How to get into…
How to get into Star Trek
Twelve series, fourteen films, more than nine hundred episodes, sixty years. You do not start at the beginning. You pick a door.
StreamPickr editorial · Updated 16 August 2026 · 9 min read
- 12 series — On the shelf
- 14 films — Across three casts
- 944 eps — Nobody has seen them all
- 60 years — 1966 → now
Star Trek is not one story. It is a shelf of separate shows that share a universe, a few actors and a general attitude, made across sixty years by people with very different ideas about what it should be. Almost none of it requires the rest. That is the good news, and it is why the usual advice, start at episode one in 1966, is the fastest way to never get into Star Trek at all.
So pick a door instead. Below are five ways in, each aimed at a different kind of viewer. Choose one and we will show you three episodes to try, in order, and what to watch after if they land. Three episodes is about two hours. If none of them work for you, Star Trek is not for you, and that is a perfectly good thing to find out in two hours rather than two hundred.
The shelf below every door is the whole franchise, grouped and summarised so you can see the shape of it. You do not have to read it. It is there for when you finish the door you picked and want to know what comes next.
Five ways in
Five ways in. Pick the one that sounds like you, and change it whenever you want.
The default answer
I want the one everyone means
The Next Generation
The Next Generation is the centre of gravity. Seven seasons, a crew people still have opinions about thirty years later, and a format built for dipping in: most episodes are self-contained hours with a moral argument in the middle of them. Its first season is famously poor, so we are not starting you there.
Your three episodes
- S2 E9 The Measure of a Man (46m) — A hearing on whether the android officer is a person or property. One room, two lawyers, no action. Still the best hour of argument the franchise has produced.
- S3 E26 The Best of Both Worlds (46m) — The cliffhanger that made the show’s reputation. It is a two-parter, so watch the opening episode of season four straight afterwards. Nobody in 1990 got to.
- S5 E25 The Inner Light (46m) — The captain lives another man’s entire life in twenty-five minutes. If this one does nothing for you, stop here with a clear conscience.
2h 18m for all three.
If they land: Watch The Next Generation from season three, and dip back to seasons one and two only if you get attached. First Contact is the film to see afterwards. Then Deep Space Nine, which is what happens when these writers stop being polite.
- Start here: The Next Generation
- Then: The Next Generation films
- After that: Deep Space Nine
The easiest start in 2026
I want something made recently
Strange New Worlds
Strange New Worlds is the current show and the friendliest one in decades: ten-episode seasons, standalone stories, modern production, and a cast doing the classic format with none of the classic stiffness. It is set before the 1966 series and assumes you know nothing, which is true.
Your three episodes
- S1 E1 Strange New Worlds (53m) — An actual pilot, doing the job properly. Introduces the ship, the crew and the point of the whole franchise in under an hour.
- S1 E4 Memento Mori (54m) — A submarine thriller in space. Establishes that this show can be genuinely frightening when it wants to be.
- S2 E3 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1h 1m) — Time travel to present-day Toronto, and the episode where the show proves it has a heart as well as a budget.
2h 48m for all three.
If they land: Finish Strange New Worlds. Three complete seasons and no homework, and the fourth is going out weekly right now, so you can catch up and then watch along. Then Lower Decks if you liked the jokes, or The Next Generation if you want the deep version of the same format.
- Start here: Strange New Worlds
- Then: Lower Decks
- After that: The Next Generation
For people who like long television
I want one great long story
Deep Space Nine
Deep Space Nine is the one that stays on a space station and lets consequences pile up: occupation, religion, and eventually a two-year war the show refuses to make comfortable. It is the best-written Star Trek and the least like the rest of it. It also asks the most of you, because the first season and a half is setup.
Your three episodes
- S1 E18 Duet (45m) — A war-crimes interrogation in a holding cell. The episode where the show announces what it is actually going to be about.
- S4 E2 The Visitor (45m) — A son loses his father to an accident in time and spends a lifetime trying to undo it. Frequently voted the best hour in all of Star Trek.
- S6 E19 In the Pale Moonlight (45m) — The captain talks himself, step by step, into something unforgivable. No other Star Trek ends where this one ends.
2h 15m for all three.
If they land: Start Deep Space Nine at episode one and commit to reaching season three. It pays back with interest. The Next Generation is optional background: a handful of DS9 characters arrive from it, and the show explains them as it goes.
- Start here: Deep Space Nine
- Then: The Next Generation
- After that: Picard
Two evenings, not two months
I only want the films
Four of the fourteen
The films are a legitimate way in, and the only one that has an ending. Fourteen exist, four are good, and they belong to three different casts. Watched in this order they work as four separate films that happen to share a universe, with no series required.
Your three films
- 1982 The Wrath of Khan (1h 53m) — Ageing captain, old enemy, submarine warfare in space. The film every later Star Trek film is measured against, and the only one that needs no context at all.
- 1986 The Voyage Home (1h 58m) — The crew travels to 1986 San Francisco to collect two whales. A comedy, deliberately, and the best-liked film in the run.
