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Every Star Trek TV Series Ranked

We're ranking all the Star Trek TV series, from The Original Series to Strange New Worlds and beyond!

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Star Trek Character Collage

Since its debut in 1966, Star Trek has boldly gone to nearly every cultural aspect of modern life. The franchise has included 13 feature films with various crews, numerous board and video games, hundreds of action figures, commemorative plates — you name it, and there’s probably a version with a Starfleet logo on it. 

But despite all this exploration into other media and fields, Star Trek remains best on television. And after a long drought, the franchise is finally thriving again in its original medium, despite the bumbling of its parent company Paramount. Even with Picard done and Discovery entering its fifth and final season, multiple series are still in production, including the acclaimed Strange New Worlds . 

But as the greatest Trek theme song reminds us, it’s been a long road getting from there to here. The Original Series was canceled after a budget-strapped third season in 1969 and only built its following in syndication. Star Trek: The Next Generation overcame its rocky start to launch a renaissance that lasted throughout the 90s, but the cancelation of Enterprise led to 13 years without a new Trek show on TV. 

With all of that behind us, and in the midst of a second Star Trek renaissance, it’s time to look back at the best and worst that the franchise has to offer. 

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Enterprise Cast

12. Enterprise (2001 – 2004)

Enterprise will always be known as the series that ended the first Star Trek renaissance. What began with The Motion Picture and peaked with multiple excellent television series finally fizzled out with a lackluster series that too often felt perfunctory. 

The series certainly had the right idea in mind. Instead of continuing the storyline set out by The Next Generation or revisiting the Kirk era, Enterprise went back to the beginning, showing the rough early days of humanity’s warp-capable exploration and the establishment of the Federation. 

Despite those noble intentions, Enterprise mostly floundered, starting with its cast. Trip Tucker made for a fun swashbuckling hero from the beginning, John Billingsley brought a delightful weirdness to his alien Doctor Phlox , and Jolene Blalock brought depths of nuance to the oft-underdressed Vulcan T’Pol, but the rest of the crew got either underutilized or used poorly. The incredibly likable Scott Bakula struggled to get a handle on Captain Archer, Linda Park’s Hoshi Sato got less to do than TOS Uhura, and Travis Mayweather had no qualities beyond being born in space. 

However, Enterprise did eventually become a worthy Trek series. The Temporal Cold War gave the NX-01 more immediate relevance to other entries and the Xindi Civil War allowed the series to tackle questions raised by its post-9/11 present. However, even these advancements got overshadowed, partially by Ronald D. Moore leaving Trek to make the morally complex competitor Battlestar Galactica and by the producer’s decision to end the series by foregrounding Riker on the holodeck. In the end, Enterprise ’s time never came. 

Star Trek: The Animated Series

11. The Animated Series (1973 – 1974)

We don’t know what it was like to watch The Animated Series during its original run, but it must have been magical. A beloved series, seemingly gone forever, gets one more crack. While the cheap TV animation of the 1970s must have been a disappointment to even the show’s first viewers, and surely some lamented the loss of Walter Koenig’s Chekov , who was cut from the show for budget reasons (a script written by Koenig was used for the episode “The Infinite Vulcan”), most would take more Trek in any form available. 

And to be sure, TAS was a worthy continuation of the original series. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley and their co-stars proved to be able voice actors, breathing life into decidedly more static representations of their characters. Even better, the series benefited from scripts by some of the best sci-fi writers of the era, including the ever-reliable D.C. Fontana and Ringworld creator Larry Niven. 

To be sure, some of the novelty of TAS has worn off. Star Trek has proven to be a reliable franchise, and fans no longer have to be satisfied with the scraps that the studio tosses them. Even the best animated episodes feel diminished by their medium; less a second chance for the Enterprise crew and more a lesser version of the franchise we’ve come to love. 

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Star Trek - Short Treks: Children of Mars

10. Short Treks (2019 – 2020)

Short Treks is exactly what it sounds like: 8-15 minute short movies set in various parts of the Star Trek universe. This small-scale approach means that it’s easy to forgive the Short Treks entries that go awry, and some certainly have. The series closer “Children of Mars” feels like an after-school special with slick music video aesthetics, made all the worse by the fact that it’s a lead-in to Picard season one, perhaps the worst season of Trek ever. The great composer Michael Giacchino finds some delightful turns in the Pixar -inspired “Ephriam and Dot,” but it’s a tonal disaster that makes the Discovery crew look like monsters. 

Fortunately, most of Short Treks ’ ten episodes are pretty great. “Calypso” takes a horror turn with Aldis Hodge playing a crewman alone on a haunted ship. The hilarious “The Trouble with Edward” stars H. Jon Benjamin as an insecure scientist whose arrogance gives tribbles their mass reproduction abilities. And “Q&A” foregrounds the wonderful Strange New Worlds , as Spock and Number One bond over show tunes while stuck in a turbo lift. 

Unfortunately, the inessential nature of Short Treks cuts against these stronger entries as well. Buried someplace on the Paramount+ app, Short Treks rarely have strong relevance to mainstream stories, and thus can be easily ignored, the good and the bad. 

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 4 Review

9. Picard (2020 – 2023)

Picard ended with a miracle season, a perfect mixture of fan service and proper character development. Deftly helmed by showrunner Terry Matalas , Picard season three caught up with the beloved Captain and his crew twenty years later to find them grown older and different, not just stuck in their old routines. Combined with exciting newcomers, especially the stick-in-the-mud Captain Liam Shaw , Picard season three whet viewers’ appetites for more adventures, hopefully in a series called Star Trek: Legacy . 

Notice how I keep specifying “ Picard season three”? Because up until that season, Picard was an absolute disaster, the worst that the franchise ever put on screen. To be fair, it’s easy to understand Patrick Stewart’s trepidation at bringing back the old crew , worrying that the show would be a sad rehash of thirty-year-old stories. But in trying to avoid easy nostalgia, the first two seasons of Picard seemed to hate the very franchise it continued. The first season featured the brutal on-screen dismemberment of Icheb, a domesticated Riker with a pizza oven, and Starfleet officers decrying the “pure fucking hubris” of Picard. Season two was even worse, with its ‘Q has dementia’ plotline and a misguided approach to the Borg Queen. 

Fortunately, the Captain eventually righted the ship and gave us the story we wanted. Notably, the third season didn’t achieve success by avoiding darker moments. Picard has painful confrontations with Ro Laren and Beverly Crusher, the loss of a child threatens to tear apart Riker and Troi, and Worf straight-up beheads a dude. But all of these unpleasant notes come from a place of respect for the characters, building on what came before instead of destroying it for shock value. 

"Hear All, Trust Nothing" - Ep#306 --Jerry O'Conell as Commander Ransom, Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs , Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman of the Paramount+ series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS

8. Lower Decks (2020 – Present)

There’s a unique joy to watching the Star Trek animated series Lower Decks , something akin to getting back together with old friends. Created by one-time Rick and Morty showrunner Mike McMahan, Lower Decks follows a quartet of ensigns on the USS Cerritos, a Starfleet ship tasked with mundane missions. With lower stakes, the characters have more downtime, allowing them to debate the merits of TNG ’s Rambo riff Roga Danor or play a Klingon DVD game hosted by Martok (voiced again by J. G. Hertzler). In these moments, Trekkies can’t help but chuckle with recognition. How is it that anyone else in the world laughs about these arcane parts of Trek lore? 

But at the same time, Lower Decks can get somewhat exhausting. The jokes come fast and furious, as leads Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid , Eugene Cordero, and Noël Wells sometimes shout their lines (a fact referenced in the recent crossover with Strange New Worlds ). And at times, the multitudinous in-jokes can become the point of the episode, banking way too much investment in the humor of a Tom Paris commemorative plate. 

However, Lower Decks has also proven itself to be capable of genuine character exploration. Over the course of the series, Newsome’s Beckett Mariner has revealed herself not to be a too-cool-for-school rebel from an 80s “slobs vs snobs” comedy, but an incredibly capable future officer whose difficult relationship with her mother drives her to self-sabotage. Wells’s Tendi fights against stereotypes about Orion pirates and sex slaves to establish herself as a good-hearted scientist. In these moments, LD finds its jokes in character motivations, not just in winking references. 

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 Episode 10

7. Prodigy (2021)

We really hate putting Prodigy so low. As a children’s animated series with ties to the still-underrated Voyager , it’s easy to see why so many Trekkies have skipped over it. That oversight certainly had something to do with Paramount’s boneheaded decision to remove it from Paramount+, the so-called “Home of Star Trek .” But those who did catch Prodigy , especially with their Trek -agnostic kids, discovered a truly delightful series that captured everything great about the franchise. 

Set deep in the Delta Quadrant, Prodigy follows a group of alien teens , led by Dal R’El (Brett Grey) and Gwyn (Ella Purnell), who escape a prison colony via the abandoned Starfleet craft the USS Protostar. With help from a holographic Captain Janeway , the kids learn to embrace the ideals of the Federation, while also uncovering their connection to the evil overlord the Diviner (John Noble). The kids’ idealism and desperate situation allows them to reaffirm Starfleet’s first principles, even as they encounter adults from the Federation who have forgotten the meaning behind the symbols they wear. 

By making outsiders the focus, Prodigy serves as a perfect entryway into Trek for its younger primary audience. But that doesn’t mean it avoids deep cuts. The main cast counts among its number a Tellurite (voiced by the always hilarious Jason Mantzoukas) and a Medusan (Agnus Imrie). Everyone from Spock and Crusher to Odo and Chakotay have appeared as holograms, and the series even featured the return of one-offs Admiral Jellico and the Outrageous Okona. Through Prodigy , even the most uninitiated Trek fan gets to see the franchise’s goofiest characters and most inspiring ideals. 

Saru in Star Trek: Discovery

6. Discovery (2017 – 2023)

Strangely, Discovery only gets better as other Star Trek series embrace the standard form. When it first launched under the direction of the often wonderful but always idiosyncratic Bryan Fuller , Discovery aggressively separated from and connected to everything that came before. Instead of taking advantage of its likable cast, Disco focused almost entirely on Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), the heretofore unmentioned adopted sister of Spock. Season-long serialized arcs often built to disappointing reveals (all the dilithium in the 32nd century burned because a Kelpian had a temper tantrum?) and nobody asked to watch a topless Klingon woman commit sexual assault. 

But as Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks become more prominent during the second Trek renaissance, Disco ’s oddities can be accepted as the experiments they were meant to be. After all, Fuller intended the series to be an anthology, focusing on different characters and timelines each season. That offbeat spirit remained in the show, even after Fuller left production. As it heads into its fifth and final season, Disco remains committed to taking Trek into new, uncharted territory. 

Nowhere is that more clear than in its most controversial aspect: the crying. Emotion has always been a key part of Star Trek , represented by McCoy in the triumvirate with Kirk and Spock. But with Disco , emotion became a valid form of problem-solving, taking its place beside the franchise’s favored approach, logical thinking. Even if the crying in Discovery doesn’t work for everyone, there’s no denying that it serves the franchise’s core goals by finding new ways of understanding humanity.

Voyager Cast

5. Voyager (1995 – 2001)

Most Trek series get off on the wrong foot, but few screw things up like Voyager . Despite a fantastic premise, in which Captain Janeway strands her crew in the Delta Quadrant and is forced to work with Maquis dissidents, the series stumbles through some terrible decisions. Not only does it try to push the incredibly stupid and ugly Kazon as the chief enemy race (the way-better Vidiians are right there!), but it also acts like Neelix, who is controlling and petty with his two-year-old girlfriend Kes, is a lovable goof. Even for a Rick Berman-produced show, that’s creepy. 

You do have to get over the fact that the show chooses standalone episodes over serialization, basically killing any larger tension and most character development, but the show quickly makes it easier to forgive that shortcoming by telling some fantastic single episodes. By the time the fantastic Jerry Ryan joins the show in season four as ex-Borg Seven of Nine and the Kazon get left behind, Voyager delivers some all-time great Trek episodes, including “Year of Hell” and “Blink of an Eye.”

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Even better, the series settles into fleshing out its primary characters. Yes, this does mean that some go by the wayside — not just the departed Kes, but also Chakotay becomes a big nothing, Paris and B’Elanna get pushed into the domestic bliss corner, and Kim stays an ensign. But the tensions between Seven of Nine, Janeway, and the Doctor make for a classic Trek trio, allowing the show to explore the nature of humanity while also making the Captain the most adventurous of Starfleet leaders. Plus, Voyager gives us the best Trek kid ever in Naomi Wildman and no we will not hear counterarguments. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 10

4. Strange New Worlds (2022 – Present)

Aside from TOS , nearly every Trek series has started off with a bad season or two. But that’s not the case with Strange New Worlds , which has not had a single bad episode yet. 

SNW returns to the early days of the USS Enterprise, following the adventures of Kirk’s predecessor Captain Christopher Pike and a crew that includes young Spock and Uhura. What could have been a reactionary retreat to a safe era of Trek , complete with a straight white guy in the captain’s chair, has turned out to be Trek at its best. Anson Mount makes for not only an affable, big brother of a leader as Captain Pike , but he’s also a remarkably generous performer. Time and again, Mount finds new ways of supporting his scene partners, whether it’s playing a baffled straight man when Spock gets overwhelmed by his human side or reassuring his security chief La’an with words of gentle wisdom. 

Thanks to Mount’s ability to share the spotlight, SNW has been able to develop the best ensemble cast of any Trek series, a remarkable feat given its use of well-known characters. Ethan Peck has successfully established his own take on Spock, playing a more emotional version of the character that still feels like someone who will grow up to be Leonard Nimoy . Celia Rose Gooding plays Uhura as an incredibly talented Ensign who doesn’t yet know that she’ll become the legendary Starfleet comms officer. Babs Olusanmokun, Jess Bush, and Rebecca Romijn fully round out characters barely glimpsed in TOS .  

With this outstanding cast and crew, SNW puts a modern sheen on TOS themes and even episodes, without diverging too hard from what came before. Case in point: the season one finale “ A Qu a lity of Mercy ,” which revisits the classic episode “Balance of Terror” in an alternate reality. It’s our love for Pike and other characters that makes us want them to sacrifice a better life in order to restore the original timeline, even if it means Pike must accept his fiery fate. 

Spock and Kirk stand together in Star Trek's "A Taste of Armageddon"

3. Star Trek (1966 – 1969)

Newcomers to the franchise sometimes struggle with the original series, finding it hopelessly dated. TOS does definitely embrace the aesthetics of its time, with its miniskirt uniforms, technicolor background lighting, and, yes, space hippies. But like The Twilight Zone , its closest counterpart of the era, both in terms of themes and influence, Star Trek used its outlandish premise to speak to the heart of the human condition. 

At this point, it’s easy to make jokes about William Shatner ’s idiosyncratic delivery, but there’s no denying how well it works for Captain Kirk. Every pregnant pause, every sparkle in his key-lit eyes reveals a genuine love for exploration. When combined with the logical Spock and the irascible McCoy, Star Trek establishes a perfect formula for spacefaring television adventures. Even as they encounter low-budget baddies like the costume-shop Gorn or the blocky supercomputer Landru, Kirk and Co. remain focused on the human element. 

