TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

The best Trek is the one you like the most.

What is NOT up for debate is that the best intro song is from Enterprise.

I have a feeling that, of all the Treks he didn't produce, he'd have liked Lower Decks the most. It's still mostly "humans got better" future, which I think was his core tenant.

TNG was also very much

not utopian; I can't think of a word that implies that the human race evolved socially; "utopia" would imply everything was perfect for everybody. But he obviously hoped we'd be progressive.

I love DS9, but it's a step backwards socially. There's a darkness in the Federation. It's there in most of the other series, post-TNG, and maybe a little in later TNG seasons, too.

The culmination of all this is the newest series, Section 31. All of Roddenberry's ideals have simply been shit-canned. The Federation has a black ops section that's basically cold war CIA; they go around assassinating people and manipulating cultures.

I think this just reflects the zeitgeist. It's hard to be optimistic now, whereas when ST:TOS was produced we were on the moon, the cold war was fading, and mankind was reaching for the stars. TOS reflects that, and Section 31 reflects exactly how optimistic we are about the future, and current affairs.

It's depressing. And - to get back to my premise - while Lower Decks was faithful to cannon, and didn't ignore Section 31, I felt it captured the original general optimism about the future: that we'd be a better, more progressive society. And I think that would have appealed to Roddenberry.

The "standard" Star Trek for me by which I compare others to is TNG, because I grew up in the 80s and 90s. TOS I guess is great for getting it off the ground but I just can't relate to the 60s aesthetics, feels like I'm watching an old episode of The Munsters or I dream of Jeannie. I'm not from that time, and it feels very campy to me.

Wasn’t Gene involved in the early seasons of TNG?

Star Trek to me will always be the story and misadventures of a post-Utopian humanity.

I'm sorry, but any of the dystopian or counter-utopian or tearing down utopia series feel not just not like Star Trek to me, but fully contrary to it.

Early TNG is in fact PEAK Roddenberry.

Forgot The Orville.

Remember when it was just Enterprise

All versions of Star Trek have their high and low points. The debate should be which ones managed to do that enough times. Because that's more of a subjective measure people are going to differ on what they like, so we get the disagreement of what's "best" or "real". In the end they all are tied to the Star Trek universe and concepts, just aren't the same in how they present and tell the stories. I don't like Discovery for a number of reasons, but I have seen a few parts where it felt TOS/TNG Star Trek level for a bit.

And I know this is just visual media, but I'm a rarity who likes the alternate future of the Star Fleet Battles board game that was based on TOS ships and history but expanded much differently ways. TNG and later loosely used some of the ideas in their various plots. The Borg are absolutely a variant of the Andromedans, sans a cube ship.

The mental disorder of Lower Decks is ADHD.

Prodigy isn't a mental disorder. It's just not yet fully grown.

I'm by no means a Trekkie as much as I am a Gater, but didn't TNG get immensely better after Roddenberry stopped being able to give input and make weird episodes?

I started trying to place them on a triangle with the three corners labelled "good trek", "bad trek", and "not trek" but I soon ended up arguing against my own choices of where I'd put them.

Where do the Star Trek Christmas Specials fit in?