WHAT IS YOUR FAVE TREK SERIES EVER MINE IS NEXT GEN CLOSELY FOLLOWED BY STAR TREK DEEP SPACE NINE BY THE WAY KEN HATES IT :evil:

Next Gen and TOS for me :)

DS9.

TOS and TNG were great in places, but none had the group dynamic and multi-layered characters, both primary and secondary, that DS9 had.

NEXT GEN by far but then Enterprise.

I dont hate DS9 as Keith suggests, it is just my least favourite of all the TREK francise.

I must admit that DS9 was my least favourite too. Not that it's a bad series, but I found the situations and the characters pretty boring. For me Star Trek is about being aboard a ship and exploring where no man has gone before. The operative word there is "trek". :lol:

B5 did the space station scenario so much better ;)

B5 did it better - In many respects so true.

With regards to DS9's static nature, this was simultaneously it's biggest strength and weakness. At first glance it may well seem mundane by comparison, and depending on what you're looking for from the series this may indeed be true. Personally I found this to be quite liberating with regards to the writing of the show. Both VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE have shown that stories set aboard a starship are not necessarily the answer; with constant criticism of repitition and rehashed plots, DS9 was forced to focus on it's characters more. They couldn't realistically travel to a new planet full of adventure every week, the writing had to be spot on to uphold interest. In the writing department DS9 was richly blessed; Ira Behr, Mike Piller, Rob Hewitt Wolfe, Hans Beimler, Ron Moore, etc, etc, etc. Thanks to Berman and Braga's focus upon their new VOYAGER show, DS9, like B5 (but to a lesser degree) was left to it's own devices, and flourished in the process.

For me, Trek has always been at it's best when utilising it's greatest asset, it's characters, and DS9 had the best bunch and best written characters in Trek, IMO ;)

I think some stories are always going to get rehashed in one form or another. The body swap, the evil double, the primitive society yada yada. Look at the number of times I've mentioned Star Trek in my Farscape comments!

I think a lot of Trek's problems are due to overkill. Next Gen had the advantage of being the first tv Trek for nearly 20 years. None of the latter series have had that. I think if the dust had been allowed to settle between each series (not for 20 years, but maybe a year or two) they may not have run into those problems. If it's possible, there was just too much Trek on our screens for a while.

Personally I don't buy into that. It's all down to the writing, and frankly, Trek of late just hasn't been up to it. Look at the writers that have been allowed to leave or have been pushed from the franchise; Mike Piller, Ira Behr, Rob Hewitt Wolfe, Ron Moore, Rene Echevarria; now look at those retained. Guys, they let the wrong half go !!

Look at Ron Moore for example; Carnivale has become a great little series, I'm eagerly anticipating BSG as well; likewise Ira's new series 4400. Then there's Mike Piller's The Dead Zone, another little cracker.

The problem that Trek has faced is it's downright refusal to change. Look at TOS, TNG, Voyager and the first couple of seasons of Enterprise and you'll see much of a muchness. The only series that dared to be different was DS9, for the simple reason that Berman and Braga's attention was elsewhere at the time, they could get away with it.

Last year, Enterprise actually stopped the wrong creatively, and improved upon the seasons that had gone before it, why then and not any other point in the last 4 or 5 years of Trek, the reason is simple, they bought in a few writers who could actually write, people like John Shiban, like Manny Coto.

It's all in the quality of the writing staff, and over the past 5 years, generally speaking, Trek has been pish poor in that capacity. As with practically any other criticism of the franchise you can thank Berman and Braga for that ;)

Berman and Braga, yeah :angry:

Piller certainly turned Next Gen around, that much is true :)

I still think the law of diminishing returns applies, though ;)