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For me, the best character is the Enterprise, in all her incarnations.

One does have to appreciate the down-to-earth style of Miles O'Brien, all right. All sorts of crazy stuff happening - even by the standards of the 24th century! - and he takes it all in stride and just gets the job done.

There's a wonderful scene where Sisko and crew have to work with the Dominion to stop some rebellious Jem'hdar. The leader of the allied Jem'hdar makes a big ritual speech to the assembled group about how they were all dead now, and needed to redeem their lives in battle, to the shocked stares of the Starfleet personnel.

Once the Jem'hdar leave, O'Brien steps up and says "My name is Miles O'Brien, I'm very much alive, and I intend to stay that way!" perfectly breaking the tension of the moment.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
For me, the best character is the Enterprise, in all her incarnations.

Surely not the Enterprise B.

Anyway, TMP's handling of the Enterprise is a bit dated and problematic today, consider they introduce her with that extra long male gaze, lingering over all her parts. Allllll her parts. Hey buddy, the bridge is up here!

TOS: Bones
TNG: Picard, Data, Q
DS9: Gul Dukat, Kai Winn, Quark, Odo
Voyager: EMH


Automatically Appended Next Post:

And another thing: how come nobody has mentioned Weyoun?

I'd go for Kai Winn over Weyoun, but for the same reasons you give.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Your first comment?

Do you reckon you can outrun a flame thrower? :p

But, as someone who really doesn’t enjoy TOS, can you throw us a narrative bone?

Not to justify, just to illustrate.

Non Captains or major characters:
TOS: Squire of Gothos. Now here is a guy who would be fun at a party!
TNG: K'mpec. They poisoned my booze, but I'm still going to drink it.
DS9: Quark. My kind of guy.

As much as I like Star trek, and DS9 in particular, I'd take Babylon 5 over it, any day of the week.

That being said, even the 'minor' characters in DS9 have depth. The female changeling is pretty ruthless and convincingly evil, but I can understand why they hate the solids for persecuting them in the past,

BUT

for me, and forget TNG's Barclay here for a minute,

Michael Eddington is the best minor character of them all. And he was right about the federation.

I'll be honest with people, there have been times in my life when I felt like packing it all in and doing an Eddington, by joining a Marxist revolutionary guerrilla group, or defecting to East Germany

I had a problem thinking of anyone for TNG, but then again, most TNG episodes bored me. I remember turning most of them off after Act I.

Has anyone mentioned Gow'ron yet?
He had such a brooding, focused presence. Was really well played.
Those eyes of his.

 Ratius wrote:
Has anyone mentioned Gow'ron yet?
He had such a brooding, focused presence. Was really well played.
Those eyes of his.

Gowron was a great character because he represented a shift in the story that begins S4 of TNG and comes to completion in S7 of DS9. He was the bad leader the Klingons needed in order to begin to move beyond the corruption that had taken hold of the Empire. Martok and Worf represent the chance to move beyond it, not a garuntee. Robert O'Reilly is a great actor, no doubt. Jeffery Combs portrayal of Weyoun was also incredible, and I have often felt that we need a show in which Jeffery plays every character. Odo also has some of the most amazing episodes of character development in the entire franchise, "His Way" is still in my top five favorite episodes of all time.

But with this being said, there are three other characters I'd love to highlight.

Nog and Hoshi.

Enterprise always gets a bum rap due to the problems in pacing and cannon rewriting it had. Although, now that we're in a post JJ era, a lot of the stuff Enterprise got wrong can be forgiven in the light of knowing, things CAN be a lot worse. Hoshi Sato was an amazing concept for a character and Linda Park did a great job with what she was given. If that show had been given more time to develop, she could have really come up as an excellent example of a great female character.

Nog, on the other hand is for me, one of the most brilliant turn around in the franchises history. I never saw the whole starfleet angle coming, and it was absolutely fascinating to watch him go from a troubled juvenile to a promising cadet, to a full ensign.

And, remember Jeffery Combs? Well Thy'Lek was an incredible character and to me, the best part of Enterprise was the exploration of the founding species of the Federation. It's just too bad it was overshadowed by the "temporal cold war" nonsense.

 Frazzled wrote:
I had a problem thinking of anyone for TNG, but then again, most TNG episodes bored me. I remember turning most of them off after Act I.

Series 1 and 2 are pretty dire in my book, but there are a few gems in the later episodes. Patrick Stewart is good in almost anything.

And even Wesley Crusher seem to gain some self-awareness later on that he might be a bit of a

TNG is alright.

