So who thinks the Original Series is the Best of all other Series

[RookieBatman]

Star Trek. When it was good it was awesome. When it was okay it was still interesting. When it stumbled it still wasn't boring.

So true. I think that if the whole show had been like the average third season episode, it would never had soared to the heights of greatness that it did, but I think it still would've been a fun and successful space-opera adventure show. After all, if season one was "Wagon Train to the stars," wasn't season three "Wild, Wild West in space?"

 

[Tribbles]

It's not fair for me to chime in since I haven't seen much of the other series... but I'm going to do it anyway and say TOS FTW!

 

[Red Ranger]

Without TOS, you would have no other Trek. It was the first, and it is the best. It's iconic.

 

[Orcus]

Without TOS, you would have no other Trek. It was the first, and it is the best. It's iconic.

And I couldn't say it fairer than that...

 

[Memphis_2010]

Nothing beats The Original Series! Enterprise and TNG are pretty good (Enterprise more than TNG), but TOS is still #1!

 

[jefferiestubes8]

who really thinks that the original series is the best series out of all the Star Trek Series out there??

Hi Dee007, welcome.
some good answers here so far even though some delve into minutae (in answering such a broad question).

The Trek fans here are very opinionated and the threads are very specific.
When you start a thread such as this one in this subforum you are going to get some varied answers.
I like what Gene Roddenberry started in TOS for the franchise and world he created but I don't think TOS is the best of all the 5 series.
The production values are the lowest. Everyone knows it was generally a low budget 1960s TV series even though the pilot(s) cost a lot.

The production values of a modern day (late 1990s until now) TV series just are so much higher.
The types of writing in TNG, VOY, ENT are varied with story arcs spanning multiple episodes unlike TOS where you have mostly all-in-one-episodes neatly tied up at the end.
Episodic TV has changed with Hill Street Blues & NYPD Blue, Heroes, Alias, Lost and VOY & ENT with long story arcs.

Read some of the best-of episode threads asking people what their best-of favorite episodes are of the 5 series and watch those on Netflix Dee007.

 

[RookieBatman]

The types of writing in TNG, VOY, ENT are varied with story arcs spanning multiple episodes unlike TOS where you have mostly all-in-one-episodes neatly tied up at the end.

I just like to think of this as indicating that TOS didn't need multi-arc stories. Episodes like Corbomite Maneuver, City, and Journey to Babel are just as epic as any three episodes of most other shows. Story arcs are well and good, but they're not automatically better in themselves.

 

[plynch]

Best and best, what is best?

- I, Morg

 

[Brutal Strudel]

The types of writing in TNG, VOY, ENT are varied with story arcs spanning multiple episodes unlike TOS where you have mostly all-in-one-episodes neatly tied up at the end.

I just like to think of this as indicating that TOS didn't need multi-arc stories. Episodes like Corbomite Maneuver, City, and Journey to Babel are just as epic as any three episodes of most other shows. Story arcs are well and good, but they're not automatically better in themselves.

Indeed. While I'm a fan of many long form series, let's not forget that soap operas--god-awful, moronic soap operas--had been doing story arcs for decades before shows like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere adapted the form to serve as a vehicle for worthwhile drama.

 

[Noname Given]

The types of writing in TNG, VOY, ENT are varied with story arcs spanning multiple episodes unlike TOS where you have mostly all-in-one-episodes neatly tied up at the end.

I just like to think of this as indicating that TOS didn't need multi-arc stories. Episodes like Corbomite Maneuver, City, and Journey to Babel are just as epic as any three episodes of most other shows. Story arcs are well and good, but they're not automatically better in themselves.

Indeed. While I'm a fan of many long form series, let's not forget that soap operas--god-awful, moronic soap operas--had been doing story arcs for decades before shows like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere adapted the form to serve as a vehicle for worthwhile drama.

One thing that REALLY started to bug me with regard to the writing of TNG and the other 'modern' Star Trek series was the insistence on the 'A' (prime story) and 'B' (seperate sub story) structure that berman seemed to favor. It SUCKED, and was used TOO OFTEN in 'modern' Star Trek. In TOS you RARELY saw that type of structure in an episode; (and even if it were there, the B story did tie directly to the A story). Again, it was the exception in TOS; where it became the RULE for TNG - and IMO, TNG suffered foir it.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

^ I have a pretty low opinion of the A story/B story form, as well. Sometimes, it seems to be driven just by the need to give a bloated cast of regular characters something to do. Sometimes it just seems to take more than one story to fill up the hour...to which I say, if your main story isn't meaty enough to fill up fifty minutes of air time, get back to the drawing board!

Also, many examples that have been given over the years of TOS employing the A story/B story format just aren't valid. Having two (or more) focuses on an episode's central dilemma, as in a landing party on the ground and a team on the ship working on the same problem (as TOS often did) is quite a different thing than having one team of characters trying to solve a serious problem while another team of characters discuss watercolor painting or some other hobby (as TNG and later Treks often did).

 

[maryh]

The types of writing in TNG, VOY, ENT are varied with story arcs spanning multiple episodes unlike TOS where you have mostly all-in-one-episodes neatly tied up at the end.

I just like to think of this as indicating that TOS didn't need multi-arc stories. Episodes like Corbomite Maneuver, City, and Journey to Babel are just as epic as any three episodes of most other shows. Story arcs are well and good, but they're not automatically better in themselves.

Indeed. While I'm a fan of many long form series, let's not forget that soap operas--god-awful, moronic soap operas--had been doing story arcs for decades before shows like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere adapted the form to serve as a vehicle for worthwhile drama.

I am so OD'ed on the soap-opera, continuous saga type shows. The problem with them is that the focus of these types of shows are rooted in human drama. I'm sick to death of relationship sagas, troubled family sagas, high school sagas, war sagas etc. All the sagas revolve around Humans and Earth based elements. The realm of Sci-Fi is supposed to revolve around out-of-this-world elements. I don't want to watch Kirk's bout with alcoholism, Uhura's love-life saga, or McCoy's mid-life crisis saga. I'd rather see differing takes on how a life form that has a one hundred thousand year life span might behave.

 

[I-Am-Zim]

Hi All,

Its my first time here so I wanted to ask all of you, who really thinks that the original series is the best series out of all the Star Trek Series out there??

Just wondering, anybody thinks that????

ME!!! Absolutely! TOS rules!!!

 

[plynch]

One thing that REALLY started to bug me with regard to the writing of TNG and the other 'modern' Star Trek series was the insistence on the 'A' (prime story) and 'B' (seperate sub story) structure that berman seemed to favor. It SUCKED, and was used TOO OFTEN in 'modern' Star Trek. In TOS you RARELY saw that type of structure in an episode; (and even if it were there, the B story did tie directly to the A story). Again, it was the exception in TOS; where it became the RULE for TNG - and IMO, TNG suffered foir it.

There's a thread about A/B storylines here

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=117971

assuming my cut and paste of the address works.

 

[RookieBatman]

I don't want to watch Kirk's bout with alcoholism, Uhura's love-life saga, or McCoy's mid-life crisis saga. I'd rather see differing takes on how a life form that has a one hundred thousand year life span might behave.

I think that's Kirk's mid-life crisis and McCoy's bout with alcoholism.