Nerdist Article: "Every Star Trek Series, Ranked from Worst to Best

[Richard S. Claus]

I'd put DS9 at the bottom. Sorry.

So would I.

I'd probably put Lower Decks somewhere in the middle. I've only seen each episode once, but I like its different take on Star Trek.

I feel like I can't rate TAS on its own. To me, it's really just the fourth season of TOS in animated form. I think it comes with the package as an extension. TAS has the same actors, a lot of the same creators, and it was made so close in time relative to TOS.

So, by extension, I think I'd rate TAS pretty high.

Same. It's regarded as the ugly stepchild of TOS, but I think it serves as a perfectly good Season 4. In many cases it's a better run of Trek than TOS Season 3. I think 'extension' is a great way to think of it.

If it gets an award for excessive profanity, that's great.

Ha.

Season 2 promises the return of Guinan and Q. If they do Q right, that alone would be massively in the show's favor.

Just imagine...

Q appears

Picard: Get the fuck out, Q!

Q: But Jean-Luc...

Guinan enters

Guinan: You heard him, Q! Get the fuck out!

Q: Fuck!

Q disappears

Picard: Thank fuck for that.

Seeing as we love lists:

9) DS9
8) VOY
7) LD
6) TNG
5) PIC
4) ENT
3) DIS
2) TAS/TOS
1) TOS/TAS

 

[SolarisOne]

TOS being at the top by default just seems weird to me. Also, Lower Decks should be much higher

 

[1001001]

Here's the Correct List:

1. TNG
2. VOY
3. DSC
4. ENT
5. DS9
6. TOS
7. LWD
8. PIC

 

[Annorax849]

I generally don’t rank series until they finish their third season, unless they’re finished of course.

7. TAS
6. Discovery
5. Enterprise
4. Voyager
3. TOS
2. TNG
1. DS9

Discovery’s still early and has a chance of going up, though it needs to be better than S3 was imo. Enterprise might have made #3 if it had another season like the 4th. I definitely appreciate TOS more now than when I was a kid

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The only thing I’d strongly disagree with is Voyager over Discovery. The top three are acceptable in any order.

But putting intentional average ness over risk taking with mixed results is insane.

For me Disco is #4 by a wide margin in both directions. And I’d also have Lower Decks over Ent.

The first two seasons of Ent are the worst Trek by far. Having one and a half redeeming seasons was not enough to fix that.

 

[Crisp Conditions]

Favorite to least favorite:

1. TOS
2. TNG
3. LDS
4. TAS
5. DS9
6. VOY
7. PIC
8. ENT
9. DISCO

 

[Santa Kang]

1. TOS
2. DS9
3. ENT
4. TNG
5. PIC
6. DISCO
7. LDS
8. TAS
9. VOY

 

[suarezguy]

I would have to disagree that Enterprise or Voyager had strong casts.

Agreed on the top 3, would put the animated series a lot higher (lower budget is OK, most of the visuals were at least still fine usually nicely creative).

 

[Lord Garth]

TOS being at the top by default just seems weird to me. Also, Lower Decks should be much higher

It's tough for people to not rate TOS, TNG, or DS9 at the very top. When I first "came out" and put DSC at the top, my thoughts were, "If I'm ever going to get a ton of flak on this board and attacked in all directions, it's going to be now... "

 

[Vger23]

I don’t default TOS.

It just happens to be my favorite television show of all-time. Nothing else even comes close.

 

[1001001]

It's tough for people to not rate TOS, TNG, or DS9 at the very top. When I first "came out" and put DSC at the top, my thoughts were, "If I'm ever going to get a ton of flak on this board and attacked in all directions, it's going to be now... "

Meh.

Not all that different than being a VOY or ENT fan.

I hasten to add that although I put up my list for fun, I like ALL the shows to some degree, except PIC. And that one I liked until the last couple of episodes.

To each his/her own. IDIC and all that...

 

[Arpy]

More favorite to least than best to worst:

1. TNG
2. TOS Movies
3. TOS
4. DS9
5. PIC
6. VOY
7. TNG Movies
8. DSC
9. LWD
10. JJ Movies
11. TAS
12. ENT

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I would have to disagree that Enterprise or Voyager had strong casts.

Agreed on the top 3, would put the animated series a lot higher (lower budget is OK, most of the visuals were at least still fine usually nicely creative).

I would say that Voyager had maybe half a strong cast (which is not much worse than what TNG had). And Enterprise had one, maybe two strong contenders but still managed to consistently waste pretty much everyone's talents, even the ones who had little talent to waste.