Empress Sato

How to win an Empire in two episdoes and look great doing it

Has to be Sisko, by far the most hunan of the Captains

Although Garrak and Q are close and maybe Data but his storys often fell into subpar Synths are derp with the hunanitys

 Mr Morden wrote:
Empress Sato

How to win an Empire in two episdoes and look great doing it

I am telling you, Hoshi was a great character and hot damn would enterprise have been thrice as good has she been made captain instead of Archer.

Enterprise would have been thrice as good if the dog was made captain instead of archer

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Enterprise would have been thrice as good if the dog was made captain instead of archer

I firmly believe that the second Scott Bakula is added to a franchise's cast it signals a death knell.

Unless he's also the show's producer ...

NCIS:NO is still going.

Sam is still trying to figure out how to get home out of this hick.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Enterprise would have been thrice as good if the dog was made captain instead of archer

I'm surprised they never did a body swap episode when Enterprise first entered the expanse. Tucker and Porthos switch places, that would have been great!

 chromedog wrote:
Unless he's also the show's producer ...

NCIS:NO is still going.

Sam is still trying to figure out how to get home out of this hick.

Bonus points for referencing the worst ending in TV history...

The Original Series didn't have great characters IMO, but it did have great character interactions, at least between Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy. I also have to stick up for Scotty as well, as he was pretty enjoyable.

TNG gave us Picard and Data, surely two of the best Trek characters ever. Honestly most of the cast was at least okay, with Counselor Troi being probably the weakest. Don't really care for her other than her quite nice looks (and Dr. Crusher was better looking IMO).

DS9 had absolutely amazing main characters. Not really a weak one in the whole bunch. I don't have a whole lot to say that hasn't already been said in this thread.

Voyager had great potential, but wasted it as far as characters. The only main characters I really enjoyed were Neelix and The Doctor, although teenage me really appreciated Seven of Nine (for very obvious reasons ). Captain Janeway was hit or miss, good in some episodes while weak in others, and most of the other characters were very forgettable.

Enterprise only had two sort of okay characters: Dr. Phlox, and Hoshi Sato. I also liked Jeffrey Combs as the Andorian captain seen in a few episodes.

I haven't seen any of Discovery yet, so I can't comment on that.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The Original Series didn't have great characters IMO, but it did have great character interactions, at least between Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy. I also have to stick up for Scotty as well, as he was pretty enjoyable.

TNG gave us Picard and Data, surely two of the best Trek characters ever. Honestly most of the cast was at least okay, with Counselor Troi being probably the weakest. Don't really care for her other than her quite nice looks (and Dr. Crusher was better looking IMO).

DS9 had absolutely amazing main characters. Not really a weak one in the whole bunch. I don't have a whole lot to say that hasn't already been said in this thread.

Voyager had great potential, but wasted it as far as characters. The only main characters I really enjoyed were Neelix and The Doctor, although teenage me really appreciated Seven of Nine (for very obvious reasons ). Captain Janeway was hit or miss, good in some episodes while weak in others, and most of the other characters were very forgettable.

Enterprise only had two sort of okay characters: Dr. Phlox, and Hoshi Sato. I also liked Jeffrey Combs as the Andorian captain seen in a few episodes.

I haven't seen any of Discovery yet, so I can't comment on that.

Mayweather, Phlox and Hoshi are great characters, but Tucker is definitely also an amazing character and deserves more credit. More than anyone else he really embodies the spirit of an explorer, while maintaining the impression that he fits in the time period. Shran is also a phenomenal character!

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The Original Series didn't have great characters IMO, but it did have great character interactions, at least between Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy. I also have to stick up for Scotty as well, as he was pretty enjoyable.

TNG gave us Picard and Data, surely two of the best Trek characters ever. Honestly most of the cast was at least okay, with Counselor Troi being probably the weakest. Don't really care for her other than her quite nice looks (and Dr. Crusher was better looking IMO).

DS9 had absolutely amazing main characters. Not really a weak one in the whole bunch. I don't have a whole lot to say that hasn't already been said in this thread.

Voyager had great potential, but wasted it as far as characters. The only main characters I really enjoyed were Neelix and The Doctor, although teenage me really appreciated Seven of Nine (for very obvious reasons ). Captain Janeway was hit or miss, good in some episodes while weak in others, and most of the other characters were very forgettable.

Enterprise only had two sort of okay characters: Dr. Phlox, and Hoshi Sato. I also liked Jeffrey Combs as the Andorian captain seen in a few episodes.

I haven't seen any of Discovery yet, so I can't comment on that.

Definitely a few hit or miss even in good serris.

