Star Trek series reviews

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The Original Series

star-trek-original-series-cast(September 2019) I’ve completed (re)watching the entire STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES.  It’s still the best — it was first, exposed a general audience to science fiction themes, tackled contemporary social conflict from a future perspective, and (sort of) elevated women and minorities to leadership roles. I’m sure I saw l watched all 79 episodes as a youth, but there were some in here I did not recognize. Watching from an adult perspective, I have a better appreciation of its use of science fiction to explore psychological and social ideas (TOS’ treatment of race is well known, but see how they address class in “The Cloud Minders”). What has not worn well is the frequent (budget-driven, I’m sure) fall-back to discovering Earth-ish settings on distant planets (OK Corral, Native Americans, Nazis, Chicago gangsters, Greek Gods), not to mention the cringy 60s objectification of women.

Favorite episodes:

  1. The Enterprise Incident (cloaking device)
  2. The City on the Edge of Forever (“Edith Keeler must die”)
  3. Balance of Terror (naval battle in space)
  4. Arena (Kirk vs the Gorn)
  5. Amok Time (Spock in heat)
  6. Doomsday Machine (lethal space carrot)

Worst episode: The Empath

Favorite character: Kirk and Spock (I can’t decide)

Cutest female: Lt. Helen Noel (Dagger of the Mind)

Sexiest female: Romulan Commander (The Enterprise Incident)

The Animated Series

star trek TAS

(June 2020) I’ve completed watching the entire STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES.  Yes, it is canon, but it is not on par with the rest.  On the positive side, its animated format allowed for depiction of numerous non-humanoid aliens and fantastic planet-scapes. But this had the effect of making it more of a monster-laden fantasy show than of the semi-hard science fiction genre, which is not surprising since it was a cartoon designed for children (although apparently its first-run audience was more adults). Most of the TOS actors lent their voices which gave credibility, and there were several aspects (like the holodeck) that were incorporated in future series.  But there is no harm in skipping this series unless you’re a completist like me.

Favorite episode: Yesteryear (Spock visit is young self)

Worst episode: The Magicks of Megas-tu (faun/Lucifer guy)

Worst choice of character: when the cat-person (M’Ress) purrs

The Next Generation

Cast Portrait For 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'

(June 2020) I’ve completed (re)watching the entire STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.  While my heart still feels The Original Series is the best, my head says it’s TNG. It’s the gold standard: storytelling, character development, optimism of the future, and decent but not overwhelming effects. And it gave us the Borg. The first two seasons are lame (almost made me quit back in the day), but (like most) I became hooked by the “Best of Both Worlds” cliffhanger. While Data has the best character evolution (in his quest to be human), it’s Troi that grows the most, from an ornamental feelings sensor to a forceful member of the leadership team. My favorite plot devices are temporal shifts (what we used to call “time-f*ck-mes”); least favorite the historical way-backs (Sherlock Holmes, Mark Twain, old west). TNG also harkens back to the virtues of an episodic show led by good guys, contrasted to today’s serial TV with morally ambiguous characters. On to DS9.

Favorite episodes (with season):

  1. The Best of Both Worlds (3-4)
  2. Yesterday’s Enterprise (3)
  3. Redemption (4-5)
  4. All Good Things… (7)
  5. The Defector (3)
  6. The Inner Light (5)
  7. Lower Decks (7)
  8. Cause and Effect (5)
  9. Clues (4)
  10. The High Ground (3)
  11. Chain of Command (6)
  12. Darmok (5)
  13. Preemptive Strike (7)
  14. Frame of Mind (6)

Worst Episodes: Shades of Gray (2), Sub Rosa (7)

Favorite character: Data

Best captain: sorry Kirk, but it’s Picard

The Movies

(September 2020) I’ve completed rewatching all 13 STAR TREK movies. It’s hard to compare given the differences in casts, budgets and eras, but here is my ranking. Other than the even/odd dynamic (which holds through the first nine), I can’t detect a factor that makes a film good or bad. Some souped-up TV episodes (Khan) work while others don’t (Nem, Bey). Some fate-of-the-galaxy epics are good (UC, FC) but others not (TMP, TFF). While TNG had the best cast chemistry in on TV, I give the nod to the TOS cast in the movies mostly because it’s a nostalgia trip. The reboot movies fared worse upon this viewing, not only because the CGI overwhelmed traditional Star Trek storytelling, but the character development felt forced.  Below, the number is the order in the series, the arrow is whether I liked it better or worse than the last time I saw it.

