##“Where should I start?”

At the time of writing, there are 11 Star Trek shows (3 actively running) and 13 movies with a further show and a movie ‘special event’ in development.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that people come to this subreddit on a regular basis to ask where should I start?

This page is intended to be a spoiler free, quick start guide for people starting their journey through the Star Trek franchise.

We hope you find it useful, and please do contribute to the subreddit with your questions as you take your own journey; just be warned that you may see the odd spoiler.

LLAP,

StarTrek moderation team


What is canon? What can I skip?

The broad rule for the Star Trek franchise is that it’s canon if it appears on screen though this still has its exceptions, maybe.

Instead of telling you what you can and can’t skip in an unwieldy list, we’ll start with a quick rundown of the shows in the Trek ‘canon’, the initialisms you’ll see over the subreddit to refer to them, how many seasons they have and when they aired:

Series Initialism Seasons Air Dates Quality Why you could start here
Star Trek (Those Old Scientists) TOS 3 1966–1969 HD 4:3 It was the start of the franchise, had a comprehensive remaster in the 00s which added updated effects
The Animated Series TAS 2 1973–1974 HD 4:3 You enjoy old animation
Movies I - VI TMP 2 1979–1991 HD/4K 16:9 Movies that are aimed at a wider audience than the shows, have higher budgets and give you a look at the TOS characters without quite so many cardboard sets
The Next Generation TNG 7 1987–1994 HD 4:3 The first of the, heh, Next Generation of shows. Stars recognizable names such as Patrick Stewart and many iconic episodes. Also has had an extensive remaster.
Movies VII - X GEN/FC/INS/NEM 2 1994–2002 HD 16:9 Movies that are aimed at a wider audience than the shows, have higher budgets
Deep Space Nine DS9 7 1993–1999 SD 4:3 Trek’s first real foray into serialized narratives in the later seasons, widely regarded as having aged extremely well. Features Trek’s first Black Captain.
Voyager VOY 7 1995–2001 SD 4:3 Episodic and relatively standalone, features Trek’s first female Captain
Enterprise ENT 4 2001–2005 HD 16:9 The last of the ‘Berman’ (showrunner) era of shows, first of the Trek shows to be filmed in Widescreen, set before TOS.
Movies XI - XIII O9/ID/BEYOND 2 2009–2016(?) 4K 16:9 Features a branch of the ‘prime’ timeline. A great way to introduce you to the concepts of Trek through a more modern lens.
Discovery DSC 4 2017-Present HD 16:9 The first of the ‘new,nu or Kurtzman’ era of Star Trek, requires no prior knowledge to jump in and features serialized storytelling.
Picard PIC 2 2020-Present HD 16:9 Picks up 20 years after Nemesis, contains spoilers for TNG and VOY but can stand on it’s own
Lower Decks LD 2 2020-Present HD 16:9 Animated comedy/love letter to Trek, chock full of references to the other shows that you may miss as a first time viewer, but that just gives you a reason to rewatch it later.
Prodigy PRO 1 2021-Present HD 16:9 CG animated show targetted towards children, contains VOY spoilers, a great place to start if you have a young family.
Strange New Worlds SNW 1 2022-Present HD 16:9 Star Trek returns to live action episodic television, contains DSC spoilers but largely stands on it’s own as a ‘new’ TOS.

Now we have that out of the way, here are a few suggestions:


##The “production” order.

If you’re committed to watching everything eventually, and want to do it the “right” way, we recommend the following:

TOS^^1 → TAS → Films (1-6) → TNGGenerations (Film 7) → DS9First Contact (Film 8) → VOY → Films 9-10^^2 → ENT → Films 11-13^^3 → DSCPICLDPROSNW

^1 It’s often recommended to skip “The Cage” on your initial watch-through. It was an unaired pilot and most of the footage was recycled into the two-parter “The Menagerie” (watch it later for the novelty, though!).

^2 The Movies 7, 8, 9 and 10 feature the TNG cast, and can be watched anytime after TNG without spoiling anything from DS9, Nemesis however contains a Voyager spoiler.

^3 Films 11-13 The “Kelvin Timeline” Films take place in an alternate timeline and can be watched anytime; however, there are a lot of references and easter eggs to the prime timeline.

Late TNG and early DS9 (as well as late DS9 and early VOY) were on the air at the same time, (an episode from each came out each week). Consequently, their story lines take place at the same time. If you want to watch it in the order it was aired on TV then this list is for you. It should be noted that nothing is lost/gained by watching each series one at a time in the order above due to the nature of 90s syndicated television.


Other popular suggestions

If you’re not super keen on older television shows, or you’re looking for a way to hook a significant other, there are several other approaches that come up.

