Trek was king! The original series was great! D.C. Fontana and several other writers pushed the 1967 envelope. You have to remember - this was the time Batman was on the air and script dialogue consisted of "Holy Conundrums Batman!"

The original series is the only real trek based upon human interaction and therefore superior to the effects heavy TNG and the IMHO godawful Deep Space 9 and Voyager series. I really can't watch those later shows. The ferengi (sp)? were the worst bit of the Next Generation and were prominent in the few episodes I watched of Deep Space 9. The make-up department seemed to run the plot-lines of these later series. It distracted from the need for having anything other than poorly remade original series and next generation conflicts.

The original series pushed several hot social and moral viewpoints long before they became popular.

Slavery
Racial Superiority/ Race Conflicts
Mental Superiority/ Mental Inferiority
Troubled Youth (Juvenile Delinquency)
Suicide
Space Morals
Human/ Alien romance
Computers overtaking society
People being controlled by technology
Vietnam Commentary (Private Little War)
Govt and UN Commentary (AKA Federation Bureacrats know nothing.)
Pure energy, non-physical alien beings
The danger of FADS (Tribbles)
Drug abuse (Those spore shooting plants symbolized plant based narcotics and the happy - yet unproductive and wasteful results of being a druggie)
Youth worship (Mudd's women and the youth pill)
Religion's follies (The vulcan rituals extremism was meant to hint at how strong religious fanatacism flies in the face of logic and reason)

It also hosted the first interracial kiss on television (though forced by inhuman aliens with awesome powers for their own amusement.)

Star wars came out ten years later and was simple fair - not heavy on anything except entertainment.

Star Trek was the first TV series to do it all. Twilight Zone knocked off a lot of good issues (and stories were often outright lifted) from the pulps - Amazing Stories, Fate and Mystic magazines from the 50's - and brought them mainstream. It broke ground too.

The new series with Bakula just doesn't grab me, either I'm afraid. But then again the increasing cross-gender leaping bit from Quantum Leap and its patronizing PC viewpoints started getting a bit annoying and their finale was a disgraceful end to the show.

Yes Shatner can't act, but Deforest could and so could Nimoy. Yet even Shatner's bit appear like Shakespeare next to some of the acting done on TNG and almost all done on the others. Yes, Janeway is supposed to be a alternative lifestyle statement - the DS9 commander was a PC bit of over-compensation. Both shoving the PC agenda down viewers throats. I'll pass thanks.

So speak not these sacrilegious words here!

SDAI-Trek1

;-)

PS
The only Trek movie worth a darn was Wrath of khan. Voyage home had moments but was still to busy being PC to deliver a good plot.