  1. Wrath of Khan (2) ↑
  2. Undiscovered Country (6) ↑
  3. First Contact (8) ↓
  4. The Voyage Home (4) ↓
  5. Generations (7) ↑
  6. Insurrection (9) ↑
  7. The Search for Spock (3) ↑
  8. Star Trek (11) ↓
  9. Into Darkness (12) ↓
  10. Nemesis (10) ↓
  11. The Motion Picture (1) ↑
  12. Beyond (13) ↓
  13. The Final Frontier (5) ↓

The current series (update)

(March 2021) As I continue my epic mega-binge of all things STAR TREK, I report I am caught up on current series DISCOVERY, PICARD and LOWER DECKS (plus SHORT TREKS), so I offer interim thoughts. I am mixed on DISCOVERY; I look forward to new episodes but don’t  remember them. It has imaginative storytelling and some interesting species. But its meta-message of Federation virtue comes off as sanctimonious, and I struggle with the anachronism of flashy technologies absent in series that follow chronologically. By contrast, the Federation in PICARD has lost its virtue. The narrative arc, picking up 15+ years after the last movie, works for me.  Most of the supporting characters are flat, however, and the season finale disappointed. LOWER DECKS is pure fun, especially for committed Trekkies, playing on all the tropes with in-jokes and Easter eggs. All are renewed for new seasons, and there are three new series planned: PRODIGY, STRANGE NEW WORLDS and SECTION 31.

Deep Space Nine

(March 20) I’ve completed watching the entire STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE. Back in the day I quit the show after the first season, which was obviously a mistake. Those who consider DS9 the best ST series have a strong argument, although TOS and TNG retain my fondness. It broke the ST mold for its darker tone, showing the fallibility of the Federation, and for adopting serial storytelling which added depth. It gives by far the best treatment of galactic politics, with the shifting rivalries/alliances between the Federation, Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians overlaying the DominionWar. Likewise it excels at deep dives into species and cultures (Bajorna, Klingon, Ferengi, Trill, Founders) and interpersonal relationships: single father and son (the Siskos), interspecies romantic (Dax-Worf), platonic (Miles-Julian) and even among Trill hosts with the same symbiant. My main quibble is it is not realistic that the Federation would leave the most strategically valuable spot in the entire quadrant to a mere captain (as capable as Sisko is, and until Adm. Ross shows up) and without a huge armada to back him up. 

The serial format makes it hard to list favorite episodes, so I list the best multi-episode arcs and then favorite singles/doubles.

  • Dominion invasion/loss and recovery of DS9 (S5 E25 thru S6 E6)
  • Conclusion of Dominion War (S7 E20-25)
  1. In the Pale Moonlight (S6) (Sisko ethical crisis)
  2. Far Beyond the Stars (S6) (DS9 as science fiction dream)
  3. The Visitor (S4) (Sisko meets future Jake)
  4. Improbable Cause/The Die is Cast (S3) (Cardassian plot previews Dominion threat)
  5. Second Skin (S3) (Kira told she’s a double agent)
  6. Visionary (S3) (O’Brien time shifts)
  7. Homefront/Paradise Lost (S4) (changelings infiltrate Earth)
  8. Dax (S1) (legal jeopardy of Trill hosts)
  9. Change of Heart (S6) (Jadzia and Worf marooned)
  10. Inquisition (S6) (Section 31 recruits Bashir)
  11. Whispers (S2) (OBrien clone conspiracy)
  12. Civil Defense (S3) (fail-safe almost destroys station)
  13. Duet (S1) (Kira confronts Cardassian war criminal)
  14. Tribunal (S2) (O’Brien on trial by Cardassians)

