# Which one is your favorite Star Trek series?



## Swordlady (Sep 8, 2006)

The poll is pretty self-explanatory.  Which Trek series was your favorite, and why?


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## Kacey (Sep 8, 2006)

There's nothing like the original, and the others wouldn't exist without it - in the words of the Law & Order ads - "the original is the best"


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## Grenadier (Sep 8, 2006)

I went with DS9, simply because there was rarely a dull moment. 

The heroes didn't have the luxury of a Galaxy-class starship at their command, and had to take on some grim odds on many an occasion.  They also had to take on quite a few very powerful enemies (Kardassians, The Domion + Jem Haddar, The Breen, etc.).  

Basically, the characters simply didn't have much time to deal with as many personal angst issues.  The tone of the series was much darker, which appealed to my tastes.  


I will say, though, that each of the series did have their strong points.  The original series brought us one of the best villains of all time in the way of Khan Noon Sieng (sp?).  

The Next Generation was finally a step away from the "happy / feel-good" attitude that the original series had.    

Enterprise had a lot of promise, and some of the episodes were excellent indeed, but Berman had already wreaked enough damage to the series.  To quote Sean Connery (probably not exact) in "The Last Crusade,"  "you left, just as you were getting interesting!"

Voyager brought Jeri Ryan.    In all seriousness, though, they got off to a very slow start, and really didn't get that good until the later seasons.


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## Lisa (Sep 8, 2006)

Kacey has a point about the original but I am a die hard TNG fan.  I love Jean Luc but most of all I loved Data.  His relentless journey to become "human" and fit in endeared him to me.  After all, isn't that what we all strive for, to be "normal" and to be accepted?


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## Kacey (Sep 8, 2006)

Lisa said:


> Kacey has a point about the original but I am a die hard TNG fan.  I love Jean Luc but most of all I loved Data.  His relentless journey to become "human" and fit in endeared him to me.  After all, isn't that what we all strive for, to be "normal" and to be accepted?


I admit that Data is one of my favorite characters - possibly my very favorite - but overall, I like the original best... and without it, I'd never have watched any of the others.


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## Swordlady (Sep 8, 2006)

Kacey said:


> There's nothing like the original, and the others wouldn't exist without it - in the words of the Law & Order ads - "the original is the best"



True, without TOS there wouldn't have been any other Treks, but for a show that was "supposed" to be set in the future, I found it to be pretty sexist.  Mind you, I was born several years after TOS went off the air, and didn't get into Star Trek at all until my teen years, so I was viewing it from the perspective of a radical feminist 80's child.

I hate the original Trek, because it solely focused on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy - and pretty much neglected the rest of the cast.  Nichelle Nichols even threatened to walk off the show because of how much her character was underused.  She was persuaded to stay by Martin Luther King Jr., who told her how important her character was to the African-American community.  Kirk bagged just about every single female alien.  The female crewmembers wore ultra-short skirts - which was a big turn-off for me, even during my teens.  And on top of that, there was an offhanded remark during one of the episodes about women not being qualified to captain a Starship (even Roddenberry admitted that statement was sexist).

Star Trek: The Next Generation did better with character development.  Most of the cast got a good bit of airtime to themselves.  The first and second season sucked - especially that one awful episode in the first season where Tasha Yar got killed by a pool of tar.  Wesley Crusher saving the ship every other episode was annoying.  And there was that _horrible_ episode where Riker fought off a virus with bad memories(!)  TNG really took off by season three, highlighted by the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers: The confrontation with the Borg and Captain Picard's subsequent transformation.  

My one grouch was that the two female main characters - Counselor Troi and Dr. Crusher - were once again underutilized and mainly relegated to a passive role.  This was evident in this one episode in the fourth season (Q-pid), where Q transformed the crew into Robin Hood and the Merry Men. There was this big fight scene near the end of the episode, where the men engaged the enemy in swordplay.  As for the women?  Troi and Crusher simply smashed crockery on a couple bad guys' heads.  Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi) complained about not getting enough action scenes.  She said this in a sci-fi magazine interview, and also at a Trek convention I attended.  I'm sure she was thinking about *that* episode with those remarks.  The producers probably heard her loud and clear, because both of them got a *little* bit of fighting action in the last three seasons.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is THE best Trek series of them all, in my not-so-humble opinion.    It featured an intriguing Dominion War story arc, which was subtly introduced in the second season, and exploded into full-blown war by the fifth.

