Star Trek: How many follow any of the franchises?

[roadman65]

I always loved Star Trek and Star Trek TNG.  It was always interesting to watch the original series with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy as well as the six movies with the original cast.  Then also with TNG, it was neat with Picard, Riker, and all the supporting cast characters like Worf, Data, Geordi, Deanna, and Dr. Crusher.  Both had their own identities and even though both were on missions to discover new worlds and new civilizations and boldly go where no one has gone before, they had their own differences.

In the original, most episodes were centered around Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. In the TNG, you had it around everyone pretty much, and many episodes had multiple story lines where in the original there was only one story.  Also in the first series you had a second officer who doubled as the Science Officer, where in the second series you had the second officer only as such and had more authority over the crew.  Remember Will Riker had his own chair along with the Captain's chair whereas Spock had his seat on the side of the bridge manning the science station.  Also you never seen both Picard and Riker be on the same away team like you did Kirk and Spock.  In addition Riker did not show any doubts like Spock did when he was in command.  Spock always had to state his reasoning to the crew, that was always based on logic, while Riker just executed his commands.

I was wondering if there are any other Trekees here, and what shows did you like and what were your favorite episodes?

Mine was The Inner Light on TNG where Picard lived another life on a planet that died centuries ago when its sun went nova.  He was gone for only twenty minutes in real time, but he actually lived over 30 years as Kamin, a resident of that planet, in those twenty minutes and had a family during his tenor as his alter ego.

On the Original it had to be the one where Kirk and Spock went back to the 1930's to fix history as McCoy accidentally created an alternate time line when he went back in time to the same period.  I do not know the name of the episode, but it featured Joan Collins in it where Kirk, falls in love with her, only to have to let her die to allow their own timeline to exist which if she had lived the US would have lost World War II and there would be no space program and eventually no Enterprise for them to be part of.

[Max Rockatansky]

I wouldn't exactly call myself a "Trekee" but I've seen all the movies, all the original series, and most of The Next Generation over the years.  Personally I kind of enjoy the campy nature of the original series given the era it was broadcasted in....Kirk vs Gorn comes to mind.  I like how far thinking a lot of the ideas that were incorporated even back then, they really had to make up for the lack of CGI with decent stories to paint the images of the future they were going for.

BUT...that said The Next Generation was the best overall series overall.  The cast was pretty close to the original series and was acted infinitely better.  The original cast kind of took a humorous tone in the movies while The Next Generation stayed pretty serious and on note with the TV Series.  I've caught a little bit of the Deep Space 9 and Enterprise.  Neither really had the same "omph" for me as the previous series had.  But by then I was watching a lot of Stargate....

[cl94]

Yes, I am one. My father insists that we are Trekkers, with Trekkies being the people who dress up and go to conventions.

The Inner Light might be my favorite episode from all of the series, even after watching all of the episodes.

Almost everything we use in modern life has some basis in something the person who designed it saw on Star Trek. Digital music, cell phones, bluetooth, the list goes on. Heck, I even saw an article today that said a British scientist has developed synthehol with no negative physical effects (referred to as "alcosynth", likely a reference to Star Trek).

[hbelkins]

There is only one Star Trek. That's the original series (and the animated one) with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, etc. Everything else was some sort of inferior knockoff.

[US 81]

I am a serious Trekker.

I am old enough to have grown up on TOS (The Original Series) so it will always have a special place in my heart. Many of the special effects were then state-of-the-art but now can feel so 'cheeze-y'. I love the orchestral "space opera" music of TOS, too. The episode where McCoy changes history is "City on the Edge of Forever," probably the best TOS episode. I love "Mirror, Mirror", "I, Mudd", "Journey to Babel", "The Trouble With Tribbles" and "The Tholian Web" are also favorites for me.

I love TNG as well, although to me many of the first and second season episodes feel contrived or just rough, it certainly evolved into a show of quality thereafter: "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Remember Me", "Darmok", "Cause and Effect", "Frame of Mind" and "The Inner Light" are some of my favorites.

DS9 (Deep Space Nine) was a bit uneven, but had some outstanding episodes including "Duet" , "The Visitor", "In the Pale Moonlight" and "Far Beyond The Stars"  and, for a comedic turn, "Our Man Bashir" and "Trials and Tribble-ations" are great.

I did not care much for Voyager at first, but it grew on me; I think the later seasons of Voyager produced some quality episodes: "Scorpion," "Scientific Method" and "Year of Hell" among them, as well as the fun "Bride of Chaotica" and "The Haunting of Deck 12."

