Every Ronald Moore TV Show, Ranked

Few names are so legendary among the ranks of science fiction television writers from the past 35-odd years as Ronald D. Moore. His work can be found in smash hits such as Star Trek: The Next Generation and Battlestar Galactica, critical darlings like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Outlander, lesser-known fare like Helix, and beyond.

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Setting a course for home, one season at a time.

In this list, which will not only include series in which Ron Moore has served as showrunner, but also those to which he has contributed a decent amount as a scriptwriter, we'll offer our perspective on the respective quality levels of each of this TV visionary's major works. And we'll soon be seeing further creative efforts from Moore in Amazon's upcoming television adaptation for God of War!

Before we start, we should note that we won't be including shows with minimal contributions from Ron Moore. In other words, don't expect to find Star Trek: Voyager here; Moore only executive-produced and wrote two (excellent) scripts in the series' sixth season.

9 Helix (2014-2015)

Ronald D. Moore's Role: Executive Producer

Equal parts science fiction and horror, Helix's first season followed a team of top agents within the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as they looked into a mysterious viral outbreak at an Arctic research station. A fairly bog-standard corporate biogenetic cover-up gave way to something ever more trite with the introduction of immortal beings.

The second season skipped ahead to a separate location while introducing massive "flash-forwards" which were peppered with revelations regarding plot developments in the distant future. The series grew ever more convoluted, and while its critical reception was generally positive, we can't say we're fans, and we haven't met many in the years since its cancelation, for that matter.

8 Caprica (2010)

Ronald D. Moore's Role: Writer and Executive Producer

While the Syfy Channel was initially reticent about another heavily serialized television show despite the significant success of Battlestar Galactica, the network was ultimately won over, allowing Ron Moore and the rest of a talented team to create Caprica, a drama-filled prequel series set prior to the First Cylon War, when the sentient robots are still entirely robotic.

Caprica's goal, to depict the events leading up to the Cylons' initial bid for domination, was a noble endeavor that distatic.aayyy.com/topic/dn/'t really come together. The scripts, especially early on, were relatively uninteresting. The focus on family melodrama, while fitting for the purposes of plot, frequently devolved into... well, too much melodrama.

It's still unfortunate, however, that Caprica's low ratings led to its cancelation after a single season. We get some hastily-assembled montage wrap-up scenes showcasing what would have been a second season, so at least there's that.

7 Roswell (1999-2002)

Ronald D. Moore's Role: Writer

Your mileage with Roswell will vary substantially per your personal tastes towards teen dramas. Despite the central plot being about extraterrestrials hiding out on Earth and eluding the FBI and other organizations, Roswell is ultimately chock-full of adolescent angst and will-they-won't-they relationships.

Full disclosure: the author of this article is none too keen on that genre, and that absolutely affects the show's ranking. But only to a point! I've seen Roswell start to finish (though I could not get into its 2019-2022 reboot at all, but that's beside the point), and it definitely has its moments.

The cast works well together, and the overarching themes are appreciably sociopolitical. We'd hesitate to call Roswell a truly good television show, but it's at least decent.

6 Outlander (2014-)

Ronald D. Moore's Role: Developer, Writer, and Executive Producer

In our view, Outlander is the first show on our countdown that's downright good. Based on an ongoing (though soon to be concluded) book series. For history buffs like us, the premise is spellbinding: the protagonist is shot back in time from 1945 to 1743, and from a World War II military nurse to the infamous British Jacobite crisis of that decade.

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The resulting perspective which our heroine, Claire Randall, possesses is one which is steeped in mid-20th-century experience and then hoisted into the middle of the 18th, and those who are familiar with both time periods can get a lot out of that angle. First and foremost, though, Outlander is about a romance; specifically, Claire's romance with the Scottish Jamie Fraser.

Outlander has certainly stumbled at times, and its shifting settings haven't always landed. But the charisma of its leading couple always prevails.

