Well, you’ve already rage-quit the board once.
Between your name-calling and general low-level trolling, maybe that was the right call?
Well, you’ve already rage-quit the board once.
Between your name-calling and general low-level trolling, maybe that was the right call?
1. LD
2. TOS/TAS
3. SNW
Those are the only series that drew me in enough to watch every episode. If I had to watch the others, I would do it in this order:
4. TNG
5. DS9
6. ENT
7. PIC
8. VOY
9. PRO
10. DSC
11. SFA
As for movies, the only one I rewatch on a regular basis is Galaxy Quest!
2. TOS/TAS
3. SNW
Those are the only series that drew me in enough to watch every episode. If I had to watch the others, I would do it in this order:
4. TNG
5. DS9
6. ENT
7. PIC
8. VOY
9. PRO
10. DSC
11. SFA
As for movies, the only one I rewatch on a regular basis is Galaxy Quest!
TOS
SNW
DS9
ENT
LD
PRO
TNG
DISCO
VOY
SFA
PIC
SNW
DS9
ENT
LD
PRO
TNG
DISCO
VOY
SFA
PIC
This.
TOS laid the foundation for the huge variety of aspects that all other series explore. The rest have their ups and downs but TOS stands above the rest.
The others don't compare.
Pretty much my feelings. If I had to rank it'd probably be
1. Star Trek - it's the first and the gold standard. Characters that feel like people and are charismatic. It's space adventure on the frontier where any goddamn thing can happen like running into a duplicate Earth where only children live, having your ship held by a giant hand near a world containing the last member of a race worshipped as the Olympian gods, to fighting a contest between good and evil with Abe Lincoln and Surak against baddies from across time, to beaming down to repair a meteor deflector on a world containing Native Americans, to a world with a city in the sky, to battling a monstrous planet destroying machine, to fighting a godlike child, to stealing an invisibility device from an enemy, to traveling in time itself. Star Trek in it's purest, most adventurous form.
2. TNG / LD / SNW - As was said, TNG was certainly pompous with stiff characters, but it was also the first "child" so to speak. I remember being fascinated by the idea of a new Star Trek with new characters. When it was good it was brilliant and it has some of my favorite "trippy" episodes.
Lower Decks was a surprising breath of fresh air that I did not expect to like as much as did. It wasn't the cynical "Trek does Rick and Morty" that it's naysayers thought it would be, and it had more heart, likable characters with arcs and it really made use of the lore of the universe.
SNW I like because it's the updated Trek that I've always wanted. The one that looks like the original and simply updated it's designs without getting too far away from them.
The rest you can shoot into the sun for all I care. There may be an episode here and there that I certainly wouldn't object to watching if I happened to be watching tv and it happened to come on. But I'm not seeking them out to watch.
Beautiful post. Heartily concur. Hear! Hear!
Well, you’ve already rage-quit the board once.
Between your name-calling and general low-level trolling, maybe that was the right call?
Ya think?
I'll write a bit more about my ranking:
1. TOS, TNG (including their respective movies), DS9:
They are the three shows I grew up with, and there is nothing you'll love as much later as the stuff you loved as a kid/youth.
I really can't decide which of the three shows I like best, and I'm glad I don't have to. For me, each of the shows brought the franchise a big step forward:
TOS was lightning in a bottle, it laid the groundwork and invented the basics, and it had the amazing chemistry of Jim/Spock/Bones, who are more than the sum of their parts.
TNG proved that Star Trek works with different characters and a different tone, too, and it has the "cosy 90s living room feeling" to it. There are first attemps at character arcs, and it has some of the best standalone episode stories, weird sf stuff and morality tales.
DS9 then expanded on that, had the best character arcs and massively expanded the world building of the Star Trek universe with an amazing, deep portrayal of various alien races. Also, perhaps the best character ensemble down to the recurring characters -- there are not two DS9 characters you can't put in a room and get amazing dialogues out of it.
4. SNW:
The one contemporary show I enjoy best. It updates the old formula, a successful modernization without giving up the soul of the classics, imo. The only bad thing I can say about it, is that 10 episodes per season are just not enough. When SNW will end after 46 episodes, it will have less episodes than the first two seasons of TNG... and DS9 didn't really start before episode 47 (first appearance of the Founders). But well, I'm glad we got this show, I love the humor, the occasional light-heartedness and the nods to TOS. This is just what a modern TOS should look like today!
