Special mention to the picard maneuver and stamets. ❤️
alright trekkis, ima bite the bullet, where is an easy way to start?
If you have literally no experience at all, I’d pick and choose some great standalone episodes to get started with.
Some ideas: TOS: Balance of terror/Space seed. TNG: Drumhead/Darmok. DS9: The House of Quark/Trials and tribulations (harder to find good standalone episodes as so many of the best are part of the main plot. VOY: Eye of the Needle/The Void.
The 2 parter DS9 and voyager opening episodes are both also pretty good places to start.
I started with the Voyager pilot, it’s so great. It sets up an incredible premise that is so much more compelling than “we are explorers”, at least in my opinion. The whole series has an arc that is integral to every episode in a way that truly doesn’t get old.
I mean… I started with that, my best friend in my first year of high school showed me the first few seasons, and then I pretty much didn’t watch more until now, mumble years later, when I decided to go through the whole of Voyager. It’s genuinely a very good show. There’s some stuff in there that I’ll put down to TV restrictions - low budget and tight schedules mean you can’t close every plot hole - but it’s got a lot of heart. It shows people being mature and dealing with their problems, and just openly saying how much they care about each other on a regular basis, which I love.
Just like… be aware that there are things that haven’t aged well. The three biggest I can think of are:
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Chakotay’s character being played by a non-indigenous person and the indigenous consultant actually being a fraud, which leads to some extremely awkward pastiches of indigenous culture.
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Kes being “born sexy yesterday”.
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The generally exploitative way women are dressed and treated in the whole show. Kes is put in a catsuit, then soon after replaced with 7 of 9 in a catsuit. Plus in general they’ll just shove women in bikinis on screen at their first chance, or even when no chance presented itself at all. For a show that does a lot of openly-feminist stuff with its female captain that insists on being called “captain” over “sir” or “ma’am” and who generally kicks butt, it has a lot of sexism that seems even more dated than the 90s era it was made in.
Even so, amazing show.
The Next Generation and then Deep Space 9. You could start with the Original series but it’s not necessary to understand the events of the TNG/Voyager/DS9 era of time.
TNG has some absolutely awful episodes in the beginning and the first two seasons aren’t really considered very good by most, but once they find their footing it’s pretty consistent with only the rare complete miss. Deep Space 9 is a really good one though, I passed it up for years because it didn’t take place on a starship but that only allowed for a completely different style of storytelling with recurring characters and interwoven plot lines.
Right at the beginning. Chronological. Don’t skip anything, even the shit episodes
If you can’t stomache the old stuff, any of the new trek series are pretty darn good to be honest. I’m especially fond of Strange New Worlds. It captures the adventure of the week style well, just like the old series.
Maybe take the advice from the other posters over mine :). The original series is very dated by now. You really have to love star trek or old stuff to enjoy it tbh :)
