NationStates Jolt Archive

Which of the five Star Trek television series gave us the best stories? Set aside special effects and differences in movie making technology to focus just on plot, character development, and pure story telling.

Star Trek: The Original Series (3 seasons, 79 episodes)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (7 seasons, 178 episodes)
Deep Space Nine (7 seasons, 176 episodes)
Voyager (7 seasons, 172 episodes)
Enterprise (currently in 4th season)

Which stories, story arcs, or episodes did you find most fascinating?

To jog your memory:
www.startrek.com

Voyager, duh.

I....think.....thatyouarewrong!...for....you....see.....that....CaptainKirkPwnz0rz!...you all....now fear.....hismight!


You know what really amazes me...he has slept with probably hundreds of alien women...yet never picked up a weird disease from them. That say's alot about a man. :)

Plus Shatner and Nimoy PWNZ! :P

TNG

A large gap, then...

DS9
VOY
ENT
TOS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

TNG was the greatest. All the characters (sans westly) were excellent and you actually cared about them. Also, who can forget Data and Picard in First Contact, the ST movie even better than the famous Khan?

DS9's an odd one. While the original episodes were...well...uninteresting, the Dominion War redeemed this series and lifted it above many others. The last two seasons were amazing.

VOY had some good characters, like Paris, Torres, Tuvok, and 7 of 9, but had others like chakotay and janeway which were simply horrible. Also, Voyager was made to seem like a "supership" that could get it's ass kicked one week, and then come back next week all good as new. Also, the Borg can destroy whole fleets of federation ship, and yet they can't get a simple Intrepid class vessel. Not to mention the lack of supplies that they should have had. The series just had way too many plot holes.

ENT is good, but for some reason...it doesn't quite feel like star trek to me...

TOS isn't really that good at all. Shatner couldn't act back then (can't do much now either) and the supporting cast wasn't much better. It's just the first, and that's why everyone lists it high. The thing it did, though, was break a lot of new ground. (First white-black kiss on primetime TV.)

I'll get on story arcs and episodes when I have more time...

Can we say um like, none?

They're all crap.

Babylon 5 rulez0rz!

1. DS9, I liked it a *LOT* more than any of the others. It seemed far more real, far more "gritty" and none of that "we don't use money" crap. Plus it focused on cultures other than the Federation a good amount of the time.

2. Voyager. I Liked the premise, the episodes and the characters more than TNG

3. TNG. Good, but not as good as the others.

The Orginal Series isn't on the list because it stands alone and above and beyond the list. It is the TOS and that is all that needs to be said. Also the TOS Movies are far far better than any of the new ones.

I don't watch Enterprise. :shrug:

Am i the only one, who is going to vote for Original Star Trek?! :(

Voyager was my number one favorite, though I'm unsure why. I guess I just appreciated the hopelessness of their situation. In the other series the crews weren't that far away from help from the Federation, but the Voyager crew was all alone.

TNG is a close second, mostly thanks to the characters. I never cared much for DS9, Enterprise is downright dull, and I've never seen much of TOS.

Is "None of the Above" an option?

I'm kind of surprised at the support for Voyager. I myself could never get interested in the characters, with the possible exception of the Tom Paris character (the 1930s sci-fi holodeck stories were funny). Of course Jeri Ryan was also nice eye candy.

To me DS-9 provided the most intersting charcters and the best stories. They were freed of Gene Roddenberry's restriction against Star Trek characters having conflict with each other. Consequently the people on DS-9 interacted more realistically. There were rivalries, arguments, fights, real conflict which helps to drive character development. DS-9 also delved into the lives of some of the lesser characters, whereas some of the other series, especially TOS and ST:NG, focused only on the main bridge crew characters.

In terms of stories this expanded group of people allowed the writers to tell more diverse stories. We also got stories that were not just from the earth/federation point of view.

As years go by I think DS-9 will emerge as the real gem of the Star Trek universe.

