[zelphirkalt]

I watched all of TNG, Voyager and DS9. To me DS9 will always be behind the other ST series.

I felt like it was a bit too much of the social stuff, maybe because it plays mostly on a station instead of an exploration vessel, but I guess that is exactly what people like about it. The characters and their development and so on. I liked the Garak character for example, but disliked Zisko being some chosen one for the wormhole gods or something. I much prefer Data, or Picard or most of their crew, even if they don't develop as much.

Well, to each their own, they are all good series to watch.

[pimeys]

We recently watched all the 80's and 90's Star Trek for the first time. So it's really interesting to compare the series' from the modern perspective.

TNG is a classic, with the classic crew and after the first hiccups is some of the best scifi of all time. Absolutely great actors and amazing writing.

DS9 is the weird one. I do really enjoy the trajectory of many of its characters: Sisko, Odo, Bashir, Dax (one of my favorite characters in all ST), O'Brien, Quark, Kira, Worf, Dukat, Garak, Damar... The list of great characters in DS9 is the best part of this series. The last season was a definite letdown for me though, and I didn't like the ending at all.

Voyager was the surprising one. I expected a lesser series after reading the old discussion about the three Treks of the 90's. But wow. It's banger episodes right from the start, one of the most badass captains in all of Trek and in the fourth season arrives my favorite scifi character: Seven of Nine. There's a lot of great episodes here, and some filler. I didn't like how some characters never went anywhere. But there is more good here than mediocre. As a series I like it more than DS9, I just wished the other characters were up to the writing of Janeway, Seven and Doctor.

[Izkata]

Something I've said about Voyager for years*: It has some of the best and some of the worst Star Trek episodes. Very little consistency there.

I think that's probably why a lot of people don't like it, the bad outweighs the good for them.

* Before some recent entries at least. Yikes.

[jeffwask]

Voyager also suffers due to being formatted for syndication as opposed to DS9 or B5 which was formatted to support longer story arcs vs stan alone episodes. I think if Voyager could have utilized that format to have a more continuous story vs episode of the week format it would have been a classic. It wants to tell a story of a long difficult journey but struggles because most issue and conflicts just wrap up in an episode. Budget and casting constraints hurt as well because the ship felt too empty without more Obrien's running around and they should have had more loss and replacement across the ship.

[pimeys]

Oh yeah. We tried to watch Starfleet Academy but... why are they even calling it Star Trek.

Luckily Lower Decks was good, Picard had some good moments and there were a few good episodes in Strange New Worlds too, even though that series didn't really excite me anymore in its latest season.

Voyager's bad episodes are still better than most of the scifi I've watched in the recent years. They are cringe, but in a funny way.

[jeffwask]

Good sci-fi is too hard and expensive to write. You have to pay a good writers' room. Slapping a Star Trek coat of paint on a workplace drama or YA story is easy and cheap.

[account42]

People just don't know how to appreciate great plots like having people travel faster than the rules of the fictional universe allow and then turn into lizards and mate.

And no, I'm not sorry for reminding anyone that this episode exists.

[le-mark]

You should try the stargate series next if you haven’t. They supplanted Star Trek in my pantheon. There are also some time travel series more recently that are also quite enjoyable; Travelers and Continuum.

[te7447]

Travelers definitely has a very distinct "seat-of-your-pants" form of plotting, though, that can seem inconsistent if you're used to something more consistently planned in advance like Babylon 5. Two big changes during S1 also made me bounce off it.

I won't claim my taste is universal: it's just something to be aware of.

[Izkata]

Stargate SG-1: Absolutely.

Stargate Atlantis: Maybe better than average. On rewatch it's tended to feel bland somehow. Began with SG-1 S8 and ran concurrently with some crossovers (Atlantis premiere happens immediately after SG-1 S8 premiere and contains minor spoilers for it).

Stargate Universe: Nope. Had potential it very much did not live up to. Set years after the first two ended.

Stargate Infinity (cartoon): No way. Additionally was made before SG-1 got very far and has many incorrect guesses about how it would have developed, set decades into the future.

[account42]

I don't think even SG-1 is even remotely comparable. Not necessarily worse than the trek series but a fundamentally different kind of show.

[le-mark]

Stargate command is the enterprise analog, and the wormhole is the transporter. Same show.

[account42]

I'm with you there, it tends much more towards space fantasy than the other trek shows.

PS: Did you forget TOS in your lists or leave it out intentionally? IMO it focuses on doing one mostly self contained short story per episode even better than TNG.

[Arainach]

>it was a bit too much of the social stuff

Because clearly none of the other series focused on social stuff, except...

TOS, which featured an interracial cast (and kiss) in the 1960s, where nearly every episode was thinly-veiled commentary on communism, where they visited a literal Nazi planet, where they had a black woman as a bridge officer (in the 1960s)...

TNG, which went into deep moral arcs, looked into military tribunals, witch hunts, had entire movies about mindless bloodlust and environmentalism/colonianism, and so much more...

VOY which.....honestly, if you don't get the point by now I'm not going to spend more time listing examples.

Star Trek was BORN "woke" and has always been there, and anyone who claims otherwise was never really paying attention. Star Trek EXISTS because Gene Roddenberry put social commentary into his show "The Lieutenant" which was too controversial for the actual US Military so he had to make a new show set in the future to make all the same points but with less oversight from crusty generals.

[jghn]

I interpreted the GP as saying "social stuff" as in focusing on social interactions between the characters instead of having more action & adventure. "maybe because it plays mostly on a station instead of an exploration vessel" was what made me think this.