Star Trek

Strange New Worlds (SNW) is the single best entry point for someone new to the franchise, and that’s a black mountain I’m willing to die on. It blends modern storytelling with the classic Trek formula, and since it’s basically a pickup of the original Pilot, it’s pretty darn close do the beginning of the timeline.

Strange New Worlds offers an accessible entry point that holds the same core as The Next Generation (TNG) or the original series (TOS). There’s only two seasons so far, but if you like it and are craving more, I recommend watching TNG afterwards, and continuing that line in order of series air date (DS9, VOY, ENT).

It’s easy for many of us to recommend our favorite series, or our own entry points, but the reality is most of Trek is dated and not a good place to start for someone used to modern television.

If you find old shows charming, start with the original series and just roll with it. The original series is iconic, and it's fun to see where it all came from.

If you want a little more substance, start with Star Trek: The Next Generation. It's peak Trek in many ways (in terms of the whole Trek philosophy and world building).

Blasphemy warning…

I’d probably start with Strange New Worlds. Then go back for TNG, DS9, and Voyager.

This sub has a wiki guiding you where to start. I followed it and decided to go with TNG first.

https://startrek.website/post/191295

Do what you want, except don't watch the very last episode of Enterprise. And make sure you end with "Lower Decks", so you can enjoy all the juicy easter eggs with your fresh Trek knowledge.

It depends entirely on your tolerance for and/or exposure to the different style of older TV shows. If you're accustomed to a slightly slower pace and a markedly lower production value, I'd recommend starting with The Next Generation or Deep Space 9 and just start binging. If the kitsch of 60s TV appeals to you, The Original Series is great, just very different in style.

Once you've got a dozen episodes under your belt, you'll know whether a given series is your bag or not. But you might not like TOS and adore DS9, and so on.

Be prepared for some real stinkers at the beginning, and scattered throughout but just know that's part of having 20+ episodes per season.

If you'd rather just catch up with the most current series, I'd say start with season 1 of Strange New Worlds. You really can't go wrong starting there.

If you’re new to Trek, start with season 3 of TNG to get your proper Trek indoctrination. Then proceed on to DS9 and Voyager and onward to the current generation of shows. If you love it after watching that then go back to the campy TOS stuff and move forward from there until you circle back on TNG season 3.

I know it sounds weird to start on season 3 of a show but if you follow this order you’ll understand why. Trek didn’t become what most fans love until Roddenberry stopped being directly involved. He was a great dude for starting the universe but he’s also responsible for some of the worst decisions and episodes of the franchise. Before people get mad about me saying this please think about all the awful skippable episodes of season 2 and 3 of TOS and the low quality TOS scripts that were recycled in seasons 1 and 2 of TNG.

Also a pro tip for someone new, ignore anyone that says Trek ended after Voyager. Thats the neckbeard/anti-woke section of the fan base that is small but loud.

Start anywhere you want. Not every show or movie clicks with everyone. The shows do inform the movies so maybe try and watch a TV series first? But anyways a little breakdown follows.

OG Star Trek, Star Trek: TNG, DS9 and Voyager are the beating heart of Star Trek as far as shows. They are all worth watching but OG Star Trek certainly wears the colors of its time. Just keep that in mind.

After that is Enterprise, Picard, Strange New World's and Discovery for live action and Lower Decks and Prodigy for animated. I only have opinions on Enterprise and Prodigy. Enterprise completly skippable. Prodigy seems good but haven't gotten through much of it yet.

For movies there are six movies that take place in the OG Star Trek era (I like all the originals personally but some are unliked by fans).

Then there are four movies in the Star Trek: TNG era but Insurrection and Nemesis, the last two, are generally not well liked, but views could have changed with time. (I enjoyed all these as well)

(All ten of the above Star Trek movies were my childhood and therefore I have a lot of nostalgia for them. So my views are skewed.)

After that you have the reboot movies which are completely skippable (my recommendation). I watched the first one and was so nonplussed I never bothered with the others. Also, J.J. Abrams is involved in them so if you like what he does you may like the movies. Personally he's on my shit list with M. Night and avoid any projects involving them.

Edit: Because I clearly hadn't said enough so I said more.

I am very new to star trek. Started with TNG. Fell in love sometime around season 2 or 3. After finishing that, I am now enjoying Voyager. I have watched a few episodes of DS9, in the meantime, will get back to it after Voyager. Also loving Lower Decks and SNW. Fun fact, I actually watched couple of seasons of Discovery before watching TNG and found it so so. After falling in love with TNG, couldn't stand it.

I'd say just watch Star Trek: Enterprise and call it good.

You can start anywhere you want! I often recommend starting with Star Trek: The Next Generation, since it's aged a little better than the original series. You might prefer to jump ahead to season 2 or 3 to get to the really good stuff, but even season 1 is worth watching.

Up until Enterprise season 3 it's pretty much all episodic (or in DS9's case, mostly episodic with a subset of the episodes forming a series-long story arc), so you can pick a random episode or movie with a cool-sounding description and start there if you want. That's how I got into Trek, just picking random TNG and Voyager episodes.

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I would recommend The Next Generation or Deep Space 9 first.

The Original Series is pretty campy and low-budget. I don't think Star Trek really became Star Trek (as we know it) until Roddenberry had a second crack at it, which was The Next Generation. Be warned, both of these series start out pretty rough.