I voted for TNG. I think they definitely had the best storytelling of any of the series.
ST and DS9 were also pretty good (although I never watched DS9 until recently). Voyager seemed alright at the time, but I think that was just because I was starved for Star Trek. It definitely lacks re-watchability; seeing a Voyager episode once was enough (or sometimes too much), whereas most TNG episodes I could watch a dozen times and still not be sick of them.

I have yet to even desire to watch Enterprise (despite the Quantum Leap guy being in it), so I can't really comment on it.

It startles me how TNG is at the top of the list. Am I the only one that notices that they just recycled plots from TOS? And when they didn't do that, the whole thing was "Well, you see, there was something wrong, but Geordi fixed it in engineering. We didn't even have to leave the ship!" Not only that, but TOS has a lot more humor than TNG, be it on purpose or not (Come on! What can be funnier than Spock and Kirk dancing and singing in "Plato's Stepchildren"?!) Not to mention the loads of double entendres that you find if you're looking...

TNG had more character development, but I that does not a good series make. (Q kicks ass, though.) A lot of it was too personal with the characters, which took away from the plot of the episode. I don't want to know about Troi and Riker.

All that said, First Contact is probably the best Trek movie that's been put out to date. Definitely the best of the Next Gen movies.

Additional: Doesn't TOS have 79 episodes, not 30? My DVD's say 79.

Star Trek:TNG was easily the best. :)

Additional: Doesn't TOS have 79 episodes, not 30? My DVD's say 79.

You are right. Correction noted.

All Star Trek but i voted Voyager

DS9. was my favourite.... probably for some good reasons too. Basically everyone else who's voted for it, take their reasons, and there's mine. I don't need to regurgitate them.

Am i the only one, who is going to vote for Original Star Trek?! :(
No you're not. Captain Kirk and Spock are amazing!

No you're not. Captain Kirk and Spock are amazing!

Kirk and Spock were lovers, but McCoy was always trying to break them up because he was Kirk's first lover. It was Kirk who gave him the nickname Bones, because, well...

Which of the five Star Trek television series gave us the best stories?

I think you will find there were six, not five.

The Animated Series kicked all their arses!!!
I know it was the Original cast, but they were so much better as animated characters than in real life. Also, the aliens looked like aliens and not people in costume, something no Star Trek series has ever got right! :)

The Animated Series kicked all their arses!!!

That's number six. Glad to see that the all too common pseudo-Stalinist Star Trek revisionism hasn't gained a complete hold on everybody.

That's number six. Glad to see that the all too common pseudo-Stalinist Star Trek revisionism hasn't gained a complete hold on everybody.
It was great! I used to watch it first thing on a morning as a kid. It's a shame that its oft forgot. :(

I cant really comment yet on Enterprise, they had over a full season that revolved around a single storyline and have several multipart episodes. Although the upcoming ones that address the changing of the Klingon forehead from TOS to the movies should be cool. I never much cared for TNG, it just wasnt quite suspensful enough for me and the characters too invincible. Plus I really disliked many of the characters, especially Crusher (Mom, although not a huge fan of wesley) and Picard who came off as way too much of an academic pacifist IMO. Id rather see Shatner battle the Gorn than Picard argue and plead with other ships to not fight. He rarely took the offensive unless he couldnt retreat and they wouldnt listen to his peacetalks.

Which of the five Star Trek television series gave us the best stories? Set aside special effects and differences in movie making technology to focus just on plot, character development, and pure story telling.

Star Trek: The Original Series (3 seasons, 79 episodes)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (7 seasons, 178 episodes)
Deep Space Nine (7 seasons, 176 episodes)
Voyager (7 seasons, 172 episodes)
Enterprise (currently in 4th season)

Which stories, story arcs, or episodes did you find most fascinating?

To jog your memory:
www.startrek.com

Well that's a cop out - only 2 (arguably 3 if you includide the questionable VOY "arcs")...