Thanks to this approach, TOS perfected the sci-fi tension between high-concept ideas and terrestrial concerns. Gene Roddenberry and writers such as D.C. Fonatana and Gene L. Coon got to grapple with issues such as racism and the Vietnam War with stories about Klingons and Romulans. As rich and fantastic as TOS got, it never lost the humans at the center, making it ripe for continuing adventures and spin-offs.  

Star Trek: The Next Generation Cast

2. The Next Generation (1987 – 1994)

Patrick Stewart didn’t empty his suitcase. That’s how certain he was in the failure of Star Trek: The Next Generation . Stepping in for the hammy masculinity of the established Captain Kirk, the patrician, thoughtful (and bald) Jean-Luc Picard seemed like an ill-fit for the franchise, even with the more traditionally heroic Will Riker in tow. And for the first two seasons, Stewart seemed to be correct, especially when Roddenberry and others tried to restrict the TNG cast to TOS -style stories. 

But by the time it hit its third season, TNG perfected the Star Trek formula, embracing what was so great about TOS while also emphasizing its most underutilized asset, the ensemble cast. Instead of putting Picard at the center of a trio, which initially included Data and LaForge, the Captain became the imperfect parent of a family filled with interesting personalities. Debates about morality and philosophy occurred around a table in the ready room, where several voices chimed in on important issues. 

This isn’t to say that TNG didn’t grapple with big ideas like its predecessor. “The Measure of a Man” raised questions about the dignity of life, “ Chain of Command ” looked at the cost of war, and “Ensign Ro” considered the morality of resistance. It’s just that all of these episodes came from a place of love and investment in the characters. We tuned in every week not just to seek out new life and new civilizations, but to spend more time with interesting characters whom we loved, making even the most outlandish adventure feel as comfortable as a poker game with old friends. 

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

1. Deep Space Nine (1993 – 1999)

What initially seemed like too far a departure from the Star Trek formula has now become the standard hipster answer for ‘best Trek ’. But, you know, Deep Space Nine is the best Trek !

DS9 veered from its predecessors in several important ways. Instead of focusing on a space-faring Enterprise, it remained on the titular space station (although the addition of the Defiant in season three allowed the show to indulge in standard “ship and crew” storylines). It dealt directly with religion, thanks to its engagement with the Bajoran prophets who chose Commander Sisko as their Emissary. And it took a notably darker tone as the space station shifted from the outpost at the edge of Federation space to the frontline of the massive Dominion War. 

Despite these diversions, DS9 combined the best of the two previous series. Like TNG , DS9 boasted an excellent cast of interesting characters. As Benjamin Sisko , Avery Brooks played the best dad in television history, a grieving widower whose ideals often put him at odds with his Starfleet superiors. Armin Shimerman , Aron Eisenberg, and Max Grodénchik singlehandedly redeem the Ferengi, turning them from annoying and ugly enemy aliens to complex creatures with their own morality. And Nana Visitor’s Kira Nerys found layers of nuance in her Bajoran freedom fighter forced to work with the Federation. 

With these complex characters in place, DS9 told some of the most complex and compelling stories in Trek history, episodes that both challenged and upheld the franchise’s core utopian ideals. “In the Pale Moonlight” found Sisko bending his principles to force a treaty with the Romulans and “Far Beyond the Stars” reaffirmed the importance of science fiction. The show even made space for some of the best comedic episodes in Trek history, such as the baseball romp “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” and the 30th-anniversary special “Trials and Tribble-ations.” Deep Space Nine showed Trek at its most humane, ambitious, complex, and idealistic, making it the best show in the franchise. 

Joe George

Joe George | @jageorgeii

Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!

Star Trek: The Original Series Timeline Explained

Captain Kirk scowls in The Man Trap

The timeline of "Star Trek" is a long and complicated one. It's been more than half a century since the first episode aired, and that was merely the first of ten TV series and counting, not to mention ten movies in the original continuity and three in a rebooted timeline. Within the "Star Trek" universe, the timeline is far longer than that, stretching from our own time (or long before if we start getting into ancient Vulcan history) to the 32nd century, where the later seasons of "Star Trek: Discovery" are set.

So for this recap, we'll limit ourselves to the in-universe timeline first "Star Trek" series that began airing in 1966, which most people now refer to by the retronym "Star Trek: The Original Series." What circumstances led to the events of that series, what were the major incidents during it, and what became of its ship and characters after it ended? Let's take a journey through it, piece by piece and year by year.

Long, long ago

The path that leads to Star Trek begins in 2063, when the eccentric scientist known as Zefram Cochrane creates Earth's first warp drive and proves that faster-than-light travel is possible. This is a major turning point for the human race, which was rebuilding from a long and bloody World War 3. There is still a long way to go, but Cochrane's invention marks a shift that leads to humanity not just getting back on its feet on Earth, but stepping out into the larger galaxy.

A nearby Vulcan ship detects the warp signature from Cochrane's test flight. The Vulcans figure that if Earth's people are now capable of traveling faster than light, it is time for them to meet people from other worlds. So the Vulcans land on Earth and introduce themselves to Cochrane and his contemporaries.

In time, Earth builds a variety of spacefaring ships utilizing Cochrane's warp technology, which comes in handy a century later when Earth and Vulcan join two other worlds, Tellar Prime and Andoria, in forming the United Federation of Planets . As interstellar diplomatic relations prove largely successful, the Federation expands to include more than 150 planets. Starfleet, which had already been formed on Earth to explore space and make contact with new worlds, is folded into the Federation upon its creation in 2161.

Not so long ago

The Constitution-class Starfleet ship commissioned as the USS Enterprise , bearing the registry number NCC-1701, is first launched in the mid-23rd Century, almost a hundred years after the formation of the Federation. Its first Captain is Robert April. From the very beginning, the Enterprise's primary mission is to explore the Galactic Frontier, seeking out previously undiscovered worlds and making contact where appropriate.

When April is promoted to commodore and steps down from command of the USS Enterprise, First Officer Christopher Pike is promoted to replace him. As captain of the Enterprise, Pike becomes one of the most decorated officers in Starfleet. During this time, Spock joins the crew as a science officer. This Enterprise crew visits the planet Talos, where Pike is briefly held captive by the highly evolved psychic beings who dwell there and has a brief romance with a woman named Vina (depicted in the original "Star Trek" pilot, "The Cage" ).

Later, Pike and the Enterprise come to the aid of the USS Discovery, whose crew includes Spock's adopted human sister, Michael Burnham (revealed in "Star Trek: Discovery" Season 2). The Enterprise plays a role in helping the Discovery and its crew travel to the far future (in the "Discovery" Season 2 finale, "Such Sweet Sorrow" ).

The five year mission begins

In 2265, Christopher Pike is promoted and Captain James T. Kirk is given command of the USS Enterprise. Commander Spock remains a science officer but also became Kirk's first officer. Chief engineer and second officer is Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott, affectionately known as Scotty. One of Kirk's oldest friends, Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell, initially serves as helmsman at Kirk's request. 

One of this crew's first missions sends them to the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, where an encounter with a mysterious energy barrier imbues Mitchell with godlike psychic powers. Elizabeth Dehner, a doctor serving under Enterprise Chief Medical Officer Mark Piper, is also affected and later developed similar powers. Mitchell is driven insane by the experience and becomes a threat to the Enterprise and even the galaxy. Doctor Dehner sacrifices her life to stop him, and both perish. Captain Kirk keeps the circumstances of their deaths private, wanting Mitchell to be remembered positively. This all happens in the second "Star Trek" pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

Following this incident, Lt. Hikaru Sulu, who has been working in the science divison, becomes helmsman of the Enterprise. With Dehner's death and Piper's retirement, Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy became the chief medical officer. Around the same time, Lt. Nyota Uhura joins the bridge crew as a communications officer. With this crew in place, the Enterprise sets out on the five-year exploratory mission that is the focus of "Star Trek: The Original Series."

Although the time period is vague on the show, the original "Star Trek" is set three hundred years after it originally aired, so the first year of their mission, as depicted in Season 1 , runs from 2266 to 2267. During that year, the USS Enterprise has a run-in with the Romulans ( "Balance of Terror" ), who haven't been seen since their war with Earth a century earlier. They also deal with the fall-out of failed negotiations with the Klingons ( "Errand of Mercy" ). Captain Kirk fights a Gorn captain ( "Arena" ) and deals with the death of his brother, Sam Kirk ( "Operation — Annihilate!" ). The Enterprise crew also has their first encounter with the notorious con artist and pimp Harry Mudd ( "Mudd's Women" ).

Admiral Christopher Pike briefly returns to the Enterprise after an accident leaves him paralyzed and nonverbal. After a fiercely loyal Spock helps Captain Kirk understand the situation, they take Pike to Talos, where the Talosians can help him live out his life free of physical constraints, and where he is reunited with Vina ( "The Menagerie" ).

Perhaps most significantly, the USS Enterprise encounters a drifting derelict ship, the USS Botany Bay, which houses cryogenically frozen war criminals from the Eugenics Wars of the past. Their leader, Khan Noonien Singh, is revived and attempts to take control of the Enterprise. Kirk defeats Khan, leaving him and his allies marooned on the planet Ceti Alpha V. Starfleet historian Marla McGivers, who had fallen in love with Khan and betrayed the Enterprise for him, chose to join him in exile rather than stay on the ship and face court martial ( "Space Seed" ).

As the mission entered its second year in 2267 (corresponding with the fall 1967 debut of Season 2 ), the bridge crew of the USS Enterprise is joined by Ensign Pavel Chekov, a young man from Russia. He and Sulu become close friends, and in time he becomes a vital member of the ship's inner circle.

The Enterprise soon travels to Spock's home planet of Vulcan for his marriage to his betrothed, T'Pring. However, T'Pring had already chosen another lover in Spock's absence, and the visit became a fiasco in which Spock and Kirk are made to engage in ritual battle until Kirk fakes his own death. Freed from his betrothal, Spock returns to the ship a confirmed bachelor ( "Amok Time" ).

Later that year, the Enterprise crew is involved in an incident on Deep Space Station K-7 involving a poisoned shipment of grain, a Klingon spy, and the rapidly reproducing trilling fuzzballs known as tribbles, which are peddled by the shady Cyrano Jones ( "The Trouble with Tribbles" ). Although they didn't know it, they are also visited at this time by time travelers from the 24th Century, who infiltrate the Enterprise crew to avert an attempt to change history by the future version of the same Klingon spy (as seen in the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" ).

Other incidents in year two included the return of Harry Mudd ( "I, Mudd" ), the discovery of a Mirror Universe ( "Mirror, Mirror" ), and a visit from Spock's parents ( "Journey to Babel" ).

The third year of the mission (and the 1968 TV season) kicks off with a bizarre incident in which an alien civilization steals Spock's brain from his body. Even weirder, Spock survives the incident long enough for his brain to be returned to his skull before he suffers any permanent effects ( "Spock's Brain" ). Spock's brain was also affected by an encounter with a Medusan ambassador, a member of a non-humanoid race whose appearance drives any humanoid who sees one mad. Fortunately, Spock is also able to recover from this incident ( "Is There in Truth No Beauty" ).

Another non-humanoid alien race, the Tholians, traps the Enterprise in an energy web for trespassing into their space. Spock is in command at the time and is unwilling to move the ship because Captain Kirk has shifted out of phase with the universe after an incident involving the USS Defiant, and they need to remain in the area to get him back safely ( "The Tholian Web" ).

The Enterprise command crew also takes part in an undercover mission aboard a Romulan ship, where Kirk is able to steal a Romulan cloaking device while Spock romances a female captain ( "The Enterprise Incident" ). As the third year draws to a close, the crew has a series of increasingly bizarre adventures. These include an encounter with Abraham Lincoln ( "The Savage Curtain" ), finding themselves trapped in the past of a doomed planet ( "All Our Yesterdays" ), and Kirk temporarily swapping bodies with a nefarious woman ( "The Turnabout Intruder" ).

The mission continues

Since "Star Trek: The Original Series" only ran for three seasons, it fell to other media to tell the stories of the last leg of the USS Enterprise's five-year mission. Countless comic books and novels have been published that recount other adventures of Captain Kirk and his crew. While they're not really considered part of the official canon of Star Trek continuity, they've still provided ample entertainment for fans nostalgic for the show, and some of the best ideas that originated in them have found their way into more widely-seen media.

In 1973, the USS Enterprise returned to TV screens on "Star Trek: The Animated Series." Whether this series counts as official canon has been the subject of much debate, but so much of it has been referenced in later TV and movies (including the second animated series in the franchise, "Star Trek: Lower Decks" ) that it seems safe to count. However, certain things, such as life support belts (a force field-based method of saving money by not redrawing the characters in space suits), have to be glossed over.

During the leg of the mission depicted on the animated series, Ensign Chekov is replaced by Lieutenant Arex, an orange alien with three arms and three legs. Lieutenant Uhura is sometimes replaced at the communications station by Lieutenant M'Ress, a catlike female alien.

On one memorable adventure, Spock goes back in time to his childhood on Vulcan ( "Yesteryear" ). Harry Mudd also returns to cause more trouble ( "Mudd's Passion" ), as do Cyrano Jones and his tribbles ( "More Tribbles, More Troubles" ).

The crew reunited

Fans pick back up with the crew after the end of the five-year mission in the first of the "Star Trek" feature films,  "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."  Jim Kirk has been promoted to Admiral and becomes Chief of Starfleet Operations, which is based at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco. Spock returns to Vulcan and begins training to purge himself of emotions and further devote himself to logic. Doctor McCoy leaves Starfleet to practice medicine on Earth. Three years later, in 2273, the USS Enterprise is being completely refitted under the supervision of Scotty and the ship's new captain, Willard Decker. 

When a massive, destructive anomaly was discovered heading for Earth, Admiral Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise on a mission to intercept it, to the annoyance of Decker, who is temporarily demoted to first officer. At Kirk's request, McCoy's Starfleet commission is reactivated, bringing him back to the Enterprise as well. After the new science officer is killed in a transporter accident, Spock soon rejoins the crew as well.

After the anomaly is revealed to be an ancient probe from Earth, Captain Decker joins with it so that it can fulfill its purpose of reuniting with its creator. Decker and the anomaly vanish, leaving Kirk in sole command of the USS Enterprise.

The death of Spock

In 2285, the Enterprise is on what is meant to be a short training voyage, but that changes when Khan Noonien Singh reappears, looking for Admiral Kirk. The planet where Kirk left Khan and his people more than fifteen years earlier has become a harsh desert after a catastrophic shift in orbit, and Marla McGivers, who had become Khan's wife, was killed. Khan and his remaining followers escape by commandeering the USS Reliant, but Khan can't be satisfied until he takes personal revenge on Kirk. Kirk barely manages to defeat Khan, but the Enterprise sustains heavy damage. Captain Spock saves the rest of the crew by manually repairing the ship's main reactor but receives a lethal dose of radiation in the process. Spock reassures Kirk that he would always be his friend, and then dies ( "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" ).