5. LD:
Maybe spot #4 and #5 switch places for me sometimes, I really love LD. And this although I'm usually not an animation person. I love that LD is very conscious of the franchise canon, has likable characters and the humor works for me, most of the time. Another plus is that it's the only Star Trek series my daughter likes watching with me, so far.
6. PIC:
I don't mind that it's tonally different than TNG, on the contrary, I'm glad it has just the right mix between old and new elements, for my taste. I guess a mere "TNG 2.0" would have been pointless.
I really enjoyed the characters, both old and new, and think nice character moments make up for (sometimes serious) flaws in the season arcs and pacing. Imo, seasons 1 and 3 are considerably stronger than season 2, which is kind of a mess, but despite these flaws, the show is very watchable for me, thanks to both nostalgia and character interaction. That PIC gave the TNG crew a proper sendoff, after the terrible NEM had been the last word for 20 years -- that alone makes me applaud the show.
7. ENT:
After I had been very disappointed in VOY, ENT immediately struck me as a huge improvement back in 2001. I liked the characters and the tone of the show. But on the negative side, many stories in the first two seasons felt somewhat uninspired and generic. I also didn't like the Xindi arc in season 3, although I give them that they tried something new. But I really loved season 4, if ENT had been like this from the beginning, it might have been among the top of my list.
But still, I like the show on the bottom line, despite these flaws, because the characters are fun to watch.
8. The Abrams movies:
Imo an enjoyable popcorn action-flick interpretation of TOS. Loved the first, am annoyed by the 2nd, and find the 3rd ok. Really nice as light entertainment, but not "the real thing".
9. PRO:
As someone else said above: The imo biggest flaw of PRO is that I'm not 10 years old. I imagine at that age, I would have loved the show. I think I'd rank it much higher if it weren't for my not being the target audience, as the show really does well what it wants to do, imo.
10. VOY:
After I loved TNG and DS9, VOY was my first big disappointment in a new Star Trek show. It has quite a few decent story ideas, but imo the characters are way too inconsistently written, and due to the "reset button" at the end of almost every episode, VOY missed many great opportunities. In later seasons, Seven and the Doctor are somewhat interesting, but apart from that, the characters don't evoke my interest. And I hate the immaturity especially of Neelix (the Jar Jar Binks of the Star Trek universe, imo), but to a lesser extent other characters, too.
However, some plots are really decent -- they just have fewer impact on me than they could, if I cared more about the characters (DS9 is the opposite for me -- there I even enjoy the flawed stories, because the characters are so great).
11. SFA:
This ranking might well change in the future, as we're only 1 season in and the memory is still fresh.
My main problem is that I feel that I'm not really the "young adult" target audience (although a bit less so than with PRO). I only occasionally managed to relate to or care about the cadet characters. And the villain Braka strikes me as one of the most boring and generic villains in the entire franchise.
That said, I think the young actors are doing a good job, and I also kind of like Akeh and the Doctor on the show. The episodic format also works, resulting in a mix of occasionally good and less good episodes, that can be individually enjoyed -- rather than a flawed season arc dragging the entire season down. I'm curious where the show will go in the future.
12. TAS:
It has some great story ideas, and I love they got all the original voices, but I'm usually not an animation person (it's just not the "real thing" compared to life action), and this show in particular had not aged very well, imo. The animation is kind of stiff by today's standards, and worse, it drives me crazy that the very same music is playing *all the time*. Still, there are some good ideas.
13. DSC:
I have written in detail what I like (maybe 30%) and dislike (maybe 70%) about the show in the according thread.
Short version: I can't stand most of the characters, especially Burnham and mirror Georgiou, and think they are terribly written. The season arcs are terribly written most of the time, the pacing is often off in the first two or three seasons. And the show retcons previous canon although it is way too bad to have a right to do that, imo.
But you can't say the show didn't try something new, even if these new ideas fail more often than they work imo, and in its best moments, DSC is enjoyable as technically and visually superb popcorn action eye candy.
14. Section 31:
Can we please pretend this never happened?
1. TOS, TNG (including their respective movies), DS9:
They are the three shows I grew up with, and there is nothing you'll love as much later as the stuff you loved as a kid/youth.
I really can't decide which of the three shows I like best, and I'm glad I don't have to. For me, each of the shows brought the franchise a big step forward:
TOS was lightning in a bottle, it laid the groundwork and invented the basics, and it had the amazing chemistry of Jim/Spock/Bones, who are more than the sum of their parts.
