Chew

BizRodian

Some people think anything with a continuing storyline is a "Soap Opera" just let them think that. It's fine. 24, Sopranos, 6 Feet Under... ALL SOAP OPERAS WITH BAD WRITING

Star Trek is great. If you can get past the cheesiness of a lot of it, there is a lot of richeness in there. If you can't get past it, you're lost. It's a shame. The movies are all mostly excellent because they have the great characters without a lot of the 60s TV cheese. Nicholas Meyer is a god, IMHO

The Next Generation has a weak start, and many terrible episodes early one. The characters are all enjoyable though. The later seasons are very good, and the characters are writing really make it.

Deep Space Nine is hard to get into, because if you just watch the first few seasons, you're not going to easily get into it. The characters are good, but you are not used to them like you have been used to TNG ones. However, these early seasons are required to get to know the characters. Once you know the characters, then you really love the next few seasons. Not to mention, once you watch it all, you can go back and watch the early seasons and enjoy them that much more since you really know the characters now. DS9 is my favourite.

Yeah, anyways, Voyager is pretty bad, but I watched most of it. After watching it all, the first three seasons are a half baked Star Trek, but overall, it is Star Trek, and it is enjoyable (some of the Tuvok, Neelix, and Doctor episodes are great) aside from a few TERRIBLE episodes that rival anything in the later seasons. Like in Coda, the line "Go back to Hell, coward." is the funniest thing out of ANY Star Trek ever because it's so bad. Almost anything after season 3 is a joke though, in one way or another. It becomes a generic spaceship show. A bad one at that. The whole thing is a disaster. I could go on for hours on this.

I have only seen the first few episodes of Enterprise. I willl probably eventually watch it in syndication. It just seemed like they were doing Voyager again, but set in a different time with ever LESS good characters than Voyager had.

Fok

I found DS9 to be quite boring and there wasn't enough excitement on the show. There's something cool about flying around on a starship. Also maybe there wasn't enough action for me.

Dmacsg1

Hello all!

I loved DS9 but not until a couple of seasons in. The show took a while to really get going IMHO. When they introduced the Dominion, the show had me hooked. Because of this it is my favorite of the "modern" series.

TNG was good. But like DS9 it took awhile to find it's legs. The show became must see TV for me with the introduction of the Borg. But with the last couple of seasons I felt that the show was running out of steam IMHO.

Voyager I was excited about this show originally but shit happened in the way of lackluster writing. The Doctor was my favorite character but toward the end of the show even the episodes highlighting him were not good IMO. I really wanted to like Chakotey but I felt like he was way underused and the writers really didnt seem to know what to do with him. Paris , Torres, Kim and Tuvok didnt really do anything for me. Then there was Janeway who I found to be just plain annoying. I cant forget about Seven of Nine who was there for the T&A factor so they could get a ratings boost. IMHO Voyager was a cool concept that turned into a one long train wreck.

Which brings me to Enterprise. Yet again I was really excited about the concept of digging into Star Trek's past and seeing how the Federation was formed and the beginnings of starfleet. I watched the first season and the first episode of the second season and walked away. Just plain bad writing IMO.
With that said, I have watched most of the current season and I have been pleasently surprised!!! I hope that whatever the production staff is doing that they keep it up!! I normally do not go back to TV shows after I have dropped them so this is a first for me!!

As for the original series, a great classic series that cant be beat IMHO!

Take care all!!!

das Monkey

Now, let's be honest ...

das

riley_dude

Yeah, what they need is more special effects like in the last two Star Wars movies. All look but little else to hold your interest.

BizRodian

We're talking about DS9 right? no flying around on a starship??? not enough action???!!!??

Never seen it but it's so story arc driven that I had to.

dstrauss

Yeah, you know, DS9 had no action.

And that whole multi-season galactic war thing, that was kinda boring and all.

I saw most of the first few years of DS9 when it was first on, but didn't really see most of the Dominion War seasons until the last few months on Spike, and I'm enjoying watching them again right now.

Even though I've seen most of the TOS episodes dozens of times, and most of the TNG episodes about 10-15 times each, I have to say that DS9 is, to me, by far the best of the Trek series. (It's certainly the only one where characters were ::gasp:: allowed to change and grow because of their experiences.)

Bandoman

Sure I can, just as I can spot good acting and writing, which was abundant on DS9. Your failure to notice them demonstrates either your failure to observe enough of it to tell (which I suspect), or your inability to discern the difference (of which you impliedly accuse me without any basis in fact).

I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that any show with a consistent, pre-planned long term storyline can't have good writing? I'm sure that's not what you meant, and the fact that you didn't watch enough of the show to grasp the entirety of the plot precludes any competent analysis of its quality, IMO. You seem to want contained stories within a one hour episode without carrying over the plot over longer periods, and that's fine. Don't dismiss any show with continuity, however, or you'll miss some great TV. Babylon 5 is a prime example.

strife

OK I can underestand that. I would suggest trying a few episodes in seasons 5-7 had a war arc that were interesting.

