TNG because it’s basically what I grew up although watching the early TNG episodes can be a bit painful to watch these days. The only downside to TNG is Wesly Crusher. I can put up with Troi, but Wesley, Jesus Christ WTF were they thinking?
Sigh. Someone go get me my cane - this makes me feel so goddamn old.
DS9 is flat out the best Star Trek ever. Just the fact that they introduced the Benny Russell character and hinted that the entire DS9 series was just the fevered imagination of a 1950’s black sci-fi writer puts it over the top - it’s one of the few true “Phillip K Dick” moments on TV.
The only bad moment in that whole series is when they killed off Dax - she got in a salary dispute, and the way they wrote her off the show really didn’t show any respect for the character or her fans.
Edit: If I had to show anyone a single episode from Star Trek, it’d either be “The City On The Edge Of Tomorrow” from TOS (since I’m such a sucker for Ellison) or “The Visitor” from DS9 (the one where Jake Sisko spends his whole life trying to save his father, Benjamin, from a time vortex, and in the end succeeds and undoes his entire timeline). Both of these episodes pack an incredible emotional punch.
ds9
best non-movie ship battles. my favorite moment was when they had a federation fleet fighting the cardassian/dominion fleet, you see a cardassian cruiser taking potshots at federation fighters, then a galaxy class zooms up and smacks it around, then a second one pounds it again. then when the fleet looks like it’s going to get crushed, the klingon fleet rides in like the calvary and uncloaks while flying out of the sun.
sex. evil twin mirror universe major kira tries to sex it up with everyone, and succeeds with both siskos. and with the second dax’s twin. and tries to do it with her nonevil twin.
worf. his captor is mocking him and the second dax about how he enjoyed studying interspecies procreation. despite having some guards around him, worf steps up and neatly snaps his neck.
darkness. sisko fakes evidence to get the romulans to come in on the federation’s side. the federation looks the other way while section 31 infects the founders with a disease to annihilate them.
supporting characters/villains. sisko’s cardassian nemesis is awesome, switching sides multiple times, just oozing evil and charisma. the cardassian tailor who you never know if he’s on your side or not.
tribbles and tribulations. need i say more?
For me it’s a toss up between TNG and TOS. The first few seasons of TNG were awful, but once Riker grew a beard it started improving. Some of those later episodes were really good, though unfortunately I’m not enough of a fan to know any of the names.
But I voted for TOS because my big problem with TNG is that there is no emotion, no pathos from any of the characters aside from Piccard. Sure, someone will raise their voice when they deliver a line but otherwise they’re pretty much vulcan. It makes it feel so souless to me.
One thing about Riker that amuses me is that he seems like a total pussy, totally scared out of his mind: whenever they meet some alien race he immediately wants to attack.
And I hate the way Worf gets his ass handed to him by virtually every single thing in the universe.
That sounds neat, I’d like to see that one sometime.
Babylon 5 at its worst is better than Star Trek at its best.
Loved TOS/TNG, watched DS9 for its first season and a half, hated it, and didn’t watch it for the rest of its run. Picked up the DVDs after repeatedly hearing about the awesomeness of the Dominion War, and sat through it. If you can get past some real stinkers in the first couple of seasons (“Move Along Home” was acutely, memorably, crappy) and make it to the introduction of the Defiant, then you’re in good shape.
Sisko sensibly faking evidence of Dominion culpability, and Security Chief Eddington’s post-defection rant against the Federation did wonders to change how one sees Roddenberry’s utopia.
No, no it’s not.
The first season has some really, really, REALLY, really bad moments.
“The Measure of a Man” remains my favorite TNG episode. However, I haven’t seen it since its first rerun.
I’d say the best Star Trek eps were Average quality season 2-4 B5.
Not to mention the last season of B5. Yeesh.
And I say this as a major Babylon fanboy.
Troy
I think The Inner Light (TNG) is a fabulous piece of television. I still cry every time I watch that episode. Don’t know that I would put it out there as a great example of ST though…just a good episode of any show.
I agree, Inner Light is perhaps my all time favorite TNG episode. Before the days of the Net they ran a “best of” selected by call-ins from fans and if I recall it was rated the highest on the 7-9 scale.
Wow, I thought season 2 sucked. That’s when I stopped watching it.
I voted DS9, but it was close between that and TNG. I think TNG at its best is better, but DS9’s average quality is better.
You are missing a lot, seriously. You should go back and watch again. Season 1 can pretty much be skipped, Season 2 is the setup for everything. Season 3 and 4 are the wars and conclusion to the original story.
Season 1 has a few great episodes, including Morden’s arrival and dangerous question. I liked the war criminal episode, too. Actually, Season 1 is pretty important, IMO, for setting up the tragedy of Londo and Delenn’s growing outsider status in her own homeworld.
On average, though, it is weaker. Garibaldi and Ivanova never really become interesting until Season 2.
Troy
I voted The Old Series the best since it without it, there would be no future series versions.
My first choice was the new Enterprise series, since I wanted to see it continue.
If they had called the latest series something else, like Starship:Endeavor, then the show would have survived longer. Providing a direct link between the show and the Trek franchise sent a message to the market that the same old stuff was going to be presented.
It’s true the story was the same of stuff, but perhaps the market wouldn’t have recognized this if ties to Trek weren’t so apparant and poorly implemented.
I voted Next Gen. The only two series I’ve seen a decent number of episodes of are the first two, though the snippets I caught from later series didn’t grab me.
TOS is too campy, Next Gen is just right…
This is really where DS9 shined. The supporting characters were much more interesting and complex than the leads throughout most of the series.
I voted TNG, because the quality of certain individual episodes (some of which have been named here) is spectacular. Plus, Picard is teh best captain EVAR.
Taken as a body of work, though, DS9 is more complex and interesting.
I’m curious about the remarks about how TNG has aged badly. For me it’s a lot easier to watch a rerun of TNG because most of the episodes are self-contained. Which is not the case for much of DS9.
But I thought the question was which series had the best uniforms, in which case I have to say TNG after season three, where they had the raised collars. The blue sweaters never did it for me.
Nelson