The character development was even better than TNG. Take Captain Sisko, for example.  He started off as a grieving widower and the reluctant "emissary" of the Bajoran people.  Over the course of seven seasons, he gradually accepted his role in Bajoran society, and even found a new relationship along the way.  His relationship with Kasidy was developed gradually; they did NOT just "jump into the sack" the first time they met.  I'm not a romantic by any stretch, but I really liked how DS9 developed long-term relationships (Sisko and Kasidy, Kira and Odo) much more realistically than the previous two Trek series.

DS9 also featured some of the strongest female characters introduced in the Star Trek universe.  Both Major Kira Nerys and Commander Jadzia Dax (who eventually got killed off in the end of season six and replaced by the much-younger Ezri Dax) were a far cry from the primarily passive and "nurturing" Troi and Crusher from TNG.  But though Kira and Dax were tough, they weren't one-dimensional.  Kira was often plagued by her past as a terrorist who lost her family during the Cardassian occupation. She started off hating all Cardassians, period - and ended fighting side-by-side her past oppressors.  I really wish they did more with Jadzia Dax's character.  She wasn't nearly fully developed as Kira, Sisko, Odo, and the others.  Even her successor, Ezri, got a LOT more airtime than she did.

As for the other two Trek series - Voyager and Enterprise - not that good at all.  I watched some episodes of Voyager here and there, but there really wasn't enough to capture my interest.  And Enterprise seemed to be a step backwards to me (in more ways than one) - not to mention that it wreaked absolute havok on the Trek universe's timeline.


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## Grenadier (Sep 8, 2006)

Swordlady said:


> Wesley Crusher


 
Ugh...  Will Wheaton.  I was glad when those Indian-like folks Shanghaied him away from the series.  

I think there's still a newsgroup on Usenet that's called something like alt.fan.wesleycrusher.die.die.die.die.die


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## Kacey (Sep 8, 2006)

You're young yet!  TOS was originally aired when I was a baby.  

Yes, TOS reflects the time in which it was written - but it had a lot of themes that were very new and unheard of at the time - it addressed interracial relationships (Kirk and Uhura had the very first on-screen interracial kiss in Plato's Stepchildren), racism (Let That Be Your Last Battlefied - with the characters who were black and white on opposite sides) - and in the pilot, the second in command - never named, but only called "number 1" - was female, but Gene Roddenberry was asked to change that, for fear he would alienate his audience.


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## Blindside (Sep 9, 2006)

DS9 hands down, of course I like my worlds darker and less utopian than the typical Star Trek fare.  I like that Avery Brooks channelled Hawk to make Sisko a badass. (That sentance makes no sense unless you are a fan.....)  I like that the Federation has a secret agency that works in the best interest of the Federation, using decidedly unFederation enforcement methods.  This is good, it makes the world more real, particularly compared to early TNG episodes that were super preachy.  

Of course DS9 was just a poor man's Babylon 5. 

Lamont


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## MA-Caver (Sep 9, 2006)

I voted for the original series because it was a ground breaker in almost every respects. For it's time it had outstanding special effects (cheesy by today's standards). For it's time it was the first to actually have a crew of mix races and tried their best to represent ALL of (earth's) races. The first to have an alien (Spock) as a full fledge crew member and an officer to boot. Many of the episodes dealt with the day's controversial subjects; war, race relations, spiritual beliefs, and many many "what-if's" had history been changed here or on other planets. It's also been parody'ed to great effect. I remember one black comedian (a 90 day wonder) talking about the show during his monologue: "check out that Spock guy, so cool and all that... (bends down to pick up an imaginary object and stands back up holding said imaginary object...pauses and then looks up and says in monotone Spock's voice) ... The ni--er is a cube captian" If you didn't watch that particular episode you'd have no idea what he's referring to but if you did, chances are you were on the floor rolling and trying to breathe from laughing so hard. 
The movie franchise was good until the fifth and sixth installments. Wrath of Khan was probably the best thanks to Ricardo Montebaln's over the top revenge act. 
The Next Generation is a secondary favorite of mine and I agree with Swordlady's assessments. Better character development and good story writing after the first three seasons. I recall something that Arsenio Hall once observed about the new series about how great it was "...but, all the brothers... why aren't they normal? One of them got those funky weird looking shades and the other got a whole line of warts running up his head..."
But overall with the later episodes they were well thought out and written and acted. I was so glad that Frakes decided to grow a beard. 
The movie franchise of that series was also good, except for the fact that Riker kept wrecking all the ships... did anyone else notice that? 

