EDIT: I just want to make clear this is sarcasm.
State of play since 1986
The big 3, naturally.
Babylon 5, Farscape, and Battlestar Galactica.
May the force be with you to infinity and beyond.
Babylon 5: paved the way for real serialized arcs like lost and everything else we have now. Groundbreaking. Gave us Mollari.
Farscape: Watching a human kick ass and go mad in space. Never get off the boat, man, never get off the boat!!!
Farscape was once described as one Americans slow decent into the Australian S&M scene.
D'argo, tell him who his daddy is.
Babylon 5 has a pretty weak pilot movie, a somewhat shaky first season, and then gradually becomes the greatest thing in human history.
Farscape is basically Guardians of the Galaxy if it were a show on sci-fi a decade earlier, with muppets. Mostly very fun, occasionally hits a lot harder than you'd expect.
Oh Farscape
I watched that when I was very very sick (I lost like 30lbs), and to this day I have no idea how much was just fever dreams vs actually a real tv show.
You have to specify which era, at least:
Your parents’ Star Trek. Cheaply made and over the top acting. Aliens are mostly excuses to show half-naked women or use props from other shows to save money. But it has very important life lessons that everyone should learn.
Your Star Trek. Lots of boring talking, but that’s the best part! Certain episodes have become increasingly problematic as the years go by and even later episodes suffer from limited budgets. But the good ones stand out as the highest points of the franchise and they will likely never be topped.
The kids’ Star Trek. Over-produced, shaky cameras, lens flares, and everyone is a sex-starved alcoholic for some reason. In spite of the frequently cheap filmography, the show has never looked better, never been more accessible, and everyone is proudly represented.
I started Star Trek from 0 around 2 years ago.
I had to stop at number 2 of your list. (Maybe a bit later since I still watched Enterprise...) but Discovery killed the whole thing for me. I was like... how bad it can be? It's still Star Trek... well no.
Checked out a few episodes of Picard.., I dunno. That's also not necessarily the Star Trek for me. :/
(On the other hand, Seth MacFarlane's Orville was amazing)
Highly recommend lower decks (try getting through the first few eps though, it does take a little to find its legs). I am also not a fan of Discovery and Picard. Strange New Worlds is okay, a few really strong eps (i do adore the design work though, I’m very happy with the original series era being modernized like this)
(Maybe a bit later since I still watched Enrerprise…)
No, Enterprise firmly and definitely fits into category 2. It had a weird theme song and some people didn't like how it shoehorned an extra ship named Enterprise into the list, but other than that it was Berman-era Trek, through and through.
My GF didn't watch much Trek until she met me, and since then she's watched everything from TNG onwards. Even for a relatively new fan she agrees that Discovery just didn't feel like Star Trek even though she liked the show.
But her favorite Star Trek show is definitely The Orville.
For most people in this community, TNG is your parents' star trek. It began airing in 1987, 37 years ago. TOS is your grandparents' Star Trek, at the earliest.
Your Star Trek is MAYBE voyager, but Enterprise has been around over 20 years now, and people with jobs and taxes to pay watched that as young people.
For most people in this community, TNG is your parents' star trek. It began airing in 1987, 37 years ago. TOS is your grandparents' Star Trek, at the earliest.
Amazing how you do not think too much about your own age, until you see it staring back at you in black and white!
By this community’s standards at least I can say I did Live long. The Prosper part, not so much.
I'm the Enterprise crowd. I was 10 years old.
EDIT: I grew up on TNG. Saw First Contact in theaters at age of five.
This misses what makes Star Trek special and what makes the Nu-Trek shows such a failure, in my opinion.
What make Star Trek what it is is that in a world filled to the brim with hopeless dystopian stories and prudent allegorical warning signs in story format, Star Trek offered a uniquely hopeful Utopian view of the future. No, things were not perfect, but it's clear that many of the trivial problems of our world as well as nearly all scarcity issues were effectively "solved."
Meanwhile, Nu-Trek seems actively and solely focused specifically on tearing down or critiquing that Utopian view. I'm not opposed to critical consideration of a property, in fact in most cases it's an excellent way to re-evaluate a property. But in the specific case of Star Trek all it really accomplishes is turning this uniquely hopeful thing of beauty into just another generic and cynical piece of mild social commentary in a field absolutely crowded with exactly that sort of content already.
I'm not precious about Star Trek, I'm not above the idea of critiquing and reevaluating it, but when doing so accomplishes only taking away what makes it unique so it becomes just another interchangeable piece of Sci-Fi in the crowd.... Well I guess I just have to ask "What was the fucking point?"
Sorry to say but TNG and Voyager were the Star Trek shows that my mom watched.
The one with the ship called Enterprise
Next generation is so good I don’t even. It’s like my first time watching Star Trek and I just wanted to see Data
I couldn’t watch it when I was younger to not get bullied but it turns out it is fun. The nerds were right
I’m feeling personally attacked here! I come down on the Boimler side here I think, and I’d hate to argue with Beckett but she’s wrong.
All Star Treks are awesome in their own way and there all my Favourite. I can’t and I won’t be made to pick a series.
Those Old Scientists era is where it all starts and nobody tackles those great social issues like they did.
The Animated Series is so forking batshirt crazy and fun. And they brought us my bois, the Kizinti!
The original cast movies brought Trek back from the repeats. Yes even numbers are better but five got me to ask “Why does god need a starship”
The Next Generation really kicked it in to high gear and expanded the universe.
DS9 - I wouldn’t recommend any long story format higher.
Voyager - if I didn’t love Voyager Janeway would kick my ass.
The TNG movies had some kick ass action and amazing space battles.
Enterprise really explored the beginnings and had a lot of fun filling in the niches and contradictions.
I could keep going on and on but it’s late and I’ll leave you with how I alway feel about Trek series. My favourite one is one that I’m watching right now
Voyager - if I didn’t love Voyager Janeway would kick my ass.
No need for threats. Voyager is good.
Blink twice if you need help.
I didn't know the Kzinti were in Star Trek, that's a cool crossover
Niven actually wrote them in himself, but the animated series has a loose connection to the rest of canon. There were rumors that Enterprise was going to introduce them properly before it got canceled.
There are Kzinti in Lower Decks.
I guess I liked the darker kind of Trek that was ToS Movies more than anything - TMP and Wrath of Kahn, and I really wanted to see something in that direction.
DS9 got close to scratching that itch, but was also rather too derivative of Babylon 5 which IMO did everything it was trying to do somewhat better.
I really miss the slower-paced, philosophical and cerebral content of TNG though. What Star Trek did best was that. Put us in a place and give us something to think about.
The newer series really don't do that for me in any shape way or form.
At least we have Orville - as others have already said.
Unfortunately I'm pretty sure Orville is dead now. I haven't heard anything about a new season in ages and they would have had one out by now if they'd been working on one.
Might wanna look again, s4 starts filming next year
Can't they all be my favourite? I enjoy all star trek
All of it? Even that one?
If you don’t specify it’s Enterprise of course! Who could resist that catchy theme song?
Star Trek: The Land Before Time
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