During his funeral service, Spock's body is launched from the Enterprise and falls to the surface of a planet that is in the process of being radically terraformed by the experimental Genesis Device. This creates a unique opportunity to restore Spock to life. Before he died, Spock infused Dr. McCoy with his psychic essence, which is soon found to have a deleterious effect on the doctor's mental state, which can only be cured by returning it to the correct body. 

The return to Earth

To reunite Spock's psychic essence with his body that is regenerating on the Genesis Planet, Kirk and his loyal crew (McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov) must defy Starfleet orders and steal the USS Enterprise from spacedock. In the course of rescuing Spock, the Enterprise has a deadly encounter with Klingons that results in the destruction of the Enterprise ( "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" ). Escaping in a commandeered Klingon Bird of Prey, the crew travels to Vulcan, where Spock can heal. They stay there for three months, until early 2286.

As the crew travels back toward Earth on the Bird of Prey, facing court-martial for their actions, a mysterious alien probe is discovered heading toward Earth, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. When Spock realizes that the probe is attempting to contact humpback whales, an extinct species in the 23rd Century, the crew traveled back in time to 1986 and returns with a mated pair of whales, saving Earth from the probe. With their heroism taken into account, the charges are dropped at their court-martial. However, Kirk is demoted back to Captain for disobeying Starfleet orders and given command of the newly commissioned Enterprise NCC-1701-A ( "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" ).

The later years

In 2287, the new Enterprise and its crew are sent to deal with a diplomatic crisis when Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ambassadors on Nimbus III are taken hostage by a renegade Vulcan. The Vulcan, Sybok, is Spock's half-brother, who rejected Vulcan logic in favor of emotion and was exiled. He recruits a cult-like army by using his psychic abilities to help people conquer painful memories, inspiring gratitude and loyalty. Sybok, along with his followers, hijacks the Enterprise and travels to a mysterious planetoid in the center of the galaxy, where he believes he will find God. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy join Sybok on the planetoid, where they meet an entity claiming to be God, which turns out to be an incredibly powerful malevolent being who has been imprisoned there. Sybok is killed, and the entity is destroyed ( "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" ).

In 2293, three months before the aging Enterprise crew is scheduled to stand down, they embark on a diplomatic mission to accompany the Klingon chancellor to Earth for peace negotiations. En route, the chancellor is assassinated, while Kirk and McCoy are framed for his death. After being tried by the Klingons, they are sentenced to a prison planet, leaving Spock to root out a conspiracy to escalate hostilities between the two civilizations. Ultimately, peace is established, Kirk and McCoy are freed, and the Enterprise crew is free to move on to the next phase of their lives ( "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" ).

A series of epilogues

Later in 2293, Kirk, Chekov, and Scotty are present as guests on the maiden voyage of the new Enterprise NCC-1701-B, where an incident involving a time nexus leads to James Kirk's disappearance. In 2371 he is discovered alive inside the nexus by Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Enterprise NCC 1701-D, but Kirk dies helping Picard thwart the villainous Soran ( "Star Trek Generations" ).

After retiring from Starfleet, Spock becomes an ambassador. He is instrumental in achieving peace with the Romulans. He also encounters Captain Picard and his crew during a crucial part of that effort (in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" two-parter "Unification" ). At the end of his life, Ambassador Spock travels back in time, finding himself in an alternate timeline alongside a younger version of himself and his friends, who led very different lives ("Star Trek" 2009).

Doctor Leonard McCoy, who has always been grumpy about being in Starfleet, ironically has the longest Starfleet career of the three. He becomes a branch admiral and Chief of Starfleet Medical. In 2371, as a very old man, Admiral McCoy tours the Enterprise-D during its first mission (in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" premiere "Encounter at Farpoint" ).

In 2294, newly retired Captain Montgomery Scott is a passenger aboard the USS Jenolan when the ship crashes into a Dyson Sphere. Scotty manages to put himself into suspended animation using the Jenolan's transporter and is revived in 2369 by the crew of the Enterprise-D. After some time aboard the new Enterprise, he sets out aboard a shuttlecraft to enjoy his retirement ("Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Relics" ).

Hikaru Sulu becomes captain of the USS Excelsior and has his own illustrious career. Serving under him is a young Vulcan named Tuvok, who later becomes the chief tactical officer of the USS Voyager under Captain Kathryn Janeway (Tuvok remembers this time in the "Star Trek: Voyager" episode "Flashback" ).

Less is known about the post-Enterprise-A careers of Pavel Chekov and Nyota Uhura. Still, even if they retired to live quiet lives, they must have been remembered as Federation heroes for their many adventures serving under Captain Kirk. Even all these years, there are still many stories left to be told.

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The best Star Trek series, ranked

Ready to settle in and watch some Star Trek episodes? Since there are so many, we’ve ranked all of the different series to help you get started on your quest.

Star Trek is one of the greatest franchises ever created. If you're new to the world of transporters and holodecks, you have so much wonderful content to catch up on — of course, some would say too much content.

Since there are over 850 episodes and counting (all of which you can stream on Paramount+ ), watching all of Star Trek can be more difficult than fighting a Gorn in the desert. To make things easier for you to get started, we've ranked every series (besides the short-form series Short Treks ) of this long-running franchise. Some of these choices were a bit daunting to play favorites with, but, like Jim Kirk, there's no belief in the no-win scenario.

Without further ado, here's our list of every Star Trek series ranked from worst to best.

11. Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023)

Star Trek: Picard was meant to be like comfort food to fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation . And whether fans were turned off by the changes in franchise direction with shows like Discovery or just wanted to see Patrick Stewart back in action, Paramount clearly thought this show would be almost universally beloved.

That didn't happen . The warm and fuzzy feeling of seeing a few familiar faces in the first season evaporated because of an often-confusing plot about androids. The second season continued this confusion with a time-travel story that often bordered on incoherence. While many Star Trek shows take a few seasons to hit their stride, it was shocking that so much of this relatively short series was seemingly created with "make it so-so" in mind.

10. Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973–1974)

If you're in the right mood (or you've been sipping on some Saurian brandy), Star Trek: The Animated Series has some wacky entertainment value. Any given episode had the writers throwing in stories like a giant version of a beloved character. And the animators threw some fun curveballs, including making the embodiment of evil into a shirtless hottie that would make even shirtless Kirk jealous.

However, this animated show was often caught between two very different worlds. It wasn't fully a return to the (relatively) grounded exploration of space, science, and morality of The Original Series . And it didn't fully lean into the chaotic possibilities of a cartoon world (something Lower Decks would later handle much better). So, while more and more elements of The Animated Series have become canonical thanks to shows like Discovery , and it's fun to hear the voice acting of the Original Series cast, this cartoon is one that all but the most hardcore fans can skip.

9. Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005)

Despite what you might have heard, Star Trek: Enterprise is not a bad show. It just didn't start as a very good show. The series was tragically canceled after the fourth season, which was arguably when it had just begun to hit its stride (thanks in part to longer story arcs and a really fun glimpse into Trek 's popular Mirror Universe).

At the end of the day, Enterprise is a show best enjoyed by Star Trek fans that like to pore over the Memory Alpha wiki and familiarize themselves with Trek minutiae. As a prequel show, it laid the groundwork for everything from Starfleet policy to alien interactions that other shows explore in more detail. If you don't have a shot at winning any Star Trek trivia contests at your local bar, it's still worth watching how captivating Scott Bakula can be in the captain's seat.

8. Star Trek: Prodigy (2021–present)

Star Trek: Prodigy was very difficult to rank. Unlike the other two Trek cartoons, this series was explicitly designed for younger audiences. Paramount clearly wants to use this show as a gateway for these younger fans to explore the wider world of Star Trek , but there are enough elements (most notably the return of Kate Mulgrew , reprising her role as Captain Janeway via a holographic form) to keep veteran franchise fans invested.

Ultimately, your enjoyment of this series will be largely dependent on how much you enjoy animated/YA entertainment. If nothing else, you should check out the first two episodes of this show to see just how beautiful the CGI animation can get.

7. Star Trek: Discovery (2017–present)

If Enterprise is the Star Trek show cut off too soon, Discovery may very well be the first Star Trek show to outlive its welcome, though it will end after its fifth season . There are many things the show gets right, from nifty effects to quirky characters to amazing casting (seriously, Sonequa Martin-Green is electrifying whenever she is on screen).

The show veers from a disjointed-but-interesting first season to a mesmerizing second season, which gets a real shot in the arm by introducing Captain Pike (played by the inimitably charming Anson Mount ) and Spock (played as a perfect homage to Leonard Nimoy by Ethan Peck). Later seasons, however, prove that the series can't get away from galactic-level threats, and character drama begins overriding plot development enough that we want to slingshot around the sun and return this series to its earlier roots.

6. Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001)

Like many Trek series, Star Trek: Voyager had a rocky beginning, and it was often overshadowed by the excellent Deep Space Nine . Ironically, Voyager dramatically improved with what could be a cynical casting stunt: adding the alluring Jeri Ryan (constantly wearing a catsuit, no less).

Though it really looked like a desperate ratings stunt, Ryan turned the reformed Borg Seven of Nine into the most interesting character on the show. And, despite their alleged clashes behind the scenes, the actress helped to elevate every scene she shared with Kate Mulgrew. Between the new cast member, improved writing, and Mulgrew being nothing short of a damned icon, Voyager soon became appointment television, and it's definitely worth binge-watching for modern audiences.

5. Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020–present)

Lower Decks is an impressive show for many reasons, including the fact that its execution elevates its initial premise, which focuses on the lives of the lower-level staffers aboard the starship. Because showrunner Mike McMahan previously wrote for Rick and Morty and the animation takes its cues from the cartoon adventures of Rick Sanchez, many fans may have assumed Lower Decks would simply be " Star Trek meets Rick and Morty ."

Thankfully, that's not the case. Aside from animation similarities, the main element these two cartoons have in common is a breakneck, borderline chaotic pace. But as entertaining as it can be, Rick and Morty is an often nihilistic show with gags revolving around how nothing really matters. Lower Decks , however, is a lighthearted series that serves as the cure to modern Trek . If you've dismissed other contemporary series such as Discovery and Picard because they are grim, violent, and serious, Lower Decks is a wonderfully lighthearted alternative that is never afraid to poke fun at its own franchise.

4. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022–present)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a truly pleasant surprise to fans of the franchise. Set years before Captain Kirk sat in that famous chair, we see Capt. Christopher Pike (Anson Mount reprising the role) lead the U.S.S. Enterprise into bizarre adventures alongside some familiar characters (Ethan Peck returning as Spock, for example) and a few new ones.

Part of what helps this show shine is that it marks a return to episodic Trek in that every installment is a self-contained adventure as opposed to other newer series like Discovery and Picard , which build entire seasons around a single plot. The characters all ooze with the same swashbuckling charm of The Original Series characters, and we can't wait to see more of their adventures. We also can't wait to see more of Anson Mount's amazing hair (arguably the most awesome practical effect in the franchise).

3. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994)

Star Trek: The Next Generation has the dubious honor of being the first Trek show where veteran fans warn against new fans starting at the very beginning. Early episodes ranged from stupidly horny (planetary inhabitants in the episode "Justice" were barely wearing scraps of clothing) to ridiculously racist ("Code of Honor" may very well be the worst Star Trek episode ever made). Many of these problems stemmed from the fact that despite being called "The Next Generation," the show was trying to recreate The Original Series (right down to using some of the same writers and shamelessly reusing scripts from the scrapped Star Trek: Phase II series).

As fans like to joke, the show got better as Commander Riker's beard got longer. Season 2 was a major improvement, which was then usurped by season 3, which brought in new uniforms, new sets, and Michael Piller to head up the writing team. Just like that, TNG embraced its differences from its famous forerunner (Picard was cerebral whereas Kirk was impulsive, Data yearned for emotion whereas Spock detested it, and so on). At last, the gamble paid off, and the next generation of this franchise ushered in the next generation of Star Trek fans.

2. Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969)

What can we say about The Original Series that hasn't been said already? Gene Roddenberry successfully fused science fiction with American pioneer spirit to create his vision of this " Wagon Train to the stars." The episodes were both fun and thought-provoking in equal measure, and William Shatner as Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Spock, among many others, turned in performances that seared themselves into our collective pop culture consciousness.

The Original Series offered social commentary about racism, imperialism, and (often to Spock's annoyance) the human condition. And the blend of big acting, ambitious sets, and poignant plots helped this show become something truly transcendent. The OG Star Trek shaped not only the future of the franchise but television itself, and it's not hard to see why it continues to win over new generations of fans year after year.

1. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999)

Placing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the top spot is perhaps a contentious decision. However, this series did more than measure up to the quality of The Next Generation (a lofty feat in and of itself). The show also made a number of storytelling and production choices that have helped DS9 seem more relevant in recent years than ever before, including tackling issues about race, religious fundamentalism, and war on a regular basis.

Perhaps the main way DS9 feels so pertinent is that the show broke the longstanding Trek rule of making only standalone episodes. As the powers that be focused more on creating their next show, Voyager , DS9 showrunner Ira Steven Behr was able to get away with creating long story arcs and frequent episode callbacks. The end result of this is that Deep Space Nine is the first of the pre-streaming era Trek shows that is perfect for binge-watching.

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Screen Rant

Every star trek series, ranked worst to best.

There are 11 Star Trek TV series (and counting) over 58 years. From The Original Series to TNG to Strange New Worlds and Prodigy, we rank them all.

  • Star Trek: The Original Series launched an enduring franchise with 58 years of history and over 900 hours of content.
  • Star Trek has multiple generations of fans drawn to its optimistic vision of the future and endearing characters.
  • The 11 Star Trek series are ranked from worst to best, with each series offering something different to fans.

Which Star Trek series is the best one of all? Created by Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek is one of pop culture's most enduring franchises and has been a staple of television and pop culture since 1966. In fact, every decade from the 1960s onward has had at least one new Star Trek series on the air, and the franchise has enjoyed two golden ages: the 1990s and 2000s under executive producer Rick Berman when 4 Star Trek TV shows ran from 1987-2005, and the modern Star Trek on Paramount+ era under executive producer Alex Kurtzman, which has delivered 5 new Star Trek TV shows, with more on the way.

Star Trek: The Original Series spawned an epic franchise that has lasted for 58 years, encompassing over 900 hours and 46 seasons of television (and counting), as well as 13 Star Trek movies . Star Trek has multiple generations of fans who were brought to the franchise by different series or films. Every Star Trek series is someone's favorite and each fan wants different things from Star Trek , but, at its core, audiences are drawn to its optimistic vision of the future and Star Trek 's multitude of endearing characters. Ranking the 11 very different Star Trek series is a daunting challenge, to be sure. Some of the newer Star Trek series are still ongoing, and these rankings may fluctuate in time, but here are the 11 Star Trek series so far ranked worst to best.