Am i the only one, who is going to vote for Original Star Trek?! :(
No, I think it was really fun to watch those episodes. It was so different from anything else. Besides the skimpy costumes on the women were pretty appealing. Out of context, though, it's just another silly sixties show.

Although the upcoming ones that address the changing of the Klingon forehead from TOS to the movies should be cool.

That was a great DSN episode, by the way. When they travel back to the time of TOS and the Klingons are different. Worf's explanation? "We don't talk about it".

I think you will find there were six, not five.

I don't count cartoons. You are welcome too, though.

The whole conflict with the Dominion was the best story arc.

All Star Trek but i voted Voyager
Same here. But I voted Enterprise.

I don't count cartoons. You are welcome too, though.

By what criterion is it not a "Star Trek television series"?

Was it not (1) Star Trek, (2) television and (3) a series?



* mumbles something about all too common pseudo-Stalinist Star Trek revisionism *

That DS9 is managing to rate so high on the poll serves not to indicate the 'better stories told', rather it serves to indicate the relative ages of the people posting here.

DS9 was drivel. Aimless drivel, delivered by either the ham-handed (Kira, Odo) or the wooden (Cisco). It's remarkable that of the entire ensemble cast, the one character bursting with genuine depth of character was the Ferengi barkeeper.

I kept waiting for the crew of that station to go postal. Shame it never happened.

i voted for TNG, its no real contest for me. I have enjoyed all the series of Star Trek (though i've still only seen about half the episodes of TOS; i really want to see Spock's Brain! ;) ). Picard is my favourite captain and i like all the characters (yes, even Wesley... didnt like him at first but now i've seen them 2 or 3 times he's less annoying, except for one or two bad episodes). Also i wish they'd never killed off Tasha Yar, and never had Pulaski.. but apart from that :)

I like Star Trek as a medium for telling good short stories, and i think TNG does this the best, followed by TOS. Voyager i enjoyed at the time, but as someone else says i dont think it really has much appeal for me to want to watch it again. I would like to see DS9 again though; TNG is the only one i own any DVDs for (though i have all the movies).

As for those saying 'none' well since the poll is asking which of a SET LIST is the best, well, how can none of them be better than any other? It's very unlikely that they're all exactly equal :)

That DS9 is managing to rate so high on the poll serves not to indicate the 'better stories told', rather it serves to indicate the relative ages of the people posting here.

DS9 was drivel. Aimless drivel, delivered by either the ham-handed (Kira, Odo) or the wooden (Cisco). It's remarkable that of the entire ensemble cast, the one character bursting with genuine depth of character was the Ferengi barkeeper.

I kept waiting for the crew of that station to go postal. Shame it never happened.

It shows your tastes rather well also.

That DS9 is managing to rate so high on the poll serves not to indicate the 'better stories told', rather it serves to indicate the relative ages of the people posting here.

DS9 was drivel. Aimless drivel, delivered by either the ham-handed (Kira, Odo) or the wooden (Cisco). It's remarkable that of the entire ensemble cast, the one character bursting with genuine depth of character was the Ferengi barkeeper.

I kept waiting for the crew of that station to go postal. Shame it never happened.

If the good showing of DS-9 demonstrates the relative age of the people voting then I am guessing those people are in the older age brackets. DS-9 was easily the most mature, most sophisticated of the Star Trek series. The stories told were actual human stories (even if the characters were not), with much less reliance of technological solutions to wrap up the tale in the last five minutes of the show. There is little doubt that DS-9 had the most uniformly interesting ensemble, with even minor characters making a lasting contribution to the show.

I liked DS-9 the best.

It started of a bit... slow... to say the least, but it really picked up in the end. I mean, come on, it managed to set Cardassia up as the Big Bad in the beginning and at the end it you can't help but sympathising with the damn planet.
There weren't a lot of Star Trek series that managed something like that.

