Ranking the Star Treks

[Morrus]

This is my ranking of the various Treks. If I miss any, it's because I have not seen it (I'm not big on cartoons; no you won't be the special person who magically talks me out of that; don't waste your time). For the purposes of this, I also divided movies into 3 categories--TOS movies, TNG movies, Abrams movies.

1. TOS movies (well, maybe not STV)
2. Strange New Worlds
3. TNG
4. TOS
5. DS9
6. Abrams movies

... big gap...

7. TNG movies (OK, they had one good one)
8. Picard
9. Voyager
10. Enterprise
11. Discovery
12. Section 31

So it seems I like about half of Star Trek.

 

[BookTenTiger]

For me the top three are:

1) DS9: my favorite Star Trek show. I love the characters, the world building, the big swings, the changing relationships... So good!

2) TNG: the platonic ideal of Star Trek to me. Solving problems through talking and sciencing and empathy! Data is one of the greater Star Trek characters ever.

3) SNW: I really enjoy this show, but its short seasons (compared to old Star Trek) keeps it, in my opinion, from finding its own voice. When I watch it, I often feel like the episodes are more ideas to other Star Treks than their own thing.

I haven't seen enough of the other series to judge them.

 

[CyragnomeForgets]

I'm prepared to be told how wrong I am, but...

Strange New Worlds (like TOS but done with TNG sensibilities, what Discovery should have been)
TNG
TOS Even # Movies
TNG First Contact
Picard (season 2 was weak, but three was solid)
DS9
TOS
Voyager
TOS Animated (yeah, I'm that old)
Enterprise and Discovery
TNG Remaining Movies
TOS Odd # Movies (but not 5)
Abrams Movies (just terrible)
TOS Movie 5

I haven't seen Section 31 or Lower Deck, so no rating (but Lower Decks does look pretty fun).

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I'm not a huge Star Trek guy (although I did watch the entirety of TOS in reruns as a kid, several times over... strong memories there, let's call it an emotional blueprint), but here goes...

1. TOS
2. Strange New Worlds (recently saw some of this... very impressed!)
3. TNG
4. Picard
5. Discovery (saw the first season... quite liked it)
6. Voyager
7. DS9 (didn't really watch this... seemed decent)
8. Abrams movies
9. TOS movies
10. TNG movies (not super memorable to me besides being universally inferior to the TOS movies)
11. Enterprise (is this the Scott Bakula thing? Never saw it...)
12. Section 31 (never heard of this...)

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I'm prepared to be told how wrong I am, but...

Strange New Worlds (like TOS but done with TNG sensibilities, what Discovery should have been)
TNG
TOS Even # Movies
TNG First Contact
Picard (season 2 was weak, but three was solid)
DS9
TOS
Voyager
TOS Animated (yeah, I'm that old)
Enterprise and Discovery
TNG Remaining Movies
TOS Odd # Movies (but not 5)
Abrams Movies (just terrible)
TOS Movie 5

I haven't seen Section 31 or Lower Deck, so no rating (but Lower Decks does look pretty fun).

Actually, I do vaguely remember the TOS animated series. I liked it, possibly because I was 7. Maybe it was good despite that?

 

[jian]

For me the top three are:

1) DS9: my favorite Star Trek show. I love the characters, the world building, the big swings, the changing relationships... So good!

2) TNG: the platonic ideal of Star Trek to me. Solving problems through talking and sciencing and empathy! Data is one of the greater Star Trek characters ever.

3) SNW: I really enjoy this show, but its short seasons (compared to old Star Trek) keeps it, in my opinion, from finding its own voice. When I watch it, I often feel like the episodes are more ideas to other Star Treks than their own thing.

I haven't seen enough of the other series to judge them.

I agree a lot, but for me it’s:

1) Deep Space 9 by a country mile. Lightning in a bottle. It’s a series so it’s not as consistently brilliant as a film would be, but it’s still simply the best.

2) Lower Decks: Modern, affectionate, clever, very watchable. It’s a love letter to the TNG/DS9/VOY era but it still stands up very well by itself.

3) Star Trek Prodigy: There’s no way this series should be as good as it is, but it is, and it’s brilliant. It rejuvenates Star Trek while staying true to its principles.

4) Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. By far the best of the TOS films and the one that justifies everything that came before.

5) Strange New Worlds: Especially season 2, which had some stand out episodes.

 

[Vael]

I have to give Prodigy another go, the first two episodes didn't draw me in. Also unranked is TAS. I'm setting the films aside, as a separate thing, as it feels unfair to rank a whole series next to a singular films.

Top Tier Trek:
1. TNG - Still "my" Trek. Grew up with Picard and company. One of the earliest memories was seeing "Encounter at Farpoint" when it aired.
2. DS9 - Probably the best series for me if it weren't for my emotional attachment to TNG.
3. Lower Decks - Surprised me too, especially after the early episodes were rough. Early TNG is bad, but I didn't loathe the characters. The first 4 or 5 episodes of LD, I hated Mariner and Boimler. And yet they turned it around. A true love letter to Star Trek.
4. Strange New Worlds - For now, Pike and his hair go here ... but tbh, I could rearrange these top 4 in any order and defend it. And I'll revisit how I feel about SNW once it's finished. But kudos for doing an animated crossover, a musical ... an interesting episode announced for Season 4.

2nd Tier Trek:
5. TOS - The OG in 2nd tier? Yeah ... it's not like I don't like Kirk and crew, but I kinda feel like SNW is stealing its thunder, and it just has been eclipsed by its successors.
6. Picard - This show is rocky, and like Discovery, each season is practically a different series. Season 3 is probably the best qualitatively, but plays more like TNG S8. The other two seasons start strong for me, but fail to land. Season 2 is especially rocky, the last half of the season got pretty dire.
7. Discovery - Again ... each season is a very different beast, and the show had a lot of ups and downs. I give the show a lot of credit for trying to innovate, its queerness and I love Michael Burnham. However, the first three seasons all had very bad season finales and when you're telling a serialized story arc over a whole season, how it ends does tend to be the memorable part.

3rd Tier Trek:
8. Voyager - Yeah, I'll give points to Discovery for trying ... and take them away from Voyager for not. Voyager, in general, often suffers from resetting and that really deflates in the final act of a lot of episodes. In many ways, Voyager episode by episode does when Picard and Discovery did over their season long story arcs, punt in the end. The number of times the ship gets wrecked and is fine and dandy the following week ... Voyager had a lot of wasted potential.
9. Enterprise - Still the worst of Trek television. How Berman and Braga managed to suck all the charisma out of Scott Bakula continues to impress me, it's a George Lucas level feat here, as I've enjoyed the actor elsewhere. Between the hatchet job done on his character in "A Night in Sickbay" to the sulky Jack Bauer impression that is the Xindi arc season, Archer is far and away the worst lead Captain. It also feels quite regressive after DS9 and Voyager, not because it's a prequel, but because of how pale and male the cast got.

 

[Zardnaar]

DS9 number 1, SNW number 2, selected episodes TNG and Picard S3, 1st Contact, everything else.

At the bottom Voyager out of stuff I've watched. 6 or 7 episodes deep gave up.

Excluded. TOS. To long since I've seen it. Disjointed memories barely remember it.