Start with TNG

TNGDS9VOY → Films 8-10 → ENTTOSTAS → Films (1-7) → Films 11-13 → DSCPIC

This method is for those that think (or have found) that they struggle with the production value of TOS, ease yourself in with something a bit more modern and then go back to the start once you’ve developed a ~~lifelong obsession with~ fondness for the universe.

The Next Generation was the start of the Berman era of Star Trek in the late 80’s (despite Star Treks creator Gene Roddenberry having the reigns for the first couple of seasons). It had much higher production values than The Original Series, and it set the tone and style for the following three shows. While TOS is mentioned, referenced, and characters from it even appear, this won’t affect your enjoyment of those episodes because of how ubiquitous TOS characters are throughout pop culture. You’ll definitely come to appreciate those episodes a little more after watching TOS though.

Start with a more modern show

This usually means starting with either ENT, DSC or SNW. This method is for those that really don’t like older, slower-paced TV shows, or find black bars on the side of the screen a barrier to enjoyment. ENT has good effects and more modern pacing (along with less reused stock footage of the ship for the ship lovers out there). DSC ties in a fair amount with TOS- but can be safely watched before it without missing out on or spoiling anything big.

Enterprise takes place chronologically before all other series. It references a lot of things from the other series though, and for maximum enjoyment should be watched after. But if you (or whomever you’re trying to turn into a Trekkie) has a hard time getting into older series, this is a good way to get started. Many a Trekkie was created with this method.

NOTE: Picard is also a “modern” series, and while it can be enjoyed on it’s own, there are considerable references/callbacks to the older series, including several main characters. So it’s usually recommended to at least be familiar with TNG first.

Child Friendly

Star Trek contains a fair amount of adult themes and content, especially the newer shows with their higher production budgets and lack of television broadcast restrictions. Your parental boundaries may be different from ours, so to be safe; we recommend watching any live-action show episodes yourself before watching them as a family (despite TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT being marketed as family-friendly).

You can, however, safely watch Star Trek Prodigy with your family. It’s specifically aimed at a younger audience (but is enjoyable for adults as well)!

Chronological order or Air Date

ENTDSCSNWTOSTASTNGDS9TNGDS9TNGDS9TNGDS9

Did you watch Star Trek during it’s original run and aren’t worried about being spoiled, but don’t really remember everything?

  • I started with TNG just because I’ve seen clips of Q. Worth it.
    I have since finished TNG and am a couple episodes into TOS. Suprisingly TOS is not as bad as expected. It kinda holds up and the quality is pretty dang good on Netflix, again to my surprise.

      • Can you give a (spoiler free if possible) reason for why you would recommend watching VOY before DS9 instead of the other way around? I assumed that VOY might contain spoilers for DS9 since it aired later.

        • Basically two reasons.

          First, DS9 is straight up better. Peak Star Trek in my opinion, so it’s nice to end on a high note. Again, not that VOY is bad or anything, but if DS9 is 10/10 Star Trek VOY is more like 8.5/10.

          Second reason is world building. Really there isn’t that much overlap as far as specific parts of the story is concerned, it’s more that DS9 is so great because it turns some things that are taken for granted on their heads. VOY is useful because it kind of goes into that direction a little bit, with the conflicts that necessarily arise on a small ship far from home, and because you literally just learn more about the world/universe, whatever you want to call it, and the more context you have the better DS9 gets.

          Very minor spoiler, both shows feature conflicts with the Marquis and the contrast, as well as the lack of contrast on how these conflicts are handled is very interesting.

          • Thanks! Tbh I don’t care much about the first reason. I’ve been planning to eventually get around to watch at least ENT and some of the newer shows, so I probably won’t be finishing with DS9 regardless. So far I’ve been following more or less the “start with TNG” ordering in the OP, and am now in season 3 of DS9. Do you think it would still be a gain to start VOY or am I already through the looking glass, i.e. does the latter add more to the earler seasons? If it’s mostly about the world building and not the story I might give a rough version of the “chronological viewing order” a try and see if I enjoy it.

    • There’s this weird cultural norm that says TOS is extremely cheesy, Shatner hams up every episode, the sets are all terrible, and it isn’t worth watching. It’s sad because TOS is my favourite and it has so many interesting stories, and Kirk is such a cool captain. Even TAS is worth a watch, especially the episode Yesteryear!

      It’s a real shame TOS got shafted by season 3, and we never got more of its peak due to diminishing budget. That’s what networks love doing though, they can never appreciate a good thing until it’s been off the air for decades and people are clamouring for more.

      I would highly recommend anyone starting off with a collection of some of the best or most relevant episodes of TOS, as well as some of the poor ones like Spock’s Brain. I’ve found at least the bad TOS ones are interesting, but bad TNG ones can be just boring.

