to be the cornerstones of Star Trek Voyager.

The cast is lousy too. A gaggle of bland, young Los Angles actors. Excepting the mighty Robert Picardo. TNG and DS9 were expertly cast with actors like him: professional theatrical/character actors.

I held on for two seasons, desperately hoping it would get better before giving up. Of course, as a major fan, I forced myself to watch it on DVD years later. Seemingly a similar experience to the one you are having now.

Also, Neelix is the original Jar Jar.

@ArtBasketSara
I would also like to jump on the "YAY Farscape" wagon by encouraging you to reach the 'Look at the Princess' Trilogy. It's one of my favorite arcs of the series and showcases the best parts of the characters and the show. There's a lot of good before that point, but I'll use any excuse to highlight those episodes.
Also, AV Club happens to be covering Farscape right now with weekly critical write-ups, if you want a place to discuss the series as you make your way through it.

You all make me sick.

TNG > DS9 > TOS > VOY/ENT (tie, both had moments of brilliance and pits of shit on par witht the pinnacles of Trek)

Picard > Kirk > Archer > Janeway > Sisko (going by character--Janeway was an immensely human figure)

however

Stewart > Brooks > Mulgrew > Shatner (going by acting)

Best episodes of each would be tough.

TOS: Where No Man Has Gone Before
TNG: Parallels, maybe
DS9: Either the finale or the invasion of Cardassia Prime
VOY: Engame is just fucking brilliant once it gets going
ENT: Tough. Either Azati Prime or Regeneration

Films: Not going to bother ordering them. Khan or First Contact.

Best space battles: Azati Prime, First Contact, Khan, Nemesis, pretty much the last 1/3 of the seventh season of DS9.

Spot > Porthos

Firefly ftw

I am now and always shall be a TOS fan first and foremost, having literally grown up with the series, both in its original network run, and later in syndication. While the other iterations have their pluses and minuses (and freely admitting that TOS, particularly in its third season, was far from perfect), Gene Roddenberry's original vision of humanity's future was truly extraordinary, ground-breaking, and produced a cultural impact that none of the subsequent spin-offs has ever come close to matching.

Maybe it's difficult for someone who didn't grow up during the 1960's to truly grasp how unique and mind-bending this vision of our future was: not only had humanity managed to survive its own self-immolation (nuclear war with the Soviets still being seen as a very real possibility, and our destruction of the environment just barely beginning to seep into public consciousness), but we came out the other side as a more mature species, one that not only had come to accept our cultural, racial, political and religious differences, but celebrated them as the foundation of our strength! For the first time, TV audiences saw us all: white, black, yellow, brown (not to mention green, blue and a few more colors besides!), men and women, Americans, Russians, Asians, Africans - working together as equals, showing respect, admiration and even love. This was no small feat for its time, and if occasionally the show lapsed into contemporary stereotype - well, not everyone watching had developed quite the same level of enlightenment all at once.

Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhuru, tells a now famous anecdote that defines the important cultural impact of the series: at the end of the first season she had decided to quit the show, feeling frustration that her character was underdeveloped and not really being given anything important to do. The same day, she attended a fundraising event, where she was informed that "one of your biggest fans is here and would like to meet you." The fan was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who upon hearing she was giving up her role, urged her to reconsider. "Don't you understand what this man (referring to Roddenberry) has achieved?" he said, "For the first time on television we will be seen as we should be seen everyday - as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing and dance, but who can also go into space, who can be lawyers, teachers, professors - and yet you don't see it on television - until now."

"Gene Roddenberry has opened a door for the world to see us," he concluded, "If you leave, that door can be closed, because, you see, your role is not a Black role, and it's not a female role, he can fill it with anyone, including an alien."

Needless to say, Ms Nichols stayed on the series, and the rest, of course, is history. But, camn you imagine any of the Star Trek series that followed ever generating THAT kind of passion, being THAT important to its viewers? I certainly can't, and I'm glad to have been around at a time when it was, because otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

I grew up in the 60s (in Berkeley, no less) and I watched TOS while the whole chaos of People's Park and civil rights and all that was going on. What TOS taught me was that the only way to be on a starship, as a woman, was to show a LOT of leg (right up to my crotch, thank you very much), to have pointy boobs and false eyelashes, and to fuck the most powerful person in the room within 20 minutes of meeting him. Thanks for nothing, TOS.

TNG had my favorite plotlines (The Inner Light, Parallels), but it was so uncompromisingly male (men and more men and more men). Sigh. And then, DS9 had that moment when Kira and Jadzia are fighting the Cardassians, from a runabout, like bad-ass warriors. That was a great moment for me. That was the moment when I let go of my jaded sense of "ST women are eye candy and the real work was done only by the male humans and aliens." That moment destroyed it (and they beat the Cardassians, too).

