The Star Trek Series Ranked by Fans

cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/1706804

If you ask 20 different Star Trek fans to rank the 11 Star Trek series you’ll get 20 different answers.

So how exactly can we work out which is perceived to be the “best” one?

We turn to the user scores at Rotten Tomatoes of course. Now while these are obviously open to review bombing the list does follow the usual trends you’ll find on any Star Trek community comments section. Such as post Enterprise is generally considered a lower quality than “classic Trek.”

For comparison I’ll also list the series in order according to the critic scores to see how their opinions differ from die hard fans.

Star Trek series by user score

  1. The Original Series - 89%
  2. The Next Generation - 89%
  3. Deep Space Nine - 88%
  4. The Animated Series - 81%
  5. Voyager - 79%
  6. Enterprise - 79%
  7. Strange New Worlds - 78%
  8. Prodigy - 76%
  9. Lower Decks - 73%
  10. Picard - 57%
  11. Discovery - 37%

Star Trek series by critic score

  1. Strange New Worlds - 98%
  2. The Animated Series - 94%
  3. Prodigy - 94%
  4. The Next Generation - 92%
  5. Deep Space Nine - 91%
  6. Picard - 89%
  7. Lower Decks - 89%
  8. Discovery - 85%
  9. The Original Series - 80%
  10. Voyager - 76%
  11. Enterprise - 55%

Again, if you frequent any Star Trek community on the internet you’ll find a consensus that generally leans more towards the user score list and not the critics opinions. Also Star Trek: Picard’s third season is among the highest rated single seasons in the franchise history and is the only time (so far) modern Star Trek has broken into the top 10 most streamed shows across all streaming services. This may be due to the fact that the fans likened season 3 to the closest thing to “classic Trek” we’ve had since the reboot in 2017. Discovery being in last place of the user score list also fits with community opinion as it joins a list of only 3 out of the 11 series to be cancelled rather than reaching a planned ending.

This post isn’t here to say “All old Star Trek is better.” It is illustrating a general opinion of fans. Do I agree with the user list? For the most part yes. I would put Prodigy just above Discovery and possibly put season of Picard right below The Next Generation but that’s just my opinion.

I fully expect this post to be controversial but I hope we can have some opinions shared other than “Kurtzman Trek Bad” or “old Trek is soap opera in space” and we can have a constructive discussion.

ShranTheWaterPoloFan,

Reviews have gotten stupid.

Let’s look at DISCO. Users put it at 37%. That’s about as bad as “Cop Out,” “Howard the duck”, “the adventures of sharkboy and lavagirl” and something called “four kids and it.”

I’m not a fan of DISCO, it takes itself too seriously, solves most problems with violence, has no chemistry between crew members and refuses to spend time developing most characters. That being said, it sure as heck is a lot better than “Howard the duck”.

Let’s look at a couple audience reviews to see where the hate is coming from (actual quotes from IMDB user reviews)- “Should have been called Star Woke” “Too busy being woke” “If a character is a straight white man they are evil”

Oh no. It’s bigotry.

User reviews have become bombarded by conservatives pushing an agenda. An agenda that says that any representation is harmful and offensive. It’s impossible to gain real insight on user experiences through online polls because of a loud minority crying about seeing a black/queer/Asian/trans/educated/disabled person.

It makes it hard to criticize shows due to the “anti-woke” offering you a robe when you say something bad about a show with a woman.

WhoRoger,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

I find it almost bizarre if DS9 isn’t someone’s favourite, unless a) they haven’t watched it, or b) they’re really against grey and murky morality (which a lot of TOS fans apparently are).

That said, I also think Picard S03 was unbelievably horrible. There’s fan service and there’s absolutely mindless trash like this. When I hear about reliving past glories of TNG, I’m thinking episodes like Tapestry or The Inner Light and not something Genesis-level of contrivance.

SNW rehashes everything from older shows, but at least isn’t dumbed down too much.

tenebrisnox,
@tenebrisnox@feddit.uk avatar

Very interesting. I wonder to what extend fans’ ages alter the ratings?

