Limited time offer. I have an upcoming trip and I’m looking for something to watch. Is Star Trek actually good, or only nostalgic? Should I just search for episode 1 and press play, or is there something I need to know first?
Deep Space 9 is probably the most radical thing I’ve seen on television. There’s Space Palestine, they directly quote Marx, and whenever they tackle a social topic it’s so far ahead of its time. Only the CGI feels dated and even then it holds up well.
edit: Also the rule of thumb with any Star Trek series is to endure the first season when they’re finding their footing. DS9 starts out feeling like a 1990s sitcom, but by S2 the writers have really found the ideological core of it.
TOS season 1. Unusually for Star Trek, TOS came out swinging but soon lost its steam. Seasons 2 and 3 are pretty forgettable with the exceptions of the few that make fan-favourite lists. Season 1 is generally good and occasionally brilliant. TOS top ten lists are season 1 heavy. Also, skip anything written by Gene Roddenberry himself. Fantastic producer, dreadful writer. He really was Star Trek’s George Lucas in many ways.
And now for TNG…
TNG has two eras. Seasons 1 and 2, and the rest. The former was made up largely of recycled scripts Roddenberry wanted to use in his never-made “Star Trek Phase Two” planned series. There’s a reason that so many season 1 and 2 episodes seem like the away teams are just find-and-replace’d Kirk/Spock/McCoy, because they often were. As a result the characters never really get a chance to be their own characters. He liked to fire, or encourage to quit, those who disagreed with his creative decisions.
Between seasons 2 and 3, Roddenberry’s health was too poor for him to micromanage the writing room with dumb ideas. The writers then unleashed the actually-good scripts they’d been writing and polishing on the side without Roddenberry’s knowledge. It was effectively a brand new series. Writing drastically improved, the actors got to actually emote, the visuals and sets were far more polished, it was a glorious fresh start. It’s funny to go back to watching season 1 or 2 episodes after seeing 3-7, it’s like you’re watching fan films.
Skip episodes not specified, they generally range from bad to worse.
Season 1: Encounter at Farpoint (not great, but it is the pilot episode, so ya gotta get through it), Where No One Has Gone Before, Datalore, Home Soil, Heart of Glory (a genuinely great one), and all the episodes that come after Heart of Glory. They’re usually good and also necessary to understand some characters motivations later.
Season 2: Elementary Dear Data, The Measure Of A Man, The Royale (very dumb but also actually pretty funny), Time Squared, Q Who (do not skip this one, this sets up so much), The Emissary. People say that season 1 was the worst, but they are wrong, season 2 was a trainwreck.
Season 3: Everything. My favourite out of that season of absolute bangers is “The Survivors” which I will not say any more more about, I would never deprive anyone of seeing this for the first time.
Season 4 is on par with 3 in my opinion. The following seasons are what I would call “good to great” and not “great to amazing” like 3 and 4. Still well worth seeing though!
And now for DS9!
Don’t bother until you’ve seen at least up to and including TNG season 4’s first episode. DS9’s pilot doesn’t just spoil the end of TNG season 3, it makes no sense without it. You’ll have no idea what’s happening and why from second 1.
Personally I think DS9 started strong and lost steam gradually. Most of my favourite episodes like “Duet” are early on. I liked the original premise of the Federation lending a hand to an allied world to help them rebuild after a long and brutal occupation by a colonizer. I’m not a fan of a later long-term war arc that changed the tone of the show. And “In The Pale Moonlight” is so fucking overrated.
Let’s talk Voyager, Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds!
Voyager was the best among them. And even then I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re like stuck at an Antarctic research station and you’re desperate for something to watch that you haven’t seen before and you have unlimited free time. I’d bet that there’s better uses of your time in your current situation though.
Let’s now talk “Star Trek Enterprise”!
Wow, what a missed opportunity this show is. I’d suggest skipping it until/unless you get done with the better shows and want some prequel-type stuff. And even then I’d just skip right to season 4, and don’t watch the finale. There’s genuinely good stuff early on in season 4. And basically nothing that happened prior to season 4 actually matters, there’s a lot of dumb in 1-3.
And now for the modern crown jewel, the glorious rise to the triumphant occasion that is the act 3 in the TNG/DS9/LD arc…
Lower. Fucking. Decks.
You will need to see the entirety of TNG (and at least read a wikipedia entry about the Dominion War from DS9) to really get some of the emotional moments from this masterpiece of a show. 5 seasons, 10 episodes each. 50 episodes is all we got. And every last one is good. The long arc isn’t about some grandiose plan to destroy the galaxy or some bullshit. It’s a deeply personal story about a troubled young officer who’s suffering from war-related PTSD and other personal pressures. She is not coping with it well at all.
