Since we're talking about Star Trek, besides Enterprise and the relaunch books, and give my two cents on the matter.
TOS: I haven't seen all the TOS episodes so I won't dive into that series.
TNG: I started watching TNG when I was 11 or so back in 1992 and liked it. I followed the rest of the series and rewatched the earlier episodes. The first season seemed like a rehash of the episodes from The Original Series. The second season got better and seemed to be moving away from some of the so so story lines from the first season. The third season is when TNG got moving foward, thanks to Micheal Piller, Ronald D Moore, and others. But I think when Deep Space Nine came on, TNG started to get stale by the end of the 6th season. And by the 7th season, the series was producing mixed up episodes, with one episode being bad, and next weeks episode being good, and then back to bad again.
Some of the characters on TNG didn't get featured as much as other characters. People like Geordi LaForge and Beverly Crusher didn't get good episodes like Worf or Data, since those characters seemed to be much easier to write for than focuing on another story where LaForge goes through pain or gets dumped by some woman.
But for the record, The Next Generation, or TNG to shorten the title, is my second favorite trek series. I enjoyed Q, characters like Guinan, O'Brien, Ro, Barclay, and others that added to the mix of secondary characters.
Favorite characters: Geordi LaForge, who got along with everybody and seemed like a guy who would listen and give you some good advice. Wil Riker, who liked to joke a lot and seemed like a favorite guy amoung the crew because of his personality.
DS9:Just like TNG, DS9 had a god awful first season. A lot of the episodes were just so so, like "If Wishes Were Horses" or "The Storyteller", or "Move Along Home", etc. But some episodes were good, like "Duet". Then DS9 started to get better with the second season, which I compare it with the 4th season of Enterprise because that's when both series were having fun and both series started to gel. "The Homecoming", "The Circle", and "The Seige", kicked the second season off. And other great episodes followed, like "Crossover", "The Wire", "Whispers", "Cardassians", "Tribunal", and others.
Then season 2 ended with Sisko and company meeting the Dominion for the first time, after the Dominion destroyed a Galaxy class starship. Then season 3 showed up, with peopel finding out that Odo's people control the Dominion and the Defiant was on board. Then of course season 4 came with Worf coming in and the Klingons no longer allies with the Federation. Then the Cardassians become part of the Dominion in season 5 and season 6 and 7 shows the all out war between the Dominion and Cardassians vs the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans.
Also, DS9 is the only Star Trek show that had many seconday characters that were focused on like Garak, Dukat, Nog, Rom, Kai Winn, Weyoun, Brunt, Martok, Female Changeling, Kassidy Yates, Sloan, and others.
Plus Section 31 is written into the series, making viewers aware that the Federation has their own secrete police so to speak, just like the Cardassians and Romulans do.
Favorite characters: Miles O'Brien, since the writers made him out to be the next Scotty so to speak, with him fixing things on the station, the Defaint, and various Starfleet, Romulan, and Klingon ships, as well as other alien ships. The other character I like is Quark. Armin Shimerman just did a great job with the role.
Deep Space Nine is my favorite Star Trek series.
VOY: Now Voyager actually had the best premise of all. Starship thrown on the otherside of the galaxy along with a Maquis ship where both would combine into one crew where they try to get back to Federation space, where they would meet dangerous aliens unheard of and would be roughing it since there is no starbases for the Voyager to stop and get new supplies or get repairs.
The first two seasons of Voyager were great. Kazon and Vidiians everywhere, Seska going over to the Kazon, and Micheal Jonas becomes a spy and reports to Seska. Also add to the notion of an ongoing Kazon arc that dealt with the Kazon and Seska problem and the Voyager and her crew.
Then the third season comes in and things start to go downward from there. The series starts to do episodes that aren't as crisp as the first two seasons. Then the 4th season comes along Kes is axed and Seven of Nine, which I refer to her as Seven of Boobs, comes in because Voyager needs more viewers, and what better way to get viewers than to put a woman on the show wearing a skin tight outfit every day.
Also the writers never talked about how the Voyager looks nice the following episode after it got knocked around in the last episode, or why there are a lot of shuttles and torpedos to use at will.
Add overexposier to the Borg by using them every other episode, not to mention to many time travel related episodes, the holodeck is messing up episodes, and the Doctor's program is going bad episodes. Plus Seven of Nine stealing the show, along with Janeway and the Doctor, and making people like Chakotay, Neelix, Harry Kim, and Tuvok, have little to do or no episodes or character development at all.
Favorite characters are Tom Paris, Neelix, and the Docter, though having too many Doctor related episodes got annoying towards the end or the series.
Voyager is when Star Trek was getting bad. It was the second worst series.
ENT: And here comes Enterprise, premering a few months after Voyager finishes. The series was just a mess from the beginning, from having a new species the good guys have to fight that the viewers have never heard of, which is the Suliban. Plus the "Future Guy" who we never got to know who that person was or what species the person was.
Then the third season saw the Xindi one year war conflict going on. And the viewers never even heard of the Xindi or the war from the past series like TOS, TNG, and the others.
Add stories that probably should not have happened like the Enterprise meeting the Borg for the first time, and having them assimilate some of Archer's Enterprise, which would make Starfleet now know of a cyborg like race. Funny how know one knew of the Borg, not even Picard when he first encountered them, yet Archer's Enterprise faced the Borg head to head and dealt with them.
And the Ferengi story was also horrible. Archer doesn't even ask what species they are at the end and decides to let them go without even knowing what their species name is.
But perhaps it was little to late when the 4th season came around, along with newly promoted head writer Manny Cotto, who brought back what Enterprise was supposed to be about, which is trying to form the Federation and see how it got there in the first place.
Enterprise had horrible episodes, messed up cannon history that was established in the other series, relied on time travel stories to much, and had very little character development for characters like Travis, Hoshi, Phlox, and Malcolm, and focused on too much of "the big three", Archer, T'Pol, and Trip, which is what TOS did with Kirk, Spok, and McCoy.
Favorite characters are Trip and Phlox.
Enterprise was probably the worst Star Trek show I've seen.
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