I have never seen a single (not one) Star Trek episode. They just never interested me, not being a sci-fi fan, and I always thought it'd be too difficult to jump in the middle of any season (TNG was the new thing when I was growing up) without knowing anything about the history of the series. This whole discussion, however, has given me something to go by. If I ever try a series, I think I'll go for DS9. That's the one with the intricate multi-episode plots, right. That's more in line with what I prefer.

@77 thanks! Though since netflix seems to have removed Farscape I might have to wait a bit... :(

Today, well...it'll have to be a Twin Peaks marathon instead! With a bit of the series Justified thrown in (sexy!).

The biggest problem I had with Enterprise was that I found it impossible to watch a single episode of it without being constantly bugged by the question, "How the HELL did they go from this to TOS?"

That's not really Enterprise's fault - but we were supposed to believe that in a hundred years or so, women would be set back socially, professionally and sartorially to the glorified secretaries of TOS, everyone would forget what Klingons looked like, and that Earth would have a whole slew of successful colonies.

Not to mention that most of the alien races were nearly unrecognizable - possibly far more interesting, but unrecognizable - Vulcans were just pissy drama queens with anger management issues, the Klingons were the TNG era Klingons, and so on.

If Enterprise hadn't needed to be the "prequel" to TOS, I think I probably would have loved it.

As for Voyager, I agree that the big problem was that most of the characters never developed past the one-line cardboard character sketch of the pre-production period. Kes could have been one of the most interesting characters ever, and they wasted a pretty brilliant actress - Neelix and Kes should have had a child (also played in a dual role by Jennifer Lien), and then Kes should have died, after a rich, full, insanely short life. Chakotay, Kim, Torres and the other leads needed actual personalities, not just personality quirks - It got so you could tell which of the recurring characters were either doomed or spies because they were interesting, and so, apparently, had to go.

If all the characters had been written with the depth that the Seven of Nine character was given - and later in the series, some of them started to touch on it - it could have been amazing. Janeway and the Doctor, and to a far lesser degree, Neelix, were the only people to come out of the gate with anything resembling a personality.

TOS should never be in a poll since its the reason we can have a debate like this.

However I have watched all St seiries and by far DS9 was the best, even if it had the worst ending. Sisko should have never been killed off. All the other ST series had high morals and DS9 was the only series that went into the "darker" or more realistic side of the Federation. The idea of people in the Federation not as high moraled as Picard comes up later in NG Movies Insurrection and Now ST "into the Darkness" which makes them some of the better movies of the Trek Universe. But I have digressed...

The episode that epitomizes the realisticness of the DS9 series is when Sisko narrates the story of how the Fed is losing the war needs and gets the Romulans finally get into the war with the Dominion and he can live with the results. Morals yes but survival more.... Love it.

Nothing of the other other series come close to this with some kind of possesion or mind altering excuse. Voyager isnt as bad as everyone one is making it out to be but was not the best effort when it come to ST. Ent was thoroughly enjoyed by my brother but I never got into it. Oh.. and Farscape was a very imaginative series that I miss and would love to watch it all over again.

Best comment in my opinion, With the appropriate level of snark:

"@46

Jesus, what a bunch of Philistines!

STOS is the ONLY Trek.

TNG is only better... for riffing on ala MST3K.

TNG is basically a 1982 biege and burgundy Ramada Inn lobby filled with Politically Correct card bord cutouts touring space looking for forehead acne.

With the exception of Stewart and Spiner and a hand full of episodes it was universally dull and humorless. The first Season is just unwatchable. They had a day care on the ship, for fuck sake!

STOS, while dated by it's 60's vibe and low-low budget, at least was wholly unique, original, and had scripts penned by some of the best sci-fi authors of the time. Plus: SHATNER! End of story."
tkc

I also find agreement with ArtBasketSara, the Stargate series were some of the coolest television. I loved the original (SG-1) and it eventually supplanted the original Star Trek as my favorite science fiction program -something I thought would never happen. While I think the STTOS is a great show I know it had it's faults, but it has less episodes that annoy me than most of the spin-offs.

I think things that started to get to me were seeing the same Vulcan, Romulan wigs... really? Did one of the producers own a wig shop? I can watch all of the shows but I tend to nit-pick a bit much, especially with the Next Generation and Voyager... I like Voyager the least of all the series and find it difficult to watch.

Sorry, son is reminded me we have to pick up mom at the airport...