How To Watch All Star Trek TV Shows In Timeline Order

11 star trek: the animated series, 2 seasons from 1973-1974 on nbc.

Star Trek: The Animated Series aired on NBC for 2 seasons spanning 22 half-hour episodes from 1973 to 1974. Executive produced by Gene Roddenberry and D.C. Fontana, The Animated Series was, at the time, considered to be the fourth season of Star Trek and won an Emmy in 1975 for Outstanding Entertainment - Children's Series. It featured the voices of the original Star Trek actors except for Walter Koenig, who later became the first actor to write an episode of the animated series. Koenig's Pavel Chekov was replaced by two new alien characters, Lieutenant Ares (voiced by James Doohan) and Lieutenant M'Ress (voiced by Majel Barrett).

Star Trek: The Animated Series ' canonical status was questionable for many years, but it has been frequently referenced and rendered canon in more recent Star Trek shows.

Star Trek: The Animated Series featured multiple sequels to popular Star Trek episodes such as "More Tribbles, More Troubles", which followed up the events of "The Trouble With Tribbles", and "Yesteryear", in which Spock used the Guardian of Forever from "City on the Edge of Forever" to travel back to his own past. Star Trek: The Animated Series also introduced technology like a holodeck on the USS Enterprise , which was called the "rec room" and was the forerunner to the holodeck in Star Trek: The Next Generation . It was also in The Animated Series that James T. Kirk's middle name was revealed as "Tiberius". Star Trek: The Animated Series is relatively little seen, with primitive animation by today's standards, but it holds a special place for longtime fans.

In 2023, a series of comedic shorts called Star Trek: very Short Treks , was a tribute to the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: The Animated Series.

10 Star Trek: Enterprise

4 seasons from 2001-2005 on upn.

Star Trek: Enterprise ( originally titled simply Enterprise for its first two seasons ) aired for 4 seasons from 2001-2005 on UPN. The prequel series was set in the 22nd century and chronicled the voyages of the first Starship Enterprise, the NX-01, commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula). Enterprise 's main cast reshuffled the classic Star Trek ensemble, with Archer supported by a female Vulcan First Officer, T'Pol (Jolene Blalock), and his best friend and Chief Engineer Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer). Enterprise also broke Star Trek tradition with its opening credits set to the pop song "Where My Heart Will Take Me," performed by Russell Watson.

Enterprise is more appreciated today than when aired, but other shows have simply done stronger Star Trek overall.

Once the series was retitled Star Trek: Enterprise in season 3, the show's episodic format became more serialized to combat falling ratings, although Enterprise was canceled in season 4. Enterprise was also a more sexualized Star Trek series, which banked heavily on Jolene Blalock's sex appeal as T'Pol and Trip entered a romantic relationship. While many of Enterprise 's stories felt like retreads that were done better by the prior series , there were many bright spots, like its daring Mirror Universe episodes. Enterprise is more appreciated today than when aired, but other shows have simply done stronger Star Trek overall.

Star Trek: Enterprise 's series finale, "These Are The Voyages,,,", remains controversial and widely disliked almost 2 decades later.

9 Star Trek: Voyager

7 seasons from 1995-2001 on upn.

Star Trek: Voyager aired for 7 seasons as the flagship series of UPN, and broke new ground as the first Star Trek series with a female lead: Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway. The concept of Voyager mixed Star Trek with Lost in Space ; Janeway's starship, the USS Voyager, was lost in the unexplored Delta Quadrant, which allowed the series to introduce new aliens like the Kazon, the Hirogen, and Species 8472. Eventually, the Borg became the primary villains of the series, and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), a Borg returned to her humanity, became a popular member of the USS Voyager's crew.

Several episodes in the latter half of Star Trek: Voyager' s run centered around Seven of Nine, whose skintight catsuit uniform brought a new kind of sex appeal and mainstream attention to Star Trek .

Star Trek: Voyager 's legacy opened a gateway to numerous new fans, especially girls and women who became enamored with the Star Trek franchise thanks to Janeway, Seven, and the strong female characters in its ensemble. Voyager suffered from being the third Star Trek series executive produced by Rick Berman that never quite lived up to its lofty expectations as the inheritors of Star Trek: The Next Generation 's torch (or garnered TNG 's ratings and popularity). Voyage r notably had a dozen 2-part episodes that were essentially Star Trek movies, and many aspects of the series are being continued in Star Trek: Prodigy.

8 Star Trek: The Original Series

3 seasons from 1966-1969 on nbc.

Star Trek: The Original Series is the show that started it all. Created by Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek stars the iconic William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk , Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, and DeForrest Kelley as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy. Star Trek: TOS was a TV series very much of its era , but Roddenberry insisted on a multiracial USS Enterprise crew to show how far humanity has come in the future, and he fought the network for the alien Spock to be a lead character. Star Trek: The Original Series also hired notable science fiction novelists to write episodes; the generally acknowledged series-best episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever", was written by the late Harlan Ellison.

Star Trek: The Original Series continues to stand the test of time and is the inspirational foundation that the entire franchise was built upon.

While its visual effects are primitive by modern TV standards, and Star Trek: The Original Series produced several episodes laden with issues, especially when its budget was reduced in season 3 due to low ratings, Star Trek: TOS 's best episodes are still hailed as among the finest of the entire franchise. Star Trek: The Original Series continues to stand the test of time and is the inspirational foundation that the entire franchise was built upon, but many of TOS ' best aspects have been built upon and surpassed by the Star Trek series that came after it.

7 Star Trek: Prodigy

2 seasons from 2021 on netflix.

Star Trek: Prodigy 's mission is to bring the values of Star Trek to a new and younger audience, and it does so thrillingly and spectacularly. Created by Kevin and Dan Hageman, Star Trek: Prodigy is the first CGI-animated, all-ages Star Trek series . Prodigy season 1 centered on a ragtag group of alien teens who commandeer Starfleet's USS Protostar to make their way to the United Federation of Planets. Guided by a Hologram of Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager , Prodigy' s cast of young heroes led by Dal R'El (Brett Gray) and Gwyndala (Ella Purnell), soon come under the tutelage of the real Admiral Kathryn Janeway.

Star Trek: Prodigy was canceled by Paramount+ but a dedicated fan campaign helped bring season 1 and the upcoming season 2 to Netflix.

What Star Trek: Prodigy achieved in its lone streamed season thus far is remarkable. Introducing endearing new characters, Prodigy also lovingly calls back to the history of the Star Trek franchise, with a special emphasis on continuing where Star Trek: Voyager left off. While Prodigy is mind-bendingly expansive in its scope, with time travel and alternate future timelines central to its main story, Star Trek: Prodigy never loses sight of its young heroes and their coming of age as they embrace the best of what Starfleet is all about.

6 Star Trek: Lower Decks

5 seasons from 2020 ongoing on paramount+.

Star Trek: Lower Decks dares to be blisteringly funny, but it's also a genuinely heartfelt love letter to all of Star Trek . Created by Mike McMahan, Star Trek: Lower Decks is inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Lower Decks," and even revealed a direct link to its namesake thanks to the backstory of Lt. Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) . Mariner and her Lower Decker friends, Lt. Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), Lt. D'Vana Tendi (Noel Wells), and Lt. Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), embody the best aspects of Starfleet while poking endless fun at Star Trek' s numerous tropes.

Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid brought Ensigns Mariner and Boimler to live-action in an acclaimed crossover episode with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds .

The fiercely intelligent, rat-tat-tat humor of Star Trek: Lower Decks belies how rich and complex the crew of the USS Cerritos are, and the series even successfully added a fifth Lower Decker, the Vulcan Lt. T'Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz), in season 4. In addition, Lower Decks has deepened Star Trek lore by continuing to explore the post- Star Trek: The Next Generation 24th century, including the show's groundbreaking depiction of Orion culture. Star Trek: Lower Decks runs the gamut of being funny, heartfelt, provocative, and ribald, but it is pure Star Trek to the core.

5 Star Trek: Picard

3 seasons from 2020-2023 on paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard is a bit of a three-headed beast that tells the post- Star Trek: The Next Generation story of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). Beginning as marginalized and embittered, Picard soon returns to his best destiny of saving the galaxy, at first with a new motley crew including Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager , the synthetic Soji (Isa Briones), and the troubled Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd). Star Trek: Picard season 2 delved into Jean-Luc's childhood trauma and brought Picard and friends to the 21st century while reintroducing Q (John de Lancie) and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) in a convoluted time travel story.

Ultimately, Star Trek: Picard is a wildly uneven series buoyed by a spectacular season 3 that still featured memorable moments, bold ideas, and career-best performances.

However, Star Trek: Picard season 3 was a revelation and one of the strongest runs of Star Trek in decades . Under the guidance of showrunner Terry Matalas, Picard season 3 reunited the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation and delivered what fans wanted: a resonant and enormously entertaining celebration of Star Trek' s past, present, and future. Ultimately, Star Trek: Picard is a wildly uneven series buoyed by a spectacular season 3 that still featured memorable moments, bold ideas, and career-best performances from TNG icons like Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Michael Dorn.

Unfortunately, Star Trek: Picard 's proposed continuation spinoff, dubbed Star Trek: Legacy , is not in development at Paramount+.

4 Star Trek: Discovery

5 seasons from 2017-2024 on paramount+.

Star Trek: Discovery launched in 2017 as the flagship series of the CBS All Access streaming service, which became Paramount+. Created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman, Star Trek: Discovery was controversial due to its eye-popping, feature film-quality visual effects and 23rd-century setting diverging from Star Trek' s established canon. Discovery' s redesign of the Klingons was also widely disliked. Discovery also centered on its revolutionary lead character, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) , the first African-American woman to headline a Star Trek series. Star Trek: Discovery 's first 3 seasons was Michael's journey to the Captain's chair.

Star Trek: Discovery season 2 reintroduced Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck), and Number One (Rebecca Romijn), who got their own spinoff, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

While the series remains divisive, Star Trek: Discovery's success ushered in the new modern Star Trek era. Discovery 's soft reboot in season 3 switched its setting to the 32nd century, allowing Discovery to chart Star Trek 's farthest future. Star Trek: Discovery 's thrilling, breakneck stories and complex character relationships, including the show's pioneering LGBTQ+ characters, undoubtedly revitalized the franchise for the modern streaming era. Bowing out in season 5, Star Trek: Discovery will likely be more appreciated in the future than it currently is in the present.

Star Trek: Discovery also had two seasons of Star Trek: Short Treks spinoffs that followed up aspects of the series as well as introduced the premise of Star Trek: Picard season 1.

3 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

3 seasons from 2022 ongoing on paramount+.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the exemplar of what modern-day Star Trek can be . A spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery, Strange New Worlds is set in the 23rd century and chronicles the five-year mission of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike . Co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers reinvented the Star Trek wheel by delivering what Star Trek: The Original Series would be like if it were produced in the present day, and the result is a breathtaking prequel series with vividly realized characters that is a rapturous invigoration of the episodic format and new frontier spirit of classic Star Trek.

Strange New Worlds lends a cool factor to Star Trek that the franchise has never quite enjoyed before.

Strange New Worlds' cast is flawless from top to bottom, and their talents are pushed to their limits by the series' bold tendency toward "big swings." Strange New Worlds takes risks that pay off wonderfully , such as a comedic crossover with Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek 's first-ever musical that are both crowd-pleasing and boundary-pushing. Strange New Worlds imbues decades-old icons like Captain Pike, Number One, Spock, James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley), and Scotty (Martin Quinn) with the flower of youth. Best of all, Strange New Worlds lends a cool factor to Star Trek that the franchise has never quite enjoyed before.

2 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

7 seasons from 1993-1999 in syndication.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a revolutionary Star Trek series that truly took the franchise in bold new directions. DS9 was the first Star Trek series not set on a starship, but rather a space station. Deep Space Nine starred Avery Brooks as Commander (promoted to Captain in season 3) Benjamin Sisko, the first African-American lead of a Star Trek series. Sisko was also a father raising his teenage son Jake (Cirroc Lofton) aboard the station. DS9 emphasized its eclectic ensemble cast , including Quark (Armin Shimerman) and his extended Ferengi family, Odo (Rene Auberjonois) the Changeling Security Chief, and Garak (Andrew Robinson), a Cardassian spy living aboard the station.

Star Trek: The Next Generation 's Worf (Michael Dorn) joined DS9 in season 4, which helped boost the spinoff's popularity among Star Trek fans.

Thanks to showrunner Ira Steven Behr, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the first serialized Star Trek series, and it unflinchingly tackled heavy themes like love, death, religion, the Cardassian occupation of Bajor by the series villain Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) , and the Dominion War. Among Deep Space Nine's greatest episodes are "Far Beyond the Stars", where Sisko dreamed of himself as a 1950s sci-fi writer, and "In the Pale Moonlight", where Sisko manipulated the Romulans into entering the Dominion War. Unquestionably, the risks Star Trek: Deep Space Nine took enriched Star Trek and made it a deeper, more fascinating universe than ever before.

1 Star Trek: The Next Generation

7 seasons from 1987-1994 in syndication.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is, all told, the finest example of Star Trek that defines what the franchise is and can be . TNG was set in the 24th century and starred Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, commander of the USS Enterprise-D. Like Star Trek: The Original Series , TNG was an episodic series (with the occasional two-part episode), but it was wildly more successful during its run, regularly ranking as the number one syndicated program. Star Trek: The Next Generation 's cast is iconic and beloved, while actors from Star Trek: The Original Series also appeared on the show including DeForrest Kelley's Bones McCoy, James Doohan's Scotty, and Leonard Nimoy's Spock.

While it had a creatively rocky start in its first two seasons, Star Trek: The Next Generation soon found its creative footing and featured some of the greatest episodes of Star Trek ever, such as the Borg two-parter "The Best of Both Worlds", the Picard-centric "The Inner Light", the time loop thriller "Cause and Effect", and TNG 's series finale "All Good Things" . Star Trek: The Next Generation compellingly expanded the Star Trek universe and forged the immensely popular 24th-century era, delving into complex Klingon politics and history, introducing the Ferengi, Cardassians, Bajorians, and, of course, the Borg, who are perhaps the franchise's greatest villains. At its best, Star Trek: The Next Generation encompasses everything fans love most about Star Trek .

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star trek: the next generation, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: voyager, star trek: enterprise, star trek: picard.

After starring in Star Trek: The Next Generation for seven seasons and various other Star Trek projects, Patrick Stewart is back as Jean-Luc Picard. Star Trek: Picard focuses on a retired Picard who is living on his family vineyard as he struggles to cope with the death of Data and the destruction of Romulus. But before too long, Picard is pulled back into the action. The series also brings back fan-favorite characters from the Star Trek franchise, such as Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), Worf (Michael Dorn), and William Riker (Jonathan Frakes).

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Star trek: prodigy.

