Star Trek is finally returning to its roots this month with Star Trek: Discovery. There have been six live action series and the animated continuation of Captain Kirk’s Enterprise from the original series, and this latest spin-off will follow a fine tradition of exploring Gene Roddenberry’s vision of humanity’s future in the stars.
The franchise might have a number of films under its belt, starring the crews of William Shatner’s Kirk, to Patrick Stewart’s Picard and the recent reboot with Chris Pine’s take on a younger Kirk, but arguably the core aspects of Star Trek have only really worked on the small screen, where the broader narrative can flesh out the sense of wonder in exploring the stars that the films have to sacrifice for action.
From what we know of the series so far, Star Trek: Discovery will be something different to its predecessors, a long-running story arc rather than episodic adventures. In that sense, it might owe something to the long-running arcs of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine than the self contained tales that Star Trek: The Next Generation favoured.
Talking of those shows, everyone has their favourite. Some prefer the wonder of the original 60’s series, while others prefer the broader scope of The Next Generation. And there are fans aplenty for Deep Space Nine‘s dark storytelling and rich supporting characters. But which is the best? Well I will boldly go where many have gone before and attempt to rank each series from worst to best…
Star Trek: The Animated Series (1974)
It seems a little unfair to include the animated spin-off of the original 60’s Star Trek here, as it exists more as a curiosity than continuation, though it is largely regarded as canon. And fun fact, it actually won an Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment Children’s Series in 1975 for the episode ‘How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth’.
Star Trek: The Animated Series featured all of the original cast in voice roles, except poor Walter Koenig as Chekov, who was cut for budgetary reasons but did get to write an episode. While the series did take advantage of the medium with some non-human characters, it lacked the imagination to go beyond the premise of the original series and a real classic like its predecessor – or successors.
Mind you, the second episode ‘Yesteryear’, which saw Spock travel back in time to save himself as a youth after being erased from existence, did serve as an inspiration for JJ Abrams’ 2009 movie reboot.
Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001)
The biggest issue with Star Trek: Voyager is the fact that it squandered what was arguably the best premise of any Star Trek TV series; a Federation starship flung to the other side of the galaxy and forced to work together with Maquis terrorists to make the long journey home. Instead, the show did the opposite of so many things it should have done. It put the Maquis in Starfleet uniforms and had them largely integrated by the second episode into the crew. Rather than using the journey home to explore new worlds and civilisation each week, it spent two seasons stuck in the space of the bland, haughty Kazon. Worse of all, it found a way to hit the damn reset button every time.
That’s not to say there weren’t moments of brilliance. The Phage-ridden Vidians of the first two seasons were a much more threatening presence, the introduction of Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine as Voyager became caught in the conflict between the Borg and Species 8472 in ‘Scorpion’ made for a thrilling season three cliffhanger and rejuvenated the series, plus ‘Year of Hell’ remains one of the most brutal Star Trek two-parters ever, even though the ramifications are washed aside with that reset button again.
The trouble with Voyager is that it didn’t do anything interesting with its (often bland) characters outside of Captain Janeway, Seven of Nine and the Doctor. And it managed to range from being a weaker copy of The Next Generation to a ridiculously over the top ‘I can take on five Borg cubes no problem’ show week after week. It’s a shame, as the series could have gone in a far more interesting direction.
Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005)
If Star Trek: Enterprise had ended after its second season, it would probably sit behind Voyager in a ranking like this. It suffered from the same problem of bland characters and being a dull copy of The Next Generation in its first two years. Yet again it was a Star Trek series that seemed to fail to live up to its premise – the beginnings of the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet. Plus that theme tune was god awful.
In its third season, the show turned it around by being the first Star Trek show to devote a whole story to one storyline, in this case featuring new antagonists the Xindi. It didn’t meet the highs of Deep Space Nine‘s Dominion War arc but it certainly was exciting. Then the show finally delivered what it was supposed to do and gave us one of the best seasons of Star Trek in its fourth season, dealing with the Klingons, Brent Spiner’s Dr. Arik Soong, Khan’s augments, transforming the Vulcans from mistrusting aliens into the race we saw in the Kirk era, set up the Vulcans, Tellarites and Andorian alliance as a precursor to the Federation and even had a trip to the Mirror Universe.
