I love TOS, it will always be my favorite show. I think that if I had to say what I think sets it apart from the other Trek series', it's that Kirk, McCoy and even Spock are normal people with identifiable human emotions and flaws, on the other hand the TNG characters are self-righteous snobs who seem to think that their "evolved" farts smell like roses. In the TOS episode Arena, Kirk refuses to kill the Gorn and take revenge, but he wants to, which is a normal human thing, it's a good story because he resisted doing something wrong out of strong emotion. If that episode were on TNG, I can imagine Picard saying something like "I don't feel a need for revenge, I'm not like those barbarians from the twentieth century!" The whole show is filled with that sort of odd misanthropy, even in "Encounter at Farpoint" the main arc of the episode is centred on putting humanity on trial for being awful while Picard apologizes for how disgusting the people of the 20th century (you and I) are and talks about how superior the people of his era are.
That sort of attitude taints almost every episode in some way and I hate it. I also can't stand the Pinnochio trope that Data goes through and the implication that androids are equal to living beings, that the people in "Measure of a Man" who want to take him apart and learn how he works are somehow the bad guys, and the idea that Doctor Pulaski is somehow bad for treating him like a machine with smart programming (which he is) as opposed to a living being, which he is not. You see the same thing with Holodeck characters like Moriarty, and the Doctor in Voyager. I understand it's a metaphor for things like black people and gypsies fighting for their equality, but the implication is frightening and pretty repulsive.
Voyager is similarly misanthropic with worse acting, and DS9 has the same problems as TNG, except they try to be "gritty" by copying Babylon 5 and fail because they still portray the Federation as the unquestionable good guys even though they were the aggressive party who started the Dominion war. One thing that they did better was portray spirituality, which was present in TOS but sneered upon in TNG (another example of "Roddenberry's vision" disliking the reality of humanity) but they did it quite badly, and I cringed at "the Sisko."
Of the Star Trek films, my favorite is The Wrath of Khan, and to be honest my "head canon" ends after the film, with Spock dying and TNG never happening. However, the third movie isn't that bad.
As for Babylon 5, the acting is bad, it's cheesy and over dramatic, the set design looks like a stage play and the graphics look like Gameboy Color graphics, but the show is so good because it shows a more realistic human future (although I doubt there will be a United Earth, but I understand that it's an easier plot device than portraying different human states competing in space), much of the show is about moral gray area and the complexity of humanity, it's neither dystopia or utopia. Although the portrayal of human religion on the show was often highly inaccurate, I was really pleased that they portrayed it and used religious themes as plot devices. I'm also partial to the long arc sort of story as opposed episodic "monster of the week" sci-fi, but I don't mind either if the show is good.
Anyway, I'm sorry for writing all of that and I apologize if I offended anyone (I know people take Trek seriously) but I wanted to be clear about what I do and don't like, so that you can make recommendations for me.
What series do you recommend?
That sort of attitude taints almost every episode in some way and I hate it. I also can't stand the Pinnochio trope that Data goes through and the implication that androids are equal to living beings, that the people in "Measure of a Man" who want to take him apart and learn how he works are somehow the bad guys, and the idea that Doctor Pulaski is somehow bad for treating him like a machine with smart programming (which he is) as opposed to a living being, which he is not. You see the same thing with Holodeck characters like Moriarty, and the Doctor in Voyager. I understand it's a metaphor for things like black people and gypsies fighting for their equality, but the implication is frightening and pretty repulsive.
Voyager is similarly misanthropic with worse acting, and DS9 has the same problems as TNG, except they try to be "gritty" by copying Babylon 5 and fail because they still portray the Federation as the unquestionable good guys even though they were the aggressive party who started the Dominion war. One thing that they did better was portray spirituality, which was present in TOS but sneered upon in TNG (another example of "Roddenberry's vision" disliking the reality of humanity) but they did it quite badly, and I cringed at "the Sisko."
Of the Star Trek films, my favorite is The Wrath of Khan, and to be honest my "head canon" ends after the film, with Spock dying and TNG never happening. However, the third movie isn't that bad.
As for Babylon 5, the acting is bad, it's cheesy and over dramatic, the set design looks like a stage play and the graphics look like Gameboy Color graphics, but the show is so good because it shows a more realistic human future (although I doubt there will be a United Earth, but I understand that it's an easier plot device than portraying different human states competing in space), much of the show is about moral gray area and the complexity of humanity, it's neither dystopia or utopia. Although the portrayal of human religion on the show was often highly inaccurate, I was really pleased that they portrayed it and used religious themes as plot devices. I'm also partial to the long arc sort of story as opposed episodic "monster of the week" sci-fi, but I don't mind either if the show is good.
Anyway, I'm sorry for writing all of that and I apologize if I offended anyone (I know people take Trek seriously) but I wanted to be clear about what I do and don't like, so that you can make recommendations for me.
What series do you recommend?
