The Best—and Why

[ThirdOfFive]

Since James Kirk and his jolly band of galactic rovers first set sail way back in 1966, there have been no fewer than TWELVE Star Trek series on TV in the years and decades following. A lot of us, Yours Truly included, became fans as teens or young adults. Trek is past being just television entertainment: it is part of our culture. Folks have even gone so far as to invent languages based on what they heard coming from aliens in the various series. I understand that even the Bible has been translated into Klingon!

Okay…so what, in your opinion, was the best series, and who was the best character or characters in that series?

And why, of course, in both instances.

[Taltarzac725]

Since James Kirk and his jolly band of galactic rovers first set sail way back in 1966, there have been no fewer than TWELVE Star Trek series on TV in the years and decades following. A lot of us, Yours Truly included, became fans as teens or young adults. Trek is past being just television entertainment: it is part of our culture. Folks have even gone so far as to invent languages based on what they heard coming from aliens in the various series. I understand that even the Bible has been translated into Klingon!

Okay…so what, in your opinion, was the best series, and who was the best character or characters in that series?

And why, of course, in both instances.

As if a Klingon would follow the tenets of The Bible .

[Snakster66]

The original series is unquestionable the best, even if later series had better SFX and such. It started the whole thing, so that counts for a lot. Choosing best character is like choosing favorite child. Sure I could do it, but it would be rude to the others.

So I will choose the third series; The Next Generation. The effects were better (maybe not up to current standards, but still pretty good). The story telling was true to Roddenberry's vision of that universe. They were thoughtful, compelling and communicated messages without beating you over the head with it like more recent iterations. In many ways, it was still the wild west (in keeping with space western concept) but wholly visionary of a potential future.

Best character is undoubtedly Data who was really the anti-Spock. A being that was already devoid of emotion who sincerely desired to become more human. Brent Spiner's portrayal and development of Data as a character can not be overstated. He was brilliant. I don't know many other actors who could have made Data resonate in quite the same way.

[ThirdOfFive]

The original series is unquestionable the best, even if later series had better SFX and such. It started the whole thing, so that counts for a lot. Choosing best character is like choosing favorite child. Sure I could do it, but it would be rude to the others.

So I will choose the third series; The Next Generation. The effects were better (maybe not up to current standards, but still pretty good). The story telling was true to Roddenberry's vision of that universe. They were thoughtful, compelling and communicated messages without beating you over the head with it like more recent iterations. In many ways, it was still the wild west (in keeping with space western concept) but wholly visionary of a potential future.

Best character is undoubtedly Data who was really the anti-Spock. A being that was already devoid of emotion who sincerely desired to become more human. Brent Spiner's portrayal and development of Data as a character can not be overstated. He was brilliant. I don't know many other actors who could have made Data resonate in quite the same way.
TOS was cutting-edge for the time and many of the characters became icons. Spock was arguably the most iconic of them all. Pretty dated now though: proof that art imitates life. Remember that bridge computer that (in the first season anyway) used to issue paper printouts, and that chronometer thingy that used to register time with what was obviously a gear-driven mechanism? State of the art at the time, stuff for the history books now. But some of the story lines were great, particularly “City on the Edge of Forever” which was my favorite episode. Some of the episodes pretty blatantly reflected the politics of the time though; remember the “Yangs” and the “Coms”?

TNG was great as well, with easily the most developed characters (a seven year run will do that) of all the series.

My favorite series though is “Enterprise”. I particularly enjoyed the fact that as it was set in the time period just before TOS, it was more of a hands-on series. People in engineering actually got dirty! It had very little of the polish of TNG and subsequent series, and to my mind that was a good thing. It was more relatable for guys with wrenches in their hands than the mathematical whizzes pushing computer keys in subsequent series were.

My favorite character? T’Pol. Jolene Blalock ever really got the respect that in my opinion her performance as T’Pol deserved. But the fascinating part was that she actually played two characters simultaneously, the smoking-hot passionate female and the cold, dispassionate Vulcan officer, and both characters were constantly in conflict. Second favorite was Shran, the Andorran commander who had a couple of bit parts in season one but who became a pretty developed character in his own right as the season developed.

But—there never was a BAD Star Trek series, and very few poor performers.

[Stu from NYC]

Original Star Trek and perhaps TNG close second.

Favorite was Capt Kirk.