DS9 had some banger episodes but also had some absolutely dogshit episodes. It was like gambling. A true Richter scale of episodes. TNG and Voyager were much more consistently good especially after the first few seasons. Especially when they got rid of Weasley in TNG.
All things considered though, my all time favorite character in any Star Trek show is Garak from DS9. Lots of other great characters in the other shows but god damn Garak is a league above.
I’m nearly done with voyager, having watched ds9, tng, and tos. Gotta say ds9 is my favorite out of all of them. Every show had rough first seasons, and all have the occasional bad, and stand out fantastic episodes.
But DS9 has a depth and moral complexity that the others lack. In TNG there are some moral conundrums, but for the most part good and evil clearly defined, and its an easy choice.
DS9 forced its characters to deal with realpolitik, moral conundrums in war, loss, suffering, in a way that makes us get emotionally involved with the characters and the tough decisions they have to make.
Also ds9 characters feel like family, faults and all. O’brien, Garak, jadzia, quark, kira, sisko, are all wonderful characters who grow with the show.
Personally I think Voyager had my favorite overarching plot. Also it was like, the first Star Trek I watched as a kid so I think I’m probably a little biased. Janeway was a great sociopath.
What I like about both DS9 and Voy over TNG is the “out there seemingly on your own” bit. The difference is DS9 could have repeat characters that weren’t a part of the crew. Dedicated villains that were there for most of the show right? Voyager couldn’t do too much of that because there were constantly moving. Aside from the Borg that is.
I do think the characters in DS9 are overall deeper exactly because they are more often put in much darker moral conundrums. Living on a station with a great deal of day to day conflicts of different social groups with opposing ethics and politics vs TNG and Voyager where it was all star fleet upholding star fleet rules.
One of the things panned about voyagers early seasons was the repeated use of the Kazon. The writers wanted an easy repeat villain, but it didn’t make sense in context of voyager traveling at high warp in a straight line for months on end.
DS9 is my favorite, from seasons 5 to 8 it’s the best Star Trek imo. But it does have some horrible episodes, I had to skip some of them.
The thing about TNG, is that there’s no overarching plot. Events just happen and most episodes feel completely disconnected, unlike DS9 where everything was building up to the war. That’s the thing that irks me the most, but it was still great and I loved watching the episodes on television when I was a kid.
Voyager to me, just kept getting more boring as time went on. The cast was also significantly weaker than the rest.
Today the only real Star Trek to me is The Orville, New-Trek is just corporate garbage.
I feel like each had its own audient obviously. Like TNG has no in depth overarching plot other than a few running mini plots that they go back to from time to time. It’s more of an episodic show to just watch and enjoy the little mini plots as they come. And lots of ppl are in to that. It was a good show for me to sit down and watch while drinking and studying during my college years.
I think DS9 had a really good villain setup. Best of the three by far. The villains in that show are fairly consistent so you not only get familiar with them but build up on them. Also aided by the overarching plot and the fact that, like Voyager, the crew were basically on their own for the most part. That’s what made their plot and Voyagers better than TNG imo. Unlike DS9 though Voyagers plot didn’t allow them to have a consistent group of characters that weren’t star fleet or “off ship.” Other than the Borg there wasn’t a lot of options for repeat villains/outside characters. So most of those characters in the show had to be fairly 2 dimensional one offs.
Personally Voyager will always be my favorite but I will admit to bias because that was my first Star Trek as a kid. Being such laid the foundation for not being sexist or racist and also the fundamentals that made me a communist I think. I mean, it just never made sense to me why ppl cared that the captain was a woman or Tovok was black. Like that didn’t register to my kid brain so I grew up and was like “yeah women can do whatever they want and what does skin color fucking matter to anything?” So yeah, definitely have a soft spot for Voyager.
What about Star Trek Enterprise? I actually like that one. At least they still try to push somewhat progressive ideals that a better (communist) future is possible. I don’t consider it New-Trek.
We talking about the one with Captain Archer before they even had shields and stuff? I don’t really know how I feel about that one. Like, it was a fun little show but it didn’t really feel like a “true” Trek, if that makes sense? Like a hybrid where they were definitely trying to go deeper into an action drama type show with a Star Trek theme. Definitely not this “new Trek” dogshit for sure. I enjoyed it for what it was. I feel they did a decent enough job making it feel like a society that would grow into what the future society is based on the other treks.