In Doctor Who fandom, whenever the question “Who is your favourite Doctor?” pops up, the majority tend to say the current one. It also seems to be that this is responded to by younger fans/audiences. I wonder if it’s the same with Trek. Because of my age, I’ll ALWAYS prefer classic DW to recent stuff. There’s an element of nostalgia.

My first Trek was TOS and it’s what I think of AS Trek primarily. I wasn’t into TNG at all (because of my age and I’d moved away from stuff like this for a time). DS9 and, particularly, Voyager would rate mire highly as they were on when I was watching TV in the late 90s. I like SNW because it echoes TOS. While I’ll watch other Trek, it doesn’t have the same impact on me.

StillPaisleyCat,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

I find these kind of articles that validate Rotten Tomatoes (RT) audience scores as a quotable source are a problem, objectionable. Especially for Star Trek fans who embrace IDIC values.

Why? Because the RT audience ‘stats’ give a false credibility to a very biased and unscientific sample.

Many folks here on the fediverse are very cautious and savvy about how bias in AI training data leads to bias in the AI, but still quite RT stats as though they are somehow credible or scientific.

Rotten Tomatoes base of users has been established to be even more male, white American and older than even Reddit (that itself is 2/3 male). (The critic score is biased to American sources but some major ones from other countries do make it in there.)

When we look to RT’s audience score as some kind of authority, and share that, we’re giving weight to the voices of that specific demographic group over the rest of the audience.

47_alpha_tango,
@47_alpha_tango@lemmy.zip avatar

Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are some of the only ways to gauge opinion of the masses but yes both have their problems. But with the lack of alternative we have to make do. I did say in the post that they are also open to review bombing but they still rather accurately reflect the opinion you often see from fans online with the newer shows in the bottom half of the list with Discovery plumb last.

roofuskit,
@roofuskit@kbin.social avatar

They're not the only way. They could weight the audience scores to match the demographics of the greater population so that the imbalance becomes balanced. They have the data, just not the will.

MaxPower,
@MaxPower@feddit.de avatar

TAS is OK I guess but no way it’s better than Lower Decks.

TAS is basically a TV series for children of the 1970s where the writers have thrown out logic and coherent story telling.

Haus,
@Haus@kbin.social avatar

TAS > Lower Decks on both? side eye

vita_man,
@vita_man@lemmy.world avatar

I agree with the critics scores way more than user scores. Strange New Worlds and Next Generation are wayyy better than Voyager or Enterprise. However, I disagree with the critics in that Voyager is better than The Original Series.

RoyalEngineering,

Interesting. I know TOS is popular and was groundbreaking when it came out, but first in the user score list of all time? That surprised me.

I guess I am an outlier here. I think TOS is the worst. Sexist, poorly written, inconsistent vision, campy. I really don’t get the appeal of it and I’ve watched it twice through. I’m grateful it caught on because we got much much better series after.

Here are my rankings:

  1. DS9
  2. TNG (skip seasons 1-2 😇)
  3. VOY
  4. LD
  5. SNW
  6. ENT
  7. Prodigy
  8. Disco
  9. Picard
  10. TAS
  11. TOS

After #7, I stop recommending the show to others.

47_alpha_tango,
@47_alpha_tango@lemmy.zip avatar

I think to enjoy TOS you have to put on your 1960’s goggles and remember it wasn’t really considered sexist at the time. The line “I just can’t get used to a woman on the bridge” from The Cage may be considered unacceptable today but not then. Also most shows from that time were campy af. Remember Batman?

Considering the small budget NBC gave them to work with they got a lot of show out of it.

As for skipping seasons 1 & 2 of TNG. You’d be missing some of the greats and some that are essential to longer story arcs. Encounter at Farpoint, Elementary Dear Data, The Neutral Zone, The Measure of a Man, Contagion and of course Q Who.

RoyalEngineering,

I hear you about TOS—just not an enjoyable experience for me.

You’re right about early TNG. If someone didn’t watch Haven 1x11 they would miss out on the intro to Lwaxana.

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