TNG proved that Star Trek works with different characters and a different tone, too, and it has the "cosy 90s living room feeling" to it. There are first attemps at character arcs, and it has some of the best standalone episode stories, weird sf stuff and morality tales.
DS9 then expanded on that, had the best character arcs and massively expanded the world building of the Star Trek universe with an amazing, deep portrayal of various alien races. Also, perhaps the best character ensemble down to the recurring characters -- there are not two DS9 characters you can't put in a room and get amazing dialogues out of it.
4. SNW:
The one contemporary show I enjoy best. It updates the old formula, a successful modernization without giving up the soul of the classics, imo. The only bad thing I can say about it, is that 10 episodes per season are just not enough. When SNW will end after 46 episodes, it will have less episodes than the first two seasons of TNG... and DS9 didn't really start before episode 47 (first appearance of the Founders). But well, I'm glad we got this show, I love the humor, the occasional light-heartedness and the nods to TOS. This is just what a modern TOS should look like today!
5. LD:
Maybe spot #4 and #5 switch places for me sometimes, I really love LD. And this although I'm usually not an animation person. I love that LD is very conscious of the franchise canon, has likable characters and the humor works for me, most of the time. Another plus is that it's the only Star Trek series my daughter likes watching with me, so far.
6. PIC:
I don't mind that it's tonally different than TNG, on the contrary, I'm glad it has just the right mix between old and new elements, for my taste. I guess a mere "TNG 2.0" would have been pointless.
I really enjoyed the characters, both old and new, and think nice character moments make up for (sometimes serious) flaws in the season arcs and pacing. Imo, seasons 1 and 3 are considerably stronger than season 2, which is kind of a mess, but despite these flaws, the show is very watchable for me, thanks to both nostalgia and character interaction. That PIC gave the TNG crew a proper sendoff, after the terrible NEM had been the last word for 20 years -- that alone makes me applaud the show.
7. ENT:
After I had been very disappointed in VOY, ENT immediately struck me as a huge improvement back in 2001. I liked the characters and the tone of the show. But on the negative side, many stories in the first two seasons felt somewhat uninspired and generic. I also didn't like the Xindi arc in season 3, although I give them that they tried something new. But I really loved season 4, if ENT had been like this from the beginning, it might have been among the top of my list.
But still, I like the show on the bottom line, despite these flaws, because the characters are fun to watch.
8. The Abrams movies:
Imo an enjoyable popcorn action-flick interpretation of TOS. Loved the first, am annoyed by the 2nd, and find the 3rd ok. Really nice as light entertainment, but not "the real thing".
9. PRO:
As someone else said above: The imo biggest flaw of PRO is that I'm not 10 years old. I imagine at that age, I would have loved the show. I think I'd rank it much higher if it weren't for my not being the target audience, as the show really does well what it wants to do, imo.
10. VOY:
After I loved TNG and DS9, VOY was my first big disappointment in a new Star Trek show. It has quite a few decent story ideas, but imo the characters are way too inconsistently written, and due to the "reset button" at the end of almost every episode, VOY missed many great opportunities. In later seasons, Seven and the Doctor are somewhat interesting, but apart from that, the characters don't evoke my interest. And I hate the immaturity especially of Neelix (the Jar Jar Binks of the Star Trek universe, imo), but to a lesser extent other characters, too.
However, some plots are really decent -- they just have fewer impact on me than they could, if I cared more about the characters (DS9 is the opposite for me -- there I even enjoy the flawed stories, because the characters are so great).
11. SFA:
This ranking might well change in the future, as we're only 1 season in and the memory is still fresh.
My main problem is that I feel that I'm not really the "young adult" target audience (although a bit less so than with PRO). I only occasionally managed to relate to or care about the cadet characters. And the villain Braka strikes me as one of the most boring and generic villains in the entire franchise.
That said, I think the young actors are doing a good job, and I also kind of like Akeh and the Doctor on the show. The episodic format also works, resulting in a mix of occasionally good and less good episodes, that can be individually enjoyed -- rather than a flawed season arc dragging the entire season down. I'm curious where the show will go in the future.
12. TAS:
It has some great story ideas, and I love they got all the original voices, but I'm usually not an animation person (it's just not the "real thing" compared to life action), and this show in particular had not aged very well, imo. The animation is kind of stiff by today's standards, and worse, it drives me crazy that the very same music is playing *all the time*. Still, there are some good ideas.