The ending was hilarious though. Ending with them randomly bringing back Riker and Troy talking about the whole thing as a historical holodeck simulation. hey had both obviously been brought back in last minute and had both very obviously let themselves go. lol
Supposedly Voyager’s ‘wooden’ cast were specifically told to not emote too much by Berman so as to make the aliens seem more alien. Not sure how that works when you just make your human cast feel weird and unnatural lol.
Counterpoint: Voyager was tolerable most of the time but often came out with utter trash like 11:59 or that whole… Irish village arc, also the ending was atrocious.
DS9 had a few… weird and awful episodes early on (Alamarein! Count to 4!) but by the end of season 1 with Duet they’d pretty much cemented their place as the best trek ever. Except for Profit and Lace… we don’t talk about Profit and Lace.
Let’s be fair, just about every holodeck episode in every show is a “watch this once then never again” kind of episode. Doesn’t matter if it’s TNG, DS9, or Voyager, as soon as you realize it’s a holodeck episode your eyes glass over and your face assumes whatever your personal version of “resting removed face” is and then you contemplate if you are going to subject yourself to this torture or skip. lol. Same with time travel episodes imo. Like I just don’t even include them in the rankings.
As for the endings… Yeah, it could have been better but idk, I don’t think it was too terrible. I honestly think it’s still less ridiculous than DS9 ending where Sisko ascends and becomes a magic wormhole fairy or some shit. Like the war ending was the real ending and would have been perfectly fine. Then they tack on this thing at the ends you’re just like “uhhhhhh, wut?” I think Voyager using the Borg wormhole things wasn’t a terrible play but I do think the whole “explodes out of the sphere in front of the fleet in perfect condition and then cut to ending” was ridiculous. Idk what else they’d do though. Maybe just have Voyager pop out with the sphere behind it and the whole fleet just shreds it. Idk.
DS9 only did that once (to my recollection) with “Our Man Bashir” and it was fucking glorious, if only for Garak acting as an inverse wingman. And the supervillain Sisko was very memeable too.
Time travel wise, DS9 did it twice (again, to my recollection) first with the Bell Riots which was pretty decent in terms of depicting where western ‘civilization’ is heading in the 21st century, alas they were unable to really hammer home the point as to why things became like that, but the subtext is kind of obvious. The second time was the anniversary show where they crossed over with the original series which was, frankly, how you should approach that show in my opinion - with some fucking respect, unlike what trek has done to it recently. That was also a great episode.
Endings: What You Leave Behind has me in tears every time, which I honestly can’t say about many shows. The parting of ways of so many characters really hit me (I watched the show as it was airing) as these characters were a family by then. Yeah the Sisko/Dukat/Prophets/Pah-Wraiths thing was all kinds of dumb, but it was, tbh the only way I can figure to end that whole ‘thing’, I think Sisko being space jesus was sorta leading them in that direction the whole time and it was just a matter of how dumb it would be, not if it would be dumb. I honestly think they did worse by Dukat with that arc. He should’ve been tried for war crimes by the Bajorans. Harrumph
Voyager’s ending was not bad in and of itself, rather that it came out of nowhere, that episode could have been done most anywhere in the last couple seasons and it would work almost perfectly (except B’elanna being preggers I guess). There was no build up to it. With DS9 there was the ongoing war effort, with Voyager, the show was, like TNG, heavily episodic, with very little allowed to carry over from one episode to the next, so you could kinda slot any story anywhere almost. That and all the magic future tech just kinda… ruins any stories you could want to tell after that as it completely fucks with the balance of power now that the Feds have future tech.
My problem with Voyager wasn’t really that it was bad (though it had its fair share of bad episodes and mediocre ones, more than DS9 or TNG imo), but rather that it could have been so much more. Apparently the writers originally planned for the Year of Hell to be an actual year - i.e. a season-long arc with Voyager gradually being pummeled to shit over many episodes, but orders from on-high scuppered that. Berman was notoriously averse to what DS9 was doing, and it’s telling that his biggest input on that show was getting Terry Farrell to quit cause he was such a creep, and him personally putting a stop to the best gay couple in all of Trek (Bashir/Garak). Ronald D. Moore later basically did what Voyager should have been, with the BSG reboot - characters dying or suffering permanent injuries. Relationships forming and breaking, Galactica gradually taking damage that can’t just be repaired because they don’t have a dock to put into, until by the end, the ship is a floating hulk. Voyager could just magically be spacedock-fresh every episode. (and yes I know that was so they could reuse footage of the ship)
P.S. Voyager was my first experience with Trek really, other than seeing the odd bit of TNG here and there, so I have some residual fondness for it too, I’m not just bashing it out of 20 year old fan hatred
DS9 had some banger episodes but also had some absolutely dogshit episodes. It was like gambling. A true Richter scale of episodes. TNG and Voyager were much more consistently good especially after the first few seasons. Especially when they got rid of Weasley in TNG.
