What's your favourite Star Trek Series?

TNG by a light year for me.
TOS for Mrs Big B, which has made for a few interesting conversations!

Genuinely suprprised to see so much support for ENT, which I thought was riddled with fail.

Lobelia Overhil wrote: »

there was one in particular where Deanna kept hearing a tune in her head

Hmmmmmm. Without resorting to google....was that one in which she had a repressed memory. Or when the dying Ullian was trying to communicate with her telepathically, to tell her about some atrocity that had happened years before?

I think I have to say TNG was my favourite. I've been on here a bit talking up DS9, but at the end of the day TNG gets my vote.
It breathed new life into the franchise. Lets not forget that in syndication TOS was idolised by its fans. Many must have been worried TNG would ruin the franchise, but it made it greater than ever. We may all disagree about the merits of DS9, VOY and ENT but none of them would have been possible without TNG.

I think the litmus test is - if you had the choice to re-watch an episode from any series, what would it be? Most of the time it would be TNG>DS9>VOY for me. I have trouble concentrating on ENT episodes even if I have never seen them before - they're just so boring!
Last night, for instance, the 2 part VOY episode Unimatrix Zero was showing at the same time as DS9's The Jem Hadar. There was no contest - DS9 won hands down.

TOS - Will always have a place in my heart. Grew up watching it in the
'70s. Pretty much every episode has a good plot, so I can forgive
all the imperfections.

TAS - Barely remember it.

TNG - Liked it a lot. Tried to be more realistic than TOS. Liked most of
the characters, except both the Crushers.

DS9 - Probably my favourite, maybe because it was the least Trek of all.
I loved the political intrigue.

Voyager - I liked Harry & Tom, but it was the only interaction that worked
for me. The Doctor was basically Rimmer, especially when he
got his hard light drive (mobilll emitter). Jeri Ryan was just eye
candy. They really lost me in one particular episode when it
turned out that they were all aliens from a demon-class planet
who were impersonating them, and had been for weeks.

Enterprise - Disaster. The entire point of this show was to pull in new
fans, but they referrenced the other series too much.
The final series was a single story, which never works.
None of the interactions worked on any lever.
Having the final episode star Riker & Troi just showed how
little regard the producers had for it.

Mal-Adjusted wrote: »

Which is why it's considered one of the best seasons of ANY trek show? (it was actually the 2nd last season)

as for single story seasons never working, um, have you ever heard of this show called 24?

Considered the best ever? Really? By Whom?
I'm talking about the temporal cold was story, was that not the final season?

The point of the show was to draw in a new audience, something it failed to do. A casual viewer (ie, not a fan) may watch a few episodes of a show, and be drawn in, so long as it is episodic, and not a soap opera.

Yes, I've heard of 24, but I've never watched it. I thought kiefer was quite good in The Lost Boys, though.:D

Hmmm, most Trek fans I know hated Enterprise.:(
I'm thinking about the season in which Earth was attacked by that laser thingy that killed Trip's sister. Turned out the planet was inhabited by 5 races, mammals, fish, birds, erm, and 2 others. To be honest, it was difficult enough watching it first time, so I've never watched the repeats, so I'm hazy on the details.
Anyway, I take it by your sig that you're a Dune fan. I've just finished reading Hunters. Quite disappointed with it. Just Sandworms to go.

I originally voted DS9 but having bought and watched all the episodes of Enterprise recently I'd be inclined to vote for that (just to give it an extra vote at this stage )

I voted DS9. I watched TNG first when I was growing up, but the later seasons of DS9 were the first trek shows that I watched each week as they were first released.

I did also enjoy Voyager, never watched that much of TOS, and didn't get into Enterprise, but am going to watch season 1 soon.

I liked the long story dark war story arcs of DS9, and the same themes and techniques are shown carried over to BSG by the common writing pool between the later DS9 seasons and BSG.

Aside from the war arcs which were more gripping than the arcs in Voyager or TNG for me, I thought DS9 had some great stand alone episodes. Even during the later war arcs there were many single episodes that explored the darkness and humanity in war.

I really enjoyed the DS9 characters. Sisko, when he loses his hair and grows a beard becomes a bad ass, but an interesting bad ass. I think the acting and the character are good, though inferior to the acting and character of Picard. O'Brien and Bashir make a great duo; interacting well together as well as being interesting characters in their own right. O'Brien's war background and resulting prejudices come out, Bashir, particularly when his past comes out, becomes more than just a nerd.

I don't enjoy Odo all the time as a character, but he does have some great moments. Worf of course is excellent and added much to the show when he arrived. Jadiza and Kiera don't stand out so much for me compared to Trek characters in the other series.

Character-wise I think the secondary characters make DS9 stand out from the other series. Garak, Quark, Rom, Nog and to a lesser extent Jake are all layered characters even though they are very much in supporting rather than main roles. As an aside, didn't that renegade officer Michael Eddington show the maquis in much more depth and complexity than the quickly assimilated maquis officers on Voyager? Aside from a few episodes early episodes of Voyager could you honestly see the differences between the regular obedient trained and loyal starfleet officers with the passionate and driven rebel freedom fights or for that matter the former jail bird?

The "bad guy" characters are more interesting and more persistant than the other Trek shows I have watched. Weyuon is one of the best bad guy characters I have seen in any show; malign, cynical, yet ultimately loyal to his cause and bringing humour. Dukat and Damar are also both interesting for different reasons. The female shapeshifter wasn't a character I liked though, and I never enjoyed Winn as a foil, even though she served a narrative purpose.

Compared to Voyager and TNG, Jake is the least annoying child character in my opinion. He can still be annoying, but not to the extent of Wesley and that little girl from Voyager. The choice to be a journalist rather than a starfleet officer like his dad, sets him apart from conventions and shows that while starfleet officers are the main characters in the shows, they aren't all that is to aspired to in the ST galaxy. As a journalist he does come into his own during the station occupation. Nog is an under appreciated child character. In the earlier seasons he questions and critiques hooman/federation philosophy. Later he becomes a model starfleet cadet rejecting both the differing paths of what should be his alternatve role models; Nog or Quark. And his own war experience adds further depth to his character.

I won't dwell on religion too much other than to say as with BSG it adds nice mystery but it can be unsatisfying when it is used to quickly resolve big plot issues and it is more difficult to resolve the religious ends of story arcs than it is to introduce the mysterious religion set up.

My final part of my pro-DS9 rant is to point out how well I think the show does comedy. DS9 took the Ferengi rubbish from TNG and made them hilarious. Whether in full Ferengi episodes or small parts of other episodes Ferengi humour is done very well. At certain points Quark critiques federation and humans very well and it is presented in a humourous way. But even Ferengi aside DS9 has plenty of humour from Garak, Weyon, mocking Worf and plenty of O'Brien/Bashir stuff.

I love the non-stop combat action of the next generation, as oppoesd to the long, drawn out philosophical debates of DS9 or the stream of softcore pornography of voyager.