Posted by: @narnian78

All the rest of Star Trek  I have really loved-- even The Animated Series, which has pleased some but not all fans.  ?

Ahh yes, the oft-maligned TAS. 😛 I grew up on the series, so I tend to enjoy the episodes, but I also understand why other people don't enjoy it quite as much.

I was very much raised in a Star Trek family. My dad watched TOS while it was on the air, and by the time I was old enough to watch it, he had every episode on VHS (except "The Cage" - technically, we had the tape, but it had long since broken). I saw a bit of TNG and DS9 from episodes that had been recorded on tape, but I actually managed to watch a bit of Voyager and Enterprise while they were on the air.

I think my favorite series is either TNG or Voyager, I can never decide which. They both have their ups and downs, but - for me at least - more ups than downs. And I've never really understood the hatred Voyager can get online. 🙁 I've seen most of DS9 (which I mostly liked, though I started losing interest towards the end of the series and haven't finished Season 7), but I've only seen bits and pieces of Enterprise. I really oughta change that.  

Something I'm grateful for is that, somehow, I managed to not see Wrath of Khan until I was 12 years old. I have no idea how that happened - we watched 3, 4, and 6 regularly in my house (though I usually wasn't the one who put it in), but somehow, 2 didn't get watched very often. When I was 12, I just decided to stick it in one day, and since I'd somehow managed to avoid the big spoiler until then, the movie had its full impact on me. Admittedly, the plots of 3 and 4 started to make more sense after that. ?

@ryadian  Star Trek on blu-ray is quite an improvement over VHS and DVD.  And you can watch either the new or old special effects.  I have all three seasons and really enjoy them. There is something very nostalgic and special in enjoying the series as it was originally made.  And the passage of time (now it is over fifty years) does not diminish the experience. 🙂

Hello!

So glad that you’ve started a thread here about Star Trek, @narnian78!   I first watched reruns of TOS on TV when I was growing up, and I’ve seen almost all of TAS.  I’m at the beginning of the fifth season of my first watch of DS9, though for some reason I haven’t seen much of TNG, VOY, and ENT.  My parents have seen almost everything except for the new series put out by CBS.

Posted by: @narnian78

I have really loved-- even The Animated Series, which has pleased some but not all fans.  ?

Posted by: @ryadian

Ahh yes, the oft-maligned TAS. ? I grew up on the series, so I tend to enjoy the episodes

     I actually really liked TAS!  Even though the animation is seen as choppy today, the stories that they were able to tell with an animated medium really stick out to me.  There were so many things that they were able to illustrate (even with a limited budget) that were not possible in a pre-CGI era.  One wonders what an animated series would look like today.  Perhaps it would address ones of the criticisms I hear about Star Trek, which is there weren’t enough non-humanoid aliens compared to, say, Star Wars.  An animated series (taken seriously) especially now would be a fascinating concept, don’t you think? ?
     One of my favorite episodes of TAS is “Yesteryear,” which meant the return of the Guardian of Forever and getting more of Spock’s backstory.  I loved the “sequel” episodes that followed up on the TOS episodes like “Shore Leave” and “The Trouble with Tribbles.”  It’s also fun to guess who does the voice of an new alien that shows up.  95% of the time it’ll be James Doohan, Majel Barrett, or Nichelle Nichols!  (I read once that the producers wanted Barrett and Doohan to do the voices of Uhura and Sulu, but Leonard Nimoy refused to be a part of the project unless Nichols and Takei were given the chance to voice their respective characters.)  People argue whether TAS is canon or not; I think it is, and it gave us some great moments (Uhura taking command of the Enterprise), wacky aliens (the plant-people always intrigued me), and interesting tidbits of information (Kirk’s middle names as Tiberius).  

Posted by: @narnian78

I love space voyages which were in all of the series except Deep Space Nine, which I didn't care much for 