Sadly it was undermined with the worst finale of all – ‘These Are the Voyages…’ – that turned the formation of the Federation into a Next Generation holodeck episode. Fortunately it had already delivered one heck of a final season…
Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969)
It might seem blasphemous to put the original show in third place – though like the next two it is a huge step up on the previous entries. Not only did it launch one of the most successful franchises of all time, it was a huge influence, not just on sci-fi, but television and culture in general. Nichelle Nichols was a black woman in a position of influence, Walter Koeing a Russian officer working alongside his American colleagues, and all of them were exploring a future where there was no conflict among humanity and hope and joy existed in exploring the stars.
The first season is arguably the strongest of any Star Trek series and gave audiences superb episodes like ‘Balance of Terror’ and ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’. And while season two had great stories too (‘Amok Time’, ‘Mirror Mirror’) there was a huge decline in its final season. No one is going to put ‘The Way to Eden’ or ‘Spock’s Brain’ on their list of favourites.
The Original Series was groundbreaking television but it stumbled along the way and with just three seasons there wasn’t enough to make it a stronger piece of television than its two immediate successors…
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
Okay, at the risk of confusing everyone, Star Trek: The Next Generation is probably the best show of the franchise to follow the classic premise of humanity’s exploration of the stars. While Deep Space Nine is the better show (more on that shortly), it deviates from Roddenberry’s vision in a way that only a spin-off of a successful show still airing could. But the first continuation of the Star Trek franchise took the 60’s premise and explored it in fascinating and exciting ways over the course of its seven seasons.
Truth be told, it doesn’t start off strong and it took until the third season for the show to finally start to live up to its potential. But thanks to a strong cast (if not always the strongest characters) led by Patrick Stewart’s Jean Luc-Picard, fans were treated to some truly memorable stories, from alternate reality episode ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’ to the Borg and Picard’s transformation into Locutus. And that was just the end of the third season.
Over the remaining four years we followed Data’s continuing efforts to become human, Klingon power struggles, Romulan schemes and true sci-fi gems like ‘The Inner Light’, ‘Chain of Command’ and the superb finale ‘All Good Things…’ before the series transferred to the big screen for four films.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1992-1999)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is known – and probably always will be – as the black sheep of the Star Trek family. A crew stuck on a space station? Where is the Star Trekking? But to be fair to the show, its greatest strength is in its serialised storytelling that a more static setting was able to provide. It gave us wonderful recurring characters like Gul Dukat, Garak and Kai Winn and explored an element of the Star Trek universe that wasn’t all glossy and utopian. If The Next Generation is about exploring and celebrating the inclusive beliefs of the Federation, then Deep Space Nine is about the fight to keep those values when everything is threatened.
Again, the show took a couple of seasons to get going, but while its predecessor strayed nowhere near a classic until season three, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine gave us the phenomenal ‘Duet’ in season one and film noir-style ‘Necessary Evil’ in season two. And it was in the second year finale ‘The Jem’Hadar’ that the show really stepped out of The Next Generation‘s shadows with the introduction of the Dominion that shaped the rest of the show, from the ‘Cold War’ of seasons three through five to the galactic struggle of the final two years.
In some ways, Deep Space Nine embraced different cultures more readily than any of its siblings. The show didn’t just explore Federation beliefs, but Bajoran, Cardassian, Ferengi and Klingon ones too, enriching the franchise unlike any other. And it wasn’t afraid to go dark when necessary – ‘In The Pale Moonlight’ is one of the greatest episodes of Star Trek ever, showing just what needs to be done to keep the utopia other shows in the franchise took for granted. The Dominion War arc is a masterpiece in storytelling and the show is littered with other classics too like ‘The Visitor’, ‘Trials and Tribble-ations’ and ‘Far Beyond The Stars’. What is most significant about Deep Space Nine is the characters and this show had rich, flawed, fascinating characters in abundance.
Do you agree with the above choices? Are you a Star Trek purist and believe the original is best? And where might Discovery fit on this ranking? Let us know!