Voyager, duh.
hear hear

TOS, hands down. Next Gen was OK for a couple of seasons, till Roddenberry died. The whole franchise went downhill quickly after that.
I also think that you needed to be around when TOS first aired to have a "knowledgable" opinion on this. Kind of like judging the Star Wars series if you weren't born when the first ones came out. Just my humble opinion.

TOS, hands down. Next Gen was OK for a couple of seasons, till Roddenberry died. The whole franchise went downhill quickly after that.
I also think that you needed to be around when TOS first aired to have a "knowledgable" opinion on this. Kind of like judging the Star Wars series if you weren't born when the first ones came out. Just my humble opinion.

Why would you need to have been around when TOS first aired to have a knowledgable opinion?

TOS, hands down. Next Gen was OK for a couple of seasons, till Roddenberry died. The whole franchise went downhill quickly after that.
I also think that you needed to be around when TOS first aired to have a "knowledgable" opinion on this. Kind of like judging the Star Wars series if you weren't born when the first ones came out. Just my humble opinion.

someone else showing their age :) i personally thing TNG got 10 times better from season 3 onwards (I think Rodenberry died during or just after that season, but I dont think he had any major impact on its production). But that's just my opinion :)

So because I'm only 21, I'm not entitled to like or dislike TOS? Cheers... as a matter of fact I happen to like it, but I guess that's not a valid opinion...

TOS, hands down. Next Gen was OK for a couple of seasons, till Roddenberry died. The whole franchise went downhill quickly after that.

No disrespect to the dearly departed, but Roddenberry's death was the best thing to happen to Start Trek. I give him props for creating the original, but his vision was too utopian. After his death Star Trek got grittier and more realistic.

I honestly liked most of star trek. I'm a big fan of mostly all of sci-fi, including star wars, and warhammer 40k. But here is where I would Place the star trek shows:

TNG
VOY
ENT
TOS
DS9

Again, this is just me.

Next generation and Deep space nine are my favorites.

Next generation and Deep space nine are my favorites.

Which shows of TNG did you like the most?

For me it would be:

Best of Both Worlds Parts 1&2(been voted as best TNG show several times)
Q who? (intro to the borg)
Data Lore (I think that is the right name)
Tapestry
Encounter at Farpoint (think that is the first two epesodes)
All good things... (Finnal shows tend to be one of the best in the series
Genisis

Wonders never cease - there are actually three people who think Enterprise is the best Star Trek. Either that or they just think Jolene Blalock's boobs trump story telling.

Wonders never cease - there are actually three people who think Enterprise is the best Star Trek. Either that or they just think Jolene Blalock's boobs trump story telling.

Which I don't understand, because Jeri Ryan, Terry Farrell, and Marina Sirtis all had boobs as well.

If the good showing of DS-9 demonstrates the relative age of the people voting then I am guessing those people are in the older age brackets. DS-9 was easily the most mature, most sophisticated of the Star Trek series. The stories told were actual human stories (even if the characters were not), with much less reliance of technological solutions to wrap up the tale in the last five minutes of the show. There is little doubt that DS-9 had the most uniformly interesting ensemble, with even minor characters making a lasting contribution to the show.

I found it turgid, lifeless and dull. I thought the stories plodded along with the rythym of a deathmarch. The characters? Let's see now:

Kira - overbearing, joyless, vindictive, spiteful.
Odo - ludicrously-conceived, officious, humourless.
Cisco - staid, emotionless, dull, pedantic.
Dax - obligatory eye-candy, her species is nonetheless utterly repellant.
Bashir - mildly annoying until he is revealed to be some sort of 'uberman'. He becomes intensely annoying after that.
O'Brien - at least the poor sonofabitch lost that grasping, materialistic bitch Keiko.
Quark - what's a nice jewish alien doing in a spam-can like this?

Anyone else I missed, ehhh...who cares, it's only television...

