What about the War of the Worlds series?

I was right with you until you included Enterprise, especially at #1. I think it was actually Voyager that killed the franchise, and Enterprise suffered both from the already decreasing interest and some lameness early on. It got better as it went on, though, and it's a shame it got canceled, especially after the pretty awesome final season. I think the creators of the show realized a change was needed, and bringing Manny Coto onboard as producer started things in the right direction that, in my opinion, could have saved both the show and Star Trek had he a chance to continue. The new movie revived Star Trek, but sadly only for adventures that occur once every two years or so.

I have to disagree with part of "Enterprise." The final season, minus the finale, was what the show should have been, though perhaps with a different cast. Once they booted Berman & Braga off of the show, it improved vastly. They had 2-3 show arcs for that last season, and you soon were enjoying the writing and noticing that nobody in the cast could act.

However, they still let B&B do the series finale, which made the show be just a holodeck program that Ryker was running to solve a moral dilemma from the TNG series (where he was all ate up over having concealed the existence of a phase-cloaked ship, which is a big no-no, apparently). So B&B got to drive a stake through it anyway.

And the theme song did stink. I wish they'd used an orchestral score, but I'm not in charge...

The worst part of Enterprise? It retconned a ton of established canon! But I don't care because according to my personal fanon, it and Voyager just plain never happened.

Wasn't really a fan of DS9 either, but it was at least a quality show.

How can this list not include Battlestar Galactica 1980!? The title should have been, “Why BSG-1980 and 9 Other Crappy Sci-Fi Spin-offs Sucked”.

Beyond Westworld was boring mid way through the pilot.

I always enjoyed on V the series that Diana somehow got a perm when she was in prison after the mini series.

Maybe it's just me, but I like Enterprise.

Having been in the US Navy as long as I have, I always hear the stories of the early days of the fleet. The USS Constitution once went on a mission to fight a ship in South America and wasn't heard from for two freaking years! No one knew who even won or lost the fight in that length of time!

Enterprise was the same way. After watching the Cadillac of the Galaxy, NCC-1701D, for all those years, it was tough to imagine what those guys went through in the early days of space travel. No sheilds, slow speed, no tractor beam, an unreliable transporter, and absolutely no support from star bases or other human ships? THAT was exciting!

Do me a favor: Go back and watch all of season 3. Here we have our tin-can-flying explorers in an uncharted and dangerous region of space, looking for an enemy they know nothing about, and with no assistance? The season finale was really, REALLY lame, but the rest of it was golden.

And as for the last episode of the show, there was a great message there. Years ago, when I first joined the Navy, I was late getting to class. As a result, I had to write a 500 word paper on the importance of being on time. Instead of half-assing it, I actually did some research on times in US Navy history where being late cost us dearly. Our Navy has a rich and interesting history, and the inspiration that our predecessors left for us, tales of sacrifice, heroism, and virtue inspire us still today.

The premise was weak, the show was a blatant cash-grab, and there were some TERRIBLE episodes in the first and fourth seasons, but don't just hate the show for being different.

By the way, picking on Enterprise and Voyager is so old and cliche. Come up with something contraversial for your number 1 spot for a change.

How about putting Xena as number one? Can you imagine the comment storm? I liked the show, but a well thought out opinion piece would be a good read and discussion.

Totally agree with you guys. Enterprise had some BAD moments, but TNG did, too. I really was bummed when Paramount stopped supporting it(I signed BOTH petitions each time to keep it on)and it was getting damn good during season 3. It's a shame the way they wrapped up season 3 with all that Nazi-Alien bullshit, but they were facing possible cancellation. And there is no excuse for the finale. And I was pissed they killed Trip.

I think Enterprise would have been better if it had nothing to do with Star Trek. If it had been its own show, with its own continuity, it would have been more interesting.

But yeah, Voyager is the one that killed the franchise for me.

When you mention Robocop: The Series, I think you need to differentiate that with the superior series of made for TV Robocop movies that aired on the Scifi channel several years ago. They were better than both sequels AND the above mentioned tv series!

Good list. I do have to say that two of the shows you listed weren't necessarily bad ideas, it's just that the execution was terrible. V: The Series could have been great, but the budget was ridiculously low for a weekly series trying to tell that kind of story. Enterprise suffered from prequelitis, but the last season proved that it could have been a success if only the show's creators embraced the legacy of Gene Roddenberry instead of just retreading some of the nonsensical cliches that had become part of Star Trek lore at the time of Voyager rather than embrace the elements that made Trek (especially the original Classic Star Trek) such a pop culture phenomenon in the first place.