I tried to like Enterprise, but just never got into it. I felt most of the portrayals of the Vulcans were off; Vulcans are stoic but most of the actors played hostile, and my guess is that they were directed to do so. At any rate, it didn't feel right to me. Also, I thought they tried to ret-con a bit too much. There were a few episodes in the fourth season I liked, tho "In a Mirror Darkly" is all that comes to mind.

[roadman65]

What was most different about the TOS, is that there was no prime directive which allowed Kirk to interfere with other cultures.  In fact Kirk made it his business to change other worlds such as to get barbaric societies to become peaceful and also overthrow governments just to make them to be like 20th Century Earth.

Also they were less formal in TOS, as no ranks were referred to except Captain Kirk. Spock was Mr. Spock and Scottie was either that name or Mr. Scott plus Mr. Sulu or Mr. Chekov, but no calling by rank titles except Lt. Ohura other than than the Captain.  Plus Dr. McCoy always called Kirk by his first name whenever he was with him unlike, lets say, Dr Crusher in TNG where she was on a first name basis with Captain Picard, but still while in the field always called him Captain  and only being informal while alone in the same room with him.

I guess you can say the original was much closer to being more family oriented than TGN, as it was business first with Picard's crew and personal issues to the side.  Basically the second show was a modern version of the first, but Deep Space 9 had to be totally different as you can only duplicate once so they made it about life aboard a space station with some encounters in space itself.

Voyager and Enterprise were based on TOS but had an advantage though as STV had a ship that was lost and thrown clear across the galaxy and out of Federation Space encountering distant light years away worlds.  I did not watch it much, but I am guessing that they made it home in later seasons as both Riker and Deanna from TNG made a guest appearance in the final season on one episode.   Enterprise went back in time, and not forward like the others, as this was years before Kirk showing the beginnings of everything.  Heck, transporters were not used as all personnel used shuttle crafts to travel down to planets.  Also it was so far back the Klingons were total enemies and had a bounty out on Captain Archer throughout most of the series as he was sentenced to life in prison, but escaped due to the fact he was innocent in the Klingon Kangaroo Court system.

[nexus73]

ST:TNG had an interesting 1st season episode which dead ended in terms of future stories that was titled "Conspiracy".  The next episode was "The Neutral Zone", which set the table for introducing the Borg in season 2 (Q Who?), which I always found to be an interesting juxtaposition of plotlines.  The "Conspiracy" alien life form was scarier than the Borg in my opinion. 

Rick

[ET21]

I watched Voyager when I was young and got hooked. Eventually watched TNG, DS9, the films and Enterprise. I still have yet to really watch TOS, only seen an episode here or there.

[wxfree]

I like Star Trek.  I think it got better after the influence of Gene Roddenberry waned.  The original and early TNG had more of a mysterious feel, like it's space horror.  Early TNG even had some poorly lit scenes, making it look like the show is about the fear of the darkness and vastness of space.  I like these episodes as basic monster-of-the-week-style entertainment, but Star Trek really meant something later when it showed a vision.

Later TNG and the following series weren't about mystical powers and monsters, but were about science and technology and space exploration.  Other than Q and the wormhole aliens, there was at least a basic understanding of how the aliens and threats worked, and how we could deal with or defend against them.  I also like that they started using story arcs, because those develop the stories and characters more deeply.  I'd like to have seen the "Conspiracy" plot line worked out, but just like the probe from the alternate-universe life forms in "Schisms," it was left as a lingering threat, to linger but be forgotten.  While "The Inter Light" is probably the best TNG episode, I just don't really like it that much.  This is a time when what I like and what's good don't really match up.  The whole episode is too long and slow.  I know that's the whole point, to convey the amount of time that passed, but I just don't care for it.  My favorite TNG episode is "Masks."  To me, it's like "The Inner Light" in that it tells a deep and meaningful story, but I think it's better told.  IMDB says it's one of the lowest-ranked episodes, so maybe again there's a break between what I like and what's actually good.