Favorite season: 6

Favorite character (regular): Sisko

Favorite character (recurring): Garek

Least favorite character (regular): Kira (until S7)

Least favorite themes: Ferengi culture, mirror universe

Best one-liners: Morn

Voyager

(December 2021) I’ve completed watching the entire STAR TREK: VOYAGER. Most of these episodes were new to me. I jumped on VOY when it launched following disappointment with the initial seasons of DS9, but drifted away from VOY too for similar reasons. A mistake on both counts. VOY is inevitably compared to its sister 7-season series TNG and DS9, both of which have their avid partisans. With this watching, I say VOY deserves to stand on its own pedestal. It has some of the best episodic writing of the franchise, especially the explorations of the meaning of individual identity and rights (Seven of Nine, the Doctor and other holograms, Tuvix).  It also offers good ethical dilemmas; in fact, the entire show is one huge serial arc of an ethical dilemma from Janeway’s initial choice that leaves the stranded in the Delta Quadrant until her last act in the finale that resolves it. Where the show falters is in glossing over the social and emotional frictions that would inevitably afflict the 150 crewmembers stuck together on the other side of the galaxy. The Federation-Maquis divide is unrealistically patched up in the first few episodes (with only a couple flare-ups).  And the 130-odd crew we never hear from (other than in “The Good Shepherd”) come off as robots dutifully performing their tasks rather than as people stressed by the gloom of their predicament.

Favorite episodes (with season):

  1. The Year of Hell (4) (caught in destructive path of a timeship)
  2. Counterpoint (5) (Voyager harbors telepaths from militant inspectors – Anne Frank episode)
  3. Equinox (5/6) (Janeway battles savage Federation captain in ethical dilemma)
  4. Living Witness (4) (Doctor challenges museum of the future’s portrayal of evil Voyager)
  5. Endgame (7) (series finale, two Janeways, Borg queen, spoiler alert: they get home)
  6. Timeless (5) (Kim and Chakotay time travel to save Voyager crew from death on ice planet)
  7. Scorpion (3/4) (alliance with Borg against Species 8472, Seven of Nine introduced)
  8. Blink of An Eye (6) (Voyager alters civilization of planet whose time passes on brisk scale)
  9. Hope and Fear (4) (alien offers path home but really wants revenge for Borg attack)
  10. Latent Image (5) (Doctor discovers Janeway has tampered with his program)
  11. Relativity (5) (Time cops recruit Seven to fix broken timeline; she discovers corrupt plot)
  12. Tinker Tailor Doctor Spy (6) (Aliens misinterpret Doctor’s daydreams as real Voyager)
  13. Tuvix (2) (Tuvok and Neelix combine into one, force Janeway to make ethical choice)
  14. Dreadnought (2) (Torres must disarm smart bomb of her own making)
  15. Eye of the Needle (1) (communication with Alpha Quadrant is with Romulan 20 years ago)

Favorite season: 5

Favorite character: the Doctor

Least favorite character: Kes (Neelix close second)

Worst episode: Threshold (Janeway and Paris become salamanders and mate)

Worst enemy race (of all series): Kazon

Enterprise

(May 2022) I’ve completed watching the entire STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE. This is the one series for which I had never seen a single episode beforehand, so I watched with fresh eyes.  I came in with low expectations given its reputation as the runt of the litter. But I unreservedly enjoyed it and you should not sell it short. First, it contributes ably to the canon as the origin story for the Federation, through delicate Earth-Vulcan relations and engagement with Andorians and Tellarites. It dives into the culture and politics (and faults!) of Vulcans, neglected in other series in favor of other species. Second, watching it through the lens of the DISCOVERY era, ENT gets high marks for realistically depicting Starfleet in an earlier century. The bridge is cramped (like a submarine), the doors and com require buttons, and the techno-wizardry is downplayed (comparatively, DIS fails the anachronism test by using fancy tech far beyond TOS). On the downside, the characters are generally more boring that preceding series.  Like others, it doesn’t get good until season 3 when it transitions to story arcs. ENT also has both the best series opener and worst series closer of any ST series.

