[SpiritOne]

Favorite would have to be DS9. It finally took that Utopian view of the future where all the little happy humans get along and work together and live in peace and do things to help their fellow man and for the betterment of mankind, and slapped a big nasty wart right on its nose. It brought a smidgen of reality back into Trek following Next Gen and their posh office of a starship.

The fact that most of Rick Bermans ideas were gutted from the show, and Ira Behr and Ron Moore took it in a completely different direction helped immensely. Let me put to you this way, had it been left to Rick Berman, the Dominion war would have been a 2 part episode instead of struggle that lasted nearly a year and half.

TOS would have to be a very close 2nd. I realize its dated. I realize Shatner is a ham, but if you look, there are some damn good stories to be had there. The writers that Gene put in place did not dissapoint. They challenged the status quo, they pushed the edge of what could be shown on television in the 1960s and they did it all under the guise of Science Fiction, which got a free pass because the network sensors didn't really understand it. As cliche as it is now, Kirk and Uhura kissing in 1968 was bigger than if Oprah came out and said she was gay tomorrow.

The 6 movies that spawned off of it are hit or miss, but mostly better than the 4 based off the TNG crew.

TNG would be a distant 3rd. It had some gems, don't get me wrong, but the show is showing its age more so than TOS ever has. The worst TOS episodes are still more watchable than the worst TNG episodes. Eventually, they found their way and made some good television, but as a whole I just can't rate it higher because of how low its stinkers pull it down. For every episode of Descent there was Rascals.

Voyager and Enterprise I think were horrible. TOS had a well known curse, it was the "Kirk knows this is the most dangerous planet in the galaxy so were going to beam down the entire senior staff and this guy". Voyager's curse was worse, Voyagers was "Its 5 minutes to the end of the episode, the ship is in shambles and about to explode, lets discombobulate the phase differential and create an inverse warp tachyon shell and <insert more random technobabble here> and were ok" Then next week, the ship looks great, they have a new compliment of photon torpedoes and shuttles and no one seems to have remembered anything that happens because they find themselves into an almost exact similar situation next week and they use yet another technobabble answer to escape it. Talk about Formula. I could care less how the show ended, I was more worried about the fact that it never realized its potential. The whole show was one big failed potential. They never realized the potential of being legitimately short supplied, legitimately short staffed (an actual need for a REAL therapist on Trek), the mixed Federation/Maquis Crew rarely had any problems and they stopped to look at just about everything along the way like some tourists on a cross country road trip.

If Voyager was a show of missed opportunities then Enterprise was the show of completely lost opportunities. You want to do a prequel to Kirk and Spock and show and the founding of Starfleet, fine with me, but since we know of a bit of established story from that time period, maybe you could go with something that you know kinda fits. Its like when your putting together a puzzle, and your retarded uncle tries to shove a piece that doesn't fit into the corner you already did.

For the record, I didn't have a problem with the idea of a prequel, or the idea that the name of the ship was Enterprise. I didn't have a problem with the fact that the show was set 80 years before kirk and that they were dealing with new technology in warp drive and phasers. What I had a problem with was the writing flat out sucked ass. Temporal cold war? Vulcans on crack? Xindi? what a bunch of shit. But you know what, none of that bothers me as much as how Rick Berman reacted to the fans reaction of how much it sucked.

For the record, Enterprise premiered to over 12 million viewers on Nielson ratings. Thats pretty damned good. By week 4 it dropped to an average 3 million. By season 3 it was barely getting 2. But instead of taking a look inward and considering the possibility in a lack of quality in the product, Rick Berman blamed the fans for abandoning Star Trek. He said, "Fans just gave up on us". "Fans don't want to see Star Trek anymore". To this day, he claims Insurrection and Nemesis were good movies. He claims that the final episode of Enterprise was a "valentine to the fans" instead of the big FU we all received it as. He was clueless, and lost touch with reality. I hope JJ Abrams learns and does better with Trek XI. And I hope to god I am never around his wife during valentines day.

For those who don't know, the final episode of Enterprise (Rick Berman's "Valentine to the fans") consisted of turning the last episode of Enterprise into a holodeck episode for Riker and Troi. If that wasn't enough, shortly after Tucker is killed his "friend" Malcom is so visibly upset at Archers speech that he is complaining about his chair. If that wasn't enough, Riker and Troi are playing on the Holodeck during the TNG episode Pegasus, a good Next Gen episode about Riker's first ship and his Captain. So while the Enterprise is in the Neutral Zone with a Romulan Warbird in close proximity and they are looking for a Federation ship with illegal cloaking technology on it, the first officer of the flagship of the federation is PLAYING ON THE FUCKING HOLODECK!!!! Valentine huh?

[Sephiroth]

You bring up a lot of really good points, especially about Enterprise. I'm not nearly as critical of it, though I mostly didn't watch the first two seasons when the show was at it's worst, and I enjoyed the Xindi arc, even if it served no point and wasn't the most brilliant writing out there.

You are dead on about Voyager being a show of missed opportunities. It could have been so much better, the potential was there, so many good resources for story telling were available... sigh... it had it's moments but overall it is a total disappointment.

As for the movies, First Contact was awesomeness! :P

[SpiritOne]

lol, I actually get really frustrated when I talk about Voyager and Enterprise. The problem is, I really like Star Trek. My parents were the dress up and go to convention type people I mean for crying out loud they both have Vulcan ears ok, I mean thats kind of house I grew up in. So I grew up watching a lot of Star Trek, and just a lot of Sci Fi in general. I think the first time I read Enders Game I was 12 and I wanted to be Bean.

So the serious lack of quality in those two shows just irritates me because I know they can do so much better. Shows like Babylon 5, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica have convinced me that serious dramatic science fiction can not only exist but it can be really good. There is no reason for Star Trek's quality to suffer, there was no writers strike during the run of those two shows, there were plenty of quality writers out there.

Its just frustrating. It also doesn't help that over at Trekweb we had some rather heated discussions recently about if Rick Berman was good or bad for Star Trek following the death of Gene Roddenberry.

[Aphelion]

DS9 had the best writing. Enterprise suffered from bad acting but the 3rd and 4th seasons are generally underrated.

All in all, it usually boils down to which series you first followed IMO.

[Tritian]

I share your hatred for B&B (berman and braga) S1. Their staples are technobabble and reset switches saving the day. Berman ran trek into the ground. What a schmuck.

I had the last episode of Enterprise almost completely blocked out of my mind, but your rant reminded me of it. Oh, the horror. *hangs head*

[Sephiroth]

Well I just recently purchased the entire DS9 series on DVD. I gotta say after re-watching the first half of it again (haven't had time for the second half) it still is easily the best Trek series to date (and I haven't even gotten to the best parts yet!). I just love the series, the Dominion kicks ass! :P

[netburnr]

I never could get into DS9. Too much sitting still. Its like a space version of 90210 :\

[Ambrosius]

I agree. I'd rate it third after TNG and TOS. But I generally liked it. You young-uns are too wrapped-up in pretty special effects. TOS was quite good if you can get past its '60s look.

[biteme]

I like em all well enough all though I had to warm up to each one...really the acting in all of them was bad the first year but a lot of shows are like that.

If I was forced to chose it would be enterprise based solely on the babalige factor. topal (no clue on the spelling)makes me breath heavy every time I see her. I know it's not a cerebral reason but hey I am a male (no really I am...seriously) and they run the show in HD on HDnet and shes still flawless at high rez

[netburnr]

Ohh yeah, the episode where she is putting the lotion on the skin, in HD.... Woa mama

[Jump]

7of9 was hotter.