If you like ~good storytelling~, unique plotlines, ~diverse~ casts in terms of not just gender and race, but also in personality, and if you like ~contraversial~ subjects explored with tact and objectivity, and you enjoy or even just Don’t Not-Enjoy sci fi, please please PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE watch Star Trek omfg. 

I can only speak on TNG, DS9, and Voyager, but they’re all SO freaking beautiful, and they reflect a looooot of the artistic values that I know are popular amongst the kinds of people I associate with. 

TNG is great if you’re hella into ~concepts~ being explored in depth. Though the characters are all interesting and have compelling development in their own right, my opinion is that TNG is less character-driven, and more concept-driven. Episodes are more about analyzing points of view on complicated and sometimes contraversial subjects - poverty vs wealth, exploitation, racism, religious intolerance, adoption, war, judicial systems, capital punishment, grief, etc. Also, TNG is pretty well-suited to picking and choosing which episodes you want to watch. You don’t necessarily need to start from the beginning and watch everything in chronological order in order to understand each episode.

DS9 is great if you love interpersonal relationships and the ways in which they develop. Though there’s still a LOT of ~big concepts~ being explored and navigated and investigated, much more time is spent on how those big concepts affect people’s personal relationships with their friends, family, coworkers, etc... the series is set during a transitionary period between one alien race, the Cardassians, finally being driven out from controlling/oppressing another alien race, the Bajorans. The character’s relationships are all heavily impacted and influenced by the political climate and history. The types of relationships include parent/child, best friends, romantic partners, bosses and employees, spiritual leaders and the people who look up to them, etc. There’s also a HELLA prominent religious aspect, as the Bajoran’s are generally super devout to deities they call “prophets,” which non-Bajoran’s usually refer to as “wormhole aliens,” because the prohpets are Actual Proven Life Forms that reside within a wormhole, and are known to have at least some degree of omnipotence and ability to influence people and events. So, I guess you could say that compared to TNG, DS9 is more about culture, and TNG is more about philosophy. In DS9, it’s a bit more important to actually start from the beginning and watch everything in order. 

Then, there’s Voyager. Voyager has a reputation of being one of the Least Good shows in the Star Trek franchise, but honestly, the rest of the franchise is so damn good that even the Least Good serises are still pretty damn good. 

Voyager is unique in that the ~Federation~ and Star Fleet are both pretty absent, and the whole series works toward one overarching goal, as opposed to TNG and DS9, neither of which had any major predetermined goal that carried on throughout the seasons. I’d say it’s a bit more similar to TNG than to DS9 in that it’s less character-driven and more plot-driven. I think morality is a bit more of a factor than it is in TNG or DS9. The Main Plot is that the crew of Starship Voyager gets marooned several thousand lightyears away from Earth. They’re so far away that even if they were able to travel at full warp-speed all the way back home, it would still take them 75 years to get there. So, they’re faced with a lot of moral and ethical dilemmas as they try to seek out ways to get home sooner. 

I at first didn’t understand why Voyager was held in lower esteem than other Star Treks, but now that I’m well into season 5 of 7*, I think I understand where it falls short to a lot of people. Or at least, there are reasons why I think it falls short of my tastes. Though Star Trek pretty much exists to explore moral philosophy from every angle they can think of, Voyager is a bit... preachy in it’s approach sometimes. A TNG episode about, say abortion, approaches the issue in a manner that explores ~all sides~ of the argument in a fair, generally unbiased manner. The characters have their own opinions about what’s right and wrong, and they often disagree with each other, but the narrative itself doesn’t seem to promote one ideal over the other, and allows the viewer to decide their own opinion about the issue. A Voyager episode about abortion, however, seems to be actively promoting one perspective, and most of the characters ultimately end up agreeing with it. Basically, I think Voyager sometimes has an ~agenda~, which feels offputting just because the other Star Treks do such a good job at keeping a neutral, tactful narrative. I also think Voyager panders more to sex appeal than the other shows. Like, TNG and DS9 both had super beautiful women in their casts, but there wasn’t much specific attention drawn to their beauty. Voyager, on the other hand, makes more of a point to ~accentuate~ the hotness of certain female cast members. But even then, it’s not to a degree that I would consider bothersome. 

So, I guess one reason why Voyager wasn’t as well-recieved as TNG or DS9 is because it has a few cliche or mildly problematic and ~typical~ narrative elements that are common in most shows, but that Star Trek was known for rising above. People like Star Trek specifically because it doesn’t cater to the whims and values of mainstream television. But like. It’s still good. 

I so so so so so so so recommend them. Like wow. 

You’ll find, in the early seasons of TNG especially, that the visual effects, the sets, and the fight scenes and action sequences are SO FUCKING BAD lmfao like WOW. we really are spoiled in 2020 beause that shit was laughably horrendous. But it’s TOTALLY forgiveable considering all the other things that are amazing about it.