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The Original and well in my view, the only Star Trek, had some edifying lessons of life. Gene Roddenberry deliberated included these in the plots and why they hold up so well.
I mean everyone today can relate to "It is easier for civilized people to act like barbarians then for barbarians to act civilized"
Or Kirk's monologue about the Yang and the Cong.
WS as Kirk was just plain awesome. So good they had to have two characters in the series which followed to do what he did.
Too bad for the folks raised on the latter stuff. Just you know, Manager's Special Day After Doughnuts as far as I am concerned.
I watched tng, and I loved it, but the raw energy in tos gave it a magic. It matched our vision of ourselves. We dreamed, but were seeing the times and people who didn't share them. There was idealism. There was angry retaliation. Kirk would hand on to his belief in the dream, but be a barbarian if to make it live he had to.
Tng always seemed like a world waiting for the other shoe to fall to me. At times, they actually questioned the rules, and you saw them careful break them. But it was all about the image. For some of us, the Federation and Star Fleet couldn't be and continue to be if they were such shining examples of good. Of course, standing behind them was Section 31, perhaps the darkest secret police we've seen in trek. The others are parts of civilizations who know what they are. The Federation feels its necessary to hide their existance to all but the victums who either keep quiet or.....
DS9 to me is the most moving series since they still remember and value that pride and optimism that they want to do good, but right then they have to survive first. Family sent away, they become warriors with new unifoms in black and only those things which keep order important. And the people from DS9 *know* that if they lose its all over. They have the example of it in the Bajorans they are slated to become should they fail.
I happened to be watching 9-11 coverage and pictures while watching some of the war episodes on the computer, and it occured to me that DS9 was in itself ahead of its time, and maybe we understand them a lot better today than we did back when it premiered.
First season was best....more series tone, better written.
City on the Edge of Forever....best episode, Joan Collins surprisingly good.
That salt monster episode freaked me out as a kid.
Charlie X episode kinda spooky too.
Second season ....good too, episodes sometimes more sillier,
Trouble with Tribbles, most famous episode.
Assignment Earth, featuring very young Teri Garr, actually a pilot,
For a spin off show that never happened.
Third season ....noticeably not as good, Roddenberry not really involved by this time.
This Way to Eden ...my guilty pleasure ...space hippies lead by Mr clean look alike
Cool catch phrases, like "like that's really now!" "Herbert!"
Moved to a bad time slot, sealed the shows fate....
Needless to say...I'm big fan of Star Trek TOS,
I have entire series on DVD.
Fabulous cast with a great chemistry, wagon train to the stars...
I grew up with a Trekkie mom, and no matter what we were doing on whatever night of the week it was that Star Trek aired (Friday?), we had to be in front of the TV by the time it started.
My dad and siblings made fun of it mercilessly. We still do, but Mom handles it a little better nowadays. LOL. But I love watching it, even the episodes I don't particularly care for. The parables that reflected the Cold War and 1960s societal upheaval still ring true.
My favorite episode is "The Enterprise Incident", where Kirk and Spock steal the cloaking device from the Romulans. "Balance of Terror", also featuring Romulans, is excellent as well. "The Doomsday Machine", with the planet-eating giant space Bugle, is always fun to watch, as is "Space Seed", "The Changeling", and "A Piece of the Action".
Of the series that followed, I enjoyed The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 the most -- the others I didn't care for. I was so excited when Voyager was in the planning stages, with Kate Mulgrew announced as the ship's captain. Mary Ryan (Mulgrew's first acting role was on Ryan's Hope) as a starship captain! The show would have to be fantastic! Alas, it was not -- too many whimsical and/or quirky characters for my liking.
I've started reading the books which follow the post DS9 world. I'd LOVE if they did a show set post Dominion war, with the first reapparence of the Borg, and everyone struggling to rebuild their fleets lest it become war again. And the people we knew are much changed. I would love a trek series set during this period, picking up the pieces between two new wars, with the careful mix of dark and light that the books have. These books have been successful and I'm sure that in our new world since 9/11 we can relate.
The great strength of trek is its about a 'world' which is about a great adventure, but tempered by both joy and pain and often reflects how we currently see ours.
The next gen book Losing the Peace by William Leisner is a very excellent book which is hauntingly familiar in terms of our post 9/11 world and how differently we see it.
I've been recording and binge watching the Next Generation series which BBC America has been showing. Among the observations I might offer is that the show strained credibility somewhat by the character's continuing reliance and trust of two things which had serial histories of dangerous malfunctions.
The first is the Holodeck. In about 50% of the shows where it was featured, something went horribly wrong and the ship/crew was placed in peril. Picard's Dixon Hill villains came to life and shot a crewman for real. Moriarty was conjured up and he took control of the ship two different times. Picard and Riker were bamboozled in the Holodeck chatting up a virtual floozie while the Binars took control of the ship. Worf and his son were nearly killed when a malfunction made their western fantasy into the real deal with a gunslinging Data. How many times did this gizmo have to run amok before they determined that it was too dangerous to use?
Th second was another machine which went awry quite frequently, and that was Commander Data himself. Every season features an episode where Data breaks from his normal programming and turned dangerous. Either he was getting possessed by the mentor of his designer, or he was responding to his designer's homing signal, or reprogrammed by Lor for evil purposes..on and on it went. Yet each time he was restored to his former self, and each time he was trusted just as though all those traitorous episodes had not taken place.
Now...there is tv precedence for these sorts of plot stretches. The Space Family Robinson always overlooked the fact that Dr. Smith sold them out to aliens on a weekly basis. And on "Get Smart", Max always insisted on using the Cone of Silence even though it never once functioned properly. But the former was a kiddie show and the latter a sit-com, some expectation of bending reality is expected. STNG was supposed to be a serious drama, but when you watch em in a bunch like I've been doing, these credibility gaps emerge and seem manifest.
I caught an episode of Star Trek last night on BBC America last night. I haven't seen an episode since they aired the first time around! We didn't have color tv when I was growing up. My first was in 1983! Seeing it in color was a shock! Everything looked so tacky and fake but it was fun to watch.
Anywho, I couldn't stay awake for another episode but I heard the intro for it, the haunting music. That brought a bit of trivia up in my brain that I heard many years ago......"whose voice do we hear "singing" in the introduction to Star Trek?" I know the answer, want to see how many others do too.
Somewhere in my garage is a series of Shatner 8 track tapes that my kids gave me as a gift. Think there were 5 or 6 tapes, unknown how many shows on each. Hmmmm
Correct, Bluff. I said Star Trek. Picard is Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Hmmm, no answers so far??? I would think with all these efficianardos of Star Trek, surely one answer!
'
Sorry, I've been off-shift, lol. Loulie Jean Norman did the vocalization for TOS. They dropped her the second year, because they were too cheap to keep paying her residuals.
The enhanced version of TOS out now, restored the original version of the song.
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...space hippies lead by Mr clean look alike
I would think with all these efficianardos of Star Trek, surely one answer! 
