The Best Star Trek TV Series of All Time?

You can vote for 2, the best and second best in your mind.

I voted for TOS and DS9. TNG only had a relatively few good episodes in my opinion, but I was surprised at how much I liked TOS episodes when seeing them on BBCA after not having watched them for years.

I went with DS9 first and Enterprise second. DS9, for me, is a shoe in for first. I just finished re-watching all 7 seasons of DS9 a few days ago and I am already missing it.

As for my second choice, that could change over time. I picked Enterprise because that is the one I would want to re-watch right now if I were going to re-watch a Trek series. Strong cast with Archer, T'Pol, Trip and Phlox.

I liked TNG, and I though they had some really good episodes, but there are a lot of stinkers in there too. Picard, Riker, Data and Worf make TNG for me.

I see Voyager has gotten no love at all. I actually liked Voyager a lot, even though Janeway is my least favorite captain. Not that I have any real dislike for her, she's okay but I like the others better. I really liked Tuvok, Paris and The Doctor on Voyager.

TOS is almost in a class of it's own for me. It's great and at the same time some of the 60's dialogue and effects let it down. If we're talking movies, it's TOS all day long.

I have no opinion on Discovery, I've not seen it. I said I would never but at the end of season one I'll probably sign up and binge watch it all.

Discovery has been really good, I'm looking forward to the season continuing this weekend.
I love Enterprise, I've just seen all of it so many times that I can't get into watching it. I try but then every episode is in my head so much watching it just isn't the same.
TNG...did have a lot of stinkers, especially the first 4 seasons or so, but it's my favorite crew and when it had action, it was really good.
Voyager was excellent once they ditched the hippy chick and brought on Seven of Nine. Good characters, but they fell short of TNG and Enterprise.
DS9, I guess I'm too much of a B5 fan to get into it. It just seems hokey to me and hard to take seriously, although they had some very cool big events.
TOS...I need to give it a go, I'm just afraid it may be too dated for me to enjoy. I don't want to ruin my memories of it.

How much have you seen?

DS9 starts off a little dull (not as dull as TNG) but hits it's stride by mid season two at the latest. And it has two of the best "non main cast" characters in any Trek series: Gul Dukat and the marvelously complicated Elim Garak. And Jeffrey Combs, as Brunt and Weyoun, is also great.

I voted DS9, which is my absolute favorite and Discovery.

I never got into much of the other Trek shows - I've never watched more than a couple episodes of Voyager, TOS or Enterprise.

Hey you forgot to list The Orville that is Star Treak by any other name for sure, albeit the comedy version.

I have to say I just like the charm of TOS. I would put TNG as second.

TOS was cheap in execution (though maybe not by 1960s standards), but I think it told, overall, the best stories.

True, but I limited the choices to "official" Star Trek

"Galaxy Quest" would also fit in with Trek movies.

Yes it had several of the best episodes in any Trek, but also several of the worst.

Most likely from the third season when the had cut the budget to next to nothing and gutted the writing staff. IIRC, I think Shatner referred to that season as the monster of the week season.


Wheels

Yep.

I also take that into account in picking a favorite, with season 3 being so bad and a few more so-so episodes in season 1-2 TOS only had 45-50 good episodes total. With TNG/DS9 and even Voyager going 7 season they had longer to make good episodes.

Even by 1960's standards, ST:TOS had a bare-bones budget. In one interview I saw with Shatner from several years ago he said that other shows had a larger food catering budget than the entire production budget for ST:TOS.

They were lucky they even got a third season since NBC cancelled the show after season 2. The ONLY reason it came back was due to a massive letter writing campaign by the fans.

Surprised that Enterprise doesn't rate higher.

I liked it quite a bit, the way it protrayed the "pioneering but bumbling humans" make-do on a stage much bigger than anything they had expected. It made them kinda... human.

Enterprise was much more about exploration, which I enjoyed. They didn’t have a book to go by, telling them how to handle everything. They were writing the book as they went along. Things obviously ramped up, but they really seemed like a crew based on discovery, rather than a much more military based ship in TNG. They claim Star Fleet isn’t exactly military, but then they’re the offense and defense arm of Earth. On Enterprise, when things got dangerous, they brought in the actual soldiers. Enterprise was a very pure Star Trek show IMO. More like future astronauts and my favorite ship. I also liked the minimal use of transporters and the distrust of them.

Starfleet IS the military arm of the Federation. It's the Federation that is the civilian organizatioin with the peaceful exploration mandate. Of course in ST:TOS, that distinction had not been devised yet so all of the ships including the Enterprise were just under the "Federation" umbrella.

