Ah, Mike Wong's site. He does have some really thoughtful essays about Trek, even if he is an unabashed Star Wars fanboy. A shame he doesn't seem to add anything new these days.matrix3509 said:
If you follow his line of reasoning, he basically suggests the decline of Trek's core ideals from TOS to the latter seasons of TNG is a result of This essay in particular [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization] details the process. But he does seem to be blinded to the decline of Star Wars' core ideals at the same time. As I commented on yesterday's article, Star Trek is a property whose core ideals were betrayed by a committee of the creator's disciples, while Star Wars is a property whose core ideals were betrayed by its own creator.
Interestingly, I think the reason I loved Babylon 5 so much was how it built on the best elements of both Star Trek and Star Wars. B5 brought in the discussion of big ideas and the more realistic science of original Trek and the best TNG episodes, and fused them with mythic storytelling and an epic tale like Star Wars. B5 of course had the tacked on 5th season and most of the movies were bad, but it was still the best thing on TV in its day.