There was also Sisko using bioweapons for a personal vendetta, Odo not fitting in and constantly trying to go with the changelings who are a group of fascist racist violent manipulators, etc.

I haven’t seen DS9 since the first run I don’t think, so my memory is hazy, but did the show make those things “good things” or were they flaws in the characters?

since it sort of still is Dax, it adds on top of Jadzia’s crap.

Is it though? Isn’t that one of the things they deal with a lot with Trill - are different hosts actually “the same person”? I’d argue it’s “partially at best” and is one of the interesting things about the concept of personhood over time sci-fi deals with. In a lot of ways, Ezri is at best like a 30 year time difference in the real world, but maybe even more like a sister/cousin at the more extreme side of being different.

I don’t know if Star Trek ever had a really strong coherent overarching morality, but it certainly doesn’t now. The Disco and newer shows are such a mishmash of different people and a different time that they seem often the opposite of what people thought TOS and TNG might have been. DS9-Enterprise were kind of the “in-between” IMO. So there’s at LEAST 3 different sets of sort of framework for what the canon/story/morals even are that it’s kind of hard to discuss as a whole coherently.

Then there’s always the people who take stuff as “cool” that the show didn’t want to portray as “good”. There are plenty of media examples of “cool” bad guys. Look at all the Ducat lovers in DS9, he was pretty explicitly intended and they thought portrayed as a villain, but a complex one. The whole last season turning him into a moustache twirling caricature was to try and “fix” this “misunderstanding” by a troubling portion of the fans.

The whole Prime Directive waffling is well known to fans, and generally there to specifically create conversation about the colonial vs anti-colonial ideals starting in TNG and morphed over time to now. I don’t think the show in a meta sense promotes the prime directive as a good thing - the amount of character struggles and flat out breaking it makes me pretty sure it’s a “no obvious right rule” exemplar.

Disco and on is generally so poorly written that it’s hard to say if they have a message to push inside the show. Most of what we know is from Twitter posts and interviews cause it’s so hard to tell what’s supposed to be the point of the actual show in many cases. With Georgiou I think they’re trying to tell an anti-hero redemption story of some sort. Some idea that anyone can change and deserves a new chance (I think it’s beyond second here). Take out the extremes for the drama and being a show and this is about as obvious as the prime directive as an ideal. It’s not the worst, but I can’t say it’s always valid either IMO.

I think you get from Star Trek what you decide to take from it - it’s entertainment first, not moral education.

Yea, that’s kind of painful.

The Wounded Sky (IMO better across the galaxy instant drive story than Discovery) My Enemy, My Ally Doctors Orders The Invasion series Uhuras Song Black Fire The Romulan Way Yesterday’s Son Time for Yesterday

For the number of ships, by TOS there are only 12 Constitution class ships, so there might not be more ships to send. We’re a year or so out from the Klingon war, and it doesn’t seem like the Federation is in a position to quickly replace ships. They already lost the Cayuga. Also the admiralty obviously isn’t interested in a Gorn war at all, and certainly not over this planet or the potential survivors.

I will say it’s been shown that Pike is just not a fighting captain. He’s not the person you want in a combat situation. It does make me wonder why he’s a Captain but idk. They really should send the Enterprise back on a deep space mission of exploration and have someone (who is not an evil mirror universe person) more like Lorca or Kirk running these border conflicts or something.

Sadly, no. I’ve never quoted Star Trek without intentionally being in “Star Trek Fan” mode. I know, not exciting, but true.

Fair enough. Too many times I’ve tried to watch a TOS episode and just found segments drawn out and boring - at least some of the podcasts reviewing think it was to reach 52 minutes and they just didn’t have the budget for that much content per episode or something. It was just OBVIOUS filler. The Corbomite Maneuver being one where they just keep cutting back to a counter over and over. The trouble with Tribbles had that 10 minute long bar fight - that’s how they fit Trials and Tribulations into it so well.

And a lot of the negative of TOS was the budget / tech of the 1960s for a sci fi show. Or places where the production or execution just failed badly. I never thought The Alternative Factor was a bad story in the novelization, but once I heard Mission Log and others pan it as “not even a TV show” and I tried to watch it - I saw what they were talking about. The thing just didn’t work IMO. Devil in the Dark worked amazing in a novel form, the Horta on TV was… I see where the jokes came from.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy worked really well on the show, that’s true, but I think a lot of the other parts make it a difficult place to start.

I would recommend skipping TOS as a show, and reading the James Blish adaptations of it and TAS. They’re great stories, but getting various production design and execution issues out of the way is IMHO a good idea. Maybe watch some of the classic episodes like Shore Leave City on the edge of forever The trouble with tribbles

Then watch the original 6 movies - these are pretty good and varied. (except ST V, which… you can skip, or watch if you’re a completest or take as an alternate story, or whatever.) TMP is a little slow, and unique, but I think if you’re into general sci fi, and are ok with it not exactly feeling like “Star Trek”, it’s quite good and sets up Spock a little.