(By the way, I gave Topless Robot a shoutout on my blog today -- http://nickleshi.blogspot.com )

The absence ofGalactica: 1980 is indeed glaring and butt-hurtsome, which is even worsebecaiseI recently hurt my lower back.

Still -- yes, we are all friends here.

I'm very afraid, however, that the new Stargate show looks a little like Battlestargate 90210, at least from the teeny little promos that I've see on SciF-- er, pardon me, SyFy ("Imagine Grammar!"), and really hope that it's not so.

For the record, Stargate was not dull, Stargate: SG-1 never got boring (except for that one episode with Daniel and the Commies and the hiding -- oh, and Ori and the preaching and the zzzzzzzzzzzzz); and even when I didn't give a good gol dang about which Wraith was wraithing which wraith/human hybrid in the wraithhole on Stargate: Atlantis, at least David Hewlett was there to entertain me with his antics.

Wolfman Jack = Cool. Wolfman Jack + Cylons =/= Cool.

Aw, Enterprise wasn't all bad, it had nippley Jolene Balock in the decontamination booth sections. :)

Gumbercules: You want the writer to be controversial? Tough shit.

Ok, I am a Trekkie and have never seen Enterprise (the concept itself drove me away) and so I've never seen the opening until now. Three words: What. The. FUCK??? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT? Faith of the Heart!?!

NO WONDER every Trekkie I know pretends that show didn't exist. Christ.

@Dr. Rotwang!:

I agree, I can't believe Galactica 1980 wasn't included in this list. That show is an abortion of an abortion that got pregnant with an aborted fetus. But I would reserve judgment on the new Stargate until it's actually released. All the same, yeah, it looks like shit, and I've been a fan of both SG shows for around 5 years.

I don't know what B&B were thinking with Enterprise. It's like they had retrograde amnesia that prevented them from coming up with anything new, and as has been said repeatedly, that finale was just plain insulting and stupid.

Enterprise as not part of Star Trek. They said so repeatedly. I'm a Star Trek: Voyager fan. They should have kept moving forward or stuck to the same era. And why did they throw out the symphonic theme tune in favor of that idiotic theme song. You were right on every point.

Personally I would have put TNG, Voyager and Enterprise as a joint number 1... They all sucked huge hairy balls in their own ways.

Why no mention of the truly abysmal Legend of the Rangers? Surely that deserves a dishonourable mention at least.

I don't know why you're so down on the Slimer episodes...I mean, they were for little children, not for teenage/adult fans of the movies.

Anyway, that said, the tag lines are hillarious...

Enterprise is well deserving of that #1 slot. I do not understand the defense of that show. The characters were empty and unlikable - Mayweather gets singled out for that, but it really could apply to any of them. The plots, as mentioned, were rehashes. There was no additional sense of danger - whether it's hull plating or shields that are down to 47%, sparks are still flying on the bridge and the cast is still lurching in unison. It also has the worst, most bottom-feeding episode of the entire Star Trek franchise, even worse than Threshold from Voyager. I speak of Precious Cargo, 40-some minutes of a rescue-the-princess plot so stock that it makes Mario and Peach's relationship look deep. In conclusion, screw Enterprise. Although Galactica 1980 certainly did deserve a slot here.

The writer of this blog fails at having opinions.

Enterprise at number 1, too damm right.

Dude, how did Enterprise even make this list? Just because it wasn't all the glitz and glamour like TOS, TNG or any of the others before it. I think this series was very good and I don't believe that the song was bad. This series was about the beginning of Starfleet and their beginnings in space exploration with new technology. The song set the tone of the series. Sorry, but I am giving your number 1 spot two thumbs down and a warp factor of 12 to get the hell off this list.

Just my opinion.

What Erwin said.
How about the Highlander shows? The all sucked. Fuck you! You're wrong! If you disagree ^_^
Flash Gordon? That was utterly appalling on every level.

I'm with the Enterprise fans here.

Yes, I absolutely cringed every time that theme song came on. I can't adequately express the embarrassment I felt when my girlfriend came home to see me watching that on the TV.

