Here is how I rank them. 1 TOS. 2 DS9. 3 The Orville. 4 TNG. 5 Lower Decks. 6 Voyager. 7 Enterprise. 8 Picard. 9 Discovery. 10 TAS. I will say TNG is number 1 though when it comes to pure nostalgia. It's the one I am likely to put on if I am feeling sad and depressed.
I like TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager for different reasons. In the same way that I like different sorts of rock music, from heavy stuff like Iron Maiden and Deep Purple to Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Byrds and Pink Floyd. Sometimes I find it hard to state that DS9 is best or Voyager is best or so because I like different aspects of the shows. However, I must state that in recent years I have discovered that DS9 is the one with most depth, character development and good stories.
As for TOS, I came in late in that one. I watched the movies first and when around the time TNG started to air on one of my channels, TOS showed up on another. OK, it was a bit primitive when it came to filming and such, after all it was made in the 60's. But the characters are very likeable, great actually and the stories are mostly very good. And TOS is TOS, the father of it all. Like Elvis for rock music.
When I started to watch TNG, I was first a bit disappointed. I had watched the TOS movies and a few episodes and after watching the pilot of TNG I thought "is that all there is?" But I continued to watch it and after a few episodes I started to like it more and more. Around season 3 when the series really became excellent, I thought that it was the best I've seen. It also has very likeable characters and TNG is still a series which I watch with great joy.
I had a troubled story with DS9. One of my channels started to air it after I'd seen the last TNG episode and in the light of that, the first episodes of DS9 didn't seem too great. I thought that the series was OK, the characters OK but sort of "TNG:s minor team" in a way. Kira and Quark was those I liked the most from the start. Unfortunately, the station I had which aired DS9 cancelled it after only one season. Some years later, I signed up for a paid channel in order to be able to watch DS9, only to see the channel close down after a few weeks. When I finally started to buy the series on DVD, I had problems wih bad quality DVD.s which continued for some time. I'm sure that my angry posts a bout low-quality DVD:s still can be found on this site.
But when I finally got DVD.s of good qualities and got the chance to watch the series from start to finish, then I realized how incredible good it is. The development of the characters and their interaction, the windling story which takes some unexpected twists and turns here and there all the way from the Bajoran-Cardassian conflict to the Dominion war and all other exciting plots. Even the villains are the best.
Right now I'm into my fifth rewatch of the series and it's still as exciting as it always has been. It's also nice to discover things which I haven't noticed before in the series.
Voyager is another chapter. I actually found Voyager while visiting a shop where it was possible to rent VHS tapes from movies, series and such for a decent sum. Legally, I must point out. I was out to find a copy of
Move Along Home which a malfunctioning VHS player had obstucted for me when I was about to tape it from TV an evening when I was at a rock concert so I could just watch 10 minutes of it before the VHS player had stopped recording. Eager about to finf´d out how it ended, I went to the shop to borrow the episode. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything DS9. But they had all season 1 of Voyager.
So I borrowed
Caretaker and I really liked what I was watching. I took an immediate liking to all the main characters which only has happened to me one more time and that was with NCIS some years later, they were introduced in a very good way in the episode and the premise with a ship lost in space was brilliant.
So I watched Voyager with great joy for three seasons but in the long run, the series became a disappointment for me. I still like the first three seasons and the characters but Voyager could and should have been much better than it was. bad writing and stupid decisions by those in charge ruined it in a way.
I neve liked Enterprise. I found the characters bland and boring and the whole idea of a retro series stupid. They couldn't even make it look like TOS and they also started to mess upp established Trek history. So I quit after 4 or 5 episodes and never turned back.
As for the recent stuff, I never really liked the NuTrek movies which I see as a desperate attempt to squeeze out the last of TOS. Discovery is downright horrible! The characters are lousy, the whole series is dark and gloomy, not to mention the Mutant Ninja Turtles Warriors Klingons.
And Picard is also dark and gloomy, only interesting because Picard is in it.
So as it is now, I'm quite happy with re-watchin TOS, TNG, DS9 and the first three seasons of Voyager. There are aspects of all those shows which I really like but if I have to choose, then I pick DS9 as the overall most watchable.