13. DSC:
I have written in detail what I like (maybe 30%) and dislike (maybe 70%) about the show in the according thread.
Short version: I can't stand most of the characters, especially Burnham and mirror Georgiou, and think they are terribly written. The season arcs are terribly written most of the time, the pacing is often off in the first two or three seasons. And the show retcons previous canon although it is way too bad to have a right to do that, imo.
But you can't say the show didn't try something new, even if these new ideas fail more often than they work imo, and in its best moments, DSC is enjoyable as technically and visually superb popcorn action eye candy.
14. Section 31:
Can we please pretend this never happened?
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I actually find TOS near-impossible to rank. It's so deeply foundational, but to someone my age, really dated. And that 60s-era misogyny is hard to take. But when it's good, it's extremely good. If I were trying to be objective (insofar as that is possible) about quality and importance, it would be in my top 3. But if I were ranking by how much I personally enjoyed the series, it would be quite a bit lower.
Anyway, here I go (Excluding TOS, see above, and ENT, which I haven't actually watched.):
1. DS9
2. SNW
3. PRO
4. TNG
5. SFA
6. DISCO
7. LD
8. VOY
9. PIC
Anyway, here I go (Excluding TOS, see above, and ENT, which I haven't actually watched.):
1. DS9
2. SNW
3. PRO
4. TNG
5. SFA
6. DISCO
7. LD
8. VOY
9. PIC
There are areas where Star Trek stumbled quite badly, I definitely agree.
When it comes to pure creativity and chemistry of the main characters, there aren’t too many (if any) shows ahead of it.
Obviously, all from my perspective.
Yes, TOS is definitely a child of its time, and potentially hard for young new audiences to get into. Many people don't have the patience to judge a show "in the context of its time", and I don't blame them ... it's all a matter of watching habits. For some people, black/white or non-HD, old SD resolution are hard to accept, too.
In the end, many people look for being entertained, rather than something bordering on history of television studies.
I'm glad I managed to get a younger friend of mine into watching some TOS and TNG, and although he often stressed he doesn't really like "the modern, overproduced stuff", he had quite some patience to muster ... "it's more like theatre than tv", he said about TOS.
Disclaimer: This is IMHO and rankings may change down the road. Also and more importantly, more recent series seem to be trying t0o eschew the "monoculture" trappings that the older series relied on. That, regardless of anything else, deserves some credit. But considering these are hour-long shows and not always with arcs or how they're telling the story, the monoculture and single-species-per-planet aspects were there solely to keep minutiae and excess reality-driven complexity down, but the ambition is appreciated. With that said,
The "gold standard":
1. TOS (which is monumental, for reasons that make their own post... unless anyone needs a quick nap, in which case I can start meandering in Sheldon Mode right now? But being the 1960s, TOS was doing a lot to show a united America, with Klingons and Romulans being placeholders for other societal structures, et al. Yep, it's dated in places and has casual sexism. Considering the time in which it was made, it was having to balance forward-thinking with what censors wanted.)
2. TOS movies, which actually succeeded in going above and beyond the limitations and scope of the original. #s 1 and 2 are more likely going to be rebooted partially because of this but partially because they're still the most widely visible/recognized, even nowadays.
Really good:
3. TNG (The first spinoff to shake up character archetypes in roles and experiences, even the early stuff isn't bad (mostly due to goofy plotting and being the first to find their own way since "Star Trek can't be redone!" being a prevailing mindset of the time.) In some ways, some episodes better TOS (which was not cheap to make, either), but at the same time there is a move toward tighter character drama, which also became "soap opera" later on when the show started to coast. Plus, TOS gravitated toward societal structures on a macro level. TNG-onward started on the inverse, also heading into navel-gazing that forgets that the macro-level is also important too, though to be fair TOS could have started peering toward that belly button too, and I don't mean 60s censorship having to hide it as a literal meaning... Not to mention, Gene Roddenberry himself wanted TNG to replace aspects of TOS/Kirk movies he disliked in crafting his ideas of the future... Sources: 1, 2. Given how some areas of TNG went into and with little smoothing dialogue to make the segue work (even "The Orville" did a better job on one issue... at the end of the day, it's called "sci-fi/fantasy" for various reasons, but TNG held its own and became its own iconic thing as much as it had breached the cultural zeitgeist, something its three direct spinoffs didn't breach (but still had passable ratings).) )
Okay, but with some flaws:
4. DS9 (It's almost two shows, with season 4 being a soft reboot, though the introduction of Defiant almost qualifies because they had to find new reasons to get off the station for adventure and not just "new possible baddies if not different beings through the wormhole, again" to consider.) Plus, how else would they get to Planet of the Cooties (Risa) for all of those exciting adventures?