I found it turgid, lifeless and dull. I thought the stories plodded along with the rythym of a deathmarch. The characters? Let's see now:

Kira - overbearing, joyless, vindictive, spiteful.
Odo - ludicrously-conceived, officious, humourless.
Cisco - staid, emotionless, dull, pedantic.
Dax - obligatory eye-candy, her species is nonetheless utterly repellant.
Bashir - mildly annoying until he is revealed to be some sort of 'uberman'. He becomes intensely annoying after that.
O'Brien - at least the poor sonofabitch lost that grasping, materialistic bitch Keiko.
Quark - what's a nice jewish alien doing in a spam-can like this?

Anyone else I missed, ehhh...who cares, it's only television...

Fair enough. It is a wonder, dispising it as you do, that you watched it enough to know the characters so well.

One of the few people I've seen on voyager that annoyed me was Kes.
Replacing her with 7of9 was a good choice :).

ooh - this is soo difficult. I love Star Trek.

I think prob TNG is the best. I am old enough to remember TOS, but it always bugged me that the captain (Kirk - as though I have to say!) went on away missions. In TNG it's much more realistic (soz - I know its sci-fi) with Picard, always in control, waiting aboard whilst Riker goes and risks his neck and snogs aliens. Secretly, well perhaps not anymore, I think Patrick Stewart is gorgeous so...

I thought DS9 was gonna be crap because they were so restricted, being based on a stationary space station. WRONG!! DS9 was v cool. Contrarily, I thought Voyager was gonna be top because they were free to create whatever storylines they liked. WRONG AGAIN! Voyager really failled to live up to expectations.

I am enjoying Enterprise, partly because no other new ST for forever, partly because Quantum Leap guy, partly because they are actually filling in some gaps about the original story.

so, has anybody watched Andromeda? What do you think?

TOS, hands down.

TOS had the best stories. DS9 had the best storytelling. TNG had the best characters. Voyager had the best ...umm.... costumes. Enterprise has the best drug-addicted Vulcan.

Even best storytelling is somewhat inspecific, since that kinda depends on what makes a person finish listen to a story.
I think Enterprise grew up considerably as soon as they started laying off "episode singularity" tactics that were so common in TNG. That could be the Babylon 5 fan in me ....
DS9 did an excellent job of putting things into scope and having people actually deal with things, which kept my attention.
Voyager of course had problems with maintaining story integrity but the whole deal of moving to another quandrant meant there would likely be a lot of issues of "episode singularity" ... probably on purpose of the writers ... however, i hated their bottomless bag of usuable technology. They didn't deal enough with tech loss and compensation IMHO. And the finale annoyed me a little. A nadion pulse is just what phasers use, big f*ckin' deal that a Klingon made a disrupter do that. Maybe some of the purists want to argue about the significant difference in natures of tech between the two (theoretically) but i wasn't impressed that he'd made something that had already been made.
The original series, though, is the one series, maybe 'cuz how i's brought up, that i would watch over and over. The interplay was awesome. But i'm too biased to know now.
As the movies went, i thought First Contact was the one that even non-Trek fans could relate to the best. I thought it was the best of the TNG hands down. Did anyone NOT know they were gonna kill Data at the beginning of Nemesis? Sheesh.
TOS movies, i thought a good idea in #1, best battle in 2 but really Khan wasn't as brilliant as he played himself off to be, just insane. I liked 3 best out of that series for a lot more reasons though. And 6 wasn't bad if you don't mind that they used my state for some shots and that it was sorta who-dunit.
I can't dislike any of them though, i'm too appreciative at this stage.
However, Brannon Braga is a f*cking idiot when it comes to physics and shouldn't even bother writing ANYTHING to do with extremely advanced physics theories. He makes me retch. But he did bang Jeri Ryan (whose ex-hubby used to humiliate her in strip joints) .... isn't he a Republican?
Jack Ryan ... oh yeah, he saved us from war a bunch of times!

