I rate the original Star Trek as one of my top tv shows of all time.

NG I had almost zero interest in until a few years into the series when they started showing repeats every day right before I had to go to work, so I started watching them while I was getting ready to leave.

Like most viewers, I didn't like the first couple NG seasons, apart from a few exceptions - the one about the evil slime monster, for example - but thought it got going with the 3rd. I still think the first Borg story is one of the very best ever made for tv, and there are a few other episodes that aren't far behind. The series tailed off sharply the last couple seasons, though, and by pretty early in season 7 I wasn't even bothering to watch any more.

And I must say that, in retrospect, none of the characters really stand out to me in the iconic way that many from the original series do. Picard is the only one from NG who approaches that level, for me: couldn't stand Riker; Data was more often annoying than amusing; Worf was OK, but the stiffness was a bit overplayed and dull after a while - still, one of the better characters on the show, though mostly by default. I think Troy might have been one of the few characters apart from Picard that could have been memorable - good concept and the actress was perfect for the part - but the writing veered between sentimentalism (an easy trap to fall into with an "empath", or whatever she was supposed to be, I admit) and "nudge, nudge"-style comedy.

DS9 I gave up on after the first season but have been half-convinced by a few people here on the Classics to give it another chance. I like the concept of the space station where all these different cultures mingle.

Voyager never caught my interest much. The few snatches I did see here and there never overcame my indifference, even though I thought Gerry Hall was attractive in that skin-tight uniform.

Enterprise I thought was a great idea and watched much of the first season, but I have to rate it as possibly the very worst of them all. The only redeeming factor was the female Vulcan character, and that was mostly because of the actress overcoming the writing. I hated everything else about it, from the writing to the characters to the actors - though the latter can't be blamed too much since they could only work with the material they were given.

The movies I've seen have been hit and miss but even the best of them don't come anywhere near the best episodes of the tv series, for me. No interest in watching the new ones with young Kirk, etc. I've never understood the attraction behind all these Young James Bond and Young Sherlock Holmes things and the new Star Trek seems like more in that vein.

I loved the original series at the time, and it still has the most iconic characters, but I find it pretty unwatchable now - the crappy repetitive plots, terrible SFX and hammy over-acting.

I couldn't get much into NexGen - I watched them, but they never really held my interest, and a couple of things really irritated me about it:
1) Weasely Crusher, the archetypical "hey, let's put a smart-ass kid into the show - that'll make it great" move that really irks me (and all right-thinking people)
2) the name "Data" for the character of the Android who wanted to be as human as possible - that's like naming Spock as "Enigmatic Alien" or Kirk as "Hammy McHambone"
3) the security office reaction to everything: Picard: they seem to be benign pixie unicorns offering magic gifts of health and happiness to the whole cosmos, and a cure for the common cold; Tasha Yar / Worf: danger, danger, Will Robinson! launch photon torpedoes! kill them all! kill them all!

DS9 is apparently really well done, but I could never over the concept: it's Star Trek, the whole raison d'etre of the series is "to boldly go where no (person) has gone before" and here they are, stuck on a space station - what the point?

Conversely, I really liked Voyager because they really opened up the boundaries, had long-form arcs and some good new characters. Yes, there were some irritating duds, like Janeaway and the B'lanabanafofanna, and I could never tire of punching Neelix, but it had some pretty good enemies, an interesting initial setup with the Federation and Maquis, a breakout character in the Doctor, and also had the delectable Kes and 7of9.

Enterprise suffered from the same conceptual issues as DS9 for me - the great part of ST was the tech, the aliens, the broad scope and here we have a series where the tech doesn't work yet or they're still inventing it - again, what's the point?

A Geeky Star Trek Meme

Rank the following in each category and provide explanations. Follow the directions at the end to determine the Star Trek shows that best align with your tastes.


Best Captains

1. Jean Luc Picard -- Refined, scholarly, and theatrical. Picard brought ethics and modern day chivalry to the forefront of Trek while the obligatory action took a backseat.

