6. Trek is a poison dart of nostalgia aimed at the hearts of aging fan-dudes. The franchise caters to a fearsomely loyal cadre of dorks who recite Shatner's Promise Margarine commercials to each other. They also obsess over every minor detail from the show's 40,000 year history, leading to...

5. Obsessive continuity and reveling in cheese. Rumor has it the new Trek movie will feature tribbbles and the Guardian of Forever, and god knows what other callbacks to ancient episodes. Trek also groans under the weight of cliches it can never outgrow, from "beam me up" to "warp nine" to "shields down to 59 percent."

4. It's an out-of-date news flash. Trek's format is a Cold War relic, from the original show's running Soviets=Klingons metaphor to the post-Cold War "new order" of TNG and DS9. Most storylines relate to "our" superpower, the Federation, facing off against other superpowers or coping with third-world planets. Take away the Cold War as a reference point, and you have boring space opera.

3. It's no longer looking ahead. Like Star Wars, Trek is trapped in prequel-land. Enterprise bored us by filling in pointless backstory on the early days of Starfleet, but the J.J. Abrams movie looks to be twice as pointless. We already know everything we need to about young Kirk and the other Trek tots. Mining your own past is a prime symptom of idea bankruptcy.

2. We're tired of the clueless wanker with Aspergers who teaches us what it means to be human. Spock was sort of cute, so nu-Trek served up Data, Odo, that holographic doctor, Seven of Nine and T'Pol. It's not Trek without Rain Man trying to understand our human ways. We prefer the Cylons, who school us about humanity by screwing and killing us.

1. Sanctimonious preaching is in Trek's DNA. From the Prime Directive to the Captain's Log, the franchise was made for droning voices giving us lectures. Starfleet Academy must give would-be captains a special course in holding forth about the moral lesson in every conceivable situation. We're also sick of constantly hearing about how our heroes are too noble to share their advanced technology with other cultures.

In a nutshell, the only Star Trek we've liked in ages was Galaxy Quest, and that was mostly for Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Veronica Mars' dad.

Famous names: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton, Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Ronald Moore, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn

Crunchy goodness: 4

Design breakthrough: The boxy furniture and swivel chairs of the original series give way to sleek curvy consoles and luxury car seats. Plus, the Borg borrowed zombie imagery to make cyborgs creepier than ever before.

Stunt casting: Patrick Stewart brings a whole fancy Shakespearean veneer to the role of Jean-Luc Picard, elevating lines like "Engage," or "Let's see what's out there," to an almost mythic timbre.

Sights you'll never unsee: Klingon cowboy vs. android cowboy.

Tim Lynch reviews a number of Next Generation episodes.