Risa

But also shows were made for syndication, so most didn't have overarching plotlines and it didn't matter what order you watched them in. There might be one (heavily advertised) event a season that actually affected anything, and it'd be something like two characters getting married rather than something that fundamentally shook up the concept.

That sounds like a long road

getting from there to here.

If you insist on watching TNG from the beginning, be warned the first two seasons are a bit rough and there's that one "Then we went to the black people planet and got blacked at" episode which even the cast of the show hates that episode.

TNG first season? Eww

What?

You just start at Star Trek The Animated Series

If you like new stuff: Star Trek The Animated Series

If you like animation: Star Trek The Animated Series

If you enjoy older series: Star Trek The Animated Series

If you enjoy really old series: Star Trek The Animated Series

I only very casually like Star Trek and have never been confused when watching any series from the first episode.* I don't know about all these fancy new Treks, but TOS, TNG, and DS9 were intentionally designed to be picked up during any random episode because that was how TV worked at the time. If you found a show during its fifth episode, you had no means of going back to the first four unless you happened to know someone who recorded them on VHS.

Lower Decks was also completely enjoyable to me even though my knowledge of the franchise is limited.

* I think it was Discovery we tried watching somewhat recently (not 100% sure on the title) where I was confused from the first episode, but it was in a "What the fuck are these creative choices?" and "Do people like this?" way.

Picard is easily the worst serious ever. And I don't mean it in the sense of "place to start" but in the sense of "worst serious period". Discovery is great tho.

I never was into it, always a Star Wars kid. My gf dad had episodes of TAS going one day and I got sucked into it to my surprise, i didnt think I’d appreciate a show that I always saw as old and kinda cheesy. I watched a few more episodes and really liked it. He did me a big favour, told me even if I wasn’t going to watch it all at once, he said watch space seed the episode, then go watch the first two movies. What an epic, you get a great introduction to Star Trek and one of its greatest villains Khan.

After that I tired TNG but didnt like it, don’t like most Star Trek, I always go back to the original. I did watch discovery with my wife and it was ok, but strange new worlds is my second favourite now.

@glorkon @USSBurritoTruck

Star Trek also assumes a truly post-scarcity society in which capitalism plays, at most, a small part.

One of the problems we face in assessing human potential is that we pretty much only know of humans since the Neolithic, when authority and wealth became increasingly centralized. In the Star Trek universe, while authority remains hierarchical and highly centralized, economic inequality is somewhat diminished. These are different sets of social premises and the outcomes might vary.

But let's be honest, we all know we would behave like the aliens from Independence Day - mercilessly conquering and harvesting alien worlds and spreading destruction across the universe.

This would be true, except that Star Trek assumes a truly post-scarcity world where nobody needs to harvest alien worlds. Hell, the capitalists (Ferengi) are depicted as ruthless and conniving (oftentimes outright cartoonish) villains most of the time.

I started with voyager, was that wrong?

Why not s3e1? I don't know anything about it but why skip that one?