Bobby Roberts
Banned
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Rank the Star Trek Series From Best to Worst
- Thread starter shawnbuddy
- Start date
You're welcome.
plagiarize
Banned
I'd put Final Frontier lower, but this lines up with how I feel about the movies.
Star Trek, to me, is the story of three very different friends. For everything you can dink the Abrams Trekverse, it nails that. Kirk, Spock and Bones are perfectly cast, and I feel the same way about them as I did in TOS.
TOS has dated, but it can hold its head higher than TNG, which has also really dated, but hasn't really gained anything. TOS has a charm to the hammier acting and cheaper special effects, because everyone is so earnest about it. It's got a sense of fun that is so rarely found in TNG.
And Code of Honor. Holy fuck. I know it's an early episode and they never get that bad again, but holy fuck. How does the TV series made around 1990 feature a more racist episode than anything in the series made in the sixties. That took some doing.
Not to mention it's full of the usual bullshit about how they can't do anything because of Starfleet Rules and Deanna Troi being generally useless. Tasha Yar gets kidnapped and they sit on their hands for over 24 hours if I remember right. Maybe they just hated her.
If they stopped including Code of Honor in the bluray releases and on Netflix I'd be 100% okay with it. I'm pretty sure everyone involved hates that episode.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
My ranking is the best and most correct.
1) DS9
Great overarching stories, tons of good characters. Most of the semi-regulars are better then the regulars in ENT and VOY
2) TOS
Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationship is amazing. Some very powerful and well written stories.
3) TNG
Some great stories but sometimes gets a bit too pleased with itself when moralising. Suffers from Picard and Data being the only good characters, but thats often enough because the actors are so good.
4) TAS
Had that one good story where spock goes back to his past.
5) ENT
Boring rubbish, reacted to 9/11 too strongly, all characters suck, had rubdown psuedo-porno scenes, showed vulcans as emotional morons
5) VOY
Demented captain who is a happy mass-murderer, spineless cast who are shallow cowardly scum (except Doctor and Seven). Writing is garbage and contradicts itself from episode to episode.
1) DS9
Great overarching stories, tons of good characters. Most of the semi-regulars are better then the regulars in ENT and VOY
2) TOS
Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationship is amazing. Some very powerful and well written stories.
3) TNG
Some great stories but sometimes gets a bit too pleased with itself when moralising. Suffers from Picard and Data being the only good characters, but thats often enough because the actors are so good.
4) TAS
Had that one good story where spock goes back to his past.
5) ENT
Boring rubbish, reacted to 9/11 too strongly, all characters suck, had rubdown psuedo-porno scenes, showed vulcans as emotional morons
5) VOY
Demented captain who is a happy mass-murderer, spineless cast who are shallow cowardly scum (except Doctor and Seven). Writing is garbage and contradicts itself from episode to episode.
From this thread, it's obvious I need to go watch DS9 ASAP.
I've only watched TOS, TNG and Voyager beginning to end, and I'd rank them:
TNG
TOS
Voyager
None of them were downright awful in my opinion, but Voyager was definitely somewhat weaker than the others. I haven't watched enough Enterprise to have an opinion overall, but I wasn't particularly impressed by what I saw.
I've only watched TOS, TNG and Voyager beginning to end, and I'd rank them:
TNG
TOS
Voyager
None of them were downright awful in my opinion, but Voyager was definitely somewhat weaker than the others. I haven't watched enough Enterprise to have an opinion overall, but I wasn't particularly impressed by what I saw.
Bob Coffee
Member
agreed on beyond, it deserved to do so much better as out of the JJ movies this pretty much was a 2 hour TOS episode with modern effects. ST09 felt too "anime" for lack of a term with people getting promoted out of nowhere because the plot dictated it. but beyond felt just right. i hope the cast gets another shot with the writers and director of beyond, because they understand trek.
Seconded, except for the third season of Enterprise.
Movies:
-Wrath of Khan
-The Voyage Home
-Beyond
-The Undiscovered Country
-Star Trek (2009)
-The Search for Spock
-Everything else
I've never really watched Star Trek -- I'm skimming the thread because I always think about giving The Next Generation a shot -- but I just listened to this song.
I think I'm done with Star Trek.