All things considered though, my all time favorite character in any Star Trek show is Garak from DS9. Lots of other great characters in the other shows but god damn Garak is a league above.
I’m nearly done with voyager, having watched ds9, tng, and tos. Gotta say ds9 is my favorite out of all of them. Every show had rough first seasons, and all have the occasional bad, and stand out fantastic episodes.
But DS9 has a depth and moral complexity that the others lack. In TNG there are some moral conundrums, but for the most part good and evil clearly defined, and its an easy choice.
DS9 forced its characters to deal with realpolitik, moral conundrums in war, loss, suffering, in a way that makes us get emotionally involved with the characters and the tough decisions they have to make.
Also ds9 characters feel like family, faults and all. O’brien, Garak, jadzia, quark, kira, sisko, are all wonderful characters who grow with the show.
Personally I think Voyager had my favorite overarching plot. Also it was like, the first Star Trek I watched as a kid so I think I’m probably a little biased. Janeway was a great sociopath.
What I like about both DS9 and Voy over TNG is the “out there seemingly on your own” bit. The difference is DS9 could have repeat characters that weren’t a part of the crew. Dedicated villains that were there for most of the show right? Voyager couldn’t do too much of that because there were constantly moving. Aside from the Borg that is.
I do think the characters in DS9 are overall deeper exactly because they are more often put in much darker moral conundrums. Living on a station with a great deal of day to day conflicts of different social groups with opposing ethics and politics vs TNG and Voyager where it was all star fleet upholding star fleet rules.
One of the things panned about voyagers early seasons was the repeated use of the Kazon. The writers wanted an easy repeat villain, but it didn’t make sense in context of voyager traveling at high warp in a straight line for months on end.
DS9 is my favorite, from seasons 5 to 8 it’s the best Star Trek imo. But it does have some horrible episodes, I had to skip some of them.
The thing about TNG, is that there’s no overarching plot. Events just happen and most episodes feel completely disconnected, unlike DS9 where everything was building up to the war. That’s the thing that irks me the most, but it was still great and I loved watching the episodes on television when I was a kid.
Voyager to me, just kept getting more boring as time went on. The cast was also significantly weaker than the rest.
Today the only real Star Trek to me is The Orville, New-Trek is just corporate garbage.
I feel like each had its own audient obviously. Like TNG has no in depth overarching plot other than a few running mini plots that they go back to from time to time. It’s more of an episodic show to just watch and enjoy the little mini plots as they come. And lots of ppl are in to that. It was a good show for me to sit down and watch while drinking and studying during my college years.
I think DS9 had a really good villain setup. Best of the three by far. The villains in that show are fairly consistent so you not only get familiar with them but build up on them. Also aided by the overarching plot and the fact that, like Voyager, the crew were basically on their own for the most part. That’s what made their plot and Voyagers better than TNG imo. Unlike DS9 though Voyagers plot didn’t allow them to have a consistent group of characters that weren’t star fleet or “off ship.” Other than the Borg there wasn’t a lot of options for repeat villains/outside characters. So most of those characters in the show had to be fairly 2 dimensional one offs.
Personally Voyager will always be my favorite but I will admit to bias because that was my first Star Trek as a kid. Being such laid the foundation for not being sexist or racist and also the fundamentals that made me a communist I think. I mean, it just never made sense to me why ppl cared that the captain was a woman or Tovok was black. Like that didn’t register to my kid brain so I grew up and was like “yeah women can do whatever they want and what does skin color fucking matter to anything?” So yeah, definitely have a soft spot for Voyager.
What about Star Trek Enterprise? I actually like that one. At least they still try to push somewhat progressive ideals that a better (communist) future is possible. I don’t consider it New-Trek.
We talking about the one with Captain Archer before they even had shields and stuff? I don’t really know how I feel about that one. Like, it was a fun little show but it didn’t really feel like a “true” Trek, if that makes sense? Like a hybrid where they were definitely trying to go deeper into an action drama type show with a Star Trek theme. Definitely not this “new Trek” dogshit for sure. I enjoyed it for what it was. I feel they did a decent enough job making it feel like a society that would grow into what the future society is based on the other treks.
The ending was hilarious though. Ending with them randomly bringing back Riker and Troy talking about the whole thing as a historical holodeck simulation. hey had both obviously been brought back in last minute and had both very obviously let themselves go. lol
Yes, that’s the one. Everyone hated the last episode, actors included.
