Happy 50th birthday Star Trek!

[J T]

50 years ago today a TV show boldly went where no one had gone before, and it has lived long and prospered ever since. What a legacy!

What are some of your favorite Star Trek moment in games, TV, or movies?

[Xeogred]

Riker sits down.
(and doubles in size)

TNG is King.

[Sarge]

Strangely enough, I've barely played any of the Star Trek games. But I always liked how the NES version looked in that issue of NP, and I thought the idea of Next Generation on NES was also solid, but I've never invested time in it to learn what's going on. I thought the SNES TNG game looked awesome, probably the best of the bunch, and there was always the reskinned Master of Orion 2 clone, Birth of the Federation.

Now, the shows? Love 'em. Well, most of 'em. My absolute favorite is the usual Next Generation answer, although the early seasons weren't that great. I think I follow it up with the original series. Despite William Shatner's acting, I still loved him in that role, and Leonard Nimoy was the best. And even without the production values, some of those episodes were astoundingly well-written. Good, good stuff.

Then we drop a tier. I think my next favorite is Enterprise. I mean, it had Count Bakula in it. It started a bit slow, too, but I really started liking it in the later seasons, just in time for it to get canceled. I also liked how the engineer had a Southern drawl, but was still smart. Yay for not giving in to stereotypes!

After that, probably Voyager, and DS9 bringing up the rear. I just never cottoned to DS9 much at all, yet I still watched it. And that last season and ending were pretty weird.

The movies? Very hit or miss, I could probably have done without most of them.

I will also go on record and say I've always been a Star Trek guy, not Star Wars.

[Exhuminator]

Spock's beard. It's always Spock's beard.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708438/

I still watch Star Trek on a regular basis. I've got the entire original series on my living room media server. I also enjoy The Next Generation. Couldn't get into anything after that, but the original is still the best. It has aged very well.

[strangenova]

I love all the shows! I grew up with TNG, DS9 and Voyager. I then later got into Enterprise and eventually the original series. Next Generation is definitely the best show. The movies I really enjoy too, some are a bit shoddy at times but overall they're fun Sci fi romps.

If I had to pick some stand out episodes...A Piece of the Action is my go to original series episode, it's just a fun ride all the way through. The Inner Light is hands down the best piece of science fiction written for a television show. Everytime I watch it, it just gets all up in my feelings.

I actually have the DS9 game for genesis, it plays a bit like flashback mixed with lost vikings. Pretty solid recreation of the show in 16 bit form though.

[Xeogred]

I'm still warming up to the original. But it seems like every installment needs a season or two to really get into gear, haha. That said, I thought the first two seasons of TNG were bizarrely cool, not to mention Ron Jones' touch was incredible. The first episode with Q before he even had a human avatar was amazing.

But season 3 was the game changer, with literally every single episode being home run perfection, and The Best of Both Worlds and the other two parters destroy the TNG movies.

TNG Nemesis is one of the biggest pieces of garbage I've ever seen. The Star Wars prequels are childs play compared to how much Nemesis wronged me. It leaves such a sour mark because it's the end of the TNG line, but frankly, this crap never happened in my book. I can't really say I care for any of the movies in general, but this was wretched and disgraceful.

Between Picard, Worf, and Data I'd have a hard time picking a favorite character. This is the biggest change I noticed after the first two seasons... there, Riker felt like the main character and constantly got the most focus. But after that, you can't really say that at all if you ask me. Even Jordy stood out more and I thought Troi had some great moments haha. Riker was still awesome but he seemed a bit sidelined. Not a lot to say about Crusher, but her and Picard had some good moments.

The pitfalls were anytime Wesley popped up, guaranteed bad episodes. Seasons 5-7 weren't as good as 3-4 to me, but they maybe had the higher highs with some incredible episodes, they just weren't as indestructibly consistent.

As it stands, TNG is by far my favorite episodic TV series.

I'm crossing my fingers the DS9 BD release happens, so I can continue my watch of that. Rewatching TNG in full in BD quality was mindblowing to say the least. The hand crafted quality touch up was insane, it looks like something new that could be airing today.

Since Sarge started it, I'll admit to being a bigger Star Wars guy. But I grew up on both and have always liked them both, especially nowadays, I'm glad they're extremely different.

[Sarge]

Interestingly enough, apparently Patrick Stewart was so convinced he was going to be fired that he didn't unpack his bags for six weeks. There was apparently a lot of turmoil in the early going for TNG, and a lot of it apparently came from clashes with Roddenberry.

I didn't grow up on both, which might explain things for me. I didn't actually see the Star Wars movies until I was well into my teenage years. I thought they were decent enough at the time, but I appreciate them more now.

[marurun]

TNG didn't git gud until Roddenberry had largely been sidelined. He imposed a lot of frustrating constraints on the first two seasons. There's a great documentary on Netflix about Trek. I forget the title, though.

The best way to watch the original series is to do a "Good Parts" approach where you only watch about half the episodes, mostly focusing on the best or most central to Star Trek themes and ideas. Once you get a grasp on those, you can slowly expand to the rest of them, maybe after enjoying TNG for a bit. Actually, a "Good Parts" approach is also the best way to deal with seasons 1, 2, and the first half of 3 of Next Gen.

[Mozgus]

Riker sits down.
(and doubles in size)

TNG is King.

Ugh, stupid sexy Xanatos.

[Sano]

Can't wait for the new series! Hooray Star Trek!