Rick Berman

Political stability erodes under the threat of invasion.

Aaaaaand now it's better than The Next Generation. What the hell. There isn't a single bad episode all season, and a surprisingly large handful are great. I'm kind of glad I never gave this show a chance in the 90s - I get to watch it now like it's new (like Star Trek didn't die a slow, painful death over a decade ago), and I am excited to find out what happens next.

Concept: C
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: show more D
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.3/4 show less

A giant space ship flies around the galaxy, ostensibly exploring but usually running errands.

Here is where Star Trek begins its slow, painful decline. A number of episodes are awful; most are mediocre. There are a few great ones, but they're not nearly enough to make up for the crap. To be fair, this season probably isn't as bad as the first couple (both of which I rated higher), but context accounts for a lot. Making a show bad when it was recently so good is very frustrating. And there's show more not much effort to do anything new or clever, and a lot of attempts to mimic earlier episodes. The only new ground is a change in tone to make it more serious, taking a lot of the fun out of it and making the frequently bad writing less forgivable. Still, it's Star Trek, and I can't help enjoying watching it.

Concept: A
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: D
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: D

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.1/4 show less

The galaxy goes to war.

Every season of this show keeps surprising me with its quality. There's always been a lot of talk about war in Star Trek, but, 30 years in, this is the first time you really see it in detail. It's not just some battles, or after-the-fact lesson-learning, or "by the way the Borg killed a lot of people now lets get on with what we were doing." They had to spend five seasons building to it in order to make it work, losing casual viewers in the process. Ballsy. I'm a show more little sad that I now only have 26 episodes left; they're only just beginning to exploit the Star Trek universe's potential.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 2.7/4 show less

A giant space ship flies around the galaxy, ostensibly exploring but usually running errands.

About a fifth of the episodes are great - among the best Star Trek episodes ever. About a quarter are good. The rest are crap, and would be difficult to watch if it weren't for my blind love of Star Trek. Even when it's terrible, I still love watching this show. Nostalgia maybe? Or maybe it's the balance of seriousness and humor: it takes itself seriously enough that you can care about the show more characters, but it's light enough that it never looses its sense of fun (sometimes in spite of the writers).

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: D
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: B
Music: D

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.4/4 show less