DSN (the title does not have a 9 in it - the name of the station, but not the show, is Deep Space 9) is the best series, far and away.  It has the strongest characters and best storyline, with deep and interweaving plots.  I could do with a little less Bajoran spiritualism, but in the context of aliens life forms so, uh, alien, that we don't understand their nature, I think it contributes to the overall story.  I like the darkness of DSN, not the mystical monster type of darkness, but philosophical darkness, caused by the questioning of core beliefs.  Eddington brought this to the fore quite well, with his indictment of the Federation.  That kind of darkness wouldn't play well in any of the other shows, but DSN had a pattern of depressing, disappointing, and otherwise non-uplifting episode endings.  In addition to the grand stories, including the series-long stories of Dukat and the Cardassians, Odo, and the Prophets (which kind of parallel TNG's series-long story of Q's judgement, which is much less developed and was only mentioned once or twice outside of the first and last episodes), I like the depth of meaning in this series and how it leaves you asking questions.  Q, again, paralleled that in TNG in his scene calling the whole premise of space exploration, and Star Trek itself, into question in the final episode.  That's my kinda television!

(semi-off topic rant - Space exploration is something we should do when we're able to, and certainly learning about other life forms is very worthwhile, but that isn't the central tenet of the purpose of life, the way Starfleet personell seem to think it is.  They shouldn't give up the development of culture and the pursuit of grander questions like they seem to have.  They seem to have very little in the way of new art and new philosophy.  They don't even try to make it look like they do.  TNG makes a big point of showing how much they rely on stuff that's old now for culture.  It may even be that too much "paradise" is destructive to the human spirit, which maybe the Ferengi philosophy balances.)

The later shows I would say are good, but probably not as great as TNG and DSN.  I liked both of them, but they didn't have the benefit of deep questions or Picard's wisdom and morality (and even Q's wisdom).  They're good as basic science fiction, but I don't think they're truly special like the two that were before them.

[noelbotevera]

I watched the original series of Star Trek while it was being re-runned on BBC. Personally I prefer it to The Next Generation, although my class mates wouldn't like it because they believe that special effects are more important than actual content.

[US 81]

"DS9" is by far the more widely used abbreviation for Deep Space Nine. 

[SteveG1988]

I do.

[cl94]

"DS9" is by far the more widely used abbreviation for Deep Snore Nine.

FTFY

[akotchi]

I am a big Trekker.  TNG is the series I followed most -- my wife gave me the complete series DVD set for Christmas one year.  Like others here, "The Inner Light" is my favorite episode, but I also count "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Parallels", "Time's Arrow" (both parts) and "A Fistful of Datas" to be very good as well.  I also liked the movies "Generations" and "Insurrection" featuring the TNG crew.

My father watched the original series.  I was all of 4 when it went off the original run, but I saw them plenty of times in syndication.  I don't have any particular favorites, but I was very happy to see BBC put the originals back on.

I started with DS9, but just could not get into it.  Same with Voyager and Enterprise.  The newer movies are OK.

[Otto Yamamoto]

I like Star Trek.  I think it got better after the influence of Gene Roddenberry waned.  The original and early TNG had more of a mysterious feel, like it's space horror.  Early TNG even had some poorly lit scenes, making it look like the show is about the fear of the darkness and vastness of space.  I like these episodes as basic monster-of-the-week-style entertainment, but Star Trek really meant something later when it showed a vision.

Later TNG and the following series weren't about mystical powers and monsters, but were about science and technology and space exploration.  Other than Q and the wormhole aliens, there was at least a basic understanding of how the aliens and threats worked, and how we could deal with or defend against them.  I also like that they started using story arcs, because those develop the stories and characters more deeply.  I'd like to have seen the "Conspiracy" plot line worked out, but just like the probe from the alternate-universe life forms in "Schisms," it was left as a lingering threat, to linger but be forgotten.  While "The Inter Light" is probably the best TNG episode, I just don't really like it that much.  This is a time when what I like and what's good don't really match up.  The whole episode is too long and slow.  I know that's the whole point, to convey the amount of time that passed, but I just don't care for it.  My favorite TNG episode is "Masks."  To me, it's like "The Inner Light" in that it tells a deep and meaningful story, but I think it's better told.  IMDB says it's one of the lowest-ranked episodes, so maybe again there's a break between what I like and what's actually good.

DSN (the title does not have a 9 in it - the name of the station, but not the show, is Deep Space 9) is the best series, far and away.  It has the strongest characters and best storyline, with deep and interweaving plots.  I could do with a little less Bajoran spiritualism, but in the context of aliens life forms so, uh, alien, that we don't understand their nature, I think it contributes to the overall story.  I like the darkness of DSN, not the mystical monster type of darkness, but philosophical darkness, caused by the questioning of core beliefs.  Eddington brought this to the fore quite well, with his indictment of the Federation.  That kind of darkness wouldn't play well in any of the other shows, but DSN had a pattern of depressing, disappointing, and otherwise non-uplifting episode endings.  In addition to the grand stories, including the series-long stories of Dukat and the Cardassians, Odo, and the Prophets (which kind of parallel TNG's series-long story of Q's judgement, which is much less developed and was only mentioned once or twice outside of the first and last episodes), I like the depth of meaning in this series and how it leaves you asking questions.  Q, again, paralleled that in TNG in his scene calling the whole premise of space exploration, and Star Trek itself, into question in the final episode.  That's my kinda television!