This may be sacrilegious, but I think it is time for the Star Trek franchise to retire. The ideas and the people behind the ideas are tired and played out. There are no more stories for them to tell. In 20 years new people with new perspectives can revive the franchise and take it in new directions. With nearly 30 seasons of Star Trek in the can they have enough reruns to keep people happy for a good long time.

After all, look how long three seasons of TOS kept the flame alive.

ST: DS9

Two words: story arc

DS9 was not any good until they switched to gray uniforms, but I must say the dominon war was the highlight of all the trek series, TNG started to recycle stories after a while and that was kind of boring, so as long as I'm not counting movies, (if I was TNG would win) I have to go with DS9.

I suppose I would also want to toss my vote in for DS9, for many of the same reasons offered by others.

As for the movies, First Contact and Insurrection were two of my favorites, while The Voyage Home was definately the movie with the best humor in it. I did not really care for Nemesis, as it did come off as a little ridiculous at times. Suddenly adding a new major race to the Romulan Empire, the insanely overpowered ship of the main villian, things like that.

With the cancellation of Enterprise I guess this deserves a bump.

I've only ever been a casual Star Trek fan at best and have to vote for DS9 followed by TNG. After that, the other three are simply unwatchable to me.

DS9 - Realistic characters and situations with an overarching story that was well integrated.

TNG - Again some great characters and individual stories, but it never really had the same kind of suspense that DS9 did. It comes off as safer like they're never in any real danger, and some of the pseudo science techie solutions were just plain annoying.

As for the others.

TOS - Just plain goofy from the episodes I've seen and I don't mean that because the special effects are so low-tech compared to today, just the writing itself.

VOY - Horrible episodic writing. This small ship is abandoned on the edge of space by itself and seems to be in less danger than the crew of Enterprise ever was. Apparently a lone ship with limited resources can find ways to blow apart Borg the entire Federation can't making this feared race into a joke, timetravels or has some problem with the holo unit feature in every other episode, and every alien species they encounter either looks human or has an extra eyebrow at best. The overarching story never came into play except for season finales, otherwise it was basically a sitcom with "Here is a blatantly obvious problem with no subtlety, we solve it by the end of the show and have a group hug."

ENT - I'll be honest I never watched much of this at all beyond I think 3 episodes of the first season which seemed more interested in turning the Vulcan chick into a soft core porn star, just elevating 7 of 9's role to the next level I suppose.

ok fine
VOY = Sitcom
DS9 = Talkshow

TNG for Q only........
I do enjoy every Trek however except for Enterprise. just couldn't get into it.

DS9 all the way. TNG is next.

TOS. Why? Because it stuck to the values of the series so well!

Really, nobody has a multinational crew like NCC-1701 did. A Black woman, an Asian, a Russian with national pride, an American, an alien, a Scotsman, several episodes had an English navigator, and Kirk and McCoy as the Americans. w00t.

TOS. Why? Because it stuck to the values of the series so well!

Really, nobody has a multinational crew like NCC-1701 did. A Black woman, an Asian, a Russian with national pride, an American, an alien, a Scotsman, several episodes had an English navigator, and Kirk and McCoy as the Americans. w00t.

LOL.

I guess.

A "Russian" and a "Scotsman" with Actor's Equity accents.

TNG
Voyager
DS9
TOS

huge gap


Enterprise

Kirk and Spock were lovers, but McCoy was always trying to break them up because he was Kirk's first lover. It was Kirk who gave him the nickname Bones, because, well...

Don't go there... please don't go there...

PLEASE!

*Ahem*

At any rate, I must go with Enterprise or Voyager. Seriously, none of this "OMG UBERSHIP" crap that goes on in Voyager--I mean, really... a fleet of Akira, Intrepid, Nebula, and Steamrunner class vessels couldn't destroy one Bord Cube, referencing First Contact, but a lone Intrepid could.