MisterHero
Super Member
I like TOS the most because it was completely nuts tone-wise. The serialized nature of the latter series makes one-off episodes harder to appreciate. I'll concede that DS9 is pretty much the ultimate expression of serial Trek though.
If I were to make a new Trek series it would resemble TOS: gather a room of talented sci-fi writers, adapt their short stories to Trek's rules (original stories are a plus too), and throw in semi-hammy acting, bombastic background music, and an anti-militarized futurism art direction. It's already better than anything on TV today.
If I were to make a new Trek series it would resemble TOS: gather a room of talented sci-fi writers, adapt their short stories to Trek's rules (original stories are a plus too), and throw in semi-hammy acting, bombastic background music, and an anti-militarized futurism art direction. It's already better than anything on TV today.
SirMossyBloke
Member
You're not the only one. I kinda just expect it from you anyway.
Fancyarcher
Member
DS9
TNG
TOS
Voyager
Enterprise (though the last two seasons are pretty solid, save for that fuck you ending)
In general the Star Trek shows are pretty inconsistent, with good & bad season, but Deep Space Nine is probably the most consistent & it managed to go out of the series usual confront zone & actually feature some real interesting conflicts.
TNG is also great, but again the first two seasons are very rough.
TNG
TOS
Voyager
Enterprise (though the last two seasons are pretty solid, save for that fuck you ending)
In general the Star Trek shows are pretty inconsistent, with good & bad season, but Deep Space Nine is probably the most consistent & it managed to go out of the series usual confront zone & actually feature some real interesting conflicts.
TNG is also great, but again the first two seasons are very rough.
1. TOS - I grew up with TOS and Spock is basically my father figure. I still rewatch the series regularly. The best cast with Kirk, McCoy, Spock, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, there is no one I do not enjoy. Some stuff is campy, but this is television from the 60s so is to be expected. Highlights are The City On the Edge of Forever (which blew me away when I first watched it), Space Seed, Balance of Terror, Trouble with Tribbles, Mirror Mirror, A Piece of the Action, Let that be your last Battlefield.
2. Deep Space 9 - Almost as good as TOS. Didn't like Bashir originally, but he has a great relationship with O'Brien. Same goes for the kids but both have quite a good story arc. And the Ferengi are not just joke characters as in TNG. Some of the best Star Trek episodes ever, amongst them Duet, Trials and Tribble-ations, In the Pale Moonlight, Far Beyond the Stars.
3. TNG - Quite a gap to Deep Space 9, basically TOS in the 90s. Captain Picard might be the best captain. Enjoy it quite a lot. Except for Wesley. He has an extreme bad story arc.
4. Voyager - Some good characters (the best doctor, first female captain) but there are way to many average/bad episodes versus good/great episodes.
5. Enterprise - I don't really have any favorites among that cast and prequels are a risky concept. Don't like the handling of Vulcans much either. Still some good episodes in the later seasons.
2. Deep Space 9 - Almost as good as TOS. Didn't like Bashir originally, but he has a great relationship with O'Brien. Same goes for the kids but both have quite a good story arc. And the Ferengi are not just joke characters as in TNG. Some of the best Star Trek episodes ever, amongst them Duet, Trials and Tribble-ations, In the Pale Moonlight, Far Beyond the Stars.
3. TNG - Quite a gap to Deep Space 9, basically TOS in the 90s. Captain Picard might be the best captain. Enjoy it quite a lot. Except for Wesley. He has an extreme bad story arc.
4. Voyager - Some good characters (the best doctor, first female captain) but there are way to many average/bad episodes versus good/great episodes.
5. Enterprise - I don't really have any favorites among that cast and prequels are a risky concept. Don't like the handling of Vulcans much either. Still some good episodes in the later seasons.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
So long as you were entertained, Moss
TNG is the only Trek series that I think has a truly good/satisfying ending with All Good Things. TOS doesn't really have an ending. DS9 has that stupid
. Voyager is
. Enterprise has the
.
Pah Wraith stuff
"we're home, gg, end credits"
backdoor TNG episode serving as its finale
TV Shows
TNG and DS9 are a tie. They're very different shows and equally great takes on the Star Trek canon/universe. I will slightly lean towards DS9 because I like the story structure and the way things arced over the course of a season. I didn't watch DS9 until it was a couple years off the air and Enterprise was nearing cancellation. DS9 is a sequel/extension/creative branch of Trek I really like and appreciate.