(semi-off topic rant - Space exploration is something we should do when we're able to, and certainly learning about other life forms is very worthwhile, but that isn't the central tenet of the purpose of life, the way Starfleet personell seem to think it is.  They shouldn't give up the development of culture and the pursuit of grander questions like they seem to have.  They seem to have very little in the way of new art and new philosophy.  They don't even try to make it look like they do.  TNG makes a big point of showing how much they rely on stuff that's old now for culture.  It may even be that too much "paradise" is destructive to the human spirit, which maybe the Ferengi philosophy balances.)

The later shows I would say are good, but probably not as great as TNG and DSN.  I liked both of them, but they didn't have the benefit of deep questions or Picard's wisdom and morality (and even Q's wisdom).  They're good as basic science fiction, but I don't think they're truly special like the two that were before them.

On the culture note, it's hard to grow a culture that's original and compelling, it's much easier and relatable to stick to what's known. One of the things that hooked me on the 2009 reboot is that they used the Beastie Boys 'Sabotage', easily one of my favourite songs.

XT1585

[Max Rockatansky]

^^^

I've actually found that to be a good thing about the rebooted movie series.  They have a half century more of culture to work with to expand the Universe than the original series did when it first came out.  The same scene in the 2009 even had a C2 Corvette which definitely was not a classic when the original series was first on the air.

[kkt]

"DS9" is by far the more widely used abbreviation for Deep Snore Nine.

FTFY

Really?  What is this, jr high?

I watched TOS as a teen, in reruns after school.  I certainly enjoyed it then.  I recently got the disc set and have been rewatching.  Some episodes I still like, but an awful lot makes me cringe.

Now my favorite of the series is DS9.  In TOS and TNG, every episode is a reboot and that makes it hard to take the series seriously.  It's more like a video game, where if you don't like what happened you put in another quarter, or else warp away to another star system.  I like that DS9 has ambiguous characters, even the villains have a little good in them and even the good guys do bad things sometimes.  The serial nature makes it harder for new viewers to get into it; the episodes pretty much need to be watched in order, and that limits its appeal in syndication.  But it pays off in a more interesting show, in my opinion.

Voyager seems like it should have been better than it was.  The characters seemed pretty bland.  There should have been ongoing tension between the Maquis and Starfleet crews.  Some should have wanted to stay at a pleasant planet and colonize rather than continue the enormously risky and long attempt to get home.  Too many unmotivated aliens, or evil special effect of the week.  I pretty much stopped watching after season 4.

[english si]

I think it got better after the influence of Gene Roddenberry waned.

Yes, he's deeply in favour of Spock - someone trying to deny their humanity and become a totally logical machine processing empirical data. Roddenberry's utopian vision is that we have dehumanised ourselves and character development is thus to become more boring. Now sure, there's lots of tension and cool stuff like that as they try and get there (internally in Spock, as well as externally between Bones+Spock and Kirk), but...

Later, Data, once Roddenberry's influence went, is doing that journey in reverse.

DSN (the title does not have a 9 in it - the name of the station, but not the show, is Deep Space 9) is the best series, far and away.  It has the strongest characters and best storyline, with deep and interweaving plots.

And would have Roddenberry spinning in his grave as it was everything he was against. Hence why I want to watch it!

I could do with a little less Bajoran spiritualism

Possibly an overreaction to the Roddenberry influence, which saw that sort of thing as primitive and to be eradicated.

They seem to have very little in the way of new art and new philosophy.

That's as Roddenberry's utopia is very very narrow-minded. Philosophy is meaningless in his philosophy (as it's not empirical). Art is almost dangerous in his artistic creation (as it is emotional).

I watched the original series of Star Trek while it was being re-runned on BBC.

When was that? Oh, you mean BBC America, which is UKTV over here in Blighty!

[roadman65]

One thing I must admit about the movies though is that Nemesis is a copy of The Wrath of Khan as Data did the same thing as Spock did, by also sacrificing himself to save the ship from danger.

