Meanwhile, to return to our regularly scheduled thread, they included VOYAGER and not DS9? Okay, that's just weird . . .
The word your looking for is insane. Any list who would do something like that isn't worth the paper it's printed on quite frankly.
Or the electrons they're printed on, or something.
Yeah, that alone is reason to discount the entire list. The lack of Farscape just nails the coffin shut.
DS9 is the closest in spirit to TOS of all the spinoff series. I can't quote exactly (I'm sure more than one person here has it memorized
) but in one episode, Kirk makes some comment about how Starfleet isn't all holy and pure and they might not be able to say they'll never kill anyone again, but they can decide not to kill anyone today.
To me, this expresses the theme of TOS. Later on, Sisko states the theme of DS9: The Federation is paradise and it's easy to be a saint in paradise, meaning that Starfleet, being the people who the Federation sends outside its borders, are the ones who aren't and can't be saints.
Those two sentiments are essentially the same idea. I can't recall anyplace in TNG where Picard made a similar admission. He was too busy puffing out his chest and telling every alien he met how holy and pure and perfect Starfleet was, and how obviously wrong they were. And then the Enterprise flies way and leaves the aliens to ponder the wisdom of Captain Perfect. VOY and for the most part ENT just continued in that vein.
This kind of Starfleet arrogance never failed to annoy me. It's so damn cheap. Of course the writers can contrive stories that make Starfleet look good and the disposable aliens of the week look bad! TOS and DS9 were honest enough to throw the moral burden onto the main characters, where the writers would be forced to actually deal with moral issues, not sweep them under the rug on a weekly basis.
Of course, being episodic, TOS wasn't ever able to deal with those issues as thoroughly as DS9, but serialized shows weren't usual in the 60s, so I don't fault TOS for that.
I've never boughten into the idea that the value of art is completely subjective.
Of course it's not. That would mean any nonsensical sequence of events you or I might think of, and put into prose form, is just as good as Hamlet. Just the one example I've cited - a story that places the moral burden on important, recurring characters - is superior to a story that places the moral burden on disposable characters, because it's more honest and also harder for writers to deal with successfully because it requires effort and thought, versus just dusting off an old plotline with the obviously-wrong aliens of the week and giving it a few tweaks.
Babylon 5 dealt with economics, the homeless of "Down below" the illegal strike of the dock workers. DS9 had the fantasy economics of Star Trek.
I thought the topic here was which one was "real" sci fi, and if we're talking economics, DS9 has the stronger claim. B5's economics are the same as the politics - a metaphor for modern-day economics and politics. Not bad in and of itself, of course, but that's sci fi as metaphor, and my idea of "real" sci fi deals directly with speculation about things that don't exist in the real world.
DS9's economics could be based on the invention of the replicator, which suddenly upended all the rules by eliminating scarcity. And if that's what happened, then DS9 truly does have sci fi economics, based on speculation about a future technology that changes the situation entirely.
However, this notion has never been explored to any extent, so I wouldn't count it as evidence of DS9 being hard sci fi. But B5's economics aren't evidence that it's hard sci fi either.
I have a massive hate-on for that movie and have to disparage it at every opportunity. Back on topic, I don't get why people are criticizing shows for lack of plausible science. I thought part of the original appeal and meaning of science fiction is that it takes the language of science and applies it to things that are fantastical without any intention of being scientifically accurate. 