Voyager is something I watched every week while it originally aired. I was a lot younger and a lot of the criticisms about Janeway being a completely lunatic never crossed my mind. I thought she was a complete bad ass and respectable captain who liked black coffee.
The Original Series is another one I never picked up on and watched as frequently as the rest of them. I'd always see an episode or two in late night reruns or I'd binge on a few when on streaming services. However, the Star Trek movies with the original cast are the films I watched the most growing up so I really like Kirk/Spock and particularly McCoy was my favorite of the ToS cast and probably my favorite character.
Never watched the animated series.
Enterprise had a few decent episodes in the beginning of the series. The show tried to hard to distinguish itself from the other TV series almost to a fault. It wasn't until the forth season where it truly embraced Star Trek as a whole with prequel episodes to some popular storylines or characters from other Trek series. I don't particularly hate the last episode because even after the four year run, I still cared way more about Riker and Troi than anyone else. Archer was the least defined Captain and had no real takeaway personality or qualities that made him stand out like the other captains. He had a dog. Neat.
I liked Malcolm Reed the most out of the Enterprise cast (besides the guest recurring alien characters) because he seemed very trigger happy. There was a quality to him (least my take away) where any weapon gave him a boner. He had a military background. Quality was exemplified with his Mirror Universe counterpart. The Section 31 stuff was forced but whatever.
Shran and Soval were probably the best characters on the show and should have been main cast members if the show ever reached a 5th season.
Edit:
Films
Wrath of Khan is my favorite Trek movie and dare I say my favorite movie of all time. I loved the performances, the villain, the style and way it was shot, the level of intensity, and the sacrifice. As a standalone film, it's gold. As a sequel to Space Seed (which I didn't see until years after seeing TWOK), it kind of added to Khan's hatred and gave a neat backdrop to the story. As a trilogy along with Search for Spock and The Voyage home ... meh ... each of those movies diminished how great TWOK was)
The Undiscovered Country was the spiritual sequel to The Wrath of Khan ... I liked that the character of Spock was REALLY back and not some weird amnesia patient they soft rebooted after they bought him back to life like in III to V. Sulu shined as a Captain and generally, it was a great send off to the original cast. It had a situation, humor, and shit on the line. It's also the ONE movie where the Enterprise isn't the only ship able to do something. Seeing Excelsior join the fight at the end was icing on the cake and broke that trope.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - It had a lot of potential if the script got another pass or two. There were some great character moments and a nice soundtrack. They direly needed ILM back to do their special effects. Overall, I thought the movie was a fun, campy train wreck and almost played a lost episode of the 60s series with 1.5x the budget of a ToS episode.
TNG and DS9 are a tie. They're very different shows and equally great takes on the Star Trek canon/universe. I will slightly lean towards DS9 because I like the story structure and the way things arced over the course of a season. I didn't watch DS9 until it was a couple years off the air and Enterprise was nearing cancellation. DS9 is a sequel/extension/creative branch of Trek I really like and appreciate.
Voyager is something I watched every week while it originally aired. I was a lot younger and a lot of the criticisms about Janeway being a completely lunatic never crossed my mind. I thought she was a complete bad ass and respectable captain who liked black coffee.
The Original Series is another one I never picked up on and watched as frequently as the rest of them. I'd always see an episode or two in late night reruns or I'd binge on a few when on streaming services. However, the Star Trek movies with the original cast are the films I watched the most growing up so I really like Kirk/Spock and particularly McCoy was my favorite of the ToS cast and probably my favorite character.
Never watched the animated series.
Enterprise had a few decent episodes in the beginning of the series. The show tried to hard to distinguish itself from the other TV series almost to a fault. It wasn't until the forth season where it truly embraced Star Trek as a whole with prequel episodes to some popular storylines or characters from other Trek series. I don't particularly hate the last episode because even after the four year run, I still cared way more about Riker and Troi than anyone else. Archer was the least defined Captain and had no real takeaway personality or qualities that made him stand out like the other captains. He had a dog. Neat.
I liked Malcolm Reed the most out of the Enterprise cast (besides the guest recurring alien characters) because he seemed very trigger happy. There was a quality to him (least my take away) where any weapon gave him a boner. He had a military background. Quality was exemplified with his Mirror Universe counterpart. The Section 31 stuff was forced but whatever.