DS-9... ehhh didn't bark up my tree as much.
Voyager... watched mebbe one or two episodes then had enough.
Enterprise ... haven't seen a one. But by then I was turned off commericalized television altogether. Still am.


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## Drac (Sep 9, 2006)

The original series.. I especially liked the blond yeoman that had the hots for Kirk..She had great legs...What a chavinistic remark, I need more coffee...Seriously nothing will ever top Spock's one raised eyebrow at key moments,,,


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## Swordlady (Sep 9, 2006)

Blindside said:


> Of course DS9 was just a poor man's Babylon 5.
> 
> Lamont



:whip:  

B5 _bored_ me to death.  My exboyfriend (this was seven years ago) tried to get me into B5, and subjected me to the first episode.  I fell asleep within twenty minutes.


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## OnlyAnEgg (Sep 9, 2006)

TNG is my hands-down favorite.  The cast interactions and depth of story far surpass the others in the franchise.

Least fave?  Voyager.  I liked it better when it was called 'Lost In Space'.


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## MA-Caver (Sep 9, 2006)

Drac said:


> The original series.. I especially liked the blond yeoman that had the hots for Kirk..She had great legs...What a chavinistic remark, I need more coffee...Seriously nothing will ever top Spock's one raised eyebrow at key moments,,,



That was Rand... she also appeared in the first motion picture when the transporter on the Starbase failed. Played by Grace Lee Whitney.


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## FearlessFreep (Sep 9, 2006)

Another favorite line - 

Data: "I am not less perfect than Lor"


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## SFC JeffJ (Sep 9, 2006)

I have to go with the original.  Yes it reflected the times in which it was made, but what show doesn't?  It did open up though with all the races and female crew members and officers.  Plus red should be the color for the throwaway cremembers who die before the opening credits.  The color makes a better target.

Jeff


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## Kreth (Sep 9, 2006)

My favorite was DS9. I thought Brooks was excellent as Sisko, and there was a very involved storyline with the Klingons, who remain my favorite Trek characters.
I was also a huge B5 fan. It was interesting to see a series with a planned 5-year storyline.


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## ArmorOfGod (Sep 9, 2006)

Okay, I am the black sheep.  I am the one who voted VOY as their favorite.  I realize it was not the best of the Treks, but it was the one that pulled me in emotionally.

My library just got all 7 seasons on dvd (which is almost 49 dvds, with 4 episodes per dvd), and they allow me to check out 2 dvd's out at a time.  Right now I am about to watch disc one of season 6 and I am loving it.

By the way, has anyone seen how the little girl who played Naomi Wildman turned out?  Yowza, she's hot!  In fact, here is a pic:  http://scarlettpomers.com/resume.html

AoG
fanboy x-treme (note the way I spelled that--that makes me cool)


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## Ninjamom (Sep 9, 2006)

DS9, hands down!

How could anyone *not* fall in love with those sleezy Feringian traders (I'm sure I've had a few call me at home to try to sell me something).  And talk about strong female characters breaking cultural taboos - what about Quark's Mom, who dared to wear..._clothes_!

Then of course there was Engineer O'Brien, the first Star Trek working class enlisted guy who didn't get blasted as soon as he beamed down to an alien world.

DS9 had the most involved plot development, the most profound character development, and I thought it did the best at addressing complex issues with a good mix of action/adventure and subtle comedy.


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## Bob Hubbard (Sep 9, 2006)

Original Series.

I pretty much ignore Vger and Ent.  Too many plot holes, too far from the original, and Ent broke canon too often.

TNG was decent, once it found it's direction, and DS9 was good too, once you got past 1st season.


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## IWishToLearn (Sep 9, 2006)

TNG. By a long shot. Although recently through having a lot of injury related time off, I've become a DS9 fan. TOS and Voyager still turn me way off though...and Enterprise I haven't seen enough of to be interested or disinterested in.