A ship with families, children, daycare, barber shops, museum, stores etc is not a 100% military vessel. And that was the flagship. LOL I don’t think Star Fleet considers themselves the military, but they are surely militant in structure. They use the excuse of being defensive to explain their weapons etc. which is kind of BS, but since they expand by diplomacy instead of force, I guess it fits. A “defense force” rather than full military. Supposedly. LOL

That’s the problem, they had less in the way of protocols in Enterprise but were more pure in their purpose. TNG...they were fairly directionless, trying to make Enterprise a catch-all. Part science vessel, part diplomatic, part military. The NX-01 Enterprise was about exploration and making contact. It was barely armed when it started it’s long range mission.
Voyager appealed to me similarly. They were a science vessel but had to adapt to be diplomatic and a war ship as well. That was one powerful ship by the end.

Great post! That's how I have always felt about ENT. I never understood the grief the show got.

Even now if you google the subject of this thread you will find most polls, opinions etc. placing Enterprise dead last in popularity. And seeing our poll shows that among those in this forum at least that just isn't so.

To me that was one of the most eye rolling parts about TNG. How many of us would keep our children aboard the Enterprise after only one or two escapes from near annihilation that happened in practically every other episode?

Apparently people in the 24th century don't value the lives of their kids.

+1 F4U

Well, at least TNG got rid of that silliness in the movies once the crew got the new Sovereign class ship. That ship was specifically made for war!

There is only one Star Trek, the rest are imposters.

The coffee mug was an early Anniversary present from my brother and his wife. Many years ago the background pic was black space, pouring hot liquid into the cup uncloaked a Klingon Bird of Prey, ready to pounce on the Enterprise.



EDIT: Speaking of anniversaries and "Where No Man Has Gone Before,"...no wait, I'll save that post for tomorrow.

Voted first for DS9. to my mind when Star Trek grew up properly and faced a universe that wasn't perfect with a crew that again wasn't perfect.

Secondly Discovery. To my mind, Adult Trek. Not backing away from what we actually are and trying to deny we are imperfect.. (gawdsakes, tn, g the only music was classical? The only plays Shakespeare or experimental? No swearing? (funny that the universal translator never translated swear words.....))

Yeah, it got really cool and then they dropped the movies. I was hoping at the time the next show would continue to move into the future. IIRC, the tech for the Sovereigns were partially based on Voyager tech, wasn't it? Or did they get back after that, I can't remember. The show ended with a jump of several years beyond when they planned to get back.

Paramount's plan was to make a 5th and final TNG movie which would have wrapped up several long running storylines but Nemesis tanked so bad at the box office that the 5th movie was indeed dropped.

Interesting results thus far:


1 -The Original Series - 33%, 13 Votes

2 - The Next Generation - 23%, 9 Votes / Deep Space 9 - 23%, 9 Votes

3 - Enterprise - 10%, 4 Votes

4 - Discovery - 8%, 3 Votes

5 - Voyager - 3%, 1 Votes



I suspect Voyager may gotten a pity vote or it's someone's second choice

I also wonder if TOS is on top due to mostly second place votes? I should have only allowed one vote maybe.

Very surprising at the love ENT received, and pleased as I like it a lot as well.

I think the average age here on SimHQ is a very big factor behind why ST:TOS polled so well.

I am surprised that Voyager polled so poorly though.

I hope Discovery is offered by other means eventually, it's a great show people are missing out on. Jason Isaacs is one of the best captains, he just doesn't have the show centered around him as much as Kirk and Picard did. As a result, his motivations are more mysterious and interesting.
In the current episode, they tie into the USS Defiant from TOS and Enterprise storyline (not the DS9 Defiant).

I only started to watch Enterprise a few weeks ago, and now into the second series, when it originally aired over here I was commuting between London and Hasselt in Belgium when it was broadcast so never actually got to see it then, now I realise I missed a very good show, it was shown around the same time as Firefly was on over here too and that was another show I missed until much later.

So my votes went Enterprise 1st and TOS 2nd

I have not seen many Voyager and only a few DS9, not enough to have any opinion about them, once I have finished Enterprise I will be watching Voyager then DS9 ... Make it so Netflix

I have all the Star Trek movies on Bluray and have watched them a few times, The first Star Trek: The movie I very much enjoyed and they got better and better from there.

Discovery I am watching too and cursed when they took the break over Christmas, but it restarted again with a bang and with some twists too, it is much more action orientated than the other shows.