Shran and Soval were probably the best characters on the show and should have been main cast members if the show ever reached a 5th season.
Edit:
Films
Wrath of Khan is my favorite Trek movie and dare I say my favorite movie of all time. I loved the performances, the villain, the style and way it was shot, the level of intensity, and the sacrifice. As a standalone film, it's gold. As a sequel to Space Seed (which I didn't see until years after seeing TWOK), it kind of added to Khan's hatred and gave a neat backdrop to the story. As a trilogy along with Search for Spock and The Voyage home ... meh ... each of those movies diminished how great TWOK was)
The Undiscovered Country was the spiritual sequel to The Wrath of Khan ... I liked that the character of Spock was REALLY back and not some weird amnesia patient they soft rebooted after they bought him back to life like in III to V. Sulu shined as a Captain and generally, it was a great send off to the original cast. It had a situation, humor, and shit on the line. It's also the ONE movie where the Enterprise isn't the only ship able to do something. Seeing Excelsior join the fight at the end was icing on the cake and broke that trope.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - It had a lot of potential if the script got another pass or two. There were some great character moments and a nice soundtrack. They direly needed ILM back to do their special effects. Overall, I thought the movie was a fun, campy train wreck and almost played a lost episode of the 60s series with 1.5x the budget of a ToS episode.
Pegasus Actual
Member
The only question is whether Discovery will rise above the shit tier or not. I'm leaning towards not.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
TOS series "ending" sucked (and was a horrible misogynistic mess), but the true end was Star Trek VI. Best trek movie ever with a great ending. Second star to the right and straight on till morning. Cast Signatures. Was awesome.
I'm a Wrath of Khan guy myself but Undiscovered Country's ending is great. Why did they have to ram TOS stuff into Generations
My Ranking:
1. Deep Space Nine. My favorite TV series of all time, with only Breaking Bad managing to come close since.
2. The Next Generation. Starts awful but a great cast, Picard is awesome (Sisko still better), and lot of great episodes.
3. Star Trek Original. Only watched a bit and the planet sets are so low budget but its still good.
4. Enterprise. Only watched S1 and a few episodes at the end of S4. Pretty bad overall.
5. Voyager. Watched S1-S3 and gave up. Continued to bother me as I watched it, what really hurts is how much potential there was. Maquis crew, survival mode, completely new races to deal with... I may some day try to watch the rest, see how they did with the Borg. 7 of 9 costume made me think they couldn't be serious though.
1. Deep Space Nine. My favorite TV series of all time, with only Breaking Bad managing to come close since.
2. The Next Generation. Starts awful but a great cast, Picard is awesome (Sisko still better), and lot of great episodes.
3. Star Trek Original. Only watched a bit and the planet sets are so low budget but its still good.
4. Enterprise. Only watched S1 and a few episodes at the end of S4. Pretty bad overall.
5. Voyager. Watched S1-S3 and gave up. Continued to bother me as I watched it, what really hurts is how much potential there was. Maquis crew, survival mode, completely new races to deal with... I may some day try to watch the rest, see how they did with the Borg. 7 of 9 costume made me think they couldn't be serious though.
This is how I feel about DS9. Absolutely fantastic TV with a great cast and the strongest episodes. I love it, but in my opinion it sometimes forgot Star Trek is science fiction and not just space opera. Especially in the later seasons.
VOY is the opposite. It actually forgot there is more to Star Trek than the anomaly of the week. But if you like time travel, strange anomalies and the Borg, Voyager is definitely for you.
TNG combines the best of DS9 and VOY. Both the Strange New Worlds of VOY and the political drama of DS9. And it has Data of course.
Enterprise is the weakest of them all. Except for Phlox, the characters are extremely forgettable. The first two seasons are like a boring VOY. Season 3 wants to be DS9 and season 4 is an ok TOS tribute.
Speaking of TOS, it is difficult to compare a series from the sixties to the more modern ones. If you can ignore the slow pace and cheap sets, many episodes in the first seasons are just as strong as TNG.
In tone, I think it's closest to Voyager though, because it doesn't always take itself seriously. And the Kirk, Spock & Bones combo is unbeatable.
TAS is unwatchable. The animation and voice acting is awful. I watched it once years ago and I can't remember any of it.
1: TNG
2: VOY
3: DS9 (rated 3rd as a Star Trek show! as random Scifi it would be 1st!)