The only thing that sucked in Nemesis other than killing off a main character again, was the clone of Picard looked nothing like him.  When I first encountered the movie I thought the guy was gay and had a bad infatuation with Picard before I realized he was a clone made from bad materials or bad genes.  The fact was they should have had Patrick Stewart play a dual role as clones are supposed to look like their original.   

By trying to say that a good experiment gone bad created in a clone that looks nothing like the person its to be a copy of, does not wash to well.

[Max Rockatansky]

One thing I must admit about the movies though is that Nemesis is a copy of The Wrath of Khan as Data did the same thing as Spock did, by also sacrificing himself to save the ship from danger.

The only thing that sucked in Nemesis other than killing off a main character again, was the clone of Picard looked nothing like him.  When I first encountered the movie I thought the guy was gay and had a bad infatuation with Picard before I realized he was a clone made from bad materials or bad genes.  The fact was they should have had Patrick Stewart play a dual role as clones are supposed to look like their original.   

By trying to say that a good experiment gone bad created in a clone that looks nothing like the person its to be a copy of, does not wash to well.

But wasn't Tom Hardy's character Shinzon supposed to be younger version of Picard in Nemesis that had accelerated aging?  Wasn't the whole premise was that he wanted some of Picard's blood to stop the aging if I remember correctly?  I seem to remember they had some actor that looked nothing like Picard at all play the young version of the character in some Q episode where the present changed.

[vtk]

Episode referenced in previous post is Tapestry.

I grew up seeing bits of TNG which my dad watched, often while my mom cut his hair, but I didn't really consider myself a fan until about season 3 or 4 of Voyager. New episodes came on after Seven Days (my favorite show at the time) on UPN, plus my local UPN/WB affiliate aired Voyager reruns just before prime time five days a week, so it was hard to miss.

Since then I think I've seen about half of TOS and everything from The Motion Picture onwards. I can nitpick a lot of it, but I pretty much like it all.

In TOS I find the technobabble doesn't hold up well with my hobbyist level of physics understanding, but the characters are memorable.

TNG got off to a soft start but got really good quickly. There's a reason the phrase "Riker's beard" is the opposite of "jump the shark."

DS9 definitely has a darker flavor, but it grew on me in daily reruns on Spike TV.

Voyager started feeling like a bland copy of TNG, and the Kazon were basically Delta Quadrant Klingons, but by the third season the writers had a good sense of the characters and started producing really good stories.

Enterprise could have been better, but I enjoyed it anyway. Wish it would have stuck with a more classical theme song.

The reboot movies are fun, though I wouldn't compare the first two favorably with the classic films. Into Darkness is a worse and more blatant copy of Wrath Of Khan than Nemesis was. But Beyond impressed me; they finally found their grove with that one, and the nods to classic Trek films don't seem forced like they did in the first two reboot films.

[triplemultiplex]

I got into the franchise watching TNG reruns in the Enterprise era.  By the time the Abrams movies started coming out I was well caught up with all the series.

Any thoughts about next year's new series, Star Trek: Discovery?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Discovery

I'm going to watch it because I am willing to try anything with 'Trek in it.  (Hell, I even watched that crowdfunded movie, Star Trek Renegades.)
Trek is made for episodic television.  Movies are nice, but Paramount doesn't make those for the nerds, they make those for the general public so corners are always cut and canon is always obliterated.

[vtk]

I'll watch the pilot of Discovery on free TV, but it seems very unlikely I'll subscribe to a whole new paid TV platform for one show. I already have cable.

If it's on Netflix or Hulu, I might watch at a friend's house.

[hbelkins]

Count me among those (probably very few) who wasn't crazy about the movies with the original cast. The idea to give Klingons knotted heads was goofy, since they didn't have them in the original series.

And the recast original series? No, just no. There is no Kirk but Shatner, and Nimoy is his first officer.

[Mr_Northside]

Back in grade school / early high school, Star Trek was my shit.
TNG started when I was in 3rd grade (I think), so that's what I was "raised" on - and was able to catch TOS episodes sometimes when aired as well.
For the record, I am in the camp that considers DS9 to be the best of the franchise (followed closely by TNG, then TOS).
I tried to get into Voyager the first couple of seasons, but I sort of phased out watching it, probably around the time I got my drivers license (though around then I started watching a whole lot less TV in general).  "Enterprise" was on a cable channel during a time I did not have cable.  It was available on Netflix for a while, and I thought about watching it, but it just never happened.
As for the movies, namely the reboots - I actually enjoyed the 2009 first reboot.  I thought they did well with the "new" cast, and it was entertaining enough.  I thought "Into Darkness" was mostly awful, and haven't seen "Beyond" yet.