But she is a lot of fun to watch as she heals.
Personally I think DS9 started strong and lost steam gradually.
Yeah, the first few seasons felt like the writer’s room had a grounded, thoughtful perspective on great-power politics, on colonization and occupation, and on political violence. The documentary that came out a few years ago seemed to suggest a lot of it was on one writer that died partway through the show, but I’m not sure how accurate that is.
Is Strange New Worlds worth watching?
Yes. Strange New Worlds is surprisingly good.
The show is basically this:
- Let’s take TOS
- NuTrekify it
- BUT THEN fill 30% of the writers table with people who actually liked TOS and TNG
I don’t know who the writers actually were, but that’s how it feels watching it. It’s actiony but rarely over the top, it’s light at times, the characters grow on each other, and there are plenty of honest to god star trek plots. It’s not perfect at all and it can annoy but it’s way better than most new star trek. And it’s obviously a prequel, but they handle the prequel aspect really well by basically incorporating it into the plot regarding Captain Pike, as well as having just a few TOS characters. You know the TOS characters are all plot armored, but you still get tension because almost all of their friends and crewmates could die or not die.
They also have a crossover episode with Lower Decks… yes with the animated show… and it’s INSANE
I like SNW, Lower Decks, SNW and Prodigy are the only new series really worth getting into. I actually think Discovery isn’t that bad and it’s miles better than Picard.
They actually built a set and (most of) the characters are compelling. Some episodes are kinda miss, some are really good. Biggest criticism is, it doesn’t really have TNG’s thoughtful hopeful depiction of the future, but the writers seem to think it does just by virtue of being a Star Trek™ show. Still worlds better than STD.
I don’t care for it, but that’s just a personal-taste thing.
⭐ saved for future watching. TOS failed to hold my attention before, so I’ll try your recs
Personally I think DS9 started strong and lost steam gradually
I like all seasons of DS9, but this isn’t wrong, at least in the overarching plot. The single episodes were bangers even in the last season. And while season 7 is a bit too science-fantasy at times, I think it sticks the landing significantly more gracefully than Voyager.
excellent fuckin comment
this is solid recommendation other than if you don’t like the pacing of rick and morty, you’ll find the first few episodes of lower decks completely unwatchable and i only limit myself because that’s all i could stomach.
im working thru DS9, and I agree that 1 and 2 are better than 3, 4, and 5, but I’ve really been enjoying season 6 so far.
And “In The Pale Moonlight” is so fucking overrated.
It’s sort of melodramatic, but it’s the first time I can think of where the Federation is portrayed as evil liberalism. Until that point Sisko is someone I empathise with. His war crime is the point where The Maquis becomes the closest thing to a moral force (outside of the Bajoran resistance). Critically interpreting the Federation is essential when the series otherwise is known for fully-automated luxury gay space communism.
I do think it’s an important episode. And Garak is so much fun to watch. I just don’t think it deserves the endless praise it gets from so many fans. Personally I think Duet and Progress are the real top-tier DS9 episodes.
How long is your trip?
DS9 is the best, and is was written for binge watching before anyone was even doing that. It is about 130 hours long. If you are just looking for 5-6 hours of stuff you’d probably want to get episode recs.
It’s hard for me to view it neutrally as would an outsider.
For op sec I’ll keep it vague, but it is nowhere near 130 hours.
Would it spoil the show to watch episodes out of order?
I don’t think it would spoil anything. They were meant to be viewed in syndication which means people could see any combination of eps in any order. However for whatever reason they were constantly fighting against the format and making netflix shows before nextfix. Like there is an ?8?-part episode IIRC. If you just drop in on that, it’ll be confusing.
As a general thing I think these are widely-understood as some of the standout eps
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In the Pale Moonlight - About having to make difficult decisions in war. Scheming and bending ethics.
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Far Beyond the Stars - A time travel afro futurism episode where Sisko lives the life of a Black science fiction writer in 1950s US. He remembers DS9 reality mostly as a story he is writing — of himself and a future for humanity. But it seems realer than a story. He is considered insane.
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Rejoined - A species who switch bodies every so often are generally prohibited from getting back with their past lovers once they’ve moved on. But these 2 do so anyway and now one of them is a woman so it’s also gay. Or is it?? I think it’s an allegory to lgbt things which just happens to use women tongue kissing. (In the world of the TV show, the scandal is that they are breaking the rule about getting together post-body switch.)