5. TAS (Without live action limitations, and a script or two or few lifted from abandoned TOS ideas what with season 4 not being commissioned and all, the makers went all-out and with some ambition. The animation is passable under the circumstances. The acting could be stilted, but voiceover/animation acting is not like live action/theater so it gets an easy pass. But while YMMV, I've rewatched VOY more. But big kudos for the show not wandering into parody territory, which is a hard balance to make. At one point, TAS would be much higher up.)
6. LD (it's a mix of taking itself seriously, with a mix of self-parody, with a mix of comedy. IMHO, it's brilliant because it often juggles all these with ease and having some heart. Plus, most characters have a charm with their archetypes. This is a virtual tie with TAS, depending on mood. But some self-parody does get to be a little much...)
7. PRO (Haven't seen much, but they captured the spirit perfectly. It's hard to place this one as a result, but the tone and feel elevate it a lot, IMH&LO.)
Mixed bag:
8. PIC (Seasons 1 and 2 are mixed but with interesting, if not lopsided ideas, IMHO. Season 3 is why I've placed it this high: It feels like it has newfound focus and verve, keeping the fan-favorite characters of new and pairing them with the classics of old (Raffi + Worf = WIN, IMHO) and moving forward with continuity in ways that generally fit. Yeah, the Borg are brought back but feel more like a proper Borg sequel at the 11th hour when DS9's Dominion are dealt with, even if it'd have been arguably better to close out the open-ending of "Conspiracy" then plop in the Borg afterward -- and it wouldn't be difficult to fill in newcomers either to that season 1 story. But the Dominion does work as it's the same timeline as the TNG crew, it's just as easy to see why the Borg had precedence and not because "it's a fan favorite", it feels like they were being used to better effect. Plus, and this is big, PIC/3 adds gravitas and reverence to the 90s TNG films, something I thought would be impossible. Kudos, big ones, to that. All that said, some jokes fail to land as they feel antithetical to Worf, but that's a small quibble, smaller if you don't try to think into who the show was being made for (newbies who want the jokiness from the old characters, or established fans who like seeing the same traits but in new situations without becoming fanwanky or detached from the more significant aspects of continuity)...)
9. VOY (I like this one and there are some GREAT episodes - some that only VOY could do, others feeling like they could be done in TOS or TNG ("The 37s" feels like an updated TOS episode for one example of the latter). At the same time, despite the "24th century mannerisms" and "too formal" for dialogue (TNG and DS9 nailed the formula with ease), VOY has episodes that miss the mark, coast too much on rubberstamp technobabble, and franchise fatigue definitely solidifies. But it still has some belters that feel more in-line with VOY than what TNG or others would have to contrive to fit. "Meld" instantly comes to mind, since Suder could be kept in a brig with ease in TNG or DS9 and with no moral dilemmas about execution as penalty for true coldblooded murder for no reason since they're out 70K light years with limited supplies and resources, plus as there'd be no Tuvok, we'd likely see Data getting mindwarped - again - and that would not be compelling.)
10. TNG movies (these never elevated TNG to a higher level than what TOS's had for its progenitor TV series. Indeed, most feel like reunion parties with a shallow plot. GEN holds up the best over the years despite flaws. NEM is too dark and all over the place, but make two surprisingly small tweaks and a flaky movie could have been nigh-on gold standard, except one can't time travel to 2001 to tell them to replace the convoluted clone and Reman subplot and focus it a bit more on a baddie with more nuance to explain (any number of things...)...) INS is a lopsided episode of Jerry Springer. FC is inane fanwank with a big plastic set where they felt that a disappearing viewscreen and easily-breakable plasma conduits were cool plot devices, even more than the pee joke. Yes kids, TNG was doing self-aware comedy long before "Family Guy" had.