Early deep space 9 was really a tad boring, the bajorna culture ministery episodes where where really slogging it.

Worf was boring as a machines used to drill the channel tunnel. That guy was a buzz kill to match any other.

Odo etc was fun, qaurk etc fun. Sysco was a tad... He had good and bad. His dad and jake where pretty snooze worthy. The whole prophets stuff was a tad overdone at times. Dax was fun, keria just was... Eh. OK but who puts a ex terrorist who 30-40 at higher rank than a 300 year old experienced trill whom has lifetimes of combat and diplomatic experiences in multiple cultures from earth to kingons.

Voyager. Yeah was solid but it really needed 7 of 9... (outfit choices did not hurt at all lol)

Jane way was just annoying at time. 7of 9just told them what you thought at times. Why no, let's go round and not pokke that massive ass space born mystery that can rip us apart or send us to another time. We Don, t know but let's poke it.

TNG. Just, some characters sucked. And the ship was a flying cruise ship. It had carpeted walls...

Enterprise. It got better at end bit kulling off the vulkan was a doenpoint after that.

 Formosa wrote:
If we are talking best written bad guy ever written on TV, got to be Gul dukat for me, no other movie or series has produced such an evil and relatable character all in one, you get why he does what he does and they even trick you into feeling sorry for him for a little while.... Second place is Tony soprano.

Dukat is excellent. Lawful evil and believes himself righteous. The best kind.

Sisko is my favorite character in all of star trek though. He's just a great man.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ratius wrote:
Has anyone mentioned Gow'ron yet?
He had such a brooding, focused presence. Was really well played.
Those eyes of his.

Gowron was more of a sidekick to Martok though - who might not be as interesting as a character but gets more screen time.

Elim Garak.
The most layered character of the most layered ST series.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Michael Eddington is the best minor character of them all. And he was right about the federation.

Ugh. The Maquis and especially Eddington struck me as destructive, murderous spoiled brats. Happy, mindless Utopian children with everything provided for them, lashing out and causing misery because someone else took some of 'their' playground.

Miles and Worf for me, both of them started as supporting players (Worf was the last major character added as a Klingon Marine and Miles was a nameless extra!) who by strength of acting and characters both became major players.

And Michael Dorn did it under a layer of prosthetics and some of the worse dialogue in history.

And Sir Patrick is definitely the best actor the show had.

But have to give points to Mr Spock. Probably the first alien in TV history played as both having a different outlook but also as sympathetic and relatable. While characters like Sulu, Checkov and of course Uhura were important statements I think Spock is the most memorable barrier breaker.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Miles and Worf for me, both of them started as supporting players (Worf was the last major character added as a Klingon Marine and Miles was a nameless extra!) who by strength of acting and characters both became major players.

And Michael Dorn did it under a layer of prosthetics and some of the worse dialogue in history.

And Sir Patrick is definitely the best actor the show had.

But have to give points to Mr Spock. Probably the first alien in TV history played as both having a different outlook but also as sympathetic and relatable. While characters like Sulu, Checkov and of course Uhura were important statements I think Spock is the most memorable barrier breaker.

Am I only one who found Worf Really boring?

Episodes with him often turned into nap time.

And federation had some awful stratagy. Key location guarding a major stratigic location. Aka the worm hole. Its protected. the all off a heavy destroyer aka the defiant, and shuttles that have protective level of flak armour.

It's a huge station. With one small escort defending.

Should have a entire wing of them and least a cruiser or heavy cruiser stationed to provide heavier support and also to launch longer rnage missions.

The defiant is hardly geared up for long range operations. Hold them back as heavy escorts and pickets for the station. Least, 4-5.

But DS 9 was not a Federation station, it was a Bajoran one. Bajor probably had a veto about what forces the Federation could put in their system.

I agree, this should have been lampshaded, and I understand they wanted the show to be about the station not a ship, but it could have actually made for an interesting episode as the Federation moved to locate a half dozen ships at DS9 but Bajor becomes sort of like India or some other Non Aligned Movement country. Eager for help, but only as long as it came with no strings.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Miles and Worf for me, both of them started as supporting players (Worf was the last major character added as a Klingon Marine and Miles was a nameless extra!) who by strength of acting and characters both became major players.

And Michael Dorn did it under a layer of prosthetics and some of the worse dialogue in history.

And Sir Patrick is definitely the best actor the show had.

But have to give points to Mr Spock. Probably the first alien in TV history played as both having a different outlook but also as sympathetic and relatable. While characters like Sulu, Checkov and of course Uhura were important statements I think Spock is the most memorable barrier breaker.