I could see in the first couple of seasons were it would be boring cause they were on the station 99% of the time, with the addition of the Defiant it added more flying in a ship.

mikehunt

voyager was on a ship, but lets be honest, the writing sucked overall
don't even get me started on the never ending supply of shuttles, or them being able to build not 1 but 2 delta flyers, although granted at that point they had met some friendlies and possibly done some trading, but the shuttle thing was early when they had shit for supplies and couldn't even replicate 3 meals a day for each crew member yet they pumped out a shit load of shuttles

BigDan

While I enjoy a good long-term arc on a television show, there are dangers with that.

1. You have too little arc for the number of shows you have to fill. There were times, to me, when the last season of Buffy felt like that to me and several times when 24 has felt like that. It's like they've got an arc that's good for eight shows, but they have to fill twelve, so they just stretch it out. And that can lead to boring television.

2. With that, there can also be times when the story arc is doled out in pieces that are too small. I think this happens when the arc is an essential piece of the show or the characters, so much so that the arc can never really be resolved until the show ends. So, you never give too much because you're having to hold things back until that final episode, which might well be five years or more down the line.

3. And that can lead to adding so much to the story arc that it becomes ridiculous or too convoluted. The writers know they have to put out clues and whatnot over the course of the entire show, but they didn't bother to think out enough of an arc, so they keep taking it in new directions so they can stretch it out further. Somestimes, that doesn't so much work.

4. Sometimes the balance isn't there between making episodes that are entertaining enough to stand on their own but which also include enough nuggets of information to push the overall story arc forward. That balance can be hard to achieve, and many times you end up with episodes that don't serve either purpose very well.

But I like a show with some deep mythology and long, continuing story arcs. I just need them to also be entertaining in and of themselves and not just be filler episodes because they had too little story and too many episodes to fill.

Fartface

Yes, as much as I like 24, I wait for the dvd so I can watch ALL the episodes consecutively. And you certainly can't compare it to something as dull as DS9. But lets' face it, it's one of those shows you either love or hate. As to soap operas, I never said they were all bad, it's simply that I want to be able to watch a show without having had to see 50 episodes to know what's going on (though I do admit, I figured out 'Who shot JR' in the 1st 10 minutes of the show without ever having seen one other episode).

riley_dude

Oh god. Rodenberrys vision has been shatered. Not enough explosions and too much character development. I have to say that's why I like DS9. great characters and they aren't all perfect.

Fok

I'm not just interested in special effects. The action does make it more interesting. The fact that the other series were on starships, I think that opened more doors from a storyline point of view.

riley_dude

How many starship shows did we need. TNG was already on and they didnt want to put another one. If they had people would have complained that there was no originality in the franchise and now we are hearing that it is too boring because it deals with characters???

mikehunt

not only that, but plenty of TNG eps didn't need to be set on a starship, and between the runabouts and the defiant ds9 could have a "starship" ep whenever they wanted

Fok

Yeah you're missing my point again

I thought the other series were better. They were on starships and they did deal with characters.

riley_dude

And I think you are missing mine (ours). Just because Trek is set on a starship doesn't make it any better i.e. Voyager. DS9 was richer and more textured than the others.

Fok

I'm not talking about the shows being better because they're just on a star ship........oh well, guess we've come to an impasse. Peace out dude.

tasha99

Voyager puts me to sleep every time I try to watch it, and the couple episodes I've seen of Enterprise have been wretched. Glad to hear that maybe it's improving--I should give it another chance.

As for DS9--it's a great show with characters that grow and change as if they didn't even live in the Trek universe. Unfortunately the first few seasons are kind of slow, so you need an attention span to watch it. I enjoy TNG, but don't find it engrossing like DS9. I'm not a good judge of TOS cause I hate the cheese, but I don't think it's a "bad" show in the sense that Voyager is and Enterprise seems to be. I don't like it and think its goofy-laughable, but that's a personality thing and may have more to do with my taste than TOS itself.)

tanman

Maybe but not in special effects. TNG had incredible SFX and at least as good and often times better than the Original crew movies. The SFX keep getting better and better with each series.

Josh-da-man

DS9 - This is my favorite post-TOS Trek. In many ways, it's the anti-Star Trek. Instead of having a crew aboard a ship flying to the planet of the week, fixing the problem, and leaving on the next mission. With DS9, we got a crew aboard a space station charged with keeping the peace and re-building an alien world ravaged by decades of war. Later, we find them on the frontline of an intergalactic war. It's the get-your-hands-dirty nuts and bolts side of the Trek universe, and it turned off a lot of hardcore Trekkies. But just as many, if not more, appreciated seeing the other side.

Voyager - Proceed with caution. I bailed early on this, as I found it tedious and boring.

riley_dude

I made the mistake of sticking with Voyager because I was a die hard Trekker. I will never make that mistake again.

dvdstitch

Up til now I actually thought B5 was part of Star Trek
Where did this series originate?
I think the last 3 seasons of TNG are by far the best.
I have bought the first 2 seasons of DS9 and will start them soon.