      Have you seen all of the series?  DS9 has become (dare I say it? ) my favorite Star Trek series (though I understand that it would not have come into being without TOS to begin with or TNG to revive interest in the franchise).  It has even become one of my favorite television series of all time.  If you haven’t seen all of DS9, I would really encourage you to give it another try.  The first couple of seasons have their bad episodes, but from what I’ve heard, the first couple of seasons of TNG were rather rocky, too.  
     One of the things that I love most about DS9 is it’s exploration of characters and implementation of character arcs and serialization (more towards the end of the series, as I understand).  Almost all of the things that happen to the characters matter.  There are few “reset button” episodes that I have seen.  Even little moments in episodes—throwaway lines of dialogue or an action of a character—have huge implications for future stories or added depth when seen in the light of later events.  Character development is not limited to the main cast, either.  Almost every character is fleshed out and has some sort of character arc—even the secondary ones.  Entire races such as the Ferengi, Cardassians, or Bajorans who had a relatively minor presence in TNG (please correct me if I am wrong) are explored in greater depth. 
      The setting of the series is on a space station, which is, well...stationary , but it allows for greater exploration of the surrounding settings and the lives of the characters. There are so many aliens present in the background (many we recognize and some we’ve never seen before), and to me that imbues the station with a unique sense of life—as if it’s a living, breathing entity rising from the ashes of the cold Cardassian outpost that is was before the series.  The ambient background noise only serves to add to the picture that Deep Space Nine is a hub of activity. DS9 explores politics, religion, and clashing of cultures in a way that shows no easy or right answers (TOS did this as well, but less with subtlety in some cases IMO).  It gives me a lot to think about after I finish watching an episode.  
     As for the series not including many space voyages, there are still quite a few episodes that take place off of the space station, on some distant planet, or dealing with a mysterious space anomaly.  There is also a U.S.S ship that appears later in the series, and plays a fairly a major role from season 3, on.  Space exploration was one of the things that I loved in TOS, but I also enjoyed equally for its examination and exploration of humanity, philosophy, ethics, and the political scene of the 60s.  DS9 explores these issues in a different way, and shifts the focus to emphasize the voyages of the characters themselves and the relationships that they form while still maintaining a good balance of action and exploration.  
     If you haven’t seen the episode “Duet,” I would highly recommend it.  It is a breathtaking character piece for Major Kira in the just the first season.  It doesn’t require much context, is the type of episode that DS9 does well, and it remains one of my favorite episodes!
    I apologize for the length; Star Trek is a subject that I could talk about for hours.  In writing this, I did not mean to imply that any of the other Star Trek series do not have character arcs or explore these themes; I was just trying to explain the reasons why I like DS9 so much.  Also, if I have gotten anything about the other series wrong, please correct me.  

What are some of your favorite episodes?      

Live long and prosper! ?

—Wanderer

@wanderer I'm glad that you like Deep Space Nine.  Maybe sometime I'll try watching it again.  I think my problem was that I was kind of bored with it.  The people were stuck on a space station a lot of the time and there weren't as many space voyages as in the other series.  I’m glad that you enjoyed the stories. There may have been more to the characters than I thought. I also thought the Borg were kind of boring as villains. They were mostly on Next Generation.  But, of course, if they bore people to death by making them part of the collective and removing their own personalities I guess that works too. They just weren't as interesting as Kahn or the Klingons, who were most conniving of the Star Trek villains.  Or how about being a pest like "Q" ? That worked pretty well, too.  🙂

My favorite episodes include Shore Leave, Conscience of the King, This Side of Paradise, The Paradise Syndrome.  I especially like episodes with fantasy, fairy tales and outdoor settings. And the soundtrack music was some of Star Trek's best.  The Native American style music in Paradise Syndrome was so moving.  There was a lot of enchanting music on  the fairy tale planets. And of course Conscience of the King was like a Shakespearean tragedy. I loved studying the plays when I was in college many years ago. Star Trek had great respect for literature. There were so many excellent adventures.  🙂

@narnian78

How far into DS9 did you get?  I get that the lack of voyages might be off-putting, but it does get better!  Looking back from my position in season 5, I can see the first two seasons were paced slower than the rest of the series.  

     Very minor, rather vague spoilers ahead: At the end of season 2, there is a new enemy introduced to the Star Trek Universe which I think, given what you’ve said, you will find more interesting than the Borg.  They are much more ruthless and conniving than the (TOS) Klingons, in my opinion.  Their introduction and subsequent story arc is amazing, and I’m enjoying seeing it unfold.  Also, Worf appears as a cast regular later on in the series (and O’Brien is there from the beginning)!  The Klingons and Klingon culture also get a fair number of episodes and a fair bit of airtime, so if you like the (TNG) Klingons, that might be another reason to watch.

     There are several “condensed” watch plans of DS9 that I’ve seen floating around on the internet that cut out some of the hit-or-miss episodes or episodes that don’t directly tie into the overarching story as much, instead focusing on the main arcs.  If you found the series too slow, you could try watching with those lists in mind, and with them, you would see the plots and character developing at a much faster pace.  However, even the episodes that don’t have much to do with the main overarching story (such as the “holodeck” episodes on TNG and VOY) do have bits of dialogue and character scenes that add to other minor arcs, add to the worldbuilding of the other alien cultures, are intriguing character pieces, or are just plain fun, and you might be missing out by skipping them.