Star Trek: Prodigy is the first TV series in the Star Trek franchise marketed toward children, and one of the few animated series in the franchise. The story follows a group of young aliens who find a stolen Starfleet ship and use it to escape from the Tars Lamora prison colony where they are all held captive. Working together with the help of a holographic Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), the new crew of the USS Protostar must find their way back to the Alpha Quadrant to warn the Federation of the deadly threat that is pursuing them.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: The cast of 'Star Trek: The Original Series'

  • " Star Trek " debuted 56 years ago on September 8, 1966.
  • After the show, the cast of the original series remained sci-fi icons.
  • Only three stars of " The Original Series " are alive today, after Nichelle Nichols' death in July.

William Shatner led the crew of the USS Enterprise as Captain James T. Kirk.

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"Star Trek" was originally going to be focused on a different  captain, Captain Christopher Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter. A pilot was even filmed, called "The Cage," but it didn't make it to airwaves until the '80s. Gene Roddenberry, the creator, eventually retooled the show and cast Shatner as a new captain, Kirk. Some footage from "The Cage" was then reused for a season one episode called "The Menagerie."

Before "Star Trek," Shatner was famous for his role in an iconic " Twilight Zone " episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," in which he played a man recently released from a mental hospital who becomes convinced he can see a creature on the wing of the plane he's flying on. It aired in 1963, three years before "Star Trek."

In addition to his "Star Trek" roles, Shatner acted in "T.J. Hooker" and "Boston Legal," hosted "Rescue 911," and he has written numerous books. He finally made it to the final frontier in October 2021.

star trek 90s series

Though he's 91 years old, Shatner has shown no signs of slowing down. After "Star Trek" was canceled in 1969, he briefly returned to voice Kirk for the "Star Trek" animated series. In 1979, he again reprised his role as Kirk in " Star Trek: The Motion Picture ." He'd continue to do so regularly until 1994's "Star Trek Generations." He even directed one of the "Star Trek" movies: " Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. "

Besides "Star Trek," Shatner starred as the titular police officer on the '80s procedural "T.J. Hooker" and narrated " Rescue 911 ," a show that consisted of dramatic reenactments of real crimes.

Other roles that you might recognize Shatner from: a pageant host in " Miss Congeniality ," attorney Dennis Crane in " The Practice " and its spin-off " Boston Legal " for which he won two Emmys , and in the 2016-2018 reality show " Better Late Than Never ," in which Shatner, Henry Winkler, George Foreman, and Terry Bradshaw traveled around the world and experienced different cultures.

The actor is set to appear in the upcoming "Masters of the Universe: Revolution" series on Netflix. He also finally made it to space himself during a Blue Origin flight in October 2021, making him the oldest person to go into space at 90.

Shatner has written multiple books, both fiction and non-fiction over the course of his career. His 2016 book, " Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man ," was about his friendship with "Star Trek" co-star Leonard Nimoy, who played his on-screen better half, Commander Spock.

Walter Koenig was cast as Ensign Pavel Chekov because of his resemblance to the Monkees' Davy Jones.

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While Chekov was Russian, Koenig was born in America and based his accent on his parents' accents — they were Russian immigrants. Koenig was cast because, according to legend, he was supposed to help attract young girls as viewers due to his resemblance to teen idol Davy Jones. He even wore a Davy Jones-esque women's wig for the first seven or eight episodes, he told TV Insider in 2016.

Koenig's mainly recognized for his on-screen role as Chekov, though he became a pretty prolific screenwriter in the '70s. He wrote episodes for the "Star Trek" animated series, anthology series "What Really Happened to the Class of '65?" and children's series "Land of the Lost."

Koenig appeared in the 2018 film "Diminuendo."

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Koenig, 85, (he's turning 86 on September 14) still makes frequent appearances on the "Star Trek" convention circuit, as well as acting in the occasional film. He appeared in 12 episodes of " Babylon 5 " in the '90s, voiced himself in an episode of "Futurama," and also voiced Mr. Savic on the Netflix animated series " Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters. "

While not all of the "Star Trek" cast were on great terms, Koenig and his co-star George Takei remain close. Koenig was even the best man in Takei's wedding in 2008.

George Takei played Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, a helmsman on the Enterprise.

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Over the course of the show, Sulu was revealed to have many interests outside of Star Fleet, most famously fencing. At the time, Sulu was one of the first Asian characters on TV who wasn't explicitly a villain, and instead was a fully formed hero.

"Up until the time I was cast in 'Star Trek,' the roles were pretty shallow — thin, stereotyped, one-dimensional roles. I knew this character was a breakthrough role, certainly for me as an individual actor but also for the image of an Asian character: no accent, a member of the elite leadership team," Takei told Mother Jones in 2012.

Takei originally was supposed to play Sulu as an astrophysicist, but the role was changed to helmsman. Before "Star Trek," Takei also appeared in " The Twilight Zone " like his co-star William Shatner, among other '50s and '60s procedurals.

Takei is still acting to this day, though many people know him now for his social media presence.

star trek 90s series

Who says an 85-year-old doesn't know how to use social media? Takei's Facebook page has 9.5 million likes to date, and he has 3.4 million followers on Twitter .

In addition to his continued acting in films like "Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank," " Kubo and the Two Strings ," "Blazing Samurai," and "Mulan," and TV shows like "Heroes," "Supah Ninjas," and " Star Wars: Visions ," Takei is an activist. He came out as gay in 2005  and began working as a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign.

Takei also starred in the 2012 musical "Allegiance," which was based on his and his family's experiences during Japanese internment in World War II.

Nichelle Nichols played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, a translator, communications officer, and linguistics expert.

star trek 90s series

Uhura was one of the first Black television characters that didn't have a menial job — instead, she was in a position of power. She and Shatner were also involved in what is thought to be the first interracial kiss on American TV.

Nichols stayed with the show for all three seasons, but it wasn't without drama. She was tempted to leave during the first year, but none other than Martin Luther King Jr. convinced her to stay. She told the New York Post in 2011 that when she told him that she wanted to leave, he told her, "You can't do that. You have the first non-stereotypical, non-menial role on television. You have created strength and beauty and intelligence. For the first time, the world sees us as we should be seen. It's what we're marching for. You're a role model and whether you like it or not, you belong to history now."

She also released an album in 1967, "Down to Earth." In between "Star Trek's" cancellation and its return on the big screen, Nichols starred in the 1974 blaxploitation film " Truck Turner ," as Dorinda, a madam.

Nichols died in 2022 at the age of 89. She had retired from public appearances in 2018.

star trek 90s series

From 1977 until 2015, Nichols was involved with Women in Motion, a recruiting program for NASA to help get more women involved in the space program. In July 2020, a documentary about the program finally secured distribution and will be released in 2021, Deadline reported. 

"Nichelle Nichols not only was a trailblazer in Hollywood, she was a trailblazer for the future of our society. She took the fight for Civil Rights, diversity and inclusion and gender equality to new frontiers with NASA which continue to serve America's space program today. She was ahead of her time," said executive producer Ben Crump.

Nichols also appeared in " The Young and the Restless, " "Heroes," and " Futurama ." She was diagnosed with dementia in 2018 and subsequently retired from public appearances.

In July 2022, Nichols' son announced on social media that Nichols had died at the age of 89 .

Leonard Nimoy played Captain Kirk's first officer and close friend Commander Spock.

star trek 90s series

Spock was the only alien member of the original crew, as he was half-human, half-Vulcan — an alien race from the planet Vulcan whose residents operate solely from a point of logic, not feelings. Much of the show's comedy came from Spock and Kirk's differences and their amusement at each other. His frequent farewell, " Live Long and Prosper ," accompanied by the Vulcan Salute, are among the most recognizable pieces of the "Star Trek" canon.

Nimoy had multiple small parts in B movies and TV shows before booking "Star Trek," including an episode of " The Man from U.N.C.L.E. " alongside future co-star William Shatner, as well as an episode of " The Twilight Zone ."

But once "Star Trek" premiered, Nimoy would be forever linked with his Vulcan counterpart, and he mainly did voice work after the show ended. He also reunited with Shatner for an episode of his show, "T.J. Hooker."

Nimoy died in 2015 at the age of 83. He played Spock for the final time in 2013's "Star Trek Into Darkness," meaning he played the role for almost 50 years.

star trek 90s series

Nimoy is the only actor from the original series to appear in JJ Abrams' rebooted films, as he appeared in 2009's "Star Trek" and its 2013 sequel " Star Trek Into Darkness " as an older version of Spock who was trapped in an alternate universe.

In addition to acting, Nimoy was a photographer, recording artist, author, and director. He directed two "Star Trek" movies (" The Search for Spock " and "The Journey Home"), and "Three Men and a Baby," which became the highest-grossing film of 1987 .

Nimoy died in 2015 at the age of 83 due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

DeForest Kelley played the ship's curmudgeonly chief medical officer, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy.

star trek 90s series

Bones, as he was affectionately called, was one of the oldest members of the crew, and thus got to be a bit more obnoxious than the rest of them. His frequent catchphrase, " I'm a doctor, not a ___, " is one of the most parodied lines of dialogue from the show.

Like his character, Kelley was older and a more established actor than the rest of the cast. Before the show, he had appeared in Westerns and historical films like " Gunfight at the O.K. Corral ," "Warlock," and " Raintree County " in the '50s.

Kelley died in 1999 at the age of 79, nine years after playing McCoy for the last time.

star trek 90s series

Kelley essentially retired from acting, besides playing McCoy, after the success of "Star Trek." He appeared in all six films starring the original cast, and appeared in an episode of " Star Trek: The Next Generation " as McCoy, as well.

While he wasn't much of a sci-fi fan, Kelley was proud of his "Star Trek" legacy. When asked what he thought his legacy would be, he explained that his character inspired people to enter the medical field. He told the New York Times , "These people [fans] are doctors now, all kinds of doctors who save lives. That's something that very few people can say they've done. I'm proud to say that I have.''

He died in 1999 at the age of 79 due to stomach cancer .

Majel Barrett had a recurring role as Nurse Christine Chapel.

star trek 90s series

Barrett was originally cast in the first version of "Star Trek" as Pike's first officer, but when that episode was scratched, so was her character. However, due to her romantic relationship with "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry (who she later married), she was brought back as Nurse Chapel (a divisive character).

Before the show, Barrett was in various bit parts in '50s and '60s shows, but her big break was " Star Trek ," which she stayed involved in for the rest of her life.

Barrett died in 2008 when she was 76 years old. Up until her death, she had been involved with every "Star Trek" series in some way, leading fans to call her the First Lady of "Star Trek."

star trek 90s series

Barrett reprised her role as Chapel in " Star Trek: The Motion Picture " and " Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ." She also appeared in " Star Trek: The Next Generation " and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" as Lwaxana Troi, the mother of Deanna Troi, a main character in "Next Generation." Her other involvement in the series was the voice of the computer in many of the other " Star Trek" films: "Generations ," " First Contact ," "Nemesis," and 2009's reboot.

She died in 2008 at the age of 76 due to leukemia . 

James Doohan played chief engineering officer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott.

star trek 90s series

Contrary to popular belief, the phrase " Beam me up, Scotty " is never actually uttered in the original series. The man on the other end of that command, Scotty, was played by Doohan, who was Canadian in real life, not Scottish.

Before "Star Trek," Doohan served in the Canadian military and was even on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day, and was a pilot as well. After the war, he began acting and became a successful radio actor. Like his co-stars, he also appeared in an episode of " The Twilight Zone ," and other popular procedurals. 

In the animated series, Doohan proved to be indispensable, with his talent for voice acting and accents. He voiced over 50 characters during the show's run.

James Doohan died at the age of 85 in 2005.

star trek 90s series

Doohan didn't find much success outside of the world of "Star Trek," and thus embraced his role as Scotty. He appeared in "Generations," as well as an episode of " The Next Generation ." 

However, his impact on the field of engineering cannot be overstated. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Milwaukee School of Engineering "after half the students there said that Scotty had inspired them to take up the subject," according to the BBC .

Towards the end of his life, Doohan suffered from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and retired from public life in 2004. He died the following year, at 85, due to complications from pneumonia .

Grace Lee Whitney appeared in the first season of the show as Yeoman Janice Rand.

star trek 90s series

Rand appeared in eight episodes of the show's first 15-episode season as a clerical and administrative worker aboard the ship, before Whitney was released from her contract. At the time, the story was that the show didn't have enough money to keep everyone, but years later in her autobiography, Rand accused an unnamed executive producer , whom she called "The Executive," of sexually assaulting her.

"I tried to do what he wanted me to, so I could get it over with. I knew, deep down inside, that I was finished on 'Star Trek.' At that moment, however, I didn't care about that. Nothing else mattered — not my tarnished virtue, not my career, not my role on 'Star Trek.' The only thing that mattered was getting out of that room alive," she wrote.

Whitney died in 2015 at the age of 85.

star trek 90s series

After getting written off the show, Whitney struggled with her career, and alcoholism. She credited co-star Leonard Nimoy with helping her get back on her feet and involved with "Star Trek" once again. She reprised her role in four of the original "Star Trek" films, and in an episode of " Star Trek: Voyager " alongside George Takei.

She died in 2015 due to natural causes at the age of 85.

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star trek 90s series

  • Main content

13 Reasons Why Deep Space Nine Is The Best Star Trek Show

Benjamin Sisko commands Deep Space NIne

Stardate: 1991. Brandon Tartikoff, the newly-minted head of Paramount Pictures, was eager to capitalize on the runaway success of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." And so, producers Rick Berman and Michael Piller were tasked with developing a sister series with hardly any directives. Though Piller and Berman were "The Next Generation" veterans with a hardline commitment to "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry's vision for the franchise, it was Roddenberry's untimely passing that ultimately opened new doors for the Trek universe.

The result of Berman and Piller's efforts was "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," a seminal work of 20th century sci-fi television. In terms of tone, premise, characterization, themes, and execution, the series remains a high-water mark for the franchise. As critic and writer Marc Bernardin noted, "I think 'DS9' never gets quite enough credit for all of the things that it did as incredibly well as it did them and how early they were doing them." Here are 13 reasons why "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" remains the franchise's finest hour.

It shows a darker side of Trek

One of the principal qualities that sets "Deep Space Nine" apart from previous Trek installments is its embrace of conflict and a muddied morality. The eternal optimism and integrity of Roddenberry's utopian vision was jettisoned like an escape pod by the showrunners. In its place, they established a more mature and nuanced tone.

Over the course of seven serialized seasons, "Deep Space Nine" chronicled a costly, years-long galactic war. One of Roddenberry's core Trek tenets was that it must depict a future free of strife ; his Federation had evolved beyond capitalism, racism, sexism, and other societal woes. Burman and Piller had other plans. In the unauthorized oral history "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next Twenty-Five Years," Piller explained their motivation behind this seismic shift: "It's conflict on every level we could find it." Co-producer Ira Steven Behr , who would take creative control of the series in season 3, elaborated, "There was a whole bubbling cauldron that seemed to take on some new heat ... and we realized we were on a unique show with its own identity."