  • I’m curious what series might be most similar to The Orville in terms of quality. I watched The Orville a few months ago and really loved it and it’s what’s making me wanna finally try Star Trek again.

    • Strange New Worlds would be the most similar in terms of modern production values, and in many ways the production far exceeds The Orville.

      Voyager also feels like The Orville, with a quite similar crew - awkward captain and first officer relationship, a flyboy pilot, a hothead engineer, a young forever ensign, an experienced and trusted security officer, and eventually someone who talks like a robot coming from the crew’s nemesis. It lacks a Bortus, but if you want more Bortus, go look for shows with Worf.

  • My recommendation is to start with TNG but skip most of Season 1 other than “Encounter at Farpoint,” and maybe watch only selected episodes from Season 2. Then you’re good to go through the rest of the series (although there are some episodes you can do without).

  • This is great! I have bounced off of TOS a few times, having thought that I was supposed to watch in “production order”. I recently started TNG and have been loving it. I can highly recommend the “Start with TNG” order for newcomers like myself.

    It’s surprising to me though that it was ever considered family friendly considering what a horndog Riker is (and also just everything to do with Lwaxana Troi 😂)

  • I love Lemmy so much. I came across this post when it was created, looked at it and thought “eh, maybe some other time”.

    Now I’m in the mood to give Star Trek a try, remembered this post, but couldn’t find it again in the community. But, alas, Lemmy has a proper search feature, and searching for “Guide to Star Trek” immediatly brought this up!

  • Funny how everyone has their own hook into Star Trek

    I had tried to watch TOS into TNG multiple times but faltered off shortly after TNG (something about TNG ‘monster of the week’ stuff can get boring after being so used to serialized shows…)
    Then I watched DS9 (recommended by a buddy) and fell in LOVE!! and DS9 continues to be my favourite Trek :)

  • Thanks for writing this up. After years of only having seen the kelvin timeline movies, I decided to take the plunge into the prime universe by watching in-universe chronological order. I’ve been using the list by u/bernasm he still updates it pretty regularly! I also like the methodology used by https://startrekviewingguide.com which is pretty similar but moves the mirror universe episodes in ENT until the mirror universe after the mirror universe has been introduced to the viewer. I think this solves much of the problem of ENT referencing older series being confusing to new viewers. Plus when you watch ENT first those references become references to enterprise when you watch those series later.

  • I watched the movie that came out in 09 then jumped into trek headfirst. After this I watched Enterprise which I enjoyed, but I watched it again in the past year and enjoyed it a lot more due to the references.

    I still need to finish TOS, it’s hard to get through sometimes, but I’m about halfway through season 3 so it shouldn’t take much longer to finish.

    After this I still have The Animated Series, which is supposed to be pretty short, The Original series movies, and then prodigy. I have a hard time with the animation, but I’ve seen the first 2-3 episodes.

    With all this being said, I think The Next Generation is my favorite, followed by Voyager and DS9 as a tie. But Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks have been really amazing, so it’s hard to say.

    I guess you really can’t go wrong with any of them as your first watch of Trek, but I’d say save Picard for after The Next Generation as it’s almost like a continuation.

  • I’m considering skipping over TOS because I tried to start with it before and stopped watching at some point (plus a huge Trekkie coworker strongly suggested skipping TOS). With respect to how TNG or later references TOS, are the references mostly the kind that just need you to know the basics of the characters vs having seen the actual series? I’ve watched enough of TOS to know who the various characters are and the setting (at least anything in the first dozen or so episodes). Wondering if that misses out on anything much.

    Also wondering if there’s some small number of TOS episodes that could be watched out of order or if the whole series should be skipped over if taking this approach. I’ve heard some specific episode titles as good ones and am wondering if I should just watch those specific episodes and then skip ahead to TNG or if that might cause confusion (I can’t really remember how episodic TOS is).

  • Great write up! I have to do my standard TOS defence though, it often gets a bad wrap based on what people think they know about it. A lot of the time that is based on things out of context like the Gorn in Arena, although there are a lot of genuine issues modern viewers could have.

    I think if there was a TOS “modern” season of ten of the best or most relevant episodes, or even if you reduce the three seasons to one classic trek season, almost everyone could get some appreciation for it. The Kirk, Spock, Bones dynamic is too good to miss, and the tension in something like The Corbomite Maneuver or Balance of Terror is great. There are some morally grey episodes as well like A Private Little War which, while divisive, I feel deserve to be in such a condensed season.

    Definitely skip Star Trek V though.

  • i started with tng. loved it. ah, still do.

    banned anything star trek after lower decks came out. blatant theft from Final Space. so cancel culture for anything star trek. scumbag brand.