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## FearlessFreep (Sep 10, 2006)

I like TOS and much of TNG the best.  I'm going to turn the whole "character development" thing on it's head and say that often "character development" means "soap opera"

What made TOS work so well is that they started out with some pretty basic character types and left them alone.  Kirk's personality didn't change or grow througout the series, Kirk was "Kirk".  Instead, the attention was on the stories, and the stories were, for the most part, very good stories.  Explorations of humanity, of political ideas, of the impact of technology on us, of different cultures and how we would react to them.  For the most part TNG followed this, especially with Data and with Q.  Data was used to explore what it meant to be human, Q was used to explore what humans could become if they grew culturally, etc...  The stories worked; they attmpted to be challenging, to try to stretch your imagination and explore new ways f looking at problems.  TOS did what sci-fi does best, use an alternative setting to explore basic questions of humanity.

And that's where I lost interest in DS9, especially.  TOS had "does humanity need gods?", TNG had "Has humanity grown enough to be worthy of not wiping out of existance?", DS9 had "little Ferengi kid wants to join Star Fleet".  Bah...  (TNG ended up getting bogged down toward the end, as well)


To be honest, I think a lot of time "character development" is a substitute for "lack of good ideas".  By that I mean that you can learn to do 'character development' just by going to writing classes. Well or poorly, just about anyone can do it.  To come up with *really* creative stories that challenge the viewer as they challenge the characters requires a really creative mind, and i's a lot harder to just hire a bunch of writers to do.  So instead of moving stories, you get cliched stories that focus on 'character development', because it's a cheap and easy way out for the writers and the producers

I didn't watch too much of Voyager but from the start I thought "it's going to suffer 'Battlestar Galactica' syndrome" meaning that if you start 
a series based on a quest, someday the quest has to come to an end or you just get redundant, repetitive, and strecthed out excuses for "well we didn't get home *this* week...what's next?"

Not that 'character development' in a TV series is bad in it's own right, but therte are a *heck* of a lot of TV shows that use this as the main motivator.  Roddenberry's original vision for Star Trek was that humanity had overcome many of it's vices so it was time to go out and explore the galaxy and see how humanity meet the galalxy, and this was a way of mirroring back to our own culture today (and because of this, there was little time for 'character developement' amongs the principles and indeed as the principles represent 'types' of humaity, you couldn't really have character development, because the characters stop reperesenting aspects of 'us').  TOS did this very well, TNG did it OK...great in some palces, sappy in others.  B&B didn't seem to have a clue so we got soap operas disguised as sci-fi

</rant>


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## mrhnau (Sep 11, 2006)

Love the original. Don't need spectacular effects to make a great story. I liked that the captain actually went on away teams and got to kiss every kind of woman (red, purple, green, etc). The stories were original (well, relatively) and the acting overdramatics LOL. Crew was great and likeable.

TNG gets an honorable mention. I just wish Spike showed the original instead of DS9.

Other ones I pretty much don't watch. I saw enough of Voyager to give myself heartburn. Enterprise was ok, but not worth watching. DS9 was blech. I heard it got better in later series but it seemed too much like a soap opera with funny looking participants.


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## matt.m (Sep 11, 2006)

I watched the originals as a kid in the 70's.  I enjoyed the first four movies.  TNG and DS9 were cool but hey, Spock and McCoy were the coolest.


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## Swordlady (Sep 12, 2006)

I don't know how many of you watched Voyager; I only watched a few episodes myself.  Remember Naomi Wildman, Seven's little friend?  Scarlett Pomers (the actress who played Naomi) has really grown up: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=22446492


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## Swordlady (Sep 12, 2006)

FearlessFreep said:


> I like TOS and much of TNG the best.  I'm going to turn the whole "character development" thing on it's head and say that often "character development" means "soap opera"



Sorry, bud...I have to disagree with you big time.  Good character stories make a television show or movie more interesting than pure action scenes with one-dimensional characters.  Think about some of the more successful sci-fi movies, like the original Star Wars Trilogy.  Those movies weren't successful just because of the action scenes.  People flocked to them because the characters themselves were engaging and fleshed out.  Conversely, that is one of the big problems many Star Wars fans had with the newer prequels: the poor character development - particularly the villains, Darth Maul and Count Dooku.

The character stories drove both TNG and DS9, when folks weren't shooting at each other.  Some of the best DS9 episodes were pure character pieces, like "Duet" and "The Visitor".

Any screenwriter with half a brain cell can write an action scene.  But to write a good character story?  That takes _skill_, my friend.


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