Posted by: @narnian78 

My favorite episodes include Shore Leave, Conscience of the King, This Side of Paradise, The Paradise Syndrome. 

Posted by: @narnian78 

I loved studying the plays when I was in college many years ago. Star Trek had great respect for literature. There were so many excellent adventures.  ?

      I agree!  I love going to Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki, after I watch an episode and reading about the background for the episode, what literature influenced it, and why the writers/directors/designers made the decisions they did.  I didn’t realize until years later just how many literary, Shakespearean, and Biblical references are alluded to within just the episode titles themselves!  

@wanderer. Actually, I don’t even remember how many episodes I watched of Deep Space Nine. It’s been at least twenty years since I watched the series.  That is except for that episode about the tribbles, which is included in the blu-ray of the original series. I liked that one. It was kind of interesting how they went back to Captain Kirk’s time.

I’m old fashioned in my taste so I like episodes which are about ancient cultures and Greek myths such as Who Mourns for Adonais and the beautiful natural settings (Paradise Syndrome).  There are other stories which were beautifully made such as The Tholian Web. And of course City on the Edge of Forever was the best time travel story ever made. It is also one of my favorites.  The original script by Harlan Ellison is well worth reading, and it is still available in book form. The script is longer than the TV version, and the drama is more enhanced.  I wish they could have used Ellison’s script in the TV episode. It’s the older type of stories that suit my fancy. 🙂

Memory Alpha (along with good old IMDB) are helpful resources about all things Trek.

TOS came out in the mid-60s, and as I recall it aired on Friday nights at least part of the time. I remember seeing a few episodes when they first aired, including "The Apple" (the one where all the red shirts die), but I really didn't watch it faithfully until it went into syndication in the early 1970s.

I also watched the newer series as they first aired, and it's definitely true that TNG had a rough beginning. But the third-season episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" definitely turned things around, and I think it stands up well upon re-watching.

The Dominion arc in DS9 was reminiscent of the Shadow War arc in Babylon Five, but still very enjoyable. DS9 also had about a half-dozen episodes expanding on the alternate universe first introduced in the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror."

I also enjoyed Voyager and Enterprise.

I have a lot of favorite episodes, many of which have already been named. One that hasn't been mentioned yet is the DS9 James Bond spoof "Our Man Bashir."

The broadcast channel Heroes & Icons (H&I) features "All Star Trek" 6 nights a week, airing one episode from each "classic series," all in order, so it's easy to catch up on the ones I haven't seen as often.

I've not seen any episodes of the new streaming series, Discovery or Picard.

Perhaps people here might wonder why I usually don’t use abbreviations for the Star Trek series. It is so that someone who is unfamiliar with the series will know which incarnation of Star Trek I mean. Interestingly enough, the original was only known as Star Trek before the other series were made. It was years later that The Original Series was added to the title.  It certainly deserves the title because it is the most original of all the Star Trek series. 🙂

All Our Yesterdays was one of the best time travel episodes. I loved the idea of a library transporting people back in time. Wouldn’t it be great if libraries had the technology to provide that kind of service?  I have often volunteered in libraries, which is why I found the story so appealing. Mr. Atoz was a very efficient librarian. And of course the episode had a neat title quoting from Macbeth.

Does anyone read and collect the Star Trek books?  I like the books on the original series by James Blish and the Fotonovels. Blish transformed the scripts from the original series into collections of short stories.  He also wrote Spock Must Die, a novel with characters from the show. The Fotonovels had pictures and dialogue from select episodes. There were twelve of them.  People could own the episodes in print before VHS and DVD existed. The paperback books were remarkably accurate in recreating the stories. Some great novels such as Spock’s World and Vulcan’s Forge by Diane Duane were written years after the original series, and they are just a good as the scripts from the TV series. There is also The Lost Years by J.M. Dilliard, a fine story which helps to complete the Enterprise’s five year mission. Star Trek has had probably more books written about it than any other science fiction television series.  🙂

Growing up I think I once saw a few minutes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture on TV, and that influenced my opinion on it (boring) until I saw the first JJ Abrams movie. I really enjoyed the 2009 Star Trek and watched The Wrath of Khan since it's known as 'the best' movie. I liked it but didn't watch anything else until after seeing Into Darkness, which I didn't like at all because of its similarity to Khan, and Beyond, which I loved. At some point I watched The Voyage Home which is fantastically weird, and is definitely one of my favourite Star Trek movies.

