I know it’s an overused question in a lot of places, but it hasn’t been asked here in quite a while. I’m curious to see what the preferred Star Trek shows are in the group here. Whether you want to just list your favorite show, do a complete ranking of all the shows, or something in between, I’m interested to know!
This is my current top five show list:
- Deep Space Nine
- Star Trek
- Strange New Worlds
- The Next Generation
- Lower Decks
It gets difficult for me to rank past that point, so I usually stop there.
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My favorite is TNG, and it’s not even close. But that’s not to say I don’t also love the others, because I do. Except for Picard, which I didn’t like much at all except for season 3.
Picard was such a hot mess.
TNG is"my" star trek, I watched it religiously when it first came out and even now the music has a curious feeling of comfort and safety about it.
I watched series 1 of Picard, it was okay. Started on 2 and stopped as soon as Q arrived, never liked those episodes of TNG either.
Just started on series 3, enjoying it so far
I’m definitely similar in that I usually enjoy most Trek! I also wasn’t a fan of Picard, although I only watched season 1. I just didn’t feel the urge to even try any of the later seasons after that. Discovery is not my favorite either, but that’s primarily due to the heavily serialized storytelling and the focus on one character instead of a larger cast like many of the other shows.
I’m with you there on Picard. Season one was… okay, but it had some very interesting worldbuilding that was just thrown away at the end. Season two had all kinds of problems: the story was writier’s-strike-levels of half-baked, and the forced time-travel plot just stunk of budget slashing. Season three was fun, but it was wall-to-wall fanservice and that’s why we like it; this too also ignored a lot of plot points from seasons one and two.
I would have loved to see a more genuine attempt to establish a Next(er) Generation with the support of so much established star power. IMO, there should have been an entire new crew at the end of season three that has us clamoring for season four. Instead, we got that out of Prodigy of all things.
Yep. All they had to do was let the character die, and then rename a ship “Picard” and you have a whole new series.
If you asked me a couple years ago I would’ve said DS9, but now I think it might unironically be Lower Decks. TNG, VOY, ENT, The Orville, Galaxy Quest, and even-numbered movies excluding JJ Abrams shit would follow closely behind.
I have to admit, I’m a negligent Trekkie: I still haven’t gotten around to watching most of nu-Trek yet. I also have had a hard time getting through TOS and TAS because I find them to be an, uh, “challenging” watch, in that way lots of really old shows are for people who grew up with more modern TV.
Lower Decks has a surprising amount of heart for being a comedy show! I’ve gotten to really enjoy it, although some of the humor doesn’t always work for me. DS9 will probably always be my favorite though, at least for the foreseeable future! Sisko is my favorite captain, and I really enjoy the rest of the cast as well.
I can understand the older shows being a little difficult for modern audiences! I grew up with more modern series as well, and some of the older episodes are a little harder to watch. I still enjoy a lot of the stories though.
There’s definitely nothing wrong with skipping some of the shows, there’s a wide variety of styles in the new ones. I would recommend Strange New Worlds as a potential starting point if you wanted to try any of them though. It feels closest to the TOS era, but with more modern stories and production values.
TNG, Voyager and DS9 get a tie for first. Haven’t really seen any of the nu-Trek except for some Discovery and Lower Decks. Something about them just didn’t jive for me. Picard was Picard getting bullied. TOS can be fun, but not enough for me to sit and intentionally watch it. I should watch TAS though. It looks bad in a good way.
Edit: I take that back, Orville gets #1, TNG, Voyager and DS9 tie for #2.
I need to watch some Orville sometime, I’ve heard it’s pretty good. The 90’s era Treks are always a solid choice. Did you try any of Strange New Worlds? It’s got a completely different vibe than the other new shows, and I like the crew.
I haven’t, I’ve heard good things, I just haven’t gotten around to watching it yet!
Edit: also, when it comes to the Orville, keep in mind that it starts out as a parody and gets more serious overtime. However, the Orville has 100% more female country music star cameos than star trek. That makes it better.
I know that feeling well!
I did hear that it transitioned to more of a drama part way through, so I’ll keep that it mind when I get to watching it. Yes, hearing that Dolly was on a science fiction show was not on the list of things I expected to happen! I was raised around country but as I got older I began to prefer jazz, so I have to balance 90’s Trek’s love of jazz against that now.
I’m a TOS/TNG kinda guy.
There’s a lot of good stories in those shows!
It’s hard and change all the time, but it would be DS9, TNG, LD, SNW, TOS.
