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ost_uid0]I'm going to echo Marc's predictability (but not his choice), and say that my favorite is the original series.
Why? I don't think I can answer that terribly succinctly, or without saying anything about it that the other shows do not contain.
My first instinct was to say the characters. Certainly known for having the most famous Trek characters, the original series also had some of the most interesting. The big three dynamic really hasn't been surpassed by any other series. [i
ost_uid0]Enterprise[/i
ost_uid0] here is the real culprit in my eyes; the other Trek's tried to mix up its major major character interactions, but the newest series has merely attempted to mimic to the letter Spock, McCoy, and Kirk's dynamic. However, modern Trek has certainly given some interesting characters in its own right. I guess why I like the originals the best is their fluid interaction, not the characters alone.
I do think the acting on the original was top notch too. Over the top? Certainly. But it felt more like watching a performance on stage than anything else. You could really tell the cast was having a lot of fun with their roles.
Perhaps the most important thing about the original was the fact that it [i
ost_uid0]focused[/i
ost_uid0] on the characters. Modern Trek is at its best when it keeps plot to a minimum and character on max. I don't watch Trek for the science; it makes a cool backdrop, but characters have [i
ost_uid0]ALWAYS[/i
ost_uid0] interested me more than plot. This is where I feel The Next Generation had its major fault. It simply had the blandest characters of all the series. It was a good show in its own right, but I think the modern Trek formula was nailed a bit better with Deep Space Nine and, occaisionally, Voyager.
Also, the first show was the only show to be great from the very start. A feat which is still impressive when you look at how long each modern show has taken to get its feel. Hell, I'm impressed.
As a side note, I find it somewhat interesting that Voyager is doing so much better than the other shows. Yeah, I know, that's what this site was originally all about, and still is in name (though when was the last Voyager fiver? eh?). Still, I know Voyager gets a really bad rap from a lot of people. If you ran this poll at TrekBBS, you know right off the bat that Voyager would not be first. Probably not second either. Very interesting....[/color
ost_uid0]