That aside, it was a great show, and had some of the best Trek moments. It was a return to the ass-kickery of the original series, lacking all the awful space-soap-opera antics of DS9 and voyager. The Xindi story arc was fantastic, but it's something you need to see in it's entirety.

The last few episodes in the last season (after it was announced the show would be cancelled) suddenly got more awesome. The evil alternate universe double-episode was stellar.

@darkmagician66699: Are you serious? The problem with Enterprise was that it wasn't dirty enough, and too same-y. Exactly the same as Voyager and TNG. The tone of the series was the same as TNG & Voyager. If you want a gritty Trek, well, good luck, but DS9 is as close as you're going to get.

Season 4 of Enterprise more than made up of three years of suck and mediocrity and can be summarized in two words: mirror universe.

@ PM:

Again, my last statement said it was my opinion. MY OPINION - not yours. You have yours and I have mine. Congratulations on being unique and forming your own opinions.

"What about the War of the Worlds series?"

The first season of that show was actually quite good, barring the second season, which turned the show into some sort of nighttime steampunk crapsack world.

When Robocop 3 bombed in theatres, the former producers of the series (Ed Neumeier and someone else I can't recall offhand) took the show to Canada. The pilot episode of the series is supposed to have been a rejected script for the second movie. I remember watching Robocop: The Series on CTV in 1994, and trying to figure out why the plots yo-yo'd between dead serious and slapstick.

V: The Series had problems, but at least you couldn't fault it for the fact that it at least kept up a level of suspense about whether people would die. They killed off most of the supporting cast from the miniseries during the weekly show.

Why all the hate for Galactica 80? The show is awesome.
Thing is, it isn't a spin-off, AFAIK.
However, the abysmal Space Mutiny was a pseudo-BSG80-spin-off, as it blatantly used BSG80 stock footage. But then again, it was a movie, so it wouldn't qualify for this list.

COMPLETELY disagree regarding Enterprise. I just got into Star Trek last year and started watching them chronologically, starting with Enterprise (right now I'm about halfway through TNG), and I loved it. The first season was a little slow and they failed to explore some pretty cool concepts (such as the implication of Trip's pregnancy), but the Xindi storyline and the political fallout from the Xindi attack on Earth threatening to derail the Federation were excellent. The finale was indeed lame, but luckily the Enterprise retconned Trip's demise. And so far from the other series I've watched, I think Archer stands up great as the Enterprise's first captain. I thought it was really interesting watching him struggle with the ethical dilemmas that came up on the show without having the Prime Directive as a guide.

@ Jason:

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Hmmm...you couldn't leave any room on that list for Battlestar Galactica 1980?

Does Freddy's Nightmares count?

I'd be interested in seeing a list of the best/underappreciated sci-fi spinoffs. DS9 I'm sure would be there, but War of the Worlds, as Erwin mentioned, was actually alright (until season 2).

Enterprise? *sigh* Didn't watch much. All I can say is that it was more Star Trek, so take that for good or for ill. Highs and lows like all the series. Ratings and early cancellation pretty much tells that story.

Personally, I thought Enterprise wasn't unsalvagable (uh...no pun intended), but it sure needed a few dents hammered out of the plot. And the writing. And some of the characters. And certain design and technical choices...

Okay, it needed to get worked over by Frank's Boys. But it still could have been something. That was the galling bit.

...I'm also a little surprised/relieved Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles didn't make the list. Which again, wasn't that bad a show, except when they couldn't decide if they were trying to be The X-Files or Touched By An Angel. (Or if Sarah was supposed to be more like Captain Janeway as she was imagined, or Janeway as all the fans interpreted her.) :)

@MattK:
I think a more interesting a more interesting way of phrasing it would be "Shows that sucked at first, but got better." Enterprise would definitely fit into that category, as would anything Joss Whedon ever produced.