Seriously, if the Voyager was a Soverign class I could understand it (Soverign: Enterprise D, the Federations uber-warship), but she isn't. And if you count the two Armada games as cannon the Intrepid is not on the same bar as a Soverign class battleship--or whatever the hell the Federation calls it to make their ubership sound less warlike.

In Enterprise, you also have a captain who isn't either,

a. sleeping with every Alien he comes across who is female, has legs, and has something between those legs
b. so ultimately calm and in controll that he needs a First Officer to add fire to the bridge

Take a guess whom I am referencing.

Hmm. Here goes. . .

TOS: This series, while having by far the worst special effects (and this is not just an effect of its time; just watch them dance around to simulate a weapon "hit", for example) more than made up for it by having the best storylines, the best characters, and the best character interaction. Science fiction (ideally anyways) is less about cool aliens or space battles than it is about ideas, and TOS was always best when it dealt with thought experiments or relevant societal issues. Those stories we see today about racial injustice or the dangers of nuclear warfare may seem hokey now, but they were revolutionary when they came out. Moreover, some of the episodes stand out not only as a great example of metaphorical writing; they are some of the best science fiction writing period. "City on the Edge of Forever", for example, is right up there with Bradbury and Asimov on its brilliance, and "Balance of Terror" is one of the best war stories ever told.

Granted, there were plenty of hokey moments in the show (the entire episode of "Spock's Brain", Chekov's attempt to appeal to Monkey's fans, etc.), but there were also genuinely hilarious moments too, especially between the interplay between Bones, Spock, and Kirk. All in all, it made for some incredible storytelling.

TNG and DS9 (tie): TNG and DS9 tie in my mind because they each had different strengths, and while on the whole they weren't quite as good as TOS, they were still very good shows.

TNG had stronger writing to it, and as a result it better translated the great storytelling that TOS had. Almost all of the really classic moments of Star Trek, as far as writing goes, that aren't found in TOS are found in TNG. Episodes like "Tapestry", "The Inner Light", and "All Good Things" are stories that are worthy of being compared with the best of TOS.

DS9, on the other hand had something that TNG and TOS lacked, and that was a (fairly) seamless story arc that went through a great deal of the show. IMO the Dominion War was the single best theme Star Trek ever had. The characters as a result were in my view better written than TNG, and we got more face time with all of them as well. I really think that had Babylon 5 not come around at the same time, DS9 would probably be known as a classic sci-fi series; as it was, it got eclipsed because the story arc theme, the very best part of DS9, was done even better by the best sci-fi series ever, that happened to have a lot of the same themes. We also got interesting side characters that made their appearances known: people like Nog and Garak might have been Nurse Chapel's in the other series, but in DS9 they gained prominence on their own. Finally, one cannot discount the fact that in DS9, we got to see a hell of a lot of stuff blow up really, really spectacularly, and that was great.

As a side note, DS9 had the funniest exchange of characters ever:

Kira (to a Ferengi): "Altruist? When the Ferengi are on their deathbed, they're probably begging to their Gods to give all of their wealth for a few more hours."

Ferengi (to Quark): "How does she know our ancient Ferengi death ritual?"

ST:V: This was a series with a great premise that never quite lived up to it's promise. Granted, it was better I think than many people give it credit for, but it still lacked all of the advantages that other series had to that point, and it failed to develop any of its own. It didn't have the story arc or the grittiness of DS9 (despite them being alone in the Delta Quadrant), nor did it have the superlative writing of TNG or TOS. It did have some really good episodes, and some interesting characters, but taken as a whole, even I admit that it was a bit disjointed, and they had a habit of defanging some great villians (the Borg spring prominently to mind. . .that last episode was just. . .grr) whenever it suited them.

ST:E: This series just singularly failed to inspire. Not that it was terrible; it was probably still better than most of what is on on television. But it was a far, far cry from other series, and after Babylon 5, sci-fi fans just weren't going to put up with it.