4: TOS
5: ENT
6: TAS
I'd argue that if you like The Borg you'll hate Voyager since Voyager pretty much nerfs them and takes away all of their fear factor.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Li'l borg kiddoes!
Sir_Crocodile
Member
I'm a Wrath of Khan guy myself but Undiscovered Country's ending is great. Why did they have to ram TOS stuff into Generations
Yeah. Shame about Generations is that it could have been a great movie with a little tweaking.
Hell, this scene is one of the absolute defining Kirk scenes.
I actually think Generations is a great Trek movie pretty much until Veridian 3 happens, and then it goes to shit. That Kirk speech is pretty damn great though, no question. But Picard leaving the Nexus only to go to the riskiest situation possible plus the Enterprise-D jobbing to a TOS era Bird of Prey were really stupid plot decisions. And honestly I think sticking Kirk into the finale was a bad idea too. They should have just had Picard and Kirk meet in the Nexus, Picard returns to an earlier time to stop Soran, and Kirk returns to the Enterprise-B
MHWilliams
Member
DS9 > TNG S2+ > TOS > ENT S3+ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> VOY
The Nexus time travel stuff makes absolutely no sense.
The Data comic relief is pretty insufferable too.
Soran's entire plan is pretty unnecessarily convoluted. If he can track the entire path of the Nexus ribbon and even manipulate its course why can't he just fly a goddamn ship into it or hop in a spacesuit and wait for it to scoop him up?
"Time is the fire in which we burn" is a pretty badass line though
Not to mention the rocket going from the planet to the sun in like 3 seconds.
Man, that movie has some stupid stuff in it.
McDowell hamming it up is pretty fun though.
Yeah, there's no way the Enterprise shouldn't be able to snipe a sub-warp rocket from a planet that's approximately Earth distance from the sun. Granted, there should also be no way that everybody on the bridge forgets how to change shield frequencies & a TOS era Bird of Prey defeats a Galaxy Class Starship.
The first two thirds of Generations and the final third of the movie feel like they were written by different people. That final act becomes incredibly stupid incredibly fast.
Then Soren kidnaps Geordi to interrogate him about stuff he already knows about, then sends him back to the Enterprise with a camera in his visor where no one asks any questions or notices anything.
What did DS9 ever do to you?!
Sir_Crocodile
Member
This list is worse then Robert Beltran's acting
Himynameischris
Member
TNG
TOS
DS9
Voyager (S4-S7)
ENT (S3-S4)
TAS
VOY (S1-S3)
ENT (S1-S2)
I had to separate the seasons for VOY and ENT, it's almost like completely different shows with how bad they are.
It really feels like they ran out of budget 2/3s of the way and just said fuck it to the rest.
TOS
DS9
Voyager (S4-S7)
ENT (S3-S4)
TAS
VOY (S1-S3)
ENT (S1-S2)
I had to separate the seasons for VOY and ENT, it's almost like completely different shows with how bad they are.
It really feels like they ran out of budget 2/3s of the way and just said fuck it to the rest.
Sgt. Kabukiman
Banned
I'm so sorry.
For what it's worth, the rest of the franchise has excellent music. Some of Jerry Goldsmith's best work was done for Trek.
Religious savior garbage.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Yeah. Series has good stuff too, TOS has a fantastic soundtrack and early TNG S1-4 BGM is awesome because of Ron Jones.
Unfortunately because Berman is a moron, once he took over he got rid of him.
Admittedly, this was always the worst aspect of that show. It always got way better when it focused on things that weren't Bajor religious crap
DS9
TNG
TOS
ENT
VOY
I got the sense from ENT that they were at least trying to be fresh, VOY had 7 full seasons of playing it safe and boring, all the while it never approached the quality of TNG or DS9 story telling or character development. That being said I do think VOY has a some great episodes, but they are few and far between.
TNG
TOS
ENT
VOY
I got the sense from ENT that they were at least trying to be fresh, VOY had 7 full seasons of playing it safe and boring, all the while it never approached the quality of TNG or DS9 story telling or character development. That being said I do think VOY has a some great episodes, but they are few and far between.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
It worked sometimes, Rapture was an super episode and Dukat sealing the wormhole was awesome. But all the Pah-Wraith stuff that followed that was pretty cringe