If I were doing this list, I’d also put Enterprise at #1. I think it’s a good example of an idea that could have been really interesting, but wound up being executed with a maximum of suckitude. I wasn’t against the idea of a pre-Kirk show. But couldn’t that show at least have featured a captain who wasn’t a smug, xenophobic, self-righteous idiot who made me want to shove his precious water polo ball up his keister? Couldn’t that show have had a theme song that was inspiring, instead of one that made me think I was watching a Chevy truck commercial? Couldn’t that show had had writers who were competent enough to look at canon and weave interesting new stories around it, rather than throwing together plots and ignoring or re-writing anything that contradicts them? I’ve heard that the mirror universe episodes were good, but that just makes the suckiness even worse – after all, they demonstrated that they COULD do good episodes, so why did they do so many that were boring-to-awful? The biggest thing though was that for me, it wasn’t that the show was boring – it was that I actively hated most aspects of it. And by "hate", I mean "the show pissed me off so much that I wanted to stab baby seals in the face". And I had started out being intrigued by the thought of Scott Bakula on the bridge, and curious about what prequel ideas they’d come up with! Yet in the end, I feel more contempt for the writers of Enterprise than for the writers of season 3 of Heroes.

"Yet in the end, I feel more contempt for the writers of Enterprise than for the writers of season 3 of Heroes."

Whoa, now, let's not say things we can't take back.

I'm glad to see Enterprise here, but we should face the fact that DS9 and Voyager belong on this list too. The Ron Moore, Jeri Taylor, and B&B team were totally out of ideas after TNG's 6th season.

Oh good, for a second I thought the "we are the e-ee-eee-EEE EEEee-woks" theme song I thought I remembered so clearly from my youth might have been another figment of my imagination, but phew, it's still out there. What'd they pull a Happy Days on it with this crappy other version or something?

Enterprise certainly isn't the best Star Trek series ever, maybe even the worst, but certainly does not deserve a #1 spot on this list. And the theme song is awesome.

I totally agree that Enterprise should be here. It was crap. I don't even recognize it as Trek, and as it didn't have the words "Star Trek" anywhere in the title, the argument that it's not canon holds up.

Of course Voyager and DS9 sucked, too. Anything B&B touched too much, after Roddenberry's death, was horrible.

My personal addition to this list of bad spin-offs would be THE CROW. This is a movie/comic that never needed a TV series. It was just plain bad, and also had the gall to shit on Brandon Lee's perfect performance by casting some dork who wasn't half as interesting as Lee.

Three points:

1) Don't hate on Slimer. That was a decent show for the kiddies.

2) Thank you for putting Enterprise at #1. You might have just done it to annoy the comment nerds but either way it deserves that spot. Heck, all Star Trek shows deserve that spot.

3) You really hurt the article with your lame imaginary tag lines that, quite frankly, are neither clever nor funny.

Enterprise is the first Trek series since the original to actually be cancelled, so I think making it #1 is appropriate.

War of the Worlds was a fucking fantastic series!!!!!!!! Until season 2 when the "child-molester Eurotrash"-looking aliens took over. Then it sucked hot monkey balls.

And yeah, Enterprise killed Star Trek. Anyone else that tells you dif is drinking Xindi Kool-Aid...

You had me until Enterprise, as it had quality writing (at least until the last episode when they killed Trip). And as for it being canceled, it never really had a chance on the Paramount-turned-CW network. Nothing on that station has survived beyond Smallville, which I maintain lives on because poor people can't afford cable.

Hey, I _liked_ K-9 and Company.

I genuinely enjoyed enterprise actually, A lot more then voyager. I wouldn't recommend it as a 'proper' trek series, but it was pretty intense.

heh, ewoks.

I loved Enterprise. O.o I always thought The Dominion War was a second rate Xindi War. I've watched all of the ST Series, and Enterprise is my favorite.

nice list it just proves the old adgage of its a hit run it into the ground that plus the list showed that Lucas and the hof were starting to lose their minds surprised baywatch nights was not higher on the list. as for v and robocop just proves that some things should have been left alone. and suprised droids did not make the list. k9 at least got some redemetion in the sarah jane files.

Hey, I loved Enterprise!

How can you create a list like this and leave out Planet of the Apes?

I was with you until Enterprise came in at #1. The first season wasn't stellar, and the final episode was full of fail since they made it all about TNG. But the worst spin-off in the ST universe is Voyager. Enterprise was actually alot of fun.

And the number one reason why Enterprise SHOULD be at #1?

The fucking "Save Enterprise" wackos.

Sure, "Slimer" sucked, but the original "The Real Ghostbusters" series was a fun cartoon take on the movie universe. It shared a number of regular writers with the celebrated "Batman the Animated Series."

What about "THE LONE GUNMEN"? That was a spin-off of my one true love X-files (you know that show that KILLED THE LONE GUNMEN). It was horrible! Not only did Scully and Mulder never guest star, but the plots were baaaaad. There was one where they rescued a "smart" chimp and one where they almost crashed into the World Trade Towers in a plane...