Anyway, my ranking would be:

1) DS9 - Complex, interesting, memorable, incredible cast.
2) TOS - Most of the same pros as DS9, arguably better in some ways, definitely way more dated in other (sometimes disturbing) ways.
3) PIC - Great character stuff. The story arc needed work, but was at least filled with cool ideas.
4) DSC - Love the characters, steadily less impressed by the writing (which was patchy to begin with).
5) LDS - No particular complaints, it just doesn't strongly grab me at all.
6) TNG - A few particular classic characters and a few more particular classic episodes, but at least 75% a stale void that I just don't care about anymore.
7) VOY - Mostly wasted potential, but with some major bright spots.
8) TAS - Kind of fun for a lark but clearly even the writers/producers didn't actually care about it.
9) ENT - Worst cast of characters and worst writing in the franchise, pretty much consistently.

 

[valkyrie013]

1. Tos- first love
2. ENT - somewhat wasted premise but the one I always end up re Watching.
3. LD - enjoyed all episodes so far
4. TNG - second love but not without it's problems
5. DS9 - bit clunky at times, and the whole klingon war arc wasn't needed.
6. DSC - good but the writing is sub par alot.
7. VOY - ruined great premise with very sub par scripts almost never rewatch
8. PIC - love Patrick but ugh.. Horrible writing.
Only watched the Spock ep on TAS so no comment on that series.

 

[Nyotarules]

Based on how I felt watching the whole franchise, from 1. Being I look forward to this and 10. Being this is such a chore, why am I doing this

1. DS9
2. TOS
3. LD
4. DSC
5. PIC
6. ENT
7. TNG
8. VOY
9. TAS

 

[FelizNavidad_Qapla]

1. DS9 – peak Star Trek writing

2. TNG – showed the positive, optimistic, hopeful future that Star Trek is about

3. TOS/TAS – set the standard for all Star Trek that has come afterword

4. VOY – enjoyable if a bit heavy on the technobabble, but missed several good writing opportunities

5. LD – captures the Star Trek spirit

6. PIC – moving the franchise forwards past NEM, which had been needed for a very long time

7. ST – has shown how good DIS can be, and some inventive short stories too

8. DIS – made for tv movies every season

9. ENT – it does Star Trek a favour in fleshing out the 22nd century more. But between uninspired writing for most of its run, the main cast not being used to their full potential, too much overhead interference from execs wanting to play it safe (what’s that line from Q about playing it safe? ), and the deleted scenes that actually would have made the show better and humanized the characters better had they stayed in, its no wonder the show never reached the same reverence as TNG & DS9 when it had all the pieces necessary to do so.

 

[MacLeod]

Not a terrible list of ranking.

I think I would go with DSN for the top spot as for the runner up it's a toss up between TOS and TNG, TOS had a great first couple of seasons and a poor third season as for TNG S3-5 is were I think it hit it's peak with a lacklustre first couple of seasons and average last couple of seasons.

I think I would have to go with VOY in 4th place whilst it had it's moments for me it never lived up to it's potential played it overly safe at times.

DSC would be in 5th place I can't fault the production standards or the cast but I'm not keen on the character of Burnham, I think at times the writers are trying to force down our throats how great she is.

ENT would be in 6th If we had been more like the last couple of season it might have ranked higher

TAS in 7th

As for PIC I think I'll reserve jdugement until the end of S2 and I haven't seen Lower Decks

 

[TheAdmiralty]

TOS and TNG are basically tied at the top for me although if pressed I'd probably pick TOS because I like that universe more and the best TOS episodes are the best Star Trek there's ever been. TNG has a lot more good episodes and the lows aren't as bad, though.

Ds9, Enterprise, and Discovery fall into the middle tier.

Voyager at the bottom. A few good episodes and Ryan and Picardo's acting was good but overall just ughh.

NS Picard, LD, or TAS.

 

[rocketscientist]

I don’t default TOS.

It just happens to be my favorite television show of all-time. Nothing else even comes close.

Same with me, Vger23.

 

[rocketscientist]

WRT TAS, the best thing about it was generally the stories. Yeah, they were cut down to half the time as TOS, but the plots, for the most part were really great and they could do things they simply couldn't do with late 60s/early 70s effects by using animation.

Unfortunately, they didn't have a great budget and a lot of the animation was stock. I suggested to my CEO here, who's a huge TOS fan, that it would be great if they simply reanimated all those stories, like they did with the remastered sfx of TOS and used the original voice tracks for a new edition of TAS. Get rid of all the stock footage and replace it with CGI animation.

One final note. As I said, the stories are where TOS shines. Alan Dean Foster novelized all these episodes for a series of ST books published by Del Rey and they're great fun to read. Anyone read them?