It features remarkably complex characters

One of the greatest benefits of the serialized nature of "Deep Space Nine" was how it allowed the writers to deepen the characters over the course of its run. As supervising producer David Livingston put it, "The characters on 'Deep Space Nine' were strong, grounded, and diverse." Writer Bradley Thompson went further, saying, "[Behr] always said it's all about character. This is not about whether the 'freck screen demodulator is capable of being realigned with other technobabble.'"

Throughout the series, characters like Kira, Sisko, Worf, Odo, and others struggle with their allegiances as they endure the trials and tribulations of a messy war. They're forced to navigate strategic alliances and confront trauma, grief, and death. Sisko, for example, begins the series as a mournful single father and grows to become a captain, a master diplomat, and, ultimately, a celestial being. In the words of frequent guest star Jeffrey Combs , "[The show] went where no one has gone before. It pursued the journey inside, not the journey out."

It expanded Star Trek's mythology

Since the '60's, "Star Trek" has featured a plethora of different alien races with their own cultures, customs, and beliefs. "Deep Space Nine" explored this to the fullest extent, as its stationary setting allowed for all manner of alien visitors to commingle rather than being happened upon by star-faring explorers.

The series' major contributions to Trek's ever-expanding roster of extraterrestrials include the drug-addicted alien mercenaries known as the Jem'Hadar, the shapeshifting Founders, the mysterious Breen, the Maqui, and the conniving Vorta. The show also fleshed out the cultures, mythology, and doctrines of the previously-introduced Ferengi, Cardassians, Bajorans, Trill, and Klingons. In the case of the latter, resident Klingon-expert and "The Next Generation" carryover Ronald D. Moore ("Battlestar Galactica") took the ball and ran with it, resulting in some truly fantastic episodes.

It reinvigorated characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Although "Deep Space Nine" included numerous cameos from "The Next Generation" characters, including the omnipotent trickster Q, the nefarious Klingon sisters Lursa and B'Etor, Lwaxana Troi, Commander William Riker's clone Thomas, and a notably stern Captain Jean Luc Picard, it also shined a big spotlight on two of the preceding series' supporting players: Colm Meaney's Miles O'Brien and Michael Dorn's Lt. Commander Worf.

O'Brien was relatively underused on "The Next Generation," but "Deep Space Nine" created room to flesh out his character, giving him multiple subplots and a charming friendship with the space station's resident doctor, Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig). Worf's addition to "Deep Space Nine" was mandated by the studio to help boost ratings, but it reaped great benefits for the show. Worf's brief romance with Jadzia Dax proved that she was the perfect, unflappable foil to his eternal gruffness. Viewers were also treated to glimpses of the Klingon warrior's inner tenderness, something "The Next Generation" seldom touched upon.

It's very relevant to modern day concerns

"Star Trek" has always been a vessel for commentary on the issues of its time, from the civil rights movement to the '80s' "Save the Whales" campaign. "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" carried this tradition into the '90s, and even predicted some turn-of-the-century anxieties. Looking back, it seems even more prescient than ever.

With the exception of Nicholas Meyer's two original series films and a handful of episodes of "The Next Generation," the concept of Starfleet as a militarized organization has largely been ignored. "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" flipped the script on that notion, plunging the Federation into the Dominion War. Moral compromises became the order of the day, and agita about imperialism and the fear of the other took precedence in what had previously been an anodyne franchise. 

When Starfleet declares martial law on Earth in the two-part "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost," 21st-century viewers will recall the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, and the catastrophic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of 9/11. Another key episode, "The Darkness and the Light" (written by "Hannibal" mastermind Bryan Fuller), deftly interrogates the consequences of terrorism.

It has a major focus on family

"Star Trek" has always centered on a makeshift family of sorts — primarily, the found families of the main crews of the Enterprise NCC-1701 and NCC-1701-D — but familial concerns are the heart of "Deep Space Nine." The bond between widowed Commander-turned-Captain Benjamin Sisko and his son Jake is one of the series' greatest strengths. In the crowd-funded retrospective documentary "What We Left Behind," actress Felicia Bell Rutkowski (who played Sisko's late wife, Jennifer) stated, "He was creating a role model, particularly for African American men, for how to treat your son."

The heart-rending season 4 episode "The Visitor" depicts an aged Jake Sisko (played by Trek regular Tony Todd) living in seclusion in Louisiana, mourning the death of his father. Sci-fi hijinks ensue, but the emotionality of the episode, which was directed by "Deep Space Nine" stalwart David Livingston, is profound. Brooks' chemistry with Jake Sisko actor Cirroc Lofton extended beyond the set, too — Brooks even  introduced Lofton to acquaintances as his son — and it shows.

It introduces a more diverse quadrant

Star Trek is one of the more unique sci-fi franchises when it comes to representation, and "Deep Space Nine" is no exception. It carried on the franchise's legacy of including BIPOC and LGBTQ+ characters, boldly going where no entry in the saga had gone before in terms of diversity.

Obviously, centering the show on an African American lead was a progressive choice, particularly in the early '90s. As Armin Shimerman, who played Quark, observed at a Galaxy Con event , "I think one of the legacies of the show is [Brooks'] performance and what they wrote for him to demonstrate the problems of being Black in basically a white and orange society." Captain Benjamin Sisko's nobility and empathy in raising his son Jake resonated with cast members and viewers alike. 

Additionally, "Deep Space Nine" was a landmark for televised queer representation. The Trill species allowed Trek to explore queer issues. The species often served as a fairly clear metaphor for the trans experience, while in the season 4 epsiode "Rejoined," Jadzia Dax (who used to occupy a male body) and their old flame (who lives in a female host) share a kiss; remarkably, it was the fifth-ever lesbian kiss in the history of American TV.

It opened Star Trek up to examinations of religion

Gene Roddenberry was famously a secular humanist , and many of the Trek stories told under his supervision featured false prophets or impish, seemingly indifferent deities like Q; who could forget "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" and the immortal line, "What does God need with a starship?" However, the franchise rarely touched on alien religions. The emphasis on the Bajoran race in "Deep Space Nine" allowed the creators to change that, delving much deeper into issues of faith than Trek's previous explorations of, say, the religious side of the Vulcan and Klingon cultures.

The Bajorans of "Deep Space Nine" are polytheists who believe that the alien race occupying the wormhole that Deep Space Nine is located next to are prophets who are guiding everyone in the universe. To the Bajorans, the wormhole is a "Celestial Temple," and Captain Benjamin Sisko is fated to be the "Emissary" to the Bajoran prophets. Such an overt acknowledgement of religion was heretofore unseen in Trek; contemporary series like "Star Trek: Discovery" have further explored faith as a central element in their storylines.

It explores the consequences of war

The Dominion War presented "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" with the opportunity to explore both the triumphs and tragedies of warfare. Unlike the relatively bloodless "The Next Generation," the high stakes of "Deep Space Nine" meant that virtually anyone was at risk of serious injury or death.

This was best exemplified in the tragic arc of Nog (Aron Isenberg), son of the Ferengi Rom. Nog proudly became the first member of his race to enlist in Starfleet, and served aboard Deep Space Nine's warship, the Defiant, after graduating from the Academy. During the Siege of AR-558, Nog was gravely wounded in a battle with the Jem'Hadar, losing one of his legs. 

"Deep Space Nine" proceeded to sensitively explore the fallout of this event. Nog's subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder was thoughtfully and powerfully spotlighted in the season 7 episode "It's Only a Paper Moon," which saw Nog retreating into a fantasy world on the holodeck to avoid confronting the harsh realities of his condition.

It has a sense of humor

Despite its dark tone, "Deep Space Nine" still made time to bring a sense of fun to its proceedings. Where the original "Star Trek" was sometimes intentionally humorous and "The Next Generation" dabbled in sillier stories, "Deep Space Nine" often took a break from the relentless tension of the Dominion War to mine its cast of colorful personalities for some much-needed laughs.

Some of this humor resulted from the garrulous Cardassian tailor Garak, but most of it came at the expense of Ferengi bartender Quark, who was constantly scheming and getting in over his head. In his interactions with his brother Rom, the station's chief of security Odo, and the Grand Nagus, Quark was always the butt of the joke. 

The humor of "Deep Space Nine" reached its apex in the season 6 episode "The Magnificent Ferengi," in which Quark leads a bumbling team of Ferengi on a rescue mission to save his "moogie" Ishka. The episode features some of Rom's funniest moments and a climax that homages "A Weekend at Bernie's." Other comedic episodes include the baseball story "Take Me Out to the Holodeck," "Little Green Men," and "Trials and Tribble-ations," an episode that pays homage to the original series.

It was committed to romance

The episodic nature of the original series and "The Next Generation" allowed for a lot of fleeting moments of lascivious behavior from characters like Captain James T. Kirk and William Ryker, as well as the ongoing romantic tension between Captain Jean Luc Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher, but "Deep Space Nine" benefited from being able to chronicle human and interspecies relationships over a longer period of time.

This was best expressed in the relationship and eventual wedding of Lt. Worf and science officer Jadzia Dax, but "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" also treated viewers to Captain Sisko's endearing romance with Kassidy Yates and Ezri Dax's marriage to Julian Bashir. Miles O'Brien and his wife Keiko were also blessed by the "Deep Space Nine" writers with an expanded look at their coupling. Major Kira Neyrs served as a surrogate for the O'Brien's firstborn child, Kirayoshi (a clever workaround for actress Nana Visitor's real-life pregnancy). "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" also had its own Sam and Diane dynamic between Kira and Odo, which lent great emotional resonance to the series finale.

It featured lots of memorable guest stars

In all fairness, when it comes to Trek, "Deep Space Nine" is not unique in having a wealth of great cameos and recurring guest characters. That being said, a number of fantastic actors cropped up across its seven seasons, from the charmingly random (punk rock icon Iggy Pop, seen above playing a Vorta) to the more expected (the aforementioned "The Next Generation" cast members).

Special recognition must be paid to the great Jeffrey Combs ("Re-Animator"), who played five different characters on "Deep Space Nine." His most prominent role was that of the villainous Vorta Weyoun and his various clones, but he also portrayed the Ferengi Brunt on multiple occasions, as well as Quark's business partner Tiron and an unnamed holosuite guest in the series finale, "What You Leave Behind." Finally, Combs memorably appeared as a racist police officer in the widely praised episode "Far Beyond the Stars," a trippy, profound examination of racial injustice set in 1950s America; notably, the episode was directed by Benjamin Sisko himself, Avery Brooks.

It introduced a bold new aesthetic to the franchise

One of the most obvious ways that "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" distinguishes itself from other Trek media is in its design. The Enterprise of the original series was redolent of other '60s-era sci-fi: clean, sleek, and minimal. "The Next Generation" opted for a soothing, antiseptic palette made up of soft colors and lighting — a kind of Marriott hotel in space, if you will. The setting of "Deep Space Nine," however, presented its creators with the chance to explore a new aesthetic in the Trek universe. The titular station was designed by Cardassians, and the Starfleet personnel necessarily appeared out of place amongst the alien architecture.

Production designer Herman Zimmerman was responsible for the memorable look of the space station. Needless to say, Zimmerman, along with his team of model-makers (including Nathan Crowley, who would go on to be the production designer for "Westworld" and many Christopher Nolan projects) accomplished their goal in making an instantly recognizable design. Equally impressive are the massive interior sets of "Deep Space Nine," including its sprawling promenade and Quark's bar.

/Film

Star Trek's Best Original Series Episode Was Also One Of The Hardest To Produce

W hat's the best "Star Trek" episode? Of the 79 produced in "The Original Series," the most highly-regarded is often season 1, episode 28, "The City on the Edge of Forever." We at /Film named it as the best "Star Trek" episode and we're not alone.

Here's the premise; the Enterprise is exploring a planet home to the Guardian of Forever, essentially a sentient time portal. Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) is accidentally injected with the fictional drug Cordrazine and leaps through the portal, disrupting the timeline and the main characters' present. So, Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) follow McCoy, winding up in New York City during the Great Depression.

There, they meet Edith Keeler (Joan Collins, a soon-to-be legend who, like some other "Star Trek" actors, is still with us) . Keeler is an idealistic woman who runs a soup kitchen and preaches pacificism; Kirk falls in love with her. Unfortunately, Spock discovers that unless Miss Keeler dies, she'll grow to become an influential activist who delays U.S. entry into World War 2, resulting in a Nazi victory when they split the atom before J. Robert Oppenheimer does . McCoy altered the timeline by pushing Keeler out of a car's path, so a reluctant and heartbroken Kirk holds Bones back and lets her be hit by a car and die.

"The City on the Edge of Forever" is the bar all subsequent "Star Trek" time travel stories have been reaching for, from the theatrical movie "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" to "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" in "Strange New Worlds" season 2 (featuring a younger Kirk played by Paul Wesley) .

While the stakes the writers faced weren't quite as high as saving the world, the production of "The City on the Edge of Forever" hit a number of roadblocks. And yet, it persevered through to excellence.

Read more: The Main Star Trek Captains Ranked Worst To Best

Writing One Of The First Star Trek Scripts

"The City on the Edge of Forever" was written by the late Harlan Ellison, a legendary (and legendarily abrasive) sci-fi writer (just look at Ellison's work still being homaged on "Star Trek: Lower Decks" ). However, the script went through many revisions that left Ellison dissatisfied; he's the only credited writer on the episode, but the finished episode wasn't made to his vision.

Keep in mind that there have been many behind-the-scenes retellings of "Star Trek" production history over the years, with the primary sources being the fading memories of men with big egos. That said, the 1991 book "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story" by Robert Justman (a producer on "Star Trek") and Herbert Solow (who was "Executive In Charge of Production" on "Star Trek") tells the behind-the-scenes story like this.

Ellison pitched the episode on March 3, 1966. He then submitted a first draft, dated June 3, and later a final draft, dated August 15. Story Editor Steve Carabatso revised the script, poorly (this rewrite was even deemed unacceptable for filming), so Ellison submitted another revision, dated December 1, 1966 (but received on December 19).

However, the tug of war didn't stop. The Mission Log Podcast uncovered Justman's notes on Ellison's December draft of "The City on the Edge of Forever" (dated December 20, 1966), submitted to "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry. Justman's notes concern both logistics (such as Ellison's excessive description) and the episode's narrative/continuity within the larger series. He writes in his conclusion:

"I still feel that this is a fine story and was created by an extremely talented writer. But we are in the sad position of being unfortunate enough not to be able to afford to make this story, even though it is of high quality."

Harlan Ellison's City On The Edge Of Forever

Justman closes his memo with an ultimatum: Roddenberry and writer/producer Gene Coon must either take the script out of Ellison's hands and revise it further to make it affordable, or they must trash the script. Roddenberry, obviously, chose the former, and three more revisions followed. One from Coon (dated January 9, 1967), one from writer D.C. Fontana (dated January 23, 1967), and finally one from Roddenberry (dated February 1, 1967). "Inside Star Trek" claims Roddenberry's draft was the shooting script.