5 Carnivale (2003-2005)

Ronald D. Moore's Role: Writer and Executive Producer (Season One Only)

Planned for six seasons but stuck with just two, Carnivale was another time piece, set in the United States during the 1930s. The Great Depression, then, is felt heavily by everyone in its sprawling (look at that photo!) cast. But Carnivale's era serves a supplemental role; its main themes involve various religious histories and an overarching primal struggle between the forces of good and evil.

Carnivale debuted and ended before its premium cable network, HBO, had unleashed the similarly two-season Rome upon audiences, and thus, we'd seldom if ever seen such lavish production budget on full display. Rome would soon take the cake for that, but Carnivale's immaculate sets and cinematography have garnered it a dedicated following.

4 For All Mankind (2019-)

Ronald D. Moore's Role: Developer, Writer, and Executive Producer

For All Mankind presently streams on AppleTV+, and it's a hallmark of that service's commitment to glamourously expensive, meticulously-crafted, entertainment. The show depicts the ripple effects of a major change in the 1960s space race: namely, the Soviets are the first to land someone on the Moon. The resulting events spring ever forward, a decade for each season, and by the 1990s, we've got our eyes on Mars.

Such an impressively consistent push among our species to make tremendous strides in space exploration is not without its pitfalls, and the shifting geopolitical landscape is just as dramatic as the struggles of For All Mankind's principle cast.

3 Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009)

Ronald D. Moore's Role: Developer, Writer, and Executive Producer

Ask two Battlestar Galactica fans how this 2000s reimagined series held up as its four seasons came and went, and one will tell you it was great the whole way through with some slip-ups in its back half. The other will tell you that it started out terrifically before falling apart as it went along.

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For our two cents, while those slip-ups are hard to deny, BSG held up from start to finish. Sure, certain late... revelations... are more than a little questionable, but what Battlestar Galactica had in spades made it all worth it. The show was gorgeous despite its somewhat modest budget. Its cast was uniformly stellar. Its music, oh, it's music; Bear McCreary has had a deservedly lasting career, but his best work is still found right here.

We can't sing BSG's praises enough, but there are still two shows with prominent roles for Ronald D. Moore which are somehow a good deal better.

2 Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

Ronald D. Moore's Role: Writer, Script Editor, and Producer

Well, let's rephrase that last part a bit, because Star Trek: The Next Generation's first season was pretty darn terrible overall. When it arrived in 1987, the notion of continuing Star Trek with a different cast, in a future era, came as apocryphal to some fans, and the plodding, cheesy, early plots distatic.aayyy.com/topic/dn/'t do much to recover from that belief. But there was still something here, a certain spark, waiting to be kindled.

Improvements were made in TNG's second season, and by its third, it was moving at warp speed. Ron Moore's prominent contributions are to be thanked for giving the Klingons so much of their depth, as he contributed greatly to their culture, and to the world building and serialized elements that made Lieutenant Worf's personal arc so memorable.

Moore would deploy those Klingon talents in an even bigger way in the best show he's ever worked on...

1 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

Ronald D. Moore's Role: Writer and Co-Executive Producer

Ronald D. Moore worked on 27 scripts for TNG in all, as well as its first two feature films. That's a lot, but he went on to do 31 for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. More importantly, he had a ton of creative input, keeping up with the Klingons but assisting with many of the show's long-form arcs and giving most of DS9's characters plenty of time to shine.

Deep Space Nine, for the uninitiated, was a Next Gen spinoff that aired alongside that show's final seasons followed by the first five seasons of Star Trek: Voyager. It was somewhat darker, and far more serialized; its characters all went through big journeys (except perhaps poor Jake Sisko), its recurring cast was surprisingly fantastic, and it was given all the time it needed to deliver a slam-dunk final chapter in a nine-episode, ten-hour, finale arc.

The fandom arguments over which Star Trek show's the best will never end, but in our book, the answer's DS9. It made us fans of Ronald D. Moore, too, and we've loved seeing his career take off to ever further heights in the decades since its conclusion.

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