I have the whole season, but still! HORRIBLE!

Yeeeees, The Lone Gunmen. Oh, that was terrible...

Definitely list-worthy!

I kind of liked Droids/Ewoks, even with their retarded Ewok-speak. Bawatch Night's could've worked if they threw in KITT and made it Bawatch Nights Rider. Boobs, a cool talking car with that awesome cylon headlight thing AND David Hasselhoff? What more could anyone possibly want?

Two things.

First, Film Score Monthly improbably released a cd of the music from Logan's Run the series http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/cds/detail.cfm?cdID=291
and it is actually awesome. Listen to the music and never never never watch the show.

Two, after the recent Trek movie, it seems the events of Enterprise are now the only stuff that survives the timeline. They talked about *shudder* Captain Archer's freakin' dog, acknowledging that the series crap is *shudder* part of the canon and since now everything Original Series and beyond is consigned to the trash heap of temporal tinkering, those craptastic episodes are the only ones that remain untouched in the Trek universe. Am I wrong? (Please tell me I'm wrong.)

@ That Neil Guy:
I could tell you you're wrong, but that wouldn't make me right.

Well I have to fall on my sword and admit I watched and enjoyed Baywatch Nights...Angie Harmon looked like this legal jail-bait primed for casting couch naughtiness and "The Hof", slapping a$$ on the beach all day, and solving mysterious all night? I'm sorry guys but it got me...Even Hof's opening credit cheezefest was easy to sing-along too...

*proceeds to walk the sandy guillotine*

@Neil: As I understand it, the new movie only takes place in another of the 10 bajillion alternate Trek universes, and doesn't really affect any of the other series, canonically speaking. But in that universe, which we're going to see more of, Enterprise is the only canonical show.

I agree- why no Galactica: 1980? I would think this series definitely cheapened the original: this is what producers would think of, if anyone mentioned a new BSG series!

I think Star Trek: Enterprise had potential, but sadly only achieved that potential in the last half of the last season (minus the series finale).

What we should have seen was how the human race explored space and had its first encounters with Klingons, Romulans, etc. Instead, we get the Suliban (who we've never heard of, in any Star Trek series set after Enterprise), and re-tread storylines and villains. Weren't the Borg costumes more than paid for at this point- did they really need a Borg episode? And if they're going to use the Borg and Ferengi (which they did), why not use Q?

ST:E, it may have been completely unnecessary, but as a Trekker I still enjoyed it. Baywatch Nights should be first on that list.

I actually think "Enterprise" was a step UP from "Voyager". Not a big step, mind you, but definitely up. When the writers stayed away from the time travel crap that made abso-fucking-lutely no sense, and avoided leaning of Trek stuff that shouldn't have been a part of this series (like Borg on Earth 150 years before anyone in the Federeation were supposed to know they exist), they had some good stories, and I like most of the characters (except for Captain Archer).

A very nice list indeed. I think Voyager probably more-or-less killed the franchise, but Enterprise put the final nail in the coffin. I'm still confused as to how they arrived at that opening...

The biggest problem with Enterprise is that hardcore Trek fans are the most continuity-obsessed group I've ever encountered - seriously, they make comic fans look positively relaxed - so even the slightest deviation from established history was going to result in them turning off. It's too bad they didn't just do a reboot a la the most recent movie, to jump around all the fanboy whining.

It still would've had problems - needing to be grittier, better character development (although one character in each modern ST series always got the shaft - Geordi, Kim, etc.) from the outset and a needing better idea of what the hell they wanted the series to be. But when you're already turning off the hardcores because they're obsessed that you're screwing around with when the first proton torpedoes were used or whatever, you're fighting an uphill battle.

But, as noted, the last season - the only one I bothered buying on DVD - is really solid. Not great, not up there with the best of TNG or DS9, but still solid, unpretentious sci-fi.

...One of the things you have to give the original Logan's Run credit for was that it exposed to American audiences the concept of something that hadn't quite been accepted up until that time: Indoor Shopping Malls. Within a year of the film's release, the number of malls in the US *quintupled*, and by the end of the decade the total number was almost ten times that again. Of course, the trend is reversing and mall design has shifted towards outdoor outlet malls, but Logan's Run was what got the indoor ones their biggest foot in the door.