After that, I thought I'd try watching some of the TV series. As Discovery was starting on Netflix, I watched that but only got a couple of episodes in before giving up. Then I tried the original series. I really liked the initial pilot episode with Pike but didn't get too far into that series either. Anyway, I finally found The Next Generation and got hooked. I think the character of Jean-Luc Picard quelled all my issues with Star Trek up to that point - aren't they a peacekeeping armada? Why do they just go in shooting everybody? I like TNG's more thoughtful explorations. Also, Broccoli ... I mean Barclay may be my favourite character.

Once I'd finished TNG I started watching the movies with those characters. I thought First Contact was great. Then I went back and started working through the other movies. I haven't yet watched The Final Frontier or The Undiscovered Country.

I was excited to hear about Picard, so I started watching some episodes from Voyager to learn more about Seven of Nine. Then I started watching Voyager, but I'm currently in the middle of the second series and struggling. I like Janeway a lot and the characters are generally great (except for Neelix ... ) but what drives me crazy is the 'reset' which seems to happen at the end of each episode. How can everything continuously go back to normal?! They might have nearly been destroyed in the previous episode but by the next everything's running as normal and they have time to conduct warp experiments.

Picard was disappointing. I missed the episodic format (ironically, given my problem with Voyager). I'm not sure if I'll watch more or not. However, I do want to finish Voyager and I definitely want to go back and give the original series another bash.

I grew up with the Animated Series on British TV in the early/mid 70s, as the Original Series was shown after my bedtime when it was first shown. I saw the Original Series shortly after as it was repeated. I liked it then but I find the theatrical ( = hammy) acting a bit annoying now.

I like The Next Generation, though I feel that it took until about Series 4 to really get going. I quite like Deep Space 9 - Benjamin Sisko is my favourite Starfleet captain, and Quark and Odo one of the best comedy double-acts on television. My all-time favourite Star Trek series is Voyager - there was such a great cast of characters, and the finale was, I think, the best final episode in any Star Trek series.

Enterprise I found boring: the cast didn't seem to gel, and in particular Scott Bakula seemed very wooden as Jonathan Archer, which was a surprise as he was so good in Quantum Leap. (I'm so glad they didn't call his character Jeffrey Archer!) Enterprise seemed like a wasted opportunity as it would have been interesting to see how they would have coped without all the tech the other series had - transporters and the universal translator especially.

The Picard series was so boring for the first four episodes, and then at the beginning of episode 5 they showed Icheb's eye being pulled out of its socket in graphic detail, at which point I turned it off.

As for the films, I'm a maverick in that I think The Wrath Of Khan was the worst Star Trek Movie. I laughed out loud at the mind-control bugs crawling in people's ears and I couldn't take it seriously. The first film doesn't look great on TV but it had a 2001-kind of grandeur when I saw it in the cinema. My favourite film was The Voyage Home, and I so wish I could do the Vulcan neck-pinch thing when annoying people make lots of noise on a bus! The recent reboot movies were OK but didn't make much impression on me.

I liked Kes better than Seven of Nine and did not like it that Kes was replaced. Jennifer Lien was a fine actress and it is unfortunate and sad that she has had her legal troubles.  Her character on Voyager could have become much better if she had stayed.  She was really good as a medical assistant to the holographic doctor.  On the whole Voyager was quite a good series, although I liked the first three seasons much better than the last four. I never cared for Seven of Nine and thought she never had much depth. The Borg collective didn’t really have a personality, and there isn’t much character in the Borg as villains.  They were far less interesting than Kahn or the Klingons. They didn’t have much of a personality even if they become human again. 🙂

My dad is a huge fan so I grew up  watching a lot of Star Trek, but we mainly watched the original series. The original series is my favorite but I can enjoy all of Star Trek.
I really like voyager, but I have not watched it all the way through. I like discovery but I like the second season way more. I really enjoyed what they did with Spock and Captain Pike, so I am really excited for the Captain Pike series. Picard was okay but it started really slow.

(From BEST EDITORIAL CARTOONS OF THE YEAR 2009, edited by Charles Brooks)

"If STAR TREK had really predicted our technological future ... with us in it" by Elizabeth Bricquet

LINK (it's messy, sorry)

https://books.google.com/books?id=H5e_79oV1kIC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=bricquet+if+star+trek+had+really+predicted+our+technological+future+%22with+us+in+it%22&source=bl&ots=BDvB1F5SJl&sig=ACfU3U2n5BEjLzXGwQQSdGAr72v3Pa7zkA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjZ4Yq3o4bzAhVZa80KHXzlAiwQ6AF6BAgEEAM#v=onepage&q=bricquet%20if%20star%20trek%20had%20really%20predicted%20our%20technological%20future%20%22with%20us%20in%20it%22&f=false