Not my cup of tea, albeit not from lack of trying to sit through at least one story:
ENT (prequel + franchise fatigue; "reed alert" was one of the last straws and the Xindi arc was pointless as Earth survives and destroying it would become an alternate timeline - which back then would at least be new but it's easy to see why Earth survives (apart from being gimmicky, but it's been a long while since I watched this spinoff). Trying season 4 again was hit or miss as there is some nostalgiabaiting involved, but Manny Coto should have had a season 5 as he was more than on the right track to revitalize the franchise, when all is said and done.)
DSC (evil Lorca and neo-Mudd were pretty cool... magic roller coaster land for turbolifts and other things, not as much... previous Treks also had high fantasy, but kept it constrained.)
SNW (Mostly for small universe syndrome. Even the big singalong episode was more underwhelming and one small tweak could have fixed it (mind control rays are not often used and that would have been brilliant in that episode...)
Section 31 (looks more like a Star Wars outing.)
SFA (they must have watched certain Voyager episodes and expanded on the academy tales there, but even if the idea of Academy was to be done for ST6, it'd still be a pass. Same reasons as SNW.)
Abrams movies ("Beyond" was pretty solid, "Into Darkness" didn't need Khan whatsoever but was included likely to appeal to some group of fans, and the 2009 outing was just fluff coasting on stereotyped character memes (green women, Doctor line, et al) than characters given any substance, even though we're told outright this is an alternate timeline where things could be different (which that aspect was told fairly well, just not made real use of...)
The "gold standard":
1. TOS (which is monumental, for reasons that make their own post... unless anyone needs a quick nap, in which case I can start meandering in Sheldon Mode right now? But being the 1960s, TOS was doing a lot to show a united America, with Klingons and Romulans being placeholders for other societal structures, et al. Yep, it's dated in places and has casual sexism. Considering the time in which it was made, it was having to balance forward-thinking with what censors wanted.)
2. TOS movies, which actually succeeded in going above and beyond the limitations and scope of the original. #s 1 and 2 are more likely going to be rebooted partially because of this but partially because they're still the most widely visible/recognized, even nowadays.
Really good:
3. TNG (The first spinoff to shake up character archetypes in roles and experiences, even the early stuff isn't bad (mostly due to goofy plotting and being the first to find their own way since "Star Trek can't be redone!" being a prevailing mindset of the time.) In some ways, some episodes better TOS (which was not cheap to make, either), but at the same time there is a move toward tighter character drama, which also became "soap opera" later on when the show started to coast. Plus, TOS gravitated toward societal structures on a macro level. TNG-onward started on the inverse, also heading into navel-gazing that forgets that the macro-level is also important too, though to be fair TOS could have started peering toward that belly button too, and I don't mean 60s censorship having to hide it as a literal meaning... Not to mention, Gene Roddenberry himself wanted TNG to replace aspects of TOS/Kirk movies he disliked in crafting his ideas of the future... Sources: 1, 2. Given how some areas of TNG went into and with little smoothing dialogue to make the segue work (even "The Orville" did a better job on one issue... at the end of the day, it's called "sci-fi/fantasy" for various reasons, but TNG held its own and became its own iconic thing as much as it had breached the cultural zeitgeist, something its three direct spinoffs didn't breach (but still had passable ratings).) )
Okay, but with some flaws:
4. DS9 (It's almost two shows, with season 4 being a soft reboot, though the introduction of Defiant almost qualifies because they had to find new reasons to get off the station for adventure and not just "new possible baddies if not different beings through the wormhole, again" to consider.) Plus, how else would they get to Planet of the Cooties (Risa) for all of those exciting adventures?
5. TAS (Without live action limitations, and a script or two or few lifted from abandoned TOS ideas what with season 4 not being commissioned and all, the makers went all-out and with some ambition. The animation is passable under the circumstances. The acting could be stilted, but voiceover/animation acting is not like live action/theater so it gets an easy pass. But while YMMV, I've rewatched VOY more. But big kudos for the show not wandering into parody territory, which is a hard balance to make. At one point, TAS would be much higher up.)
6. LD (it's a mix of taking itself seriously, with a mix of self-parody, with a mix of comedy. IMHO, it's brilliant because it often juggles all these with ease and having some heart. Plus, most characters have a charm with their archetypes. This is a virtual tie with TAS, depending on mood. But some self-parody does get to be a little much...)
7. PRO (Haven't seen much, but they captured the spirit perfectly. It's hard to place this one as a result, but the tone and feel elevate it a lot, IMH&LO.)