It's already been said to death, so I offer the following for quantity rather than quality. The first two seasons of Enterprise with kind of bland, but the third season was utterly gripping and the final season really started to implement effectively the ideas that the show's premise demands but which had been ignored. Alas, by the time it hit its stride, it was too late.

It doesn't really fit the traditional niche of a "spin-off," but Transformers: Armada was an atrocity on every level except for the horribly squandered voice talent. The main kid's name was Rad for God's sake.

Right on about Enterprise, the show was over before it begain who the fuck was Archer, Robert April was the first captain of the Enterprise, even a patak knows that!

Hey, I liked [some entry on the list]! Therefore it was GOOD and therefore you are WRONG. Why would you want to cast aspersions on a show that was so obviously liked-by-me?! You must just be jealous of how much I enjoyed it. Or you have no ability to grasp what is likable-by-me and thus have no business compiling a list of shows based on their aesthetic value, which amounts to how much I like them.

My therapist says I should admit to enjoying Enterprise. BTW the series changed its title to Star Trek:Enterprise in season 3...
Before you dismiss the Xindi arc, consider this: we saw Florida and Panama get fried. 6 million people died, AND IT WASNT A RESET EPISODE! Manny Coto gave us some fun episodes in season 3. Season 4 had the Mirror Universe.
Yeah, it was Trek-lite but no way did it deserve to be this list...
Also my therapists' therapist insist I admit to loving Hoshi Sato too.

Well, overall I find this another example of bloggers to full of themselves. I was expecting to see "spinoffs." you know, a show that is inspired by another show. Therefore adaptions of movies don't count (robocop, logan run, planet of the apes.) It looks like Chris just need to slap an article together. But how you could put enterprise over baywatch nights I'll never know. Enterprise had some redeeming points. I enjoyed Brent Spiner's arc. I think you should throw Mork and Mindy in there (from Happy Days).

I feel like Voyager deserves a little more cred than it gets. I'm fond of the general "lost in the Delta quadrant" premise and I love the crew. I just wish some of the plotlines had been less stupid/insufferable. Come on. I'm sure each of you can remember at least one episode you liked. It wasn't all bad, was it? *sad doe eyes*

Actually I would've preferred Star Trek Enterprise seasons 5-7 to JJ Abrams' alternative universe film.

Leslie Moonves, head of the merger between CBS and Paramount Television, is the only reason I didn't get it too.

Battlestar Galactica pulled the same low ratings as Enterprise. Only difference is Universal actually cared about the audiences, where Star Trek's current owner hold nothing but contempt for fans.

I actually liked the theme song for Enterprise. Made a change from the symphonic title music.

Must voice my support for Chris. Enterprise so deserves the number one spot! At best the series was a mediocre rehash of previous Trek. But the two specific episodes that really killed it for me were when they came out in favor of slavery (“its part of their culture, we have no right to interfere”) and endorsed appeasing terrorists (don’t remember their justification for this one).

Yes, I do think the mirror-universe episode was killer good, but having just one good episode in the entire series counts for nothing – one good episode out of ninety-eight is an accident, not genius.

However, I would like to suggest one change to the list: It should be the top dozen, not the top ten. That way there is room to include both Battlestar Galactica 1980 and Star Trek Voyager.

Voyager in particular needs to be on this list because it is a spin-off not just from all the prior Treks, but it was also a spin-off (intellectually, at least) from Irwin Allen’s Lost in Space – another sci-fi series memorable for its badness. I might add, Voyager’s crew seemed just as whiney as Dr. Smith. Now if only they’d had a big silver robot on board…

Bullsh*t! Enterprise doesn't belong there at all. Yes, it had it's problems but at least it was watchable and made by people who cared. Compare it to the mediocre Battlestar Galactica 1980 and there's no contest. BG 1980 stinks!

You've got the wrong Star Trek series in the #1 slot. Enterprise wasn't that great but it wasn't that bad either; the truly worst ST series was Voyager, and it's responsible for killing the franchise. ST:DS90210 started the slide, but Voyager was when Star Trek really died. The initial premise, 2 antagonistic crews who had had to band together when stranded in the Delta quadrant to survive, had potential but was quickly eviscerated in the first season when the total number of Maquis was reduced to 2! From that point on it was 7 seasons of Gilligan's Island in Space (Seven of Nine = Ginger, you can do the rest). I was a die-hard ST fan for 30-odd years (going on 40-odd now), and I stopped watching somewhere around year 4 or 5 because I couldn't stand the excrement they were putting on the screen. If Paramount hadn't owned the network it was being shown on it would have been cancelled much sooner than it was.