Am I only one who found Worf Really boring?

Episodes with him often turned into nap time.

And federation had some awful stratagy. Key location guarding a major stratigic location. Aka the worm hole. Its protected. the all off a heavy destroyer aka the defiant, and shuttles that have protective level of flak armour.

It's a huge station. With one small escort defending.

Should have a entire wing of them and least a cruiser or heavy cruiser stationed to provide heavier support and also to launch longer rnage missions.

The defiant is hardly geared up for long range operations. Hold them back as heavy escorts and pickets for the station. Least, 4-5.

In times of Crisis they do have entire fleets there. The first 5-6 season is really about the federation trying to get bejor to join the federation. Having been previously occupied by the Cardasians they were strongly opposed to military forces being stationed at DS9. They do build that station into a potent defensive weapon though. It holds off a fleet of 50+ Klingon Warships with almost no support. It also inflicts serious damage to the first Dominion/Cardasian fleet but is overtaken. In any case there are a lot of reasons why military forces aren't stationed there.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
But DS 9 was not a Federation station, it was a Bajoran one. Bajor probably had a veto about what forces the Federation could put in their system.

I agree, this should have been lampshaded, and I understand they wanted the show to be about the station not a ship, but it could have actually made for an interesting episode as the Federation moved to locate a half dozen ships at DS9 but Bajor becomes sort of like India or some other Non Aligned Movement country. Eager for help, but only as long as it came with no strings.

Yeah, makes sense to especially with how the kai acts at times. Take all thr benefits when you need em, shove it at em and screw em over when you want to...

That would be a interesting sustained storyline and tensions over the defense forces vs federation etc. Maybe disagreement about deploying marines to help defend the station etc.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Miles and Worf for me, both of them started as supporting players (Worf was the last major character added as a Klingon Marine and Miles was a nameless extra!) who by strength of acting and characters both became major players.

And Michael Dorn did it under a layer of prosthetics and some of the worse dialogue in history.

And Sir Patrick is definitely the best actor the show had.

But have to give points to Mr Spock. Probably the first alien in TV history played as both having a different outlook but also as sympathetic and relatable. While characters like Sulu, Checkov and of course Uhura were important statements I think Spock is the most memorable barrier breaker.

Am I only one who found Worf Really boring?

Episodes with him often turned into nap time.

And federation had some awful stratagy. Key location guarding a major stratigic location. Aka the worm hole. Its protected. the all off a heavy destroyer aka the defiant, and shuttles that have protective level of flak armour.

It's a huge station. With one small escort defending.

Should have a entire wing of them and least a cruiser or heavy cruiser stationed to provide heavier support and also to launch longer rnage missions.

The defiant is hardly geared up for long range operations. Hold them back as heavy escorts and pickets for the station. Least, 4-5.

In times of Crisis they do have entire fleets there. The first 5-6 season is really about the federation trying to get bejor to join the federation. Having been previously occupied by the Cardasians they were strongly opposed to military forces being stationed at DS9. They do build that station into a potent defensive weapon though. It holds off a fleet of 50+ Klingon Warships with almost no support. It also inflicts serious damage to the first Dominion/Cardasian fleet but is overtaken. In any case there are a lot of reasons why military forces aren't stationed there.

Yeah. In the end the station solo is a majorly armed upgrade of old self with dozens of launchers and thousands torpedos stock piled.

True. Though from any stratigic situation, it's pretty bad. The defences are ideal for a back water not the star trek eye of terror.

Hold Bajor you keep out a entire star empire out the war, and a major force ship and so wise.

No destroyer wings. No fighter sqaudrens to help counter boarding ships, no real heavy support in sector and limited defensive garrison.

I know there not a military faction but they really are behind the curve when there are massive threats facing them and there at the brink of a cold war half the time.

Star Fleet was also recovering from 2 Borg invasions, a resurgent Romulan Empire and the cardassian War.

One thing I really liked was the transition from the Enterprise D's floating city with kids and schools and all the arrogance/self confidence of the ship, to the E which was all military. You also see it in Picard's attitude. It was probably accidental, moving from TV to movies, from cerebral, talky (budget saving) stories to action packed explosion fests for the summer blockbuster crowd. But thematically it works. It's like pre-Sept 11 vs post.

yknow.
Despite knowing all the characters, and ALL of the movies and factions,
I have never seen the entireity of all Star Trek Series other than ENT, that was only because it was easy to watch, and all of Voyager, just not in order.
I feel like im missing out not seeing DS9, but it is alot of series.
is there like a list of abridged episodes to watch and which to skip?