Then TNG, DS9 are both quite good, though DS9 really ends up being arcs of arcs for the last few seasons, so you can’t dip in and out the same way you can with TNG or TOS.

TNG Movies are with hindsight and time … ~~~ average? OK?

Generations is generally panned, I think it was basically another episode of the series with a bigger budget, and a middling one at that. First Contact is fun, but don’t think too hard. Insurrection is like Generations - I enjoyed it as it was, but it kind of re-made an existing TNG episode, and meh. Nemisis sets up the Picard show, but both are generally so bad that I can’t really recommend it.

Honestly, Voyager is flip a coin. I watched it once - first run on air, never have been interested in going back for a rewatch, and doesn’t really set up anything for future shows / makes some parts of future shows worse because of how much they screw up in the future shows.

Hot Take, Enterprise is worth watching, and I think air order works better here. Again, they can’t help themselves but “ruin” some earlier episodes / stories from TOS / TNG because of fan easter eggs or whatever, so - watching it later as it aired makes it so you get what they’re winking about. It also helps answer some lingering questions from other shows (if you care for that) in the 4th season. I will warn you, it’s probably a straight average 5/10 so there’s some lows, and very few highs - most episodes are … OK. Then again, if you can get through TOS and TNG lows, you’ll be fine here.

I think you can skip the 09 reboot series of movies, unless you really like JJ Abrams, lens flare, or some of the actors (or are a completest). Looking back, they’re entirely forgettable and not that great sci fi action films.

Looking back, I’d take a hard pass on Discovery and S1 and S2 of Picard, unless you like pain and screaming at the TV (assuming you actually liked TNG and 90s trek). S3 of Picard is OK, IF you’re super jonesing for more TNG no matter what. But really, TNG should have ended with All Good Things and left it there - that was a PERFECT ending, and they keep trying, and failing, to improve on it IMHO. So far, you can skip S3 of Picard and not have it affect anything else.

Lower Decks is surprisingly really really really good. Watch it.

Strange New Worlds is actually decent - and feels a lot like TOS in terms of episodic, random ups and downs in both good and embarrassingly bad episodes. It’s another prequel, but again, I think watching in air order makes sense - especially as it’s still airing new episodes, you can’t watch it first really.

I took a pass on Prodigy - opinions are mixed, and future availability and new seasons seem up in the air. It’s also a kids show from what I gather. I tried the first episode and was like - nah, not for me.

“Star Trek” homages - watch Galaxy Quest - that’s amazing. The Orville S1 and S2 are really good TNG. S3 changed and I did not like it as much, and dropped it part way through. They started being “extra serious” and like 1+ hour episodes and it just was a drag to watch for me.

Didn’t they remove Prodigy though?

Next Generation and the like was just crazy in that every dang away mission planet just so happened to have a gas mix of 70% N, 21% O2 and the rest CO2 and inert gases at like exctly 1atm (or at least a mixture within those norms)

That was just what TOS, TAS, the movies etc did - mostly for production cost reasons. It’s also why there were transporters, though I personally really like the idea and it’s not a Star Trek specific thing.

I don’t think Enterprise was more realistic per se, just set in a much lower tech level much closer to current day. Some parts of Sci Fi aren’t “realistic” in the way if you showed a 2023 cop show to someone from 1800, they’d say it was a bunch of flights of fancy in tech (modern cars, planes, smartphones, zoom meetings etc would probably seem as realistic to them as starships do to us).

Honestly, rankings have to be almost completely subjective at a certain point. IDK if you listen to any of the Star Trek review podcasts, but there’s always tension around how to rank a show. Do you try and be “objective” and take your personal enjoyment out of it as much as possible, and instead rank on production success (did the final show do what they were trying to do?), cultural impact?, Iconic level of an episode?, Number of Iconic episodes or well produced episodes or the average quality over a season or show?

Like, there are episodes that are a LOT of fun, say “Trials and Tribulations” from DS9, but it didn’t really have a strong unique plot or sci fi conceit or have anything to “say” in morals. It was Iconic solely to big existing fans, and the awesomeness of the production was entirely around the technical achievement of filming in the 90s using 60s techniques and near perfectly splicing together with existing footage. It’s one of the ?2? DS9 episodes I’m at all interested in re-watching frequently, and it’s really really fun for me as a huge Star Trek nerd. But is it a “great episode”?

Compare to “In the Pale Moon Light” or “Measure of a Man”, or “City on the Edge of Forever”. Those are Iconic for a reason, and most of them work pretty stand alone. They’re arguably “better” in context, but they have pretty good production - it seems to achieve what they set out to do, they have a message, they have a moral idea they’re playing with, and they throw in some Sci Fi too.

