I recently started watching the new Star Trek series, Starfleet Academy, which I'm so far finding to be a very fun and unique addition to the ever-growing Trek universe. For those unfamiliar with it, it's set in the 32nd century, directly after the final season of Discovery, and it reprises some of that series' characters. I was excited to see snarky engineer Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) among the academy's faculty, and Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) is back as Starfleet's commander-in-chief. They've also dipped back into the past and brought back The Doctor, who has added an aging subroutine to his program but is otherwise much the same wisecracking, opera-loving hologram I came to know and love on Voyager.

Starfleet Academy is a departure from past Star Trek series in a number of ways. The name is a clue to a big one: its primary focus isn't the crew of a ship or station, but cadets in the newly reopened academy. While there was some space galavanting in the first episode (and may be more in the future, since the USS Athena is on-hand as a “mobile classroom”) the second and third are set entirely on the Starfleet Academy grounds in San Francisco, making it the first Star Trek series to use Earth as its primary setting. The overall tone of the show is different from other series, too. It still has that trademark Star Trek utopian optimism, though that takes on a unique flavor in the post-burn world of the 32nd century. At this point in the timeline, the Federation is rebuiding after having been nearly destroyed during the Burn, a catastrophic event that made warp travel impossible for roughly 120 years. In Discovery and Starfleet Academy, we're seeing a humbled Federation, one that's rediscovering its purpose after a long disruption, which honestly feels like the kind of message the world needs right now: that a hopeful future is possible, even after everything seemed like it was ruined irreparably.

That's one of the things I like the most about the recent shows, though—they're all unique and have a clear point of view that's distinctive from the rest. This is a departure from the TNG/DS9/Voyager era, where the three series flowed smoothly into each other and all had a similar flavor, even if they did each have a distinctive personality. The Star Trek shows of the 2020s span nearly a millennium of in-universe time (2256-3191) and their dominant tone ranges from fairly bleak and laced with regret (Picard) to straight-up comedy (Lower Decks). 

That variety also makes it a bit tricky to compare and rank them, but I decided to give it a shot anyway. Rather than trying to compare them from a quality or “how much I like it” standpoint, I considered them from more of the craft angle, focusing on things like the worldbuilding, narrative arcs, and character development. These go hand-in-hand with a sci-fi series like Star Trek, where alien cultures are established through their interactions with the crew. It's too early to know where Starfleet Academy will fit into the list (Star Trek series have historically not risen to their best within their first 3 episodes) and there are two animated series I haven't watched (the original animated series from the '70s and Prodigy). Otherwise, here's my ranking of every Star Trek TV show thus far, from the least effective from a craft standpoint to the best. 

9. The Original Series. 

The original Star Trek does get props for being the show that started it all. It also is definitely a product of its times. Viewer expectations in the '60s were different than they are today, especially when it comes to the seriousness-level of sci-fi as a genre. 

All that being said, objectively from a modern standpoint—it's not great. It's fun, campy, entertaining, and chock full of iconic moments that have become pop culture touchstones. But the character development is light even for the core crew, with much of their emotional arcs and histories developing more in the movies than the series, and it often takes a very surface, trope-driven approach to the various alien cultures that the Enterprise encounters on its travels. There are a lot of good reasons to watch the original Star Trek, but it's not the one I'd study for worldbuilding. 

8. Enterprise

I'm something of an Enterprise apologist. There are definitely some aspects of it that make it worth watching, and many of those are unique worldbuilding details. It gives a glimpse into the earliest years of human space exploration, before the existence of universal translators, when transporter technology is still new and somewhat buggy and an away mission needs to be followed by time in a decontamination chamber. They also spend some time developing the political landscape that leads up to the creation of the Federation, and it's fun to see an intergalactic landscape where humans are still down around the bottom of the pecking order, trying to prove themselves to more established neighbors like the Andorans and Vulcans. 

Where Enterprise struggles is in pretty much every other aspect of storytelling craft. A lot of that awesome worldbuilding potential I mentioned wasn't really utilized. The plots were sometimes convoluted, sometimes felt contrived, and were often poorly paced, and a lot of the dialogue is...rough, we'll say. Enterprise ends up being one of those shows that falls into the “neat idea poorly executed” category.

7. Lower Decks

Let me start off with saying: I adore Lower Decks. It strikes the perfect balance of having new characters to fall in love with and cameos from other series to keep the show connected to the broader Trek universe. In fact, from here on up in the list, every single show is one I'd recommend pretty much anyone to watch (one of the reasons I didn't want to bother with a pure enjoyment ranking). 

Lower Decks does a lot of things right. The humor is spot on, the characters are distinctive and likeable, and the storylines are exactly the level of convoluted and absurd that you want in a sitcom set on a starship. For anybody who writes speculative humor, I'd say that Lower Decks is a must-watch. But it mostly plays in the same parts of the Trek universe as previous series, rather than expanding it further. It's certainly not bad, but it doesn't demonstrate the same degree of craft as the higher-ranking series below.

6. Picard

Tonally, Picard is the least Trek-ish of the Star Trek series. The dominant vibe of most Star Trek series is a future-looking optimism. With Picard, we see our beloved captain now retired and reckoning with his past. Some new characters and ideas are introduced, but for the most part it travels over similar terrain as the rest of the Next Gen-era series and movies that preceded it. 

