Good and Bad Science Fiction

Science fiction is my favorite literary genre. Actually no... Good science fiction is my favorite literary genre. This is as opposed to the entirely different genre of bad science fiction. Whats the difference? Well, let's take Star Trek, for example. In the first series, no matter what else was happening, the audience was assured a horribly unrealistic fistfight between kirk and some aliens, plus an equally unrealistic love scene between him and some female aliens. That has all the hallmarks of bad science fiction - basically a midless action movie with lazers instead of machine guns. But actually, it's good science fiction in disquise. That's because, in addition to the dumb stuff that the studio execs wanted, Gene Rodenbury managed to sneak in some (rather basic, admittedly) examinations of the human condition. Forget the 'new ground' that they're so proud of having broken (i.e. Kirk (white) kisses Uhura (Black), Chekov is Russian etc.), it's actually in plots like "The Enemy Within". In this one, Kirk is split into good and evil versions of himself. Now this could be very stupid, except that the writers take pains to point out that the evil Kirk, while generally a bastard, is actually more useful under some circumstances than the fluffy and indecesive 'good' Kirk. It does a pretty good job of making the point that people's 'dark side' is what gives them their will. Which explains why successful people (politicians, buisinessmen etc.) are also so often jerks.
Still, though, the original series was pretty much cheese with the seeds of brilliance. It was the next series, Star Trek:The Next Generation, which was and remains the only truly successful good science fiction TV series. The first thing they did right was to hire Patrick Stewart in the lead role. He's phenominal, but he had help from the best TV science fiction writing ever. Highlights were "Darmok" in which an alien Captain kidnaps Picard in the hopes that it will force their species to communicate, "Outcast" which is a clever commentary on tolerance towards gay people, "Chain of Command" in which is reminiscent of '1984', plus a whole lot of others.
Unfortunately, from there it was all downhill. Many people liked the next series, Deep Space 9, but I didn't. Because they dropped most of the intellectual stuff and replaced it with warriors handling, you guessed it, moslty really big laser guns. The next two series tried to recapture the old 'exploration of humanity' premise, but with only moderate success.
Sad.