Then there’s the same thing but over an entire show. I think TOS and TNG and DS9 had very high highs, but also some pretty low lows throughout the run. “The Alternative Factor” or “Code of Honor” don’t exactly stand up as “better” than Picard. By Voyager, I think they still had a bunch of 3/10s but mostly avoided 1/10s, and honestly Enterprise seemed to hit that middle 4-6/10 range very consistently. I haven’t “done the math” but I’d be willing to believe if you averaged ratings of every episode, Enterprise might well rate higher on that average than TNG. It’s just that if you’re selective you can watch probably 30 episodes of TNG that are 8-10/10 and there might be 2 in Enterprise.

I will say - if you like reading, and you like SNW a lot - I’d suggest trying the novelizations of TOS and TAS by James Blish. They fix all the production limitations of 60s tech and budgets, but keep the good stories and characterizations. It’s actually how I got into TOS originally, back before streaming or releases of the show on DVD. I think in many ways I wouldn’t love TOS as much as I do if my main exposure was actually the episodes. Balance of Terror as a case in point basically bored me to death in the middle where for the 52 minute runtime they just linger in a countdown set of scenes for way to long. Similar for The Trouble with Tribbles - the reason they could slice it up for the DS9 inserts is there was like 8 minutes of a bar fight you can mostly cut and lose NOTHING. For on screen - the TOS Movies really cemented them IMHO.

I don’t disagree, and I suppose captains get a LOT of leeway with how they run their ships. What I’m actually talking about is

I think in that case they let “easter eggs” for fans get in the way of coherently telling the story they wanted to tell. At least with your (and my) take -

It’s closer to Old Trek. But in the last episode of S1

There’s good stuff in it, but they also seem to really have a problem making any non-quippy character, to the extent that I actually think it affects characterization. To that end, Ortegas still

Spock is certainly “in between” The Cage and TOS, but I think they’re going to have to re-do something like Kohlinar to explain his change in the last episode of SNW.

It’s reasonably good, but significantly different too.

It’s certainly the best of the live action modern Treks. Lower Decks also works surprisingly well.

I haven’t rewatched any Enterprise except the mirror duology since first run, but I really never got the hate people had for it. I think I always thought it was pretty good. I don’t know if I’d say it was better than Voyager overall, I think my main ding was what I think is a stupid idea of a prequel. But take that out of it, and I’d think they were even. I used to think they were tied for the bottom two, but Discovery and Picard have really lowered my opinion of what bad Trek can be, so Voyager and Enterprise look a lot better by comparison lol.

I thought it was weird at first, but actually liked it. I didn’t really get the hate - there’s plenty of shows I like a lot that I like the theme a lot less and especially today you can easily skip it.

I know this is probably going to get me booed, but I actually liked Enterprise’s theme. Heck, I can sing along! And I loved the visuals.

Hilariously it kind of makes me think of like The Orville - you know all those “Star Trek” themes without copyright issues.

Genetic engineering is a dangerous thing to start doing to sapient species, and it can lead to a resurgence of eugenics and other stuff like that.

Sure, but so is freedom of speech, and we’ve been resurging Nazis just fine sans genetic engineering. I guess I’d want to know why people think it’s so cut and dried when we don’t think that about plenty of other issues like speech and misinformation and disinformation, various anti-patterns of information flow on the Internet and such. I think you easily end up in a place where you divide medicine vs engineering.

The other thing I think is dangerous about the genetic engineering is inherently eugenics is that it seems to require beliefs that there are actually “better” genetic IDK settings? And that engineering will pull them out. But this would also imply that there are naturally occurring “better” people, and that is controversial to say the least.

I think it’s patently obvious that there are people influenced by genetics but needing specific nurture to make the most out of it to be more skilled in one area or another. I’m never getting into the NBA just because I’m well under 6’ tall, and I wasn’t hurt for nurture.

The problem with eugenics as I see it is the idea that there is a “better” in all aspects platonic ideal we could engineer or breed our way towards, and there’s not really any evidence of those people existing, and I’ve seen plenty of speculations that moving one thing too far out of norm has other affects. I don’t think we know it’s true, but it’s certainly plausible that there are people who have various aspects that when increased tend to cause either through genetics or more likely culture and the like other aspects to be neglected.

For instance, if you’re very good at school / book learning, you might find that sort of young experiences more enjoyable than say sports, where you’d have to work at it. I sort of doubt without an authoritarian system already in place well before genetic engineering that you’d be able to interest even enhanced people in everything, and if they’re just better at some things I don’t see why people who already don’t buy into the eugenics philosophy would not treat this just like a Michael Jordan sort of person.

Ahhh, yes Discovery probably was a lot more enjoyable if you’ve never seen any Star Trek before.