Greetings, reader!
Sixty years and two days ago, NBC aired a pilot about a wacky, diverse crew of space explorers on a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no man has gone before. The world of science fiction was never the same. To celebrate this monumental occasion, here's a ranking of all seven decades during which the franchise has been active, based on how good the franchise has been in that specific decade!
7. The 1970's
Every decade has given us at least some good Trek, but the 70's simply have to be ranked last. The only instalments we got were the two-season run of The Animated Series (1973-1975) and the movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)...and while both have their moments, they are a far cry from the franchise at its best, or even its average. Of course, Star Trek from the 70's played a crucial part in keeping the franchise alive after the original series' cancellation, leading up to a full revitalization in the 80's, and we're all grateful for that. But still - as silly and endearing as TAS is, it is the overall least-good series in the franchise, and The Motion Picture is one of the weakest movies despite being the first.
6. The 2010's
Besides the 70's, the rest of these are pretty solid. The 2010's are ranked this low mainly because of the slump in the middle - the beginning of the decade gave us some good material thanks to the momentum from the 00's, and the tail end started to build a new beginning for the great stuff we'd go on to see in the 2020's. But just as one era was ending and another was about to start, the direction of the franchise looked a bit uncertain for a while there. Still, one has to give points for the films Into Darkness and Beyond (especially the latter), and those two first seasons of Discovery as well - they ended up being the best seasons from that particular show.
5. The 1960's
The 60's are hard to rank, as the decade's only contribution is the entire three-season run of The Original Series. One could easily argue this a lot higher, because we owe so much to TOS, and wouldn't have any of the other shows and movies without it (not to mention what a great show it is). But overall, I still have an even warmer feeling about many of the decades when the franchise was blossoming into multiple directions, with a diverse tapestry of material. Yes, it was all spawned by TOS and I will forever be grateful for that, but I'd be lying if I said that the 60's are Star Trek at its best. It's certainly iconic, and episodes like The City on the Edge of Forever and Balance of Terror are among the greatest in the whole franchise - but still, it's just three seasons and many of the elements were improved further in later spin-offs.
4. The 2000's
My initial impulse was to rank the 00's lower, but then I did some thinking and realized that when all is said and done, it is an underrated decade of Star Trek. It's a mixed bag for sure, but when you're like me and want to focus more on the positives than the negatives, the fact is that there's a lot to love here. First of all, you have the tail end to the greatness of 90's Trek, in the form of the final TNG movie Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and the last one-and-a-half seasons of Voyager. Sure, Nemesis isn't all that great, but Voyager remained absolutely kick-ass to the end. The series is so 90's-coded that people often forget that amazing episodes like Blink of an Eye and Shattered, not to mention that powerhouse series finale, aired in the 2000's.
The decade also gave us Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005), for better or worse. I'd count a majority of the two first seasons more as a con than a pro - it's not bad television per se, but among the weakest Trek out there. But seasons 3 and particularly 4 are a big pull into positive territory, as the show improved a great deal and gave us some fantastic storylines and memorable episodes. And then there's the most damning evidence for the 2000's being a surprisingly solid Trek decade - Star Trek (2009). The J.J. Abrams reboot films divide opinions, which I get, but I've always enjoyed the hell out of them (and this first one in particular). The casting is sublime, the new style is a fun change of pace, and there are a few scenes where just thinking about them reduces me into a puddle of tears.
3. The 1980's
Series-wise, the only material we got in the 1980's was the first two-and-a-half seasons of The Next Generation. The show wasn't yet in its prime then, but those seasons still gave us total bangers like Measure of a Man, Q Who and Where No One Has Gone Before. An even bigger reason for the decade's high placement here is the movies: the middle four out of the six TOS sequels came out during this decade.
Least among these films stands Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), and even that one is a great time if you turn your brain off and enjoy the camp. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) is genuinely good, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home will make you forget the cardinal rule that Star Trek shows are generally better than the movies - and then there's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Perfect pace, perfect villain, nail-biting tension and a beautiful, emotionally devastating final act. Hell yeah.
2. The 2020's
Someone might call this recency bias, but I'm hanging on to my take. There are many reasons why the current decade is hard to rank - we're still in the midst of it, the future of the franchise looks woefully unsure with most upcoming projects cancelled, and the quality of stuff we've gotten varies from terrible to great. But here's the thing - as a glass-half-full guy, who likes to focus more on the high points than the low, there's just so much to love in 2020's Trek.
Sure, the 20's gave us the franchise's worst movie in Section 31 (2025) and its two worst seasons with Discovery season 3 and Picard season 2. But it also gave us a vast treasure trove of fantastic science fiction: the first season of Starfleet Academy has me pumped for the second, the redemption arch of Picard with its magnificent third season should be studied, Prodigy was an absolute delight, Strange New Worlds hits hard on all the levels, and Lower Decks recently surpassed The Original Series in my ranking of the franchise's shows. When focusing on the good, the 2020's are stacked with some utterly brilliant Star Trek.
1. The 1990's
This list was otherwise a difficult one to make - but deciding #1 was easy as hell. Not to take anything away from the other eras in the franchise's trajectory, but 90's Trek was peak Trek to an astronomical degree. Just look at my top three favorite shows from the franchise - my third-favorite, Voyager, aired its first five-and-a-half seasons, while my second-favorite, The Next Generation, aired from the midpoint of season 3 all the way to its seventh and final season - and my #1, Deep Space Nine, aired in its entirety between 1993 and 1999. Out of my top 20 favorite episodes in the franchise, over half hail from the 90's.
Furthermore, the movies we got were wild as well - the TOS cast gets a beautiful swan song with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), some bold strokes are taken with Star Trek: Generations (1994)...and then we get Star Trek: First Contact (1996), the absolute masterpiece. It's difficult to comprehend that we got all of that in the span of ten years.
Still, while the point of today's list was to compare different eras of the franchise, I want to close on the note of celebrating the whole. As I reasoned (at length) in last week's post, Star Trek is the greatest science fiction franchise of all time, and my life wouldn't be the same without it. I'm thankful for all of it, from the corniest TOS misadventures through the zaniest Deep Space Nine escapades all the way to the chaotic shenanigans of Lower Decks and beyond. The fate of the franchise looks a bit uncertain at the moment, but if Star Trek has taught me anything, it's having optimism and hope about the future - so here's hoping that the franchise will break free from the shackles of Paramount, and find a way to live long and prosper.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for a ranking of the biggest movies of the 2020's, based on how annoying the discourse around them was.
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