Mixed bag:
8. PIC (Seasons 1 and 2 are mixed but with interesting, if not lopsided ideas, IMHO. Season 3 is why I've placed it this high: It feels like it has newfound focus and verve, keeping the fan-favorite characters of new and pairing them with the classics of old (Raffi + Worf = WIN, IMHO) and moving forward with continuity in ways that generally fit. Yeah, the Borg are brought back but feel more like a proper Borg sequel at the 11th hour when DS9's Dominion are dealt with, even if it'd have been arguably better to close out the open-ending of "Conspiracy" then plop in the Borg afterward -- and it wouldn't be difficult to fill in newcomers either to that season 1 story. But the Dominion does work as it's the same timeline as the TNG crew, it's just as easy to see why the Borg had precedence and not because "it's a fan favorite", it feels like they were being used to better effect. Plus, and this is big, PIC/3 adds gravitas and reverence to the 90s TNG films, something I thought would be impossible. Kudos, big ones, to that. All that said, some jokes fail to land as they feel antithetical to Worf, but that's a small quibble, smaller if you don't try to think into who the show was being made for (newbies who want the jokiness from the old characters, or established fans who like seeing the same traits but in new situations without becoming fanwanky or detached from the more significant aspects of continuity)...)
9. VOY (I like this one and there are some GREAT episodes - some that only VOY could do, others feeling like they could be done in TOS or TNG ("The 37s" feels like an updated TOS episode for one example of the latter). At the same time, despite the "24th century mannerisms" and "too formal" for dialogue (TNG and DS9 nailed the formula with ease), VOY has episodes that miss the mark, coast too much on rubberstamp technobabble, and franchise fatigue definitely solidifies. But it still has some belters that feel more in-line with VOY than what TNG or others would have to contrive to fit. "Meld" instantly comes to mind, since Suder could be kept in a brig with ease in TNG or DS9 and with no moral dilemmas about execution as penalty for true coldblooded murder for no reason since they're out 70K light years with limited supplies and resources, plus as there'd be no Tuvok, we'd likely see Data getting mindwarped - again - and that would not be compelling.)
10. TNG movies (these never elevated TNG to a higher level than what TOS's had for its progenitor TV series. Indeed, most feel like reunion parties with a shallow plot. GEN holds up the best over the years despite flaws. NEM is too dark and all over the place, but make two surprisingly small tweaks and a flaky movie could have been nigh-on gold standard, except one can't time travel to 2001 to tell them to replace the convoluted clone and Reman subplot and focus it a bit more on a baddie with more nuance to explain (any number of things...)...) INS is a lopsided episode of Jerry Springer. FC is inane fanwank with a big plastic set where they felt that a disappearing viewscreen and easily-breakable plasma conduits were cool plot devices, even more than the pee joke. Yes kids, TNG was doing self-aware comedy long before "Family Guy" had.
Not my cup of tea, albeit not from lack of trying to sit through at least one story:
ENT (prequel + franchise fatigue; "reed alert" was one of the last straws and the Xindi arc was pointless as Earth survives and destroying it would become an alternate timeline - which back then would at least be new but it's easy to see why Earth survives (apart from being gimmicky, but it's been a long while since I watched this spinoff). Trying season 4 again was hit or miss as there is some nostalgiabaiting involved, but Manny Coto should have had a season 5 as he was more than on the right track to revitalize the franchise, when all is said and done.)
DSC (evil Lorca and neo-Mudd were pretty cool... magic roller coaster land for turbolifts and other things, not as much... previous Treks also had high fantasy, but kept it constrained.)
SNW (Mostly for small universe syndrome. Even the big singalong episode was more underwhelming and one small tweak could have fixed it (mind control rays are not often used and that would have been brilliant in that episode...)
Section 31 (looks more like a Star Wars outing.)
SFA (they must have watched certain Voyager episodes and expanded on the academy tales there, but even if the idea of Academy was to be done for ST6, it'd still be a pass. Same reasons as SNW.)
Abrams movies ("Beyond" was pretty solid, "Into Darkness" didn't need Khan whatsoever but was included likely to appeal to some group of fans, and the 2009 outing was just fluff coasting on stereotyped character memes (green women, Doctor line, et al) than characters given any substance, even though we're told outright this is an alternate timeline where things could be different (which that aspect was told fairly well, just not made real use of...)