Supposedly Voyager’s ‘wooden’ cast were specifically told to not emote too much by Berman so as to make the aliens seem more alien. Not sure how that works when you just make your human cast feel weird and unnatural lol.
Counterpoint: Voyager was tolerable most of the time but often came out with utter trash like 11:59 or that whole… Irish village arc, also the ending was atrocious.
DS9 had a few… weird and awful episodes early on (Alamarein! Count to 4!) but by the end of season 1 with Duet they’d pretty much cemented their place as the best trek ever. Except for Profit and Lace… we don’t talk about Profit and Lace.
Let’s be fair, just about every holodeck episode in every show is a “watch this once then never again” kind of episode. Doesn’t matter if it’s TNG, DS9, or Voyager, as soon as you realize it’s a holodeck episode your eyes glass over and your face assumes whatever your personal version of “resting removed face” is and then you contemplate if you are going to subject yourself to this torture or skip. lol. Same with time travel episodes imo. Like I just don’t even include them in the rankings.
As for the endings… Yeah, it could have been better but idk, I don’t think it was too terrible. I honestly think it’s still less ridiculous than DS9 ending where Sisko ascends and becomes a magic wormhole fairy or some shit. Like the war ending was the real ending and would have been perfectly fine. Then they tack on this thing at the ends you’re just like “uhhhhhh, wut?” I think Voyager using the Borg wormhole things wasn’t a terrible play but I do think the whole “explodes out of the sphere in front of the fleet in perfect condition and then cut to ending” was ridiculous. Idk what else they’d do though. Maybe just have Voyager pop out with the sphere behind it and the whole fleet just shreds it. Idk.
DS9 only did that once (to my recollection) with “Our Man Bashir” and it was fucking glorious, if only for Garak acting as an inverse wingman. And the supervillain Sisko was very memeable too.
Time travel wise, DS9 did it twice (again, to my recollection) first with the Bell Riots which was pretty decent in terms of depicting where western ‘civilization’ is heading in the 21st century, alas they were unable to really hammer home the point as to why things became like that, but the subtext is kind of obvious. The second time was the anniversary show where they crossed over with the original series which was, frankly, how you should approach that show in my opinion - with some fucking respect, unlike what trek has done to it recently. That was also a great episode.
Endings: What You Leave Behind has me in tears every time, which I honestly can’t say about many shows. The parting of ways of so many characters really hit me (I watched the show as it was airing) as these characters were a family by then. Yeah the Sisko/Dukat/Prophets/Pah-Wraiths thing was all kinds of dumb, but it was, tbh the only way I can figure to end that whole ‘thing’, I think Sisko being space jesus was sorta leading them in that direction the whole time and it was just a matter of how dumb it would be, not if it would be dumb. I honestly think they did worse by Dukat with that arc. He should’ve been tried for war crimes by the Bajorans. Harrumph
Voyager’s ending was not bad in and of itself, rather that it came out of nowhere, that episode could have been done most anywhere in the last couple seasons and it would work almost perfectly (except B’elanna being preggers I guess). There was no build up to it. With DS9 there was the ongoing war effort, with Voyager, the show was, like TNG, heavily episodic, with very little allowed to carry over from one episode to the next, so you could kinda slot any story anywhere almost. That and all the magic future tech just kinda… ruins any stories you could want to tell after that as it completely fucks with the balance of power now that the Feds have future tech.
My problem with Voyager wasn’t really that it was bad (though it had its fair share of bad episodes and mediocre ones, more than DS9 or TNG imo), but rather that it could have been so much more. Apparently the writers originally planned for the Year of Hell to be an actual year - i.e. a season-long arc with Voyager gradually being pummeled to shit over many episodes, but orders from on-high scuppered that. Berman was notoriously averse to what DS9 was doing, and it’s telling that his biggest input on that show was getting Terry Farrell to quit cause he was such a creep, and him personally putting a stop to the best gay couple in all of Trek (Bashir/Garak). Ronald D. Moore later basically did what Voyager should have been, with the BSG reboot - characters dying or suffering permanent injuries. Relationships forming and breaking, Galactica gradually taking damage that can’t just be repaired because they don’t have a dock to put into, until by the end, the ship is a floating hulk. Voyager could just magically be spacedock-fresh every episode. (and yes I know that was so they could reuse footage of the ship)
P.S. Voyager was my first experience with Trek really, other than seeing the odd bit of TNG here and there, so I have some residual fondness for it too, I’m not just bashing it out of 20 year old fan hatred