So, how did Ellison's draft differ from the final episode? Thankfully, we don't have to wonder. In 1977, he published his script as "The City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay." In 2014, he adapted his teleplay into a five-issue comic book, "Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever" (co-written with Scott and David Tipton, art by J.K. Woodward mimicking the actors' likenesses, printed by IDW Publishing). It's still the same basic story, but the details diverge.

In Ellison's original conception, it's not a crazed Dr. McCoy whom Kirk and Spock pursue across time, but a rogue crewmember named Beckwith. After being caught dealing drugs on the Enterprise, Beckwith narrowly escapes. The Guardian s of Forever (note the plural) are also depicted as ethereal, crystalline beings, rather than the time portal being the Guardian's tangible form.

Moreover, the tone is different; Kirk and Spock are not the close friends we know but far more curt with each other. Ellison also emphasizes the ugly side of humanity, with Spock facing discrimination in the 1930s as a presumed Chinese immigrant. Spock, in general, is more emotional and even outright temperamental in this script.

As Ellison notes in issue #2, "I wrote this script before the show ever went on the air and some of the later-set-in-stone tenets of the series weren't even thought of."

An Episode Worth The Weight Of The Starship Enterprise In Gold

The rules for the production of "Star Trek" episodes were as follows: three months to write and revise an episode script. Then, six days to shoot the episode. According to Roddenberry in a 1973 interview with the Harvard Crimson , the typical budget for a "Star Trek" episode was $185,000. "The City on the Edge of Forever" broke all three of these cardinal rules.

As previously mentioned, the script languished in rewrites for many long months, taking almost a year from pitch to shooting script. That's why it aired so late (it's the penultimate episode of "Star Trek" season 1) even though Ellison started writing it before even one "Star Trek" episode had aired.

When it came time to shoot that script? "The City on the Edge of Forever" (as overseen by director Joseph Pevney) took seven and a half days to film. It also went well over budget, with the final cost estimated (by "Inside Star Trek") as in the neighborhood of $250,000 (that's over $2 million in 2024 money). That makes "City" the most expensive of all 79 original "Star Trek" episodes. The book doesn't give a line item summary of the budget, but one can surmise some plausible explanations: the effects used on the Guardian of Forever ( you don't want to see "Star Trek" without those special effects ), guest star Joan Collins' salary, the fact that most of the episode didn't use the series' regular sets, costs incurred from the longer than usual shoot, etc.

However, Justman states in "Inside Star Trek" that, "['The City on the Edge of Forever'] was worth every penny." I, and plenty of other Trekkies, agree.

Read the original article on SlashFilm .

Star Trek The City on the Edge of Forever Kirk Spock Guardian of Forever

Babylon 5 Was the Anti-Star Trek That ‘90s Television Needed

It was the dawn of the third age of mankind....

Kat Bailey Avatar

It was the Earth year 1993, and Joe Michael Straczynski had a plan.

“There has always been a plan for a series to follow. If anything, that was the point of the entire exercise...to tell a story. To create a novel for TV that would span five years, for which the pilot is the opening chapter,” Stracynzki wrote of Babylon 5, his sweeping space opera that he had been working on since the mid-1980s.

The cast of Babylon 5.

The picture he painted was of a grand war epic. He promised that fans would see “wheels within wheels,” and that “some of the established empires in the pilot will fall.” He said one character would undergo “a MAJOR change” that would send the show spinning on a very different axis. It was highly ambitious, and more to the point, the diametric opposite of Star Trek – the dominant sci-fi franchise of the time.

Straczynski, or JMS as he was known by fans, was a Star Trek fan. And like so many other Star Trek fans, the show’s decisions tended to make him crazy. He wondered why it didn’t have realistic space physics. He wondered why there was a kid on the bridge. Most of all, he wondered why the reset button was hit every episode.

While Straczynski cut his teeth on ’80s cartoons like Masters of the Universe and The Real Ghostbusters, he was a literary sci-fi and fantasy fan. His influences included famed writers like Michael Moorcock and Arthur C. Clarke, and he borrowed liberally from all of them, even going so far as to name one of his villains after Alfred Bester.

He envisioned a series about a space station that served as a crossroads between multiple alien empires, all of them with their own secrets and agendas. Actions would have consequences, whether for individual characters or for the arc as a whole. It would feature truly unique aliens, some of whom would be rendered using CGI. And it would be more grounded, with a more realistic military structure, authentic physics, and a grim and gritty “Down Below” filled with unhoused residents.

He summed up his vision with a simple rule: “No cute kids, no cute robots, ever.”

In short, Straczynski wanted to make the anti-Trek. There was just one problem: Star Trek wanted to make that show too.

‘But why do we need these guys?’

While Straczynski was pitching Babylon 5 on lots across Hollywood, Star Trek was grappling with an identity crisis of its own. Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision and social commentary was one of the franchise’s distinguishing features, but younger writers like Ron Moore were eager to experiment with more ambitious storylines. Moore and company railed against the franchise’s reluctance to focus on interpersonal conflict, which they saw as one of the main drivers of drama.

Bruce Boxleitner took over as series lead Captain John Sheridan in Season 2.

“Gene Roddenberry was an interesting figure because so much of what was doing was right, but he wasn’t always right…There are certain things of Star Trek that you get that are full Roddenberry, which are very earnest, very utopian style,” says Jordan Hoffman, former host of the Official Star Trek Podcast and writer at The Messenger.

Their desire for more sophisticated character-driven stories mirrored the trends across television as a whole. Erik Adams, who has covered TV for more than a decade across the AV Club and IGN, describes the television landscape of the ’90s beginning to take shape in the success of Twin Peaks, The Wonder Years, the launch of the Fox network, and targeted cable outlets like The Comedy Channel.

“It set the scene for a decade when audiences expected more from their TV, and expected to find it in more places,” he says.

Star Trek’s young guns would get their chance to shine with Deep Space Nine, a spin-off that took shape in the wake of Next Generation’s success through reruns of older episodes. According to New Frontiers: The Story of Deep Space Nine, Paramount chairman Brandon Tartikoff approached producer Rick Berman with the concept of a man and his son coming to a dilapidated frontier town on the edge of space. It would have “the country doctor, the barkeeper, the sheriff” and other familiar western tropes, but it would take place on a space station at the edge of space, and it would be grittier and more grounded than The Next Generation

Kathryn Drennan, who was Straczynski’s wife, was interning in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s writer’s room at the time. The concept for Deep Space Nine immediately set alarm bells ringing – so much so that she promptly excused herself from the meeting, much to the surprise of the Star Trek writing staff. That was the beginning of the conspiracy theory that the concept for Deep Space Nine was stolen by Paramount following Straczynski’s pitch in the late 1980s.

“During the five years spent pitching Babylon 5 we’d given Paramount all of our development material,” Straczynski wrote in 2019. “This led to several discussions with the executives that seemed to be going in a positive direction when suddenly they went radio silent. It never occurred to us that someone inside Paramount might have looked at that material and thought, ‘Hmmm… a companion series to Next Generation about a space station, that’s a great idea. But why do we need these guys?’”

"It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind..."

‘This isn’t some deep space franchise’

Whether Paramount actually stole the concept for Deep Space Nine from Babylon 5 remains up for debate. Straczynski says in his autobiography that he accepts Drennan’s belief that Star Trek’s producers were blameless. He does, however, seem to think that Tartikoff was ripping off Babylon 5 when he pitched Berman on the notion of The Rifleman in space.

Either way, the stage was set for a (perhaps one-sided) rivalry between the two shows. Straczynski was relatively unique among showrunners at the time in that he was very active on Internet newsgroups, and he regularly cast Star Trek as a juggernaut and Babylon 5 as a struggling but resourceful indie production. He hired legendary Trek writers like Dorothy Fontana to pen episodes. He even cast Star Trek legend Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in the original show, as the villainous Psi Cop Bester.

“JMS loved doing deliberate subversions of tropes people expected from Trek,” says Rowan Kaiser, who reviewed Babylon 5 for the AV Club. “The ‘no cute kids’ policy for one, but also taking Trek actors and having them play divergent characters. So Koenig, who was the cute lovable Russian on Trek, becomes one of the biggest villains on B5, and that only adds to his sliminess. JMS would do that again one-off with [Majel Barrett-Roddenberry], who instead of playing the comic relief Lwaxana Troi, is a dignified, even ominous character at a crucial point in the series. It's both fun stunt casting and also a signifier that for all their differences and rivalries, they are part of the same toy chest.”

The show wasn’t above tossing in jabs at Star Trek. In a second season episode penned by popular sci-fi writer Peter David, second-in-command Susan Ivanova looks around a popular gift shop filled with station merch and shouts in exasperation, “We’re not some deep space franchise, this station is about something!”

Despite all that, Babylon 5 didn’t seem all that different from Star Trek, at least not at first. With a handful of exceptions, its early episodes were deliberately standalone affairs designed to attract new viewers. Most of its aliens had funny hair and bumpy foreheads. Its main differentiator early on was that it featured computer-generated special effects – a then-novel strategy intended to keep Babylon 5 on an affordable budget.

That began to change just over halfway through the first season. In ‘Signs and Portents’, a mysterious visitor named Morden arrives on the station and begins asking each of the major characters what they want. Surprisingly, it’s Londo Mollari – the character with the peacock-like hair who spends most of the season drinking and playing the comic relief – who gives the correct answer. We then get our first glimpse of a mysterious ship that appears and carves up the Raiders, up to that point a major antagonist, with comparative ease.

Straczynski referred to such arc stories as “wham episodes,” as they were the moment when he would hit the story with a crowbar and send it spinning in a totally different direction. These wham episodes became more and more pronounced in the second season, and still moreso in the third. Babylon 5 won its first Hugo Award with The Coming of Shadows, a major second season episode that managed to fully turn the tables on the show’s debut, sending two major empires to war in the process. In so doing, Babylon 5 went from classic anthology show to sci-fi war epic to eventually something like The Lord of the Rings (Straczynski at one point even refers to Sheridan, who is introduced in Season 2, as the show’s Aragorn).

The late Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar in the Hugo Award-winning "The Coming of Shadows."

It made for thrilling television in the early ’90s – years before The Sopranos and Lost made serialized storytelling mainstream. Where Star Trek always comfortably returned to the status quo, it felt like anything could happen in Babylon 5. And Deep Space Nine’s writers noticed.

Television’s shifting center of gravity

While Babylon 5’s arc picked up steam, Deep Space Nine felt largely inert. Its featured quality episodes like Duet, which was lauded as a quality meditation on war criminals, but it otherwise seemed to struggle with the need for the action to come to the station rather than the other way around.

“I remember agreeing with some critics that they weren’t taking advantage of the setting,” Hoffman remembers. “It was a little bit dull at first”

Heading into its third season, Deep Space introduced the Dominion – an empire that inhabited the worlds on the other side of the wormhole. The Dominion became a recurring villain as Deep Space Nine was retooled to put an increased emphasis on serialized storytelling, and the crew took to tooling around in the Defiant – a nifty little warship equipped with a cloaking device.

Babylon 5 fans were quick to note that their show had also just added a cool warship in the White Star, and that Deep Space Nine’s serialized war drama seemed rather convenient in light of the arc that Straczynski had been building for several years at that point.

[ Correction: Defiant appeared more than a year before the debut of the White Star. ]

Guest star Robert Foxworth abruptly left Babylon 5 for a similar role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

“Absolutely the two shows were aware of each other and watching each…I’m sure it was a two way street. How many other sci-fi shows were there?” Hoffman says. “I have no doubt that on Thursdays at 9pm, when Babylon 5 would air on the local affiliate, DS9 writers were watching. How could they not? But the writers at DS9 were very crafty and creative…It’s not impossible to think that two separate groups had similar ideas.”

He compares Deep Space Nine to Newton, who was accused of plagiarizing his theory of gravity. Television’s own shifting center of gravity made it natural for Star Trek to experiment with more ambitious storytelling. Roddenberry’s death in 1991 opened the way for Ira Steven Behr, who had a relatively free hand as Deep Space Nine’s executive producer, to experiment and try new ideas. In that light, Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine settling on superficially similar storylines wasn’t all that strange.

The truth was that Moore, who joined the show’s writing staff as a supervising producer in the third season, was tired of the Star Trek formula. He had been experimenting with serial drama as far back as The Next Generation, and like Straczynski, he had a penchant for hanging out online and interacting with the fans. Given an opportunity to reinvent Battlestar Galactica in the mid-2000s, Moore created a heavily serialized political drama that was itself the diametric opposite of Roddenberry’s Star Trek. In that sense, he and Straczynski were kindred spirits.

Whatever rivalry existed between the two series came to a head in 1996, when guest star Robert Foxworth abruptly jumped ship for a similar role in Deep Space Nine. Both shows were in the midst of a series of episodes that put their heroes in direct conflict with Earth, with Foxworth playing an admiral in one show and a general in the other.

“We had booked Foxworth long in advance. Later, out of the blue, a rep for the actor said that by accident he'd been double-booked on B5 and DS9 for the same period...and even though we had prior claim, because the other was a two-parter, more money, they went for that,” Straczynski groused online, before adding darkly. “One can only wonder when the other offer *really* came in…” [ Note: IGN reached out to Straczynski for this piece but did not receive a response. ]

Ironically, the previous episode had featured an appearance by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, revered as the “First Lady of Star Trek” by fans. The moment had moved Straczynski to write what he perceived as a conciliatory letter to Star Trek fans . In it, he alternated between calling Star Trek mainstays like Jeri Taylor “friends” and taking swipes at Paramount, which he claimed had “done everything possible to hinder the progress of Babylon 5.”

And while we're at it, another moment of history: me and Majel Barrett Roddenberry on-set during her appearance in the #babylon5 episode "Point of No Return," reflecting her desire to good-will a bridge between B5 and Trek fans. pic.twitter.com/p1pJYGL306 — J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 5, 2018

It’s a blunt and self-righteous letter which paints Babylon 5 fans and Star Trek fans as being in perpetual conflict despite their similarities. At one point he even excuses the bad behavior of certain Babylon 5 fans by claiming that they were just frustrated over the treatment over the show. It’s as clear a window as you’ll find into how Straczynski viewed Babylon 5 and its relationship with Star Trek.

It’s also worth noting, though, that Babylon 5 was also at its absolute best in this period. Stracyznski and company had overcome cancellation concerns, the loss of multiple cast members, and a whole host of other issues, and the seeds he had so painstakingly sewn in the show’s first season were flowering. He was both justly proud and more than a little arrogant.

“Over a late dinner with Majel, I observed that after the original Star Trek, which for the first time presented truly *human* characters, with all their flaws and frailties and bravery and nobility, in a science fiction series, the ball was dropped, and no one picked it up again for years,” Straczynski wrote. “She agreed with this...For all these and other reasons, I hope you'll give Babylon 5 a try.”