Enterprise was the last ST series, but it wasn't the worst and wasn't the reason Star Trek died. It inherited the disgruntled ST fans created by Voyager and did nothing to win them back. It's first 2 seasons were pretty lame, they tried to do something different in the 3rd season with an interesting premise that had its hits and misses, and the 4th season was quite decent and had some fine episodes. Unfortunately, the handwriting was on the wall for Enterprise; the only reason the show got a 4th season was so Paramount would have enough episodes for a syndication package.

And good god, can we please stop the whining about the freaking theme song!?! I've heard more mitching and boaning about the theme song vs. orchestral score than I've ever heard about the crappy stories or the lame acting; use the freaking MUTE button or FF button and STFU about it!

Oh please. They list "Logan's Run" (showing that they recall some old series); but DOn't list or have "Battlestar Galactica: 1980" as #1 - yet take a good show (better then the crapfest called 'Star Trek:Voyager' anyway) like 'Enterprise' and list that as #1?

Seriously, the authors of this article have lost ALL credibility by not even mentioning "Galactica: 1980"

ENTERPRISE rules! FUCK YOU!

Loved the list, but reading the comments are even funnier. Especially the trekkies hopelessly defending the suckoriffic enterprise. I've been on trek for 40 years (that's 4x10 years) and even I gave up on the franchise with Voyager. The franchise has been a shithole for at least 10 years now. The Abrams revamp is the only light it has seen in the 21st century. So yes, keep that on your list at number 1, though this should be a top 10 list that includes the oft mentioned BSG 1980, or that horrible, horrible, brain-tumor-inducing Flash Gordon that was on SciFi (now Syfy) a year or two ago...

Not only does Enterprise not belong in this list.
It should be on a "Cancelled before its time" list.

A beautiful show.

re: HOW & WHY Enterprise killed Star Trek.

"But the two specific episodes that really killed it for me were when they came out in favor of slavery (“its part of their culture, we have no right to interfere”) and endorsed appeasing terrorists (don’t remember their justification for this one)"

Nailed it, Enterprise' problem was that the writers (and some of the most vocal defenders of Enterprise) had been bucking so long to get out from under "Roddenberry's vision" that they created a show that COMPLETELY LOST THE ENTIRE POINT.

It was full of NON-STAR-TREK episodes, as you list above, and add to it the particularly likewise appalling episode where Archer creates a sentient life form in order to murder him for his parts to save his friend.

Enterprise was NOT Star Trek.

That is the reason Star Trek fans loathe it.

Viewed as a stand-alone action-adventure series, by people that have never seen or never understood Star Trek (or never cared what Star Trek was about) Enterprise might be fine.

Voyager was certainly guilty of becoming TNG-derivate in its latter years, which led to the infamous "Trek-exhaustion".

(14 seasons of a TV show will do that to any fanbase)

But Enterprise problem was much more decimating to Star Trek and to the fanbase, it was the ANTI-THESIS of Star Trek.

A self-centered brat commanding the Enterprise trading on his daddy's name, while frequently engaging in activities that, if you took away his title as "Captain of the Enterprise" you would find his behavior identical to the VILLAINS in previous Star Treks.

That's why and how Enterprise killed Star Trek.

The problem was that the Enterprise' writers thought, "the Captain of the Enterprise can do no wrong"

They got it backwards.

INSTEAD of writing him as a man who tries to do what's right, they used his position as Captain to justify his behavior.

Problem is it doesn't, it never will, not to any Star Trek fan, who knows the difference between right and wrong.

Rank is only important, in and of itself, to mindless buffoons.

The Quality of your decisions, the quality of your character, is far more important, than rank.

And Star Trek fans who spotted that, tuned out in droves.

They made the right decision in canceling Enterprise, because they COULD have kept it going in-house if they'd wanted, but ultimately it was a horrid abomination that completely missed the point of Star Trek.

You could enjoy it as a TV show, and that's fine, but it ISN'T Star Trek, and it fully deserves the position as #1 spin-off that should never have existed.

It taints an otherwise fine history.

In my view.