Star Trek History.

With half the movies being big events and the other half being small-time fluff, a tradition gets started on the big screen that has yet to be broken: Even-Numbered Trek films are good, Odd-Numbered Trek films are not good. We got to see the Enterprise refitted, the Enterprise destroyed, Spock killed, Spock reborn, Kirk meets his son, Kirk's son is killed, the Klingon's new face, Spock's phsyco brother, Sulu becomes Captain, Sulu gets a daughter, Enterprise-A gets comissioned, Enterprise-A gets decomissioned, Enterprise-D gets destroyed, Kirk dies, Geordi gets eyes, Data gets emotions and Uhura does a striptease (an odd-numbered film).

The Next Generation was at its best in their third season with an unusually high level of conflict (Worf refuses to give blood and a Romulan dies, Data fires his phaser to take out Kivas Fajo, the Borg pummels Starfleet at Wolf 359), yet the show fell apart in its final two years by the still-in-power Trek regime of Berman and Braga (Lwaxana Troi, Alexander, emotional Borg, "Masks"). It gave us the Ferengi, Q, Cardassians, Bajorans, Borg and Holodeck malfunctions. It also showed fans that maybe 26 episodes a year isn't necessarily a good thing.

Dull, dark and often boring, this Trek series turned "spin-off" into "franchise". Deep Space 9 took three years just to get watchable, only spending a few token episodes on the other side of the wormwhole, instead deciding to mess with fantasy or Bajoran religion. It also took DS9 three years to introduce anything new, relying on the already existing Cardassians, Ferengi and Bajorans, as well as continuing the Holodeck malfunctions. The later episodes were good, but even then it took copying war concepts from Babylon 5 to get there, plus the introduction of the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion. As a side effect of ripping off Babylon 5, it proved you can successfully have building stories on a Trek series, something that the Producers still can't comprehend.

Voyager stalled after its premiere. Dramatic conflict was dropped by episode four labeling it the show of missed opportunities. Continuing storylines that were common on other programs were labeled too "experimental" for Voyager and dropped. Recurring characters were killed or forgotten. Every dilemma was escaped via techno-babble. Spacial anomalies ran rampant. It took a babe in a catsuit to carry it to its final season. Voyager gave us the Kazons, Vidiians, Species 8472 and the Hirogen, all now left behind and forgotten. When they weren't continuing the Holodeck malfunctions, Voyager was devaluing the greatest threat in the universe: the Borg.