True_George realized that this week on September 8, 1966 was the premier of the original Star Trek series. This marks 54 years of Star Trek presence on the big and little screens. From the premier to the present; Star Trek spans seven series, one short film anthology, two animated series, and thirteen films.

Star Trek created by the iconic screen writer and World War II Veteran Eugene Roddenberry, who was an interesting character himself was inspired to create the concept of the voyages of the USS Enterprise by the CS Forester’s Horatio Hornblower novels, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and television Westerns such as Wagon Train.

The concept of the United Federation of Planets perhaps came from the idea of the United Nations that was created after World War II.

The original series spanned four seasons quickly gained a lot of fanatics aka fans whose letter writing efforts during the time when the series was slated to be canceled kept it alive for one more season. After the show was cancelled in 1969; there was a brief hiatus before reemerging back in the 1979 major motion picture production Star Trek: The Motion Picture; the fan base developed into a cult following.     

After the third motion picture there has been a continued presence of some sort of Star Trek series on T.V.

True_George has ranked the series as follows:

The Original Series is ranked as number 1 for the obvious reasons of introducing many of the concepts that would be used as the foundation of the whole thing. Plus, everyone has recognized that Captain Kirk is someone who will sleep with any woman, no matter the color or appearance.

 Deep Space Nine is ranked as number 2. This is because in True_George’s opinion the story lines and themes were superior to the other series. It was hard to rank it has number two because the show also themed original concepts. The only thing about this is that it didn’t do the Klingons justice as a Warrior species. It made them crude and ineffective; good for starting conflicts but never win against formable forces. Plus there was not a real show down with the Jem’ Nada the gamma quadrant Warrior Species.  

 Enterprise is ranked number 3. It was good to see the development of the star ship protocols, shields, phase cannons, transport beam, acquiring the holodeck technology and life before the prime directive and the United Federation of Planets; plus the first contact with the Klingons, Romanians and establishing Earth’s presence among the interstellar community.  The last episode of the series was not very good. Makes you think that all the adventures were programmed on the Next Generation’s holodeck.  

Star Trek: The Next Generation is ranked number 4. This series attempts to emulate the characters of the original series. Like Commander Riker, making him a ladies man; someone who will sleep with any woman no matter the color and appearance. Then there is Data the android who strives so much to be a human with emotions; the anti-thesis of the emotionless Vulcans.  Captain Picard; an older man in charge is good; except for the character was a bit of a bore. Security Chief Worf, the only Klingon serving with Star Fleet, is akin to Spock who was the only Vulcan serving in Star Fleet in the original series. Spock was a half human; but Worf was raised by humans.

 Voyager is number 5. The concept of this series is that the Star Ship Voyager is stranded in the Delta quadrant and it’s adventures in route back to the Alpha quadrant. Along the way back, the Voyager crew is keeping up the principles of the Federation and following the prime directive. While pursuing their 75 year trip back to the alpha quadrant, they stop and explore anomalies and assisting ships which are making their trip longer. The only thing that was wacked about this series; is that Captain Janeway going into the heart of the Borg’s command cube, out smarting the collective and getting away. As powerful as the Borg are, it should never have happened. Also, at the point in time that the series was premiered, it introduced Captain Janeway as  the first female Captain. Later on when Enterprise was made, it debunked Captain Janeway as being Star Fleet’s first female Captain.  The robotic character Seven of Nine is akin to Spock from the original series and Data from the Next Generation.

The other series Discovery, Picard and Lower Decks have not been ranked simply because True_George has not seen any of them. They are presently being featured on streaming T.V. True_George is not paying for those streaming channels; it isn’t worth the money that they are charging. Instead, True_George will wait until those series are featured on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon video to watch it.

Books by True_George