Star Trek Social Club

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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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.

We do have some thoughts on this.

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.

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

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.

This was my start:

Strange new worlds (best) Picard Deep Space 9 Voyager (not a fan) The next generation (good) Back to ds9 (favorite)

If you're a kid, start with Prodigy. If you have a tiny attention span, start with Lower Decks. If you're used to mainstream modern TV, start with Strange New Worlds. If you can tolerate 90s TV, start with TNG season 2. If you love old TV, start with TOS.

The best entry point is going to depend on who you are. There's lots of diverse Trek for different kinds of people.

Watch Next Generation or a few episodes of OG Star Trek & then seeing Wrath of Khan movie.

Starting with Next Generation isn't a bad option I think. The beginning is rough at parts but has some really good episodes in it. The series got much better after season 2. You could follow a skip list to skip over the episode that are deemed horrible on your first watch to make it all easier. It's worth going back later to watch them though.

Deep space nine follows up an event that occured in Next Generation, so that show might be confusing till you watch NG.

Voyager is pretty much self-contained since that's a big part of the story lol. Only thing that could be confusing would be a character that's sorta important later on that is from NG. It isn't much but just something to state if stuff like that bothers you.

Enterprise is a pretty okay show I think. It's the earliest show in the timeline and mankind's first exploration. People don't like it for some reasons that are completely justified but it's never been anything to stop me from enjoying it. Might be best to watch this after others because it is different.

OG Star Trek is a fun series to watch. Really episodic so you can find some of the best episodes and try just watching those. Watch 3/4 of the best (including the one was Khan) and then watch the movie "Star Trek 2 Wrath of Khan".

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.