Fair points and there are some cringeworthy moments in TOS. Some unintentional due to the story being a mess, and others just to appease the censors.
One quick aside: Kudos to Grace Lee Whitney and was pushing for miniskirts at the time (empowering, liberation, freedom), and even more to Nichelle Nichols for ensuring the reasons and how they treated the costumes were told in her autobiography... also in these articles:
How Mary Quant's mini skirt liberated women
Harriet Hall charts the impact of the late designer’s contribution to women’s liberation through fashion — and says her legacy runs so much farther than a high hemline
www.standard.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/groups/227079345953752/posts/831224598872554/ per the comment "This question came up at every 70s Trek convention I attended, and the answer from both of them was consistent. The miniskirt was a symbol of empowerment at a time when people weren't as warped and twisted as they are now. Nobody forced the idea on them, and they both were in favor." AND "(repost taken from her autobiography) In later years, especially as the women’s movement took hold in the seventies, people began to ask me about my costume. Some thought it “demeaning” for a woman in the command crew to be dressed so sexily. It always surprised me because I never saw it that way. After all, the show was created in the age of the miniskirt, and the crew women’s uniforms were very comfortable. Contrary to what many may think today, no one really saw it as demeaning back then. In fact, the miniskirt was a symbol of sexual liberation. More to the point, though, in the twenty-third century, you are respected for your abilities regardless of what you do or do not wear."
etc
Granted, at one point in history, one didn't need to know history to enjoy TOS as one was living it. It becomes an increasingly tall order to juggle more and more for a tv show, hence inevitable reboots - and where/how they take the ideas.
^^this, it's easier for some than others and it's okay either way.
The history of the time leading to the show, especially as TOS generally made loose parallels to be open-ended with (but with a few exceptions), gets often lost in time. Now think of oral traditions from thousands of years ago, how much have they changed? How much empirical observation at pottery or buildings that old are truly accurate? (Some easier than others, certainly, and a historian spends their entire life researching, listening, and other things to try to rationally piece together the why for the how with some veracity. A bit of pottery, often placed to show "naughty bits" out of visual sight, can only tell so much, this also leads to the tangential segue of having to fathom what it meant to live at the time, new to the world, no plumbing or electricity, and reacting to how others' lived, which is where some conclusions by historians have been postulated that come across with a little more credibility than "See? They did this back then to, it's just the same!" But even then, the one thing the historian and the layperson have in common is that none of us lived back then, everyone has a point, and even experts aren't 100% right 100% of the time.)
^^this
I don't recall when, but at one point the idea of television was to be used more predominantly for education than entertainment. Obviously things are a lot different now, and even when television was used for educational intent they sometimes got things wrong. After all, "no plants, no carbon dioxide" has to be one of the worst bits of scripting blunders ever to be put out (and likely due to not having time to rewrite the cause in the script due to tight deadline and mixing up the scientific underpinnings.)
I'm glad I managed to get a younger friend of mine into watching some TOS and TNG, and although he often stressed he doesn't really like "the modern, overproduced stuff", he had quite some patience to muster ... "it's more like theatre than tv", he said about TOS.
"live action theater" - bingo. TV was more theatrical, it's a lost art due to relative evolution of the field. I find the modern stuff often feels overproduced, mostly because of the limited color palettes used (I can guess why, but it'd likely be wrong because such conditions are not repeated across the board for other issues, like hearing...), but sometimes the rapid pacing - designed to overlook plot holes, which is fair - also gets much. IMHO, the 1980s-mid-90s had the best balance of pacing, not too slow (1950s/60s) and not too rapid (or even rabid). But it's sad when a 2005 hour-long TV show has as many plot holes as a 23-minute installment of, say, "ElectraWoman and DynaGirl" where EW&DG had to two halves with a cliffhanger in the middle on top of everything else and sometimes they had to just be light and airy on character attributes/reasons for episodes. Depends on what one wants in watching a show...
TOS
TNG
ENT
DS9
VOY
SNW
TOS is the Gold Standard for Trek for me, though TNG is a close second (sometimes first).
TNG
ENT
DS9
VOY
SNW
TOS is the Gold Standard for Trek for me, though TNG is a close second (sometimes first).
DSN
TNG
VGR
TOS
SNW
ENT
LDs
TAS
PRO
PIC
SFA
DISCO
TNG
VGR
TOS
SNW
ENT
LDs
TAS
PRO
PIC
SFA
DISCO
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