Favorite season: 4

Favorite character: Porthos

Favorite humanoid character: T’Pol

Least favorite character: Doctor Phlox

Favorite episodes/serial arcs:

  1. Terra Prime arc (season 4, “Demons,” “Terra Prime”) (human supremacists seek to rid Earth of aliens, stop Federation formation)
  2. Terran empire arc (4, “In A Mirror, Darkly” parts 1 and 2) (mirror universe crew plots and murders)
  3. Xindi war arc (2/3, notable episodes: “The Expanse,” “The Xindi,” “Strategem,” “Azati Prime,” “Damage,” “Zero Hour”)
  4. The Andorian Incident (1) (secret Vulcan base underneath monastery, meet Shran)
  5. Cogenitor (2) (Trip advocates for 3rd gender rights, with tragic end)
  6. Similitude (3) (Archer has to kill Trip clone to save Trip)
  7. Augments arc (4, “Borderland,” “Cold Station 12,” “The Augments”) (genetically enhanced humans, sets up Khan story and smooth Klingon foreheads)
  8. Vulcan arc (4, “The Forge,” “Awakenings,” “Kir-Shara”) (sectarian and power politics among Vulcan elites)
  9. E2 (3) (Enterprise encounters future self as generation ship)
  10. Shockwave (1/2) (destroyed colony, Suliban duplicity, time police)
  11. Fallen Hero (1) (recalled Vulcan ambassador exposed corruption)
  12. Dead Stop (2) (repair station takes life forms as energy sources)
  13. Stigma (2) (T’Pol mind meld and disease leads to ostracization)
  14. The Catwalk (2) (crew takes refuge from storm in catwalk, hiding fugitives)

Babylon 5

(September 2023) I’ve completed watching the entirety of BABLYON 5 (five seasons and six cable TV movies) as an extension of my completist Star Trek compulsion. I cannot help but compare the franchises, and Babylon 5 invites such comparisons: the setting is very similar and the fact that it aired in the 1990s at the same time as TNG, DS9 and VOY. Its creators fittingly billed it as a “space opera.” Its scope is galactic and its storylines epic, and even the staging and camera angles remind one of a daytime soap. The positive: it offered serialized TV long before that became the norm. This provided long story arcs spanning multiple seasons, allowing for more complex plot and character development. The negative: it is cheesy – the sets, the costumes, the music and especially the graphics (it was one of the first sci-fi series to go full CGI, which now looks very dated). While the worldbuilding and alien races are imaginative, the modes of operating in space (battles, reconnaissance, communication) are not updated for how different such things would be in space. In general, the acting is not great, although I praise Andreas Katsulas (G’Kar), Peter Jurasik (Mollari) and Bruce Boxleitner (Sheridan) for quality performances. The complex relationship between G’Kar and Mollari was the best of the show. Do I recommend? Probably only for die-hard sci-fi fans. I know this show has its committed devotees.

I don’t have a list of favorite episodes because the show really isn’t organized around episodes, although I will single out S4 E18 for its well-done psychological horror during Sheridan’s interrogation.

Favorite season: 4 (culmination of Shadow War and Earth Civil War, forming of Interstellar Alliance)

Favorite character: G’Kar

Least favorite character: Michael Garibaldi. Putting a tough-talking New Jersey cop in charge didn’t work for me. That’s not how station security would work in the 23rd century.

Next to least favorite: Marcus the Ranger. What was the point of this character? It didn’t work to have a character dress like a 14th century monk and then give him a corny sense of humor.