2. Hikaru Sulu -- When I first saw Star Trek VI as a kid, with Sulu commanding his own ship in the beginning, it all seemed so perfect. Sulu is calm and quiet, yet able to leap out with a fencing foil and maniacal grin when the need arises. He is the ideal balance between Kirk's action hero and Picard's elderly statesman.

3. Christopher Pike -- You're thrown in an alien zoo, given two women who want you, and told to procreate or your ship will be destroyed. There are a million and one ways to rationalize why it would be okay to give in under such circumstances, but only Pike would find the strength to say no, even while doubting his own abilities and decisions. When right and wrong, logical and illogical become blurred, Pike goes with hit gut, and his gut is always noble.

4. Benjamin Sisko -- It took a few seasons for Sisko to win me over. I couldn't stand him at first, but he matured into a highly unusual leader. His command style is unstructured and fluid, yet his authority is never in question. He is playful, funny, and passionate, yet reserved, icey, and keen. He's everything his station needs him to be without seeming unrealistic. In fact, he somehow seems more human than virtually any other captain in the Trek universe.

5. James Tiberius Kirk -- I don't love Kirk at all. There's a lot about him that just doesn't jive with my sense of what a hero should be. Yet, he always has those fantastic moments where his eyes grow dark, his voice cools dramatically, and he delivers some fantastic insight into right and wrong that usually makes perfect sense. Whereas most of the better Captains that have come since simply and gracefully exude ethics in everything they do, Kirk shoves it down throats in a way that makes me feel good even when it probably isn't the right way to handle the situation.


Best Supporting Cast

1. Next Generation -- Data and Geordi, plus poker in Riker's quarters. There were a lot of characters that I didn't care for in this show, but most of the characters and interactions were priceless and even heart-warming at times.

2. Deep Space Nine -- Most of the core characters on this show didn't impress me, but Quark, Odo, Rom and (later) Worf and Vic Fontaine really brought something special to the series.

3. Original series -- Most of these characters didn't win me over until the movies, but by the time of Wrath of Khan, it was really hard not to love Spock, and while The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier were both terrible movies, they really brought out the ensemble cast to an even greater degree. Each of the supporting cast became very lovable personalities.

4. Voyager -- Argh. Yes. I'm going there. I hate Janeway, and I want to beat Tuvok, Neelix, Chakotay, Kes, and 7 of 9 with a chainsaw, but Torres, Paris, Kim, and the Doctor all had tremendous potential and probably would have shone brightly in a different context and under a different writing staff.

5. Enterprise -- As if there were any other options left. Honestly, most of these characters just felt too post-911 "America Rules" jengoistic to me in the beginning, while the remainder of the cast just felt flat and under-developed. I ultimately came to really like the chief engineer (I'm blanking on his name) and the communications specialist, but Travis and Malcolm felt like uni-dimensional characters, and I didn't even particularly like their one dimension, while the writers didn't seem to really know how to handle T'Pol and the doctor.


Best Enemies

1. Deep Space Nine -- Gul Dukat was the first time that a Trek series really had a consistent face for its enemy, and I loved that face. Dukat is one of the greatest villains ever written -- the bad guy who is the hero in his own internal story, working more desperately as the series progresses to maintain that narrative and ignore the reality at any cost. In addition, The Klingons presented a fascinating dilemma throughout season three, and while the Jemm Hadar seemed like a cheap attempt to emulate TNG's success with The Borg, they worked out almost as well.

2. The Original Series -- Mark Lenard as that dignified Romulan commander, Ricardo Montalban as Khan (twice), V'ger, Christopher Lloyd and Christopher Plummer as unforgettable Klingons; there were just so many great villains in this series.

3. Next Generation -- In addition to the existentially terrifying Borg, I was always most pleased with the Romulans in this series (primarily in season three). They were so lovably sneaky and tactful.