It was a new age

Babylon 5 would ultimately finish its five-year mission, but it did not have the staying power its fans would have hoped. Its primitive CGI, simple sets, and sometimes painful acting in some ways made it an artifact of its era (when I showed it to some friends their very first comment was, “This show is ’90s as hell”). Its special effects looked terrible on high-definition televisions and for a long time it was very difficult to find on popular streaming services.

Londo (Peter Jurasik) and G’kar (Andreas Katsulas).

Deep Space Nine, on the other hand, flourished. Fans returned to the show to find a compelling war story that played an enormous part in growing the Star Trek setting. When Moore moved over to Battlestar Galactica, he brought that legacy with him.

“It’s the very unique storytelling and the broad spectrum of characters,” Hoffman says. “TNG at its greatest never had a character like Garak or Damar. Even Worf was fully-formed when he stepped on to DS9, but he only became more interesting. It had a knack for creating really interesting characters…It’s a great workplace show. You feel like you’re hanging out with them.”

Still, Babylon 5 remains a compelling chapter in television history in its own right. Its run coincided with similar successes like The X-Files, and it injected TV with a much-needed dose of hard sci-fi that Star Trek simply couldn’t match. Its cheesiest moments were matched by some truly shocking highs, with perpetual frienemies Londo and G’kar being two of the most memorable characters in sci-fi television history.

“TV’s a trend-chasing industry: Once a great, lauded, popular blend of long- and short-form storytelling like The Sopranos rolled around, serialization gained a newfound sheen. DS9 and B5’s multi-episode arcs walked so the ducks in Tony’s pool could fly – but not every show (and certainly not every contemporary multimedia franchise) is equipped to reach those heights,”Adams observes.

Indeed, even when compared to more modern shows, Babylon 5 was notable for how well it executed its overall plan. The television landscape is littered with abandoned and bungled arcs, but Babylon 5 ultimately kept most of its promises amid extraordinarily difficult circumstances that included being canceled and then un-canceled in the eleventh hour. Where so many other shows cram their conclusions into very rushed finales – including, it must be said, DS9, Battlestar Galactica, and The Expanse – Babylon 5 managed a remarkably graceful denouement.

“The thing that makes Babylon 5 stand out is a discussion that's changed over time in ways that I think represent how SF television and TV overall has changed,” Kaiser says. “At the time, the big difference was serialization with a goal, which was novel at the time and B5's ‘five-year plan’ was something that nobody else had really tried, while Star Trek was conventional proceduralism incarnate.

“But more recently what stands out to me is the similarities instead of the differences. Star Trek has created a model for SF TV where the default mode is, roughly, ‘What would western liberalism do if it encountered something weird?’ Most Star Trek episodes are about that. So are most Babylon 5 episodes, as well as the overarching plot of the series. (So are most Battlestar episodes, for what that's worth). The key difference is that the B5 characters are allowed to be wrong, to make long-term mistakes, and the story progresses from there. ‘Characters can be wrong’ is a subversion of the form, but it's still part of the form.”

Recently, Babylon 5 has enjoyed a mini-renaissance with the release of an animated movie, the announcement of a complete physical release on blu-ray, and a possible reboot. Straczynski, conspiracy-minded as always, claims the reason the show was held back for more than 20 years was that a Warner Bros. executive hated Babylon 5 and nothing could happen until they left. But in the end, faith managed.

One way or another, Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine remain inextricably connected. If Straczynski is to be believed, one literally would not exist without the other. We should be so lucky. If Paramount did indeed use Stracyznski’s ideas to create Deep Space Nine, it would seem that it unwittingly created two of the greatest sci-fi shows ever, and in so doing helped inaugurate a new era for television.

Kat Bailey is IGN's News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

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Star Trek: Resurgence Is the Best of '90s Trek With the Worst of '90s Gaming

Star Trek has an up and down history with video games moreso than most storied franchises. It’s rare for a singular game to properly capture Star Trek as an experience when, at its best, Star Trek debate, diplomacy, and scientific investigation don’t quite line up with gaming hallmarks. But the adventure game genre is one where Trek has succeeded in the past—and for the most part, Star Trek: Resurgence adds to that history... with some significant caveats.

Out this week, Star Trek: Resurgence is a narrative-driven, choice-based adventure game in the vein of Telltale Games’ episodic gaming series, such as The Walking Dead , Batman , Guardians of the Galaxy , and more (developer Dramatic Labs was founded by several former Telltale staffers after the studio first effectively shuttered in 2018; the revived studio is currently working on a game based on The Expanse ).

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Whereas traditional adventure games lean heavily on puzzles, these games are driven by player choice through multi-pronged dialogue scenes, allowing the player to shape the path of the narrative—a perfect fit for a series like Star Trek . Unlike the oeuvre of past Telltale games, however, what sets Resurgence apart is that it is a singular, 12-ish hour story, rather than being broken down into episodic seasons of game slices. The feeling it creates is less like watching an interactive episode of Star Trek , and more like a choose-your-own-adventure novel coming to life.

Resurgence is set in 2380—a year after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis —and follows the crew of the U.S.S. Resolute , a science vessel rocked by a recent accident that resulted in the loss of 20 of its crew, including its first officer. When new XO Commander Jara Rydek is brought aboard, the Resolute is tasked with participating in diplomatic negotiations between two alien species, the Alydians and the Hotari, over a mining world—only to discover the source of the conflict has dire, far-reaching implications for the entire galaxy.

Where Resurgence stands out from prior adventure games of its ilk, and where it plays to Star Trek ’s strengths the most, is in dividing the player’s perspective between two primary characters: the aforementioned Commander Rydek, a Kobliad officer thrust into the politics of not just a new command but a senior staff splintered over the loss of one of their own, and Petty Officer Carter Diaz, an engineering crewperson trying to navigate life in the lowest of the lower decks on a Federation starship with his best friend, a Trill named Nili Edsilar. By making the audience viewpoint cover such a broad scope of Star Trek ’s command structure, Resurgence deftly manages to explore life aboard a starship from multiple narrative and mechanical angles.

If Jara’s sections of the story are driven around establishing herself as a senior officer and the politics of diplomacy, from command of the bridge to staff meetings, Carter’s leans a little more on the practical side of the adventure game genre, problem-solving and puzzling to get his job done in environments where his rank means he’s not often the go-to for big, splashy Star Trek action. Even when things go sideways and the whole Resolute crew is thrust into an epically staked mission to save the galaxy, this divide in perspective remains throughout, capturing the broad Star Trek experience.

This is just one of the many ways Resurgence revels in capturing the vibe of Star Trek —and more specifically the vibes of his heyday in the late ‘80s and the ‘90s, the peaks of The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , and Voyager defining a modern era of the franchise beyond the original series’ retro aesthetic. Resurgence shows its love of Star Trek not in cameos and references (although their are a few notable characters who make appearances, including Ambassador Spock and Titan captain Will Riker), but in aping classic story elements and structures from those shows, weaving a largely original take through nods and connections to prior stories. Like Star Trek itself, the action is largely sparing, with the most tension and conflict coming from how your characters navigate tough command decisions or debate—and even when things do come to blows and conflict becomes violent, Resurgence more often than not eschews direct combat to instead focus on the decisions its characters are forced to make in those moments, rather than how good they are at firing a phaser.

This is amplified even further by the fact that Resurgence focuses on a completely original crew of characters. The decisions you make, from the mundane to the life-threatening, all feel like they carry a weight of uncertainty, as no character is necessarily guaranteed to make it out of the story in one piece. You’re watching your relationship to these characters grow in real-time as you decide who to put faith in and who to keep at arms’ length, or in how you shape Rydek and Diaz themselves grappling with the morals of Starfleet coming up against the desperation of their increasingly hazardous mission. Resurgence is still largely a story of Starfleet heroes saving the day, but there is a level of tension running throughout that most Star Trek stories can’t quite capture when you know the crew you’re following is going to be largely fine by the end of the tale.

All of this narrative interest, however, often comes into conflict with the other truth of Resurgence : it’s simply not a very fun game to play. The moments you are given control of Jara and Carter are defined by awkward controls, clunky animation, and an erratic graphical consistency where character models look great but the environments they’re in decidedly do not (it’s worth stating that Resurgence will run you $40, under the typical price of a major AAA game but still enough that it feels very rough around the edges for that cost).

Although moments of direct action are rare in Resurgence ’s focus on dialogue choices, that’s not to say they’re absent entirely. But you find yourself thankful that phaser shootouts are few and far between because they’re the most frustrating sequences of the game to play; weightless action and swimmy controls are matched by frustrating fail states that often feel like they’re asking far too much of what Resurgence can mechanically handle. This is further impacted by the simple fact that, for an adventure game, there’s very little actual adventuring to do. Resurgence ’s decision to lean heavily on cinematic dialogue choices for its interactions means there’s little in the way of interesting puzzles or tools to interact with the world around you. There’s one way to do most things, and it’s not about figuring that out as much as it is shepherding you from one dialogue sequence to the next.

That linearity also adds to Resurgence ’s core weakness: it’s linear to the point of frustration. Awkward moments where you’re asked to take control of your character to clunkily navigate a corridor—only for a cutscene to immediately take over—make you feel relieved that for the next few minutes, the game might only ask you to make a few dialogue choices instead of more directly play it. The single-minded thrust of the game also means there’s little downtime between major story beats for you to casually explore your surroundings, or get to know your crewmates better. Every interaction is in the name of driving the main story arc forward, with limited opportunities for reflection and exploration. By the end of Resurgence ’s 12-hour trek, that makes you feel like a lot of those big story choices you’re being asked to influence are mostly impactful on the immediate following scenes rather than the larger story, taking the bite out of the weight and tension the narrative leans on as one of its greater strengths.

Not quite as major but still frustrating is that at least on PC with Resurgence ’s press-build, the game is equally clunky in its bugginess. While it’s nothing severe enough to cause a loss of progress, Resurgence on PC was a pain to navigate with menus not functioning right, certain menus not recognizing a gamepad (which even on PC, is the recommended control option), and, bizarrely enough, the game locking up every time I tried to close it after a session. Although gameplay is largely spared from these issues, there are still some persistent bugs while playing, in the form of dialogue subtitles either not correctly displaying or, sometimes, showing incomplete or totally different lines to what was being said—a pain point from both an accessibility standpoint and a narrative standpoint, where several modified subtitles provided the player with contextual information that wasn’t actually said in the scene, making it hard to tell what mattered.

Ultimately, how willing you are to grapple with the awkward gameplay of Star Trek: Resurgence will depend on how much you really want a new, original Star Trek story, in a time when there’s more Star Trek available in various formats than arguably since its giddy heights in the ‘90s. Resurgence will very much give you a solid Trek tale populated with compelling characters and interesting leads that perhaps comes closest to making you feel like you’re taking part in a classic Star Trek narrative—certainly more than many other games have attempted in decades. But that success is often in spite of itself, a not-quite diamond in the very-much rough of its clumsy, awkward mechanics.

Star Trek: Resurgence launches tomorrow, May 23, on PC (exclusively through the Epic Games Store), PlayStations 4 and 5, and the Xbox Series X, S, and Xbox One.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel , Star Wars , and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV , and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who .

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Star Trek Movies in order

  • Movies or TV
  • IMDb Rating
  • In Theaters
  • Release Year

1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

G | 143 min | Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi

When an alien spacecraft of enormous power is spotted approaching Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk resumes command of the overhauled USS Enterprise in order to intercept it.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , James Doohan

Votes: 96,195 | Gross: $82.26M

Star Trek I

2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

PG | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

With the assistance of the Enterprise crew, Admiral Kirk must stop an old nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh, from using the life-generating Genesis Device as the ultimate weapon.

Director: Nicholas Meyer | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , James Doohan

Votes: 128,770 | Gross: $78.91M

Star Trek II

3. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

PG | 105 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Admiral Kirk and his bridge crew risk their careers stealing the decommissioned U.S.S. Enterprise to return to the restricted Genesis Planet to recover Spock's body.

Director: Leonard Nimoy | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , James Doohan

Votes: 85,841 | Gross: $76.47M

Star Trek III

4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

PG | 119 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

To save Earth from an alien probe, Admiral James T. Kirk and his fugitive crew go back in time to San Francisco in 1986 to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it: humpback whales.

Votes: 91,093 | Gross: $109.71M

Star Trek IV

5. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

PG | 107 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Captain Kirk and his crew must deal with Mr. Spock's long-lost half-brother who hijacks the Enterprise for an obsessive search for God at the center of the galaxy.

Director: William Shatner | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , James Doohan

Votes: 63,951 | Gross: $52.21M

Star Trek V

6. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

PG | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

On the eve of retirement, Kirk and McCoy are charged with assassinating the Klingon High Chancellor and imprisoned. The Enterprise crew must help them escape to thwart a conspiracy aimed at sabotaging the last best hope for peace.

Votes: 80,599 | Gross: $74.89M

Star Trek VI

7. Star Trek: Generations (1994)

PG | 118 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery

With the help of long presumed dead Captain Kirk, Captain Picard must stop a deranged scientist willing to murder on a planetary scale in order to enter a space matrix.

Director: David Carson | Stars: Patrick Stewart , William Shatner , Malcolm McDowell , Jonathan Frakes

Votes: 86,744 | Gross: $75.67M

Star Trek VII

8. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

PG-13 | 111 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

The Borg travel back in time intent on preventing Earth's first contact with an alien species. Captain Picard and his crew pursue them to ensure that Zefram Cochrane makes his maiden flight reaching warp speed.

Director: Jonathan Frakes | Stars: Patrick Stewart , Jonathan Frakes , Brent Spiner , LeVar Burton

Votes: 131,635 | Gross: $92.00M

Star Trek VIII

9. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

PG | 103 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

When the crew of the Enterprise learn of a Federation conspiracy against the inhabitants of a unique planet, Captain Picard begins an open rebellion.

Votes: 79,205 | Gross: $70.12M

Star Trek IX

10. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

PG-13 | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

The Enterprise is diverted to the Romulan homeworld Romulus, supposedly because they want to negotiate a peace treaty. Captain Picard and his crew discover a serious threat to the Federation once Praetor Shinzon plans to attack Earth.

Director: Stuart Baird | Stars: Patrick Stewart , Jonathan Frakes , Brent Spiner , LeVar Burton

Votes: 83,633 | Gross: $43.25M

Star Trek X

11. Star Trek (2009)

PG-13 | 127 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father's legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time.

Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Simon Pegg , Leonard Nimoy

Votes: 618,927 | Gross: $257.73M

Star Trek XI

12. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

PG-13 | 132 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction.

Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Zoe Saldana , Benedict Cumberbatch

Votes: 496,117 | Gross: $228.78M

Star Trek XII

13. Star Trek Beyond (2016)

PG-13 | 122 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

The crew of the USS Enterprise explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a new ruthless enemy, who puts them, and everything the Federation stands for, to the test.

Director: Justin Lin | Stars: Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Karl Urban , Zoe Saldana

Votes: 257,626 | Gross: $158.85M

Star Trek XIII

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