I have finished watching Star Trek Next Generation and Deep Space 9 following a friend’s recommendation. I enjoyed both shows and started watching the other one, Star Trek Voyager.
So far, I’m not finding it as enjoyable as the other two. I want to try to see it through the eyes of someone who enjoys the show, maybe it will also help me understand why it feels different somehow.
I think DS9 was pretty developed already by the end of TNG, so once it started there wasn’t that much left to figure out. This can be seen by the TNG crew visiting DS9 towards the end. TNG, however, felt a little more uncertain in the first season in that the actors didn’t have their characters nailed down yet, and it shows.
I suspect that Voyager might be a bit more like TNG in this regard - the concept was a bit more uncertain when they started. However, it does improve massively as it moves on.
I for one really like the temporal war storyline. And 7of9 is a great addition even if the writers’ intent was mainly that of providing boobage.
voyager couldve been better, as there are more interesting species in delta quadrant to be explored.
See what you think about this-- I thought TNG’s aesthetics and scripts could be rather bland sometimes, but in terms of acting talent, I found Spiner, Dorn and Stewart’s acting work to be generally superb. Frakes and Burton were also strong (pick your poison of course).
The reason I’m mentioning the above is that I found it almost shocking how mediocre, and almost unlikable most of DS9’s and VOY’s cast were, outside of standouts like Ryan, Picardo and Russ, and to a lesser extent perhaps Auberjonois, Brooks, Shimerman and Mulgrew.
And at the same time, DS9 and VOY had some far more ambitious and arc-type scripts than TNG ever did. Evidently, TNG had the chance to do so with the parasites from “Conspiracy,” but instead shifted them in to being the Borg. Sure, a classic set of villains without question, but also the horror motif of the parasites was mostly lost. A real white-washing in order to maintain a more family-friendly version of the show, I would think, but… well, that’s enough for one comment.
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I can get behind most that.
The Ferengi episodes of DS9 are some of my favorites mostly because Shimerman liked to get all the Ferengi actors together at his place for rehearsals all the time (What We Left Behind documentary is great ifb you haven’t watched it) and their interactions were tight and they played off each other beautifully.
Brooks is just a strange dude all around. Some of his scenes are iconic (think recording his log in In the Pale Moon Light) but his punctuated speaking style definitely isn’t for everyone.
For the rest of the DS9 cast I mostly agree. I think some of the guest stars vastly overshadowed the main cast. Think Combs, O’Reilly (yes, I liked Gowron), Hertzler, Tony Todd. But anything Combs touches is gold, IMO.
TNG was far rougher than VOY at first, I think. There’s not a lot of character development that went on with the show at all, likely due to the episodic nature of the show. Have your one or two part adventure, reset, and do it again doesn’t leave a lot of room for character growth, but definitely makes it easy for someone to jump in anywhere and not feel like you need to understand 60 previous episodes to know whats happening. As for their acting, Stewart is obviously the standout. But the parasites.Yeah, could have been a great villain. Similar to Species 8472 in you’d never know who wasn’t actually them anymore. It was nice seeing the parasites return in Star Trek Online, albeit briefly.
DS9 actually was fairly hated when it came out both because it was set on a space station and because it was a serialized show and not episodic like TOS and TNG. The tone was also far, far darker. Probably why its my favorite - it’s a more “realistic” take on humanity in space, the shit show wars are, and everything doesn’t just work out all the time (wormhole aliens vanishing Dominion fleets aside.)
Now let’s talk about Enterprise haha. Let’s not.