TNG is littered with episodes that feel forced, this is specific to race/world/tradition based episodes. Betazed is a perfect example of this. Troi's mother, and in fact a fair few of Troi-centric episodes are endurance trials to see how much of her counseling you can take. While DS9 is not without similar episodes, I have yet to recall an episode I basically had to abandon completely because of my being able to tell nothing significant would happen, and it was all petty, non-developmental drama.
While the Ferengi story lines are the most tedious in my opinion, but Nog, Rom, and Quark are much less interesting in the context of Ferengi society than they are on the station. Even the least interesting character, O'Brian, the bridge from TNG to DS9, has some brilliant episodes, in particular a Twilight Zone-esq episode revolving around his experiencing 20 years of incarceration in a matter of hours (Via Alien technology, the great plot equalizer).The most belabored point in DS9 is the fleshing out of Bajoran society, down the line this becomes well worth it, but going through it you get to feeling like Bajor could die and no one should give a fuck about it because it is so boring and or unreasonable.
Troi's mother can't be avoided, she is the rodden berry after all.
The episode with O'Brian is IMO the best Star Trek episode ever, Colm Meaney at his best.
The most important reason why DS9 is way better than TNG:
Jake Sisko > Wesley Crusher
My hate for Wesley Crusher has reached Sheldon Cooper levels.
I hadn't even considered the Jake Sisko vs. Wesley Crusher debate. That is an interesting bit, while I was looking for some good Trek books, though they aren't considered Canon, what is supposed to happen to Wesley is pretty cool imo.
In one story arc Wesley is supposed to have become a Traveler, which is bad ass.
I agree, I think DS9 and TNG were good in different ways. DS9 had an amazing, overarching story with some deep conspiracies and hidden agenda, while TNG had some great individual episodes. I guess I would compare it to two different genres; they can't necessarily be compared, but both are really good at doing what they do in their respective areas.
Personally I really like the depth of DS9, but TNG is just so iconic and imaginative that I find it hard to say which is "better". I would be happy to say they are roughly the same in terms of quality
On August 01 2014 02:40 Carnac wrote: TNG has its merits, but I much prefer DS9 as well, mostly for the great depth of its story arcs. And also Garak. My favourite character by far.
Dunno why anyone would bring Voyager into this, so much worse than either TNG or DS9....
On one hand it is, but on the other, like others have said, it does have a few really "really" good episodes. And at least personally, it was the only one I actually managed to watch completely on TV new. *I was so pumped for the series finale when I was 15*.
Side characters are very important in DS9 indeed, Garak was of course awesome and Dukat might just be the best villain in all of Star Trek combined (though I liked the Borg Queen as well). Why do people label Quark as a side character though? He was billed as a main character and he appears in almost every episode.
I also want to mention that I am a fan of O'Brien, he's great.
I kind of consider Quark a "secondary" character since he isn't part of Starfleet and much of his storylines and relationships are separate from the main overarching plot lines. He's definitely a main character though so I guess it's just semantics.
Wesley Crusher is definitely one of the most annoying characters in TV history. On the ds9 vs. tng thing: both are great. ds9 has the better story arc, tng has some of the most iconic characters ever. And Marina Sirtis was smoking hot back in the day.
ds9, overall, had more depth, but they kind of messed up with all that pah-wraith bullshit. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the series. The only Star Trek episode that made me cry was the final of tng. That last words by Picard...so epic.
If you watch the earlier episodes, even people on the Enterprise, especially Picard, clearly hated Wesley. Then that pederast The Traveler came and basically said Wes is a space Mozart. From then on everyone had to be nice to him. It's all the Travelers fault.
i liked DS9 a lot, unfortunately the german TV at that time had the really bad habit of mixing old episodes with new ones inn a very random and confusing way, so i never saw the last season i think.
I think TNG is superior to DS9, but I think that DS9 told a better overall story. With TNG, you really don't need to watch any of the episodes in order, every episode for the most part is it's own self-contained story. DS9 on the other hand has more of a season and series arc with the dominion, Cardassian politics, and Bajoran entry into the Federation. One major flaw with DS9 is that out of the first two seasons, which is like 48 episodes, only 10-15 are worth actually watching, the others are a lot of filler and are frankly boring. TNG of course had it's own share of awful episodes, but it finds it's footing and rhythm far quicker than DS9 does. DS9 picks up heavily in the third season and benefits greatly from the addition of Worf in season 4.
Overall, having never seen the original series, I would rate TNG > DS9> VOY = ENT. I actually found Enterprise to be as good as Voyager, with season 1 being kind of shitty and then picking up for season 2, 3, and 4.
I only like Star Trek the original serie (+the movies) Kirk and Spock above all :o I don't like much the other ST series, they're like "the days of my life" or "The Young and the Restless" in space to me.
Finally a trekkie blog haha. I rewatch the entirety of Star Trek probably once a year, if not more often.
I think DS9 is probably better, but it is very close, both series are just so fucking excellent. I agree with TLO on the pah-wraith stuff though, it was a little annoying at the end.
You are right though, season 1 DS9 sucked. If it wasn't for Odo and Quark I may not have hung in there
*edit* So is this classed as a ST thread in general? I really want to rip into how bad the ending of Voyager is (I mean, the series is pretty bad as a whole, but the ending is an especially big "fuck you" to the people that actually watched all 7 seasons hoping it would improve).
On August 01 2014 09:10 KadaverBB wrote: Finally a trekkie blog haha. I rewatch the entirety of Star Trek probably once a year, if not more often.
I think DS9 is probably better, but it is very close, both series are just so fucking excellent. I agree with TLO on the pah-wraith stuff though, it was a little annoying at the end.
Once a year?
I started watching Stargate again last december and i'm 15 seasons in, but damn, the entirety of star trek every year?
On August 01 2014 09:10 KadaverBB wrote: Finally a trekkie blog haha. I rewatch the entirety of Star Trek probably once a year, if not more often.
I think DS9 is probably better, but it is very close, both series are just so fucking excellent. I agree with TLO on the pah-wraith stuff though, it was a little annoying at the end.
Once a year?
I started watching Stargate again last december and i'm 15 seasons in, but damn, the entirety of star trek every year?
Yeah pretty much lol. I always have some Star Trek running on my second monitor. I skip a couple of episodes here and there when I don't feel like watching a particular one, but I watch most of it^^