What gives Picard the edge over Lower Decks is the depth of its character development, which for me is the strongest aspect of this series. Some of the fan service-ey cameos were a bit clunky, but for the most part the characters are fully realized and play off of each other beautifully over the course of the series. I would say that Picard is the best Star Trek series to study for people who write literary or character-driven speculative fiction.

5. Next Generation

Putting Next Generation near the middle of the pack might be the most controversial rating on this list, because on most lists you'll find it up in the top slot. And with good reason—it's got strong characters, great dialogue, and some of the best storytelling across sci-fi television (with the exception of a few clunker episodes, but any show that runs for 7 seasons is going to have a few duds). 

The reason I have Next Gen a bit lower is simply because it doesn't have the same depth of world and character development as the shows in the top 4 slots. While there are some narrative arcs that span multiple episodes, the early seasons especially still take predominantly an episodic format. The character development is light and sporadic until later in the series, and many of the aliens encountered are one-offs with fairly shallow, trope-based identities. It does have some shining worldbuilding moments, including some for the conlangers of the world, but it’s not as consistently deep in that regard as series higher on the list.

4. Strange New Worlds

Strange New Worlds is another spin-off series that plays with familiar characters. It's set on the Enterprise in the years before Captain Kirk takes the helm, when it's still under the command of Captain Pike. But the main thing it does differently than spin-offs like Picard or Lower Decks is that it shows the familiar crew members from a new angle. We get glimpses of Kirk as a brash young officer, see Uhura come into her own as a promising cadet, and get fresh insights into Spock's background. The most interesting twist, though, is the character of Pike. From the start of the series, he knows his career will end with him paralyzed by a terrible training accident, foreknowledge that colors all of his choices and adds another layer to his character, beyond just a reinvisioning of a figure from the past. 

Strange New Worlds is on the other end of the spectrum from Picard—I would say it's the most Trek-ish of the modern Trek series. It truly embodies the spirit of the original, but with modern storytelling conventions, better dialogue, and deeper development of both the characters and the world they inhabit. The development of the Gorn as a multi-episode villain is one particular highlight, and though they have their share of alien-of-the-week episodes, even the cultures in one-off episodes tend to be more fully realized than they were in past series. 

3. Voyager

Though it takes place in the same general timespan as Next Gen and Deep Space 9, Voyager quickly found a very on-brand way to expand the Star Trek universe beyond the places past series had already trod. In the first episode, Voyager is suddenly transported to the Delta Quadrant, 70,000 lightyears away from Earth. This immediately gives the series stakes and a sense of direction that the other shows lacked. The crew of Voyager isn't just out exploring—they're on a mission to get home. 

On top of this, the exploration of the Delta quadrant gives Voyager a lot of opportunities to discover new species. It takes full advantage of this to introduce some unique characters, like the Undine (species 8472), who come from an external dimension known as fluidic space. They also do some new things with established species, like the introduction of Borg who have been freed from the collective. Altogether, I would say it's one of the richest of the Star Trek shows from a worldbuilding perspective, and matches the other series of its era for character development and storytelling. 

2. Discovery

I know Discovery has gotten some hate, and it did have a bit of a rough start (though it's certainly not the only Star Trek series I would say that's true of). When it comes to expanding the Star Trek universe, though, it's automatically at the top of that list. It filled in a key time period of the pre-Original Series era of the core Federation: the Klingon War, an event that's referenced often but was never shown to this level of depth. While the depiction of Klingons in the series was controversial, the extensive use of the Klingon language is a definite point in the series' favor from a worldbuilding perspective. On top of that, it took an extended foray into the Mirror Universe then zoomed hundreds of years into the future, to show the viewers a completely new era of the federation. 

And then there's the spore drive. Does it completely make sense according to actual science and the laws of physics? Not really. But it's a very cool and unique idea, and I also have mad respect for the deft maneuvering to introduce such an off-the-wall technology in a prequel and adequately explain within the show why that technology is never mentioned in other series that take place in the universe's future. When it comes to alien cultures, every worldbuilder should watch the arc around Species 10C and how it explores first contact communication. I would also say that Michael Burnham's character arc is one of the most dramatic of all the Star Trek protagonists, and many secondary characters like Tilly, Saru, and Hugh get similary strong and satisfying arcs.

1. Deep Space Nine

Deep Space Nine comes very close to being the perfect sci-fi television program. It has its fun, alien-of-the-week episodes, which admittedly do often utilize a similarly shallow culture building as Nex Generation in the early seasons. What catapults DS9 up to the top slot is the fact that it's set on a stationary space station. Because of this, it spends significant time exploring the Bajoran and Cardassian conflict, then later the various cultures involved in the Dominion War. Viewers are also introduced to the Prophets, an advanced species that lives inside the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant near Bajor. To the Bajorans, the Propets are essentially their gods, central to their theology. Past Star Trek series lightly explored religion in one-off episodes, but DS9 was the first one to explore the topic in-depth.

The rest of the craft in DS9 is as strong as its worldbuilding. Every member of the core bridge crew gets a satisfying arc over the course of the series, as do what might seem like peripheral characters, like Garak, Quark, Rom, and Jake. The dialogue is sharp, the pacing is on-point, and the finale is suitably epic for the scope of the story being told. If someone wants to study Star Trek at its best, I would say DS9 is the way to go. 

 See similar posts:

#StarTrek #Worldbuilding #SciFi #TV