Discovery

Discovery

(June 2024) Following my reviews of previous Star Trek series, here’s my review of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, which ended its five-season run last week.  I have mixed feelings. It always felt like someone else’s sci-fi series inside a Star Trek skin. I assume when they launched it in 2017 after a 13-year series hiatus they wanted a fresh look to bring in new audiences, which led to bad decisions like the ill-advised Klingon makeover. The full serial format denied us emotional attachment to any particular episode, and the writers’ flat dialogue (and the directors’ incessant camera motion) denied the same to the characters, which ill-served quality actors. It also inflicted itself with anachronisms using flashy tech and gizmos way beyond believability for a setting 10 years before The Original Series, although they solved that canon problem by jumping into the 32nd season in the third season. There are elements I enjoyed, including interesting sci-fi ideas, stunning world-building visuals, and the link-up with Captain Pike’s Enterprise in season 2 … which brings me to Discovery’s greatest gift –birthing the third generation of the Star Trek TV universe, now at six series. And so it’s ironic that Discovery’s greatest success, spinning off the near-perfect Strange New Worlds, is also what exposes its flaws. By proving that you can make a canonically-pure, culturally-consistent, extremely fan-servicing series while also updating aesthetics for the 21st century, SNW makes DIS suffer by comparison. That said, Discovery is still Start Trek so I have to love it.

Favorite season: 2

Favorite characters: Saru and Tilly

Favorite non-humanoid character: Grudge

Least favorite characters: Adira Tal, T’Rina, all the Klingons

Favorite episode: n/a (the serial format prevents me from having one)

Picard

(August 2024) I have posted my reviews of completed Star Trek series, but I realized I never did one for STAR TREK: PICARD, which ended in April 2023. So here goes. Like Discovery I have mixed feelings, but for different reasons. For the creators, it’s a daunting task to balance making a show look fresh to appeal to new audiences while also satisfying a dedicated, canon-enforcing fanbase. By the end of the series (season 3) they tilted fully toward the latter, reuniting all the beloved Next Generation characters. Just as well, but it relegated the plot to contrivance. Many characters were one-dimensional, with good actors given bad lines, especially Picard and the Amanda Plummer character. The crew of Picard’s rent-a-ship lacked chemistry. The plotlines are weighed down with “too much-ism,” where the fate the universe is continually at stake. That said, I liked a lot of the settings and storylines: the synth ban, the Romulan exodus, the Borg reclamation, moral corruption within Starfleet, return of the Changelings. My favorite plotline was in the middle of season 3, when the TNG crew are in a ship hurdling to their doom, get philosophical, and then cleverly figure a way out. Classic TNG. If I had to choose, I would pick Picard over Discovery, for nostalgia and DIS’s anachronisms. And both series suffer by comparison with Strange New Worlds, which found a way to enjoyably balance fresh and nostalgia, and do it with charm and humor, showing us that science fiction doesn’t have to take itself too seriously to be good.

Favorite season: 3

Favorite characters: The TNG crew. There wasn’t a new character that I felt anything for.

Least favorite character: Jack Crusher

Favorite episode: S3E4 “No Win Scenario”

LOWER DECKS

(December 2024) Continuing my reviews of Star Trek series, here’s the one on STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS, which ended its five-season run last week. It’s fantastic. Of the five new-era series introduced since 2017, it is one of the two best (along with STRANGE NEW WORLDS). Its pleasures come in two buckets. First is its irreverence, starting with the setting: the main characters are a group of junior officers (bunked on the lower decks, hence the title) who are both nerds and pranksters. They serve on a mediocre ship (USS Cerritos, named after the non-descript California city) that is given non-prestigious missions. This serves to poke fun at the self-importance of regular Star Trek, which is about flagships doing Important Stuff. The second are the in-jokes and Easter eggs. Each episode is full of references to previous characters, species, storylines, tropes, fan theories and discontinuities. I imagine a lot of this would go over normal people’s heads, but it works for a deep-diver like me. It’s a testament to great writing and producing that they can pull off a series that gives great reverence to the whole franchise by making fun of it. The animated format allows them to bring back numerous species, artifacts and beloved characters, with a quick pace of dialogue that accelerates the humor.  I don’t have favorite episodes to list, because plots and storylines aren’t the main appeal here. As for favorite characters, I think Beckett Mariner (voiced by Tawny Newsome) is very well done, with a shoutout to the Vulcan T’Lyn (voiced by Gabrielle Ruiz), who joins as the fifth member of the group, as an underrated addition.