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In a lot of threads recently I've seen people ragging on the entire Berman era, typically to suggest that SNW wipes the floor with it. It's a fascinating viewpoint and pretty novel; on the rest of the internet it's taken as given that TNG and DS9 represent some kind of objective high point.
I've rewatched many of them relatively recently and I have some thoughts, which I'll spoiler for length:
TNG - For me it hit a sweet spot in seasons 2 and 3, and started to become much more bland and haughty after that, though fantastic episodes still occur throughout. It's always at its best when it drops the pomposity and just writes the kind of straightforwardly fun plot that could slot into TOS. I think I'd still call myself a fan even though I've got no interest in watching about half of it. All the movies were pretty awful IMO, even the highly-rated First Contact.
DS9 - I really love a lot of the first three seasons, and it could have easily blossomed into my favourite Star Trek series of all from that starting point had it really focused on post-war Bajor, but it completely loses me from mid-season 4 onward with the string of boring war arcs (most of which are conveyed via WW2/Vietnam movie tropes transplanted wholesale). By the last two seasons it's basically on par with Picard for me, in that it just feels like a generic, unimaginative sci-fi series with the Star Trek name slapped on it. Can't call myself a fan since I think well over half the show is a complete washout, but I'd still rewatch those first three seasons any day.
Voyager - This is my favourite of the Berman shows easily, and as time goes on I find it more and more miraculous that it exists. It held firm to upbeat, high concept, mostly-episodic adventure into an era where that was increasingly seen as defunct, and eschewed the self-seriousness that defined latter-era TNG and DS9 (and much of TV in general by that point). It has its ups and downs but every season has a good amount of strong, imaginative science fiction, comedy, and character work. Along with TOS, this is the only Star Trek series I really like as a whole, and it's the only one I can really buy as a spiritual sequel to TOS/TAS.
Enterprise - I have mostly warm feelings about this, though I can't remember shit outside one or two episodes. Rarely great, but consistently enjoyable. T'Pol rules. Temporal Cold War sucked. Xindi arc went surprisingly well. It lost me in the fourth season, just absolutely no interest in that kind of "here's four Memory Alpha articles smashed together into a plot" type of storytelling.
tl;dr - I really like just under half of TNG and DS9, I love pretty much all of Voyager, and the first three seasons of Enterprise are solid.
On the whole, I'm really glad the Berman era happened, and compared with the Kurtzman era, it wins hands down for me. All four of these shows have their moments, and I'm always happy to revisit them (or at least, the first halves of them...) in a way that I just can't imagine doing with Discovery, Picard, or the latest season of SNW.
Go. Discuss. Are you a Berman Fan or a Berman Basher? What do you make of each of the shows on their own?
Agreed. I grew up on the Berman era. That is always going to be my Star Trek. I also love TOS and its movies, and there are some things from the Abrams and Kurtzman eras that I like, but my preference will always be for the Berman era shows first.
Agreed. I grew up on the Berman era. That is always going to be my Star Trek. I also love TOS and its movies, and there are some things from the Abrams and Kurtzman eras that I like, but my preference will always be for the Berman era shows first.
Yeah, TOS and the TOS films are also good, I grew up on films like star trek vi but the Berman Era shows still are my favorites. They're not without their flaws, some more than others, tng-ent are what I like primarily in Trek. SNW is the only Kurtzman Era Trek show I've seen that comes close to that, so I'll give it that for sure.
For as long as I can remember. The feeling was that if an agent liked it, then at least its something worth a producer's time to read. Not everybody can or should be a writer and studios don't have time to sift through thousands of scripts. Its a barrier that helps filter out garbage.
@thread topic - I loved the Berman era. TNG and DS9 is still fun to watch. Voyager and Enterprise were steps down, but still watchable.
