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Ranking The Star Trek TV Series

With “Star Trek” celebrating its 50^th anniversary, it felt like the appropriate time to look back at all of the “Star Trek” series (excluding 2017’s “Star Trek: Discovery” of course). Even though there are only 6 series thus far, it was a tough task to rank the top 3 as they are all bonafide classics. I could change my mind tomorrow, but as of right now, this is how the ranking sits. Time to beam up the list!

1. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine- Between TOS and TNG, the starship based series had been exhausted. It was time for something new for the franchise and DS9 boldly went in a new direction with its huge cast of characters, numerous ongoing ambitious story arcs, a massive war, darker stories, and brilliant episodes (such as “Far Beyond The Stars” and “Trials And Tribble-ations”). Even though the series has a loyal fanbase and is a lot of Trek fan’s favorite series, it is still one of the most underrated TV series.

2. Star Trek: The Next Generation- I went back and forth on whether I should put TNG at number 2 or 3, but at the end of the day, TNG took second place for me. TNG had the tough task of following up the original series and it managed to set itself apart from its predecessor by introducing new characters, new elements (like the holodeck), new worlds, and new aliens (namely the Borg). At a time when TV programs were less than stellar, the intelligent and creative TNG stood head and shoulders above most everything else on at the time. It revitalized sci-fi television and the Trek franchise.

3. Star Trek: The Original Series- I could easily rank TOS as number 1 or 2. Not only was it the first Trek series, but it was also groundbreaking television (sci-fi or otherwise). The series told challenging and rich stories and broke new ground by showing such things as the first interracial kiss on screen. There’s a reason the series continues to endure to this day- it’s simply a classic.

4. Star Trek: Enterprise- This Trek prequel series gets a lot of hate, but there’s a lot of rewarding stuff here. “Enterprise” went back to the roots of Trek, took risks (the season long Xindi arc), offered up great new characters (Tucker and Commander Shran), and delivered some clever episodes such as “Carbon Creek” and “Regeneration.” We can all agree that the series finale (“These Are The Voyages…”) was horrendous though.

5. Star Trek: Voyager- The ensemble cast of characters is terrific (especially The Doctor) but they were all wasted in a largely poorly scripted Trek series that was essentially “Lost In Space.” On top of that, the series has not aged well at all over the years.

6. Star Trek: The Animated Series- Despite bringing back most of the TOS cast to reprise their roles as voice actors, this was a stiff Filmation animated series.

September 11, 2016 - Posted by nicklyons1 | News | Ranking The Star Trek TV Series, Star Trek, Star Trek TNG, Star Trek TOS, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: DS9, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Voyager