4. Enterprise -- I'm only choosing Enterprise as #4 because Voyager HAD to be #5.

5. Voyager -- They ruined the Borg! I was ready to pretend Star Trek: First Contact never happened, but they brought back the darn Borg Queen again and again, reducing the Borg threat to nothing more than a bunch of cyborg zombie minions. The terrifying thing about the Borg was always the lack of a comprehensible sentient opponent. They were one unyielding, unfeeling, uncompromising will. To put a cyborg slut at their core took all of that away.


Best ship (or station)

1. Enterprise D -- A city amongst the stars. It was the largest and homiest of all the Trek settings. You could easily see yourself living there.

2. Excelsior -- They took the best of the original Enterprise, made it look cooler, and gave it an experimental transwarp drive. You can't get much more exciting than that!

3. Enterprise A -- I just always liked the interior look of this ship. Crisp, clean, modern, and well lit.

4. Voyager -- Interesting design, and I liked the idea of a smaller, sleeker, faster ship. Even those moving warp nacels looked really cool, even though the function seemed pointless. I'm still not sold on the bio-gel packs that powered the whole thing, though.

5. Deep Space Nine -- I've tried to comprehend the size of this thing over the years and always failed. The writers and set designers didn't expend enough effort to really show off enough of the station. Still, there were so many exciting little spots, and that promenade was gorgeous. OPS was a similarly interesting space.


Best Stories

1. Deep Space Nine -- The combination of the fact that the threats developed over the course of many episodes and that every aspect of the show was always subject to change made this show fascinating. True, there weren't nearly enough sci-fi oriented plot lines, but the political developments were always more than enough to have me hooked. You truly never knew what was coming next.

2. Next Generation -- The best sci-fi storylines and the best explorations of human ethics. I learned the most about humanity and myself from watching this series.

3. Original Series -- If you could get past the more campy aspects of this series, there were some breathtaking storylines that did wonders to comment upon the human condition.

4. Enterprise -- Nothing from this series has really wowed me yet, but I've genuinely liked each episode I've watched.

5. Voyager -- The first episode aside, I've never watched an episode of this show that I've actually liked, and I stuck through all of season one when it first aired. Everything about this show was just too forced, absurd, and/or formulaic.


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NOW add up the total points that you have given to each series. If you ranked a series first in any of the above categories, it earns a five. If ranked second, it earns a four. Third gets three, fourth gets two, and fifth gets one. Whichever series receive the most points are the ones that (presumably) best align with your own personal tastes.


Next Generation -- 22
Deep Space Nine -- 17
Original Series -- 14
(other ) -- 11
Voyager -- 6
Enterprise -- 5

In all fairness to Voyager (a show I pretty much loathed!) First contact is what ruined the Borg for just the reason you give. Making them contagious space zombies made them more easily identifiable to the public at large, but also helped make them less special; I found them way more scary when they were just pasty-faced human drones connected to machinery. They had no leader, they had nothing to prove, they didn't look for a mate; they were just this big all-devouring administration turning people into cogs, like a soviet system gone cosmically insane. They were a nice parable for "the system".

The Borg were a bit like Galactus. The first few times around, the principle that they were unbeatable was respected and they remained cool; it took elegant plot twists to include them into a storyline. Later, with repeated appearances, they just became less and less impressive. Didn't they come up with a Borg vaccine in Voyager? For crying out loud.

Disagree over Weasely - hated him all the way through (I did watch several seasons of NexGen); Data did become a somewhat better character, though his faut naive "why do humans/do think that" excuse for exposition wore pretty thin as well, and Worf did become rather less 1-dimensional, but I still never really warmed to any of the characters in that series.

Enterprise I will give you - I think I lasted the pilot and 1 other episode, and only a couple of the earlier DS9 eps.

FWIW, I have pretty much zero interest in Simon Garth!

A fair point. But Trek already has that with the Ferengi!