tom992
For newbies to star trek, this is the show to start with. It's easy to get in, you don't really need a background in star trek because they get lost in another part of space and everything is new. And Janeway is the best captain ever!! All the characters work, we get to see the both a few times.
mgl-92037
I am a big science fiction fan, and while I haven't watched every major sci-fi show of the last 50 years, I have watched most of them; in particular, all of the Trek series. Of the Trek series, I rate them from worst to best as follows.5)Enterprise: The worst. Really a disaster, as far as I am concerned. The biggest problem was casting. The wooden, unimaginative Scott Bakula, while good in other roles, was totally miscast for Enterprise. Yes, he can look authoritative, but his level of excitement seemed to range from "Oh boy, oatmeal!" to "Oh boy, Oatmeal AGAIN!". You could see that he couldn't project belief that in the story, and that was fatal. Personally I thought the long Chindi sequence was not successful, and didn't care for the time travel nonsense, but it was OK.4) Star Trek: DS9. Deep Space 9 is too complex a show to give a meaningful precis, but I want to single out two things. First, Avery Brooks seems to be a terrible TV actor. I think he might be good on stage, but he bellows almost every line, with almost the same intonation every time. His moods consist of different degrees of anger. So, once again, the lead is the major problem. Beyond that, while there was some story lines which I appreciated, I could not stand the descent into mysticism in the final seasons. It is not science fiction when you put in "ancients" who have god-like powers. 3) Star Trek: TNG. I find TNG quite dated now, but basically a good show. The actors were generally good, with some notable (*cough* Levar Burton) exceptions. 2) Star Trek: Voyager: For me, Voyager is by far the most enjoyable of all the Trek series, possessing a wonderful sense of adventure and awe, interesting plot devices, decent writing, and good acting. Janeway is a very compelling captain, in my view, who possesses great strength of character, but who also---unlike Picard or Sisko or Kirk, in my view---has notable personality flaws, which she acknowledges. The more I watch the show, in fact, the less I like Janeway as a person, but I respect the character. She did a fantastic job showing suffering over long struggle in a couple of serials, particularly the one with the Krenim; which, by the way, is one of the finest Trek stories. Some other actors are not so good, but their portrayals work; for example, Garrett Wang, while not a great actor, grew into the role of Kim quite well.1) Star Trek. The original has to be rated the best, if you take into consideration the technical limitations. TOS had some of the best writing of all the Trek series, with scripts written by famous authors such as Harlan Ellison. The acting is relatively a weak spot compared to some of the other Trek shows, but the chemistry was better than in later shows. For instance, while TNG had better actors, I don't feel that the ensemble gelled the way it did in TOS. TOS was way ahead of its time, boldly going where no man had gone before.Notice that I don't rate Voyager number 1. Unfortunately, because of the sets and effects which are no longer convincing, I cannot enjoy TOS anymore. This leaves only Voyager. I will NEVER watch Enterprise again; probably never watch DS9 again; while I watch TNG very occasionally, I don't get much enjoyment out of it. Voyager is the lone survivor in my quadrant of the science fiction universe.
