Miscellany: Happy Birthday, "Star Trek"

It's been 40 years since the broadcast of the first episode of the original "Star Trek" series. If "Star Wars" is the classic space opera, "Star Trek" is the classic space soap opera. Without further ado, here's a look back at all the Star Trek series:

The Original Series - The granddaddy of them all is more spoofed today than watched seriously (how many times have you seen the Kirk arena fight parodied? - geez, I even saw a "Rugrats" episode making fun of it). Still, it came up with the whole formula that would be followed for years.

The Next Generation - My personal favorite. All the actors are "into" their characters, and there's usually some sort of interesting alien/anomaly/conspiracy to drive the plot. Most fun were episodes that took place entirely off the ship ("The Inner Light" being the most acclaimed example - that's the one where Picard lives a whole lifetime on a doomed planet because his mind was being controlled).

Deep Space Nine - Never really got into this one. The later years, with epic plotlines spanning entire wars between the Federation and Cardassia, were supposed to be very tight, but I must have been Trekked out.

Voyager - The first Trek series I ever got to watch from start to finish (well, I saw the first and last episodes, at least, and a ton in between). Janeway was a whiny bitch, but at least the ship looked cool. The premise was a good way to avoid all the built-up racial tensions that had started to suffocate the series, but it really jumped the shark when they put the Rock and Seven of Nine onboard.

Enterprise - Again, never really stayed with this one. I love "Quantum Leap," and the idea of Sam Beckett helming the Enterprise was spooge-tacular for Star Trek nerds. Still, it only lasted four seasons. Oh well.

I understand a new Star Trek movie is coming out. I wonder how it'll do...