And looking at the list (I don’t know what eps are called so having a hard time knowing what’s what
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Series Premier - I think it was a fun start and set up some conflicts
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House of Quark - Ferengi is forced to marry a sexy klingon lady due to palace intrigue and manages to bring honor to double entry accounting.
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Hippocratic Oath - The enemy in a war for everything has genetically engineered super soldiers that are kept disciplined by an innate drug addiction. Should do-gooder-wanna-be Dr Bashir help them to break the addiction? Will they become chill?
Any epsiodes with the Maquis are good bets (anti0federation, anti-cardassian rebels). There are a lot of bajorian ones about getting shit back together after decades of occupation. But there are lots of one-offs too. Like the one where oBrien goes to mind jail.
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Compared to other 90s Trek there is an overarching plot but it’s episodic enough you could enjoy it in single servings, I’ll preface this list with I’m extremely biased towards Garak or Ferengi episodes and one of the series greatest injustices is that Quark and Garak didn’t have more scenes together. Example A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VhSm6G7cVk
In the Pale Moonlight is considered one of the best DS9 episodes and imo one of the best Trek episodes out of any series, explores the morally grey decisions people sometimes make in war.
Past Tense is a two part time travel episode about current day America where they’re rounding up the homeless and poor into ghettos.
Bar Association has the best Trek character form a labor union and recite Marx.
Little Green Men is a fun take on the Roswell incident.
The Magnificent Ferengi has them stage a rescue mission that turns into Weekend at Bernie’s.
Body Parts is one of the only Quark/Garak episodes and is low key hilarious.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
For DS9, seasons 1-3 can be watched out of order, 4 and on can still mostly be understood and enjoyed out of order, but plot starts to build. Im sure somebody on reddit has compiled all the plot-essential episodes if you really want to make sure you hit them all.
The thing about DS9 is that the fillers and one-offs can be really good (or terrible!), and rarely need the plot episodes to make sense of them.
I would start with TNG, but be aware the first 2 seasons kinda suck. It picks up fast after that. Ds9 is best but it’s probably best to be familiar with the setting via tng.
Some episodes can be watched out of order, but rather than doing it randomly, I’d go for watching a “must-see” list.
Fuck yes it’s great.
Watch TNG and DS9 but skip season 1.
After that watch Lower Decks
half of tng season 1 is fine and it sets up a bunch of stuff that won’t make any sense without it.
ds9 season 1 is the strongest first season of any spinoff trek.
Deep Space Nine is best
TNG is good but for a first go through I would say just skip season 1, most of the first episodes were written for TOS in the 70s and did not translate well
Voyager is fine outside of some questionable writing decisions like Kes being a species that only lives 9 years and is in a relationship with a character whose is at least in his 30s when she’s 1.
Enterprise can be kinda cringe but there’s some good stuff in there
The only new Trek I’d really recommend is Lower Decks but it’s much more enjoyable when you’ve gone through the other series.
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yes! you should especially watch deep space 9. it’s extremely good!!!
Deep Space Nine was the best IMO.
Or… you can start at the Star Trek Acid Party and work backwards from there appreciating the deep meta.
However you consume fully automated luxury gay space communism will always enrich you.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Yes, it’s wonderful. Timeless. I didn’t watch it when I was a kid, I watched it for the first time more than a decade after it aired with no nostalgia, and loved it.
As most people would say, start with The Next Generation, at the beginning of season 3. There are good episodes in season 2, but there are also some really bad ones, whereas almost every episode in season 3, 4, and 5 are excellent. And, almost every episode is a self-contained story that doesn’t need over-arcing context. The only additional context you really need which comes up from before season 3 is that there was a security officer before Warf who was awkwardly killed off in season 1 named Tasha Yar, and she does come up. Otherwise, just jump in there.
Go in expecting thoughtful sci-fi and not action schlock and you’re good. Just be braced for goofy early-90s make-up, action, sets and special effects. The writing and acting is what really makes it timeless.
As a kind of counter-argument against watching it, Star Trek (disregarding the lurid garbage that is the modern stuff) is a setting which has a positive and hopeful view of humanity in the future; it’s a post-scarcity humanity which has conquered starvation, homelessness, greed, racism, no longer wars with itself, has no use for money, and values personal and societal growth and exploration above all else. So, for me, it’s actually pretty depressing to watch at times, seeing a portrayal of what humanity could be and comparing it to the roaring trash-fire that our society is today.
No it will make you a lib
Yes.
Yes deep space 9 starting in season 4
don’t listen! DS9 sucked when I skipped around, and after seeing it in order from the first episode, it’s my favorite star trek. Every season is great!