The first 2 seasons of TNG is a little corny, although they have some very good episodes, like one planet they visit which is a matriarchal society, and they show the male-female gender roles reversed. In my opinion, their 1940s nostalgia episodes (played out in the holodeck) really did not age well, fortunately they stopped doing that in season 2. Dr. Polanski gets a lot of hate, but I thought she was a fine character. I think season 3 of TNG was by far the best, with some of their boldest political statements. One episode, Picard is accidentally seen as a God by a pre-industrial society, in another, Commander Data is judged by Starfleet to be a person of a race of a single individual, and is granted personhood. In yet another episode, Mr. Data creates a child for himself which Starfleet deems to be their property, and results in one of my favorite Picard quotes of all time: "Hold your ground Mr. Data. (To the admiral) Order a man to turn his child over to the state? Not while I'm captain." By season 6 and 7 they clearly start running out of ideas though.

In my opinion, Deep Space 9 was the hardest to start, but probably the best series of all I have seen. The first 17 episodes were so boring I could barely get through it. But starting with Season 1 episode 18 (titled "Duet") and every single episode after it was consistently very good. They also, I think, make many more, and much bolder, political statements than The Next Generation ever did.

Easy. Start with The Orville, then watch Galaxy Quest.

https://medium.com/maxistentialism-blog/star-trek-the-next-generation-in-40-hours-c4a6762cbd3 I’d start with this!

We do have some thoughts on this.

Episodic television from the linear broadcast era means you can jump in damn near wherever and it'll be an okay time. Usually. Deep Space 9 has more ongoing storylines and every series has some episodes people just haaate. The Next Generation has half of its what-were-they-thinking episodes in the first season. Nonetheless I'd recommend TNG as the starting point, because it has the right mix of grandeur and restraint.

The Original Series is technicolor sci-fi horror dressed as episodic space exploration. It's campy and melodramatic and by god does it know it. Some episodes were blatantly "what's available on the back-lot next month?" and are a coin toss between stupid and incredible.

TOS had some movies (roman numerals) and they range from "what if an episode was three hours long" to "modern-day San Francisco zoo heist." At their best they're fun and at their worst they're even more fun.

The Next Generation is high-concept ethical debate framed as the experiences of naval officers. The cast is seriously talented and the writing is usually excellent.

TNG had some movies (bald guy on the poster) and they were written by people who didn't like the show for people who didn't watch the show. You have to turn your brain off, but they're well-directed.

Deep Space 9 was a direct response to Babylon 5. it's heavy on other species criticizing the openly optimistic and quietly human-centric Federation. It never goes full "revisionist western," but it gets dark in places. It was also a deeply indulgent excuse to explore characters and cultures from prior Trek.

Voyager did the opposite, by yeeting a ship to the ass end of the galaxy, where nobody's heard of the Federation. They're just trying to keep it together and beeline back toward home. It's the same formula as most TOS / TNG episodes, but with fresh character dynamics and new rubber-forehead aliens.

Enterprise is an origin story starring the guy from Quantum Leap, and the tone is just... weird. It's not awful, but I'm not personally a fan. Apparently it had an ending even more disappointing than Quantum Leap, which is fucking saying something.

JJ Abrams did some reboot movies replacing The Original Series, and they're everything you expect when reading "JJ Abrams did some reboot movies." Great casting, though.

Discovery sounded like it got up its own ass a bit. There's a point in any long-running franchise where the people making it grew up as fans of it, and it takes strenuous effort not to create a feedback loop of shallow fanfiction stupidity. See: RTD-era Doctor Who, numbered Star Wars sequels.

Picard sounds like season one was written exactly like the TNG movies, which is pretty far from a compliment. Season two is apparently more of a 1990s Trek reunion and I still can't care.

Strange New Worlds sounds like it's doing everything right, as a revival of TOS-era "wagon train to the stars" problem-of-the-week storytelling. The universe is big and weird and terrifying and we're out there pencling in the map. Plus they pulled off a musical episode. That's always a good sign.

Honorable mentions to Galaxy Quest, an aliens-abduct-actors comedy that is accidentally one of the better Star Trek movies, and The Orville, Seth MacFarlane's extremely Seth MacFarlane love letter that's honestly a pretty solid realization of the formula and absolutely knows it. Also neatly illustrating the difference between parody and satire.

I would reccommend starting with TNG or TOS.

Liking Trek means being good at coming up with and or accepting established fan cannon explanations/excuses for why stuff happens, as often it makes infuriatingly little sense otherwise.

DS9 is the strongest of the older shows in my opinion and gives a really good grounding for the politics of the Federation and unfederated alien races involved (and for new trek shows like Disco and Lower Decks), while having enough plot and action to be interesting.

It still has a lot of bad acting and poor writing (especially in the first few seasons, ugh) and it's practically a radio play for seasons at a time though, so be warned.

Alternate suggestion to what you might be getting: if you have an antenna for your tv, check the local antenna channels. We have one that does a block of episode of each of the first 5 live action Star Treks. Pluto TV also has a Star Trek channel that alternates between the different series. Most Star Trek is serialized so you can watch episodes out of order and not be lost.

The original series or next generation depending on your taste. Although be warned that TNG's first season is rough, so if you're not committed to watching everything, maybe pick a few episodes to try first.

Personally I watched through the entirety of TNG and then moved on to DS9, and I really enjoyed both shows. DS9 is also a direct follow up to TNG in a few ways so they make a good pair. I wouldn't recommend watching DS9 first though since it's so different from "normal" star trek.