Hypothetically,,, if i were to start watching (or reading??) Star Trek, where should i start?
1. YOU MUST BE WILLING TO WATCH CRINGE SHIT BC I PROMISE THERES SOME SEASONS OF SOME TREKS THAT ARE JUST THE FUCKING WORSE BUT ARE SO VITAL TO WATCH SO YOU HAVE THE CONTEXT FOR LATER AND MUCH BETTER EPISODES.
2. OK BUCKLE UP YOU READY FOR AN IN DEPTH DISCUSSION ON WHICH TREKS ARE WHICH
heres a key bc im gonna be using some abbreviations
tos - the orginal series (the one with spock)
tng - the next generation (the one with data)
ds9 - deep space nine (the one with transgender worms)
voy - voyager (the one with janeway, the best captain in the delta quadrant)
ent - enterprise (nobody likes this one bc of the post 9/11 nationalism) (also known as the series that had mpreg in the second episode)
aos - alternate original series (the one with spock but theyre homophobic) (aka the 2009 remakes)
disco - discovery (the one with the mushrooms)
picard - picard (picard)
lds - lower decks (bobs burgers but its star trek)
OK, SO NOW THAT WE GOT THOSE ESTABLISHED WE GOTTA GET YOU THE VIEWING ORDERS THAT MOST PEOPLE USE
some people watch the show in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER FROM RELEASE. this is the order from when the shows were made. it goes TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, AOS, DISCO, PICARD, LDS.
the benefits in watching it in chronological order is that you can slowly see the special effects get better over time, you can watch star trek from the "beginning" and have a good grasp on where the writers were going with each characters in each series. its pretty cool, because you can see the rise in popularity. the cons are that you have to start with the most horrible special effects of all fucking time and it gets worse before it gets better.
however, there is ANOTHER order that i like to call the "fun order" because it skips around the timeline a little. you start with TNG, then DS9, then VOY and then you can watch the other treks in whatever order you want. this is fun if you have less time and just want to get the main story out of the way so you can watch Lower Decks.
there's also the "timeline" order, which goes ENT, DISCO, TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, LSD, and then PICARD. AOS is not included in this list because its technically an alternative timeline, so you can just watch those three movies afterwards. the benefits is that you get to see humans starting out their exploration in the galaxy and expand as the show goes on. the cons are that it deffff jumps around in quality (disco is famous for being kinda like a netflix series, or one really drawn out movie while ent and tos are "monster of the week" style episodes). another con is that you have to watch ENT, which has a guy growing nipples on his hand in the 2nd episode because he put his hand in a bowl of rocks with an alien and got man pregnant. trust me this is not the worst episode you will watch.
theres also the "fuck around and find out" order where you read all of the wikipedia summeries of each show and start with the one with the coolest sounding plot
TLDR so the timeline in order of events goes ent, disco, tos, tng, ds9, voy, lsd, picard (as aos is an alternative timeline). the way it was released went tos, tng, ds9, voy, ent,aos, disco, picard, lsd. the way most people watch them go tng, ds9, voy, lsd, tos, ent, disco, picard.
tbh, you could start with any trek and just have fun.
you can also join my star trek server which welcomes people who havent watched anything of trek to get advice as well!