Some good choices! 🖖🏼
Lower Decks is easily the most entertainment for my time I’ve had out of Trek in a while. I’m conflicted, since calling this my favorite feels like cheating: it doesn’t entirely stand on its own since it riffs on everything else Trek.
In that case, SNW takes the top spot on my list. It’s an incredibly well-oiled production and it shows at every level.
Bottom of the list is Enterprise, but that’s only because I personally feel the writers squandered a fantastic setting. Star Trek at a lower technology tier just begs for more edge-of-your-seat stakes and problem solving. At the start, it had grit: the ship had no shields, puny weapons, limited warp, a janky universal translator, and everyone was terrified of the transporter. Add to that operating under interplanetary tensions and a fledgling federation that is a relative unknown in the galaxy. Much of this got thrown out in record time, and for what? A temporal causality loop hundreds of years wide, thereby eradicating any agency the crew had, and by extension, our disbelief that they may pull through the next encounter.
You’re right, if you haven’t watched all of the Trek shows you’re definitely not going to get nearly as much enjoyment from Lower Decks! There are even references to things that weren’t previously canon, like the Star Trek helmet, so even then you won’t get all the jokes.
I really enjoy SNW, it’s always pretty high on my list. It’s been especially great since this is the first time I’ve had a Trek show I really like that I’m watching while it’s still in production! I have some annoyances with it here and there, mostly due to the fact that it’s a prequel, but I can more easily overlook that because most of the rest of it is good.
I really think Enterprise and Voyager both were missed opportunities. Enterprise for a lot of the reasons you mention, and Voyager I felt could have had a lot more continuity. It was the perfect place to have a lot of recurring characters and DS9 style arcs, but they never really committed.
I’m with you on Voyager. A big problem with the story was it’s premise: it’s kind of hard to run into the same people more than once when you’re bee-lining for home every chance you get. So they should have focused more on every last stinking crew member onboard that little ship. Or start a small fleet and do it BSG style. Lots of options, but they’re all outside the usual Trek box.
Exactly, I always imagined it focusing on recurring characters within various factions on the ship. They could have had various Maquis characters working on their own agendas and struggling more with being on a Starfleet ship, or maybe they picked up some aliens along the way and are trying to integrate them into life on the ship. They did the second thing to some degree with Seven, but having a group of actual aliens would have been interesting too. Especially if some of the aliens turned out to be planted there to cause trouble.
Lower Decks gives you more if you’re a Treckie, but it stands on it’s own, as I’ve witnessed watching it with my non-treckie spouse!
Interesting! I’m glad to hear it can.
It used to be ds9, but lower decks took the top spot immediately after it came out.
It took me a bit to warm up to Lower Decks, but I like it pretty well now! It has a lot of heart, and certainly isn’t above laughing at itself!
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Lower decks! Lower decks!
Quite honestly my favourite is the one that’s on right now, which ever one that is. It was Lower Decks just recently and I’m guessing soon it’ll Strange New World, but what’s in repeats always catches my eye too.
That a good way of doing it! I’m definitely looking forward to Lower Decks season 5, I think they said it starts the end of next month. It’s also going to feel like a long wait for SNW too.
You’ll always get me with TNG or VOY. Totally love both shows (except a few episodes).
There are a lot of good episodes in both of those!
(except a few episodes)
True, some episodes really haunt the series.
They also somehow salamander it although I’m quite sure there is no such verb.
I like a lot of them, but I mostly watch TNG/DS9.
Nice! There’s a lot of good Trek stories in those shows.
Wow it’s the first time I hear about short treks. Fortunately it’s on Paramount.
I’m glad I put that logo on the collage then! There’s not a lot of them, but they’re kind of interesting short stories that don’t really fit in the modern serialized format.
SNW, TNG, Voyager are my top 3.
Orville (with S4 pseudo confirmed!)
I hear a lot of mentions of that show, someday™ I’m going to get to watching it!
VOY, ENT, SNW, TNG, DS9, TOS, LD, TAS - in that order. I know, I’m weird.
It wouldn’t be my preferred ranking, but that’s fine! I’ve seen a lot of people that look a lot more favorably at VOY and ENT now that some time has passed. Not that they were ever actually bad, I think pretty much any of the shows would have had a harder time of it in that time period.
TNG, DS9, TOS for me. Interesting that there seem to be a lot fewer TOS fans now.
Unfortunately I see many people talking about TOS looking too dated to watch, or the acting and stories not holding up. While I’ll admit it doesn’t look quite as shiny as the new shows, I still enjoy it! I’m guessing that’s one reason, the other is that a lot of the older TOS fans are either passing away or old enough that they’ve stopped talking about the shows online!