- 1996 First Contact (1h 51m) — The Next Generation cast against the Borg. Fast, dark, and self-contained enough that the series is optional.
5h 42m for all three.
If they land: If the films work, Star Trek (2009) is the fourth to watch: a reboot with none of the baggage. After that, pick a series through one of the other doors. The films will have told you which cast you liked.
- Start here: The original-cast films
- Then: The Next Generation films
- After that: The Kelvin films
For the curious
I want to start where it started
The Original Series
The 1966 series is sixty years old and looks it. It is also stranger, angrier and funnier than its reputation, and about a dozen of its 79 episodes are genuinely great television. Take it as an anthology: watch the good ones, and skip the rest without guilt.
Your three episodes
- S1 E14 Balance of Terror (50m) — A submarine duel with an enemy nobody has ever seen. Tense, cheap, and the template for a hundred later episodes.
- S1 E28 The City on the Edge of Forever (50m) — A trip to Depression-era New York and an impossible choice. The one everybody names.
- S2 E15 The Trouble with Tribbles (50m) — A comedy about an infestation of small purring animals. Proof that the show knew exactly how silly it was.
2h 30m for all three.
If they land: Cherry-pick the rest of The Original Series, then watch The Wrath of Khan, which is a direct sequel to a first-season episode. The Next Generation follows twenty years later in every sense.
- Start here: The Original Series
- Then: The original-cast films
- After that: The Next Generation
The whole shelf, in four groups
Everything there is, in four groups. Nothing here is a prerequisite for anything else unless the entry says so.
01. Where it started
1966–1974 · 2 entries
Three seasons of television that got cancelled, and a cartoon. Worth watching for the episodes people still argue about, not because you need it. Nothing later requires it.
The Original Series (1966–69)
3 seasons · 79 eps · optional
Where the words come from, not where you have to begin
Three seasons of hour-long morality plays with a cardboard budget and an unusually good central trio. Wildly inconsistent, and the third season is mostly bad, but the high points are still being cited by every Star Trek made since. Treat it as an anthology and use a list.
The Animated Series (1973–74)
2 seasons · 22 eps · skippable
A footnote with the original cast doing the voices
Saturday-morning cartoon, half-hour episodes, the same writers and actors as the 1966 show. Two or three episodes are worth the time. Nothing depends on it, and no later series will confuse you if you have not seen it.
02. The long middle
1987–2005 · 4 entries
Eighteen consecutive years of Star Trek on television, and six hundred and fifteen episodes of it. This is the era most people mean by Star Trek. The four shows run in parallel more than in sequence, and all four spend their first season finding their feet, which is the single most useful thing to know before starting one.
The Next Generation (1987–94)
7 seasons · 176 eps · start here
The default entry point, if you have the appetite
A new crew, eighty years later, arguing their way through self-contained hours. Season one is bad and season two is patchy; from season three it becomes the show that defined Star Trek for a generation. You can watch almost any episode from season three onwards cold.
Deep Space Nine (1993–99)
7 seasons · 173 eps · start here
The best-written one, and the one that asks the most
A station instead of a ship, a cast that cannot fly away from its problems, and a serialised war in the back half the franchise never really recovered from. Slow to start. Nothing else in Star Trek is this good at consequences.
Voyager (1995–2001)
7 seasons · 169 eps · for later
For when you have run out of the other two
A ship thrown seventy years from home: in theory desperate and short of supplies, in practice back to a clean corridor every week. Uneven, and better than its reputation from season four onwards. Start it after TNG or DS9, not before.
Enterprise (2001–05)
4 seasons · 97 eps · for later
A prequel that got good just before it was cancelled
Humanity’s first deep-space ship, a century before the 1966 series. Two aimless seasons, then a war arc, then a final season of small sharp stories aimed squarely at people who already love Star Trek. Which is exactly who should watch it.
03. The films
1979–2016 · 3 entries
Three runs with three casts. The films are where Star Trek goes loud, and they are the easiest entry point if you have two hours rather than two months. Quality swings wildly inside each run, so every one of them is listed with a verdict.
The original-cast films (1979–1991)
six films · start here
Two great ones, and four you can take or leave
The Wrath of Khan (1982) and The Voyage Home (1986) are the two: one a revenge thriller, one a comedy about whales, both watchable with no prior knowledge at all. The Undiscovered Country is a decent send-off. The other three are for completists.
The Motion Picture (1979)
2h 11m · skippable
The first one, and the slowest thing here
A ten-year-old television show reassembled as a solemn, unhurried science-fiction epic. There are long silent minutes of a spaceship being looked at. Beautiful in places, and a hard first film to recommend to anyone.
The Wrath of Khan (1982)
1h 53m · watch this
The best of the fourteen, and it needs nothing before it
An old enemy comes back for revenge and the film turns into a submarine duel between two men who never share a room. Tight, mean, and genuinely moving at the end. This is the one to watch if you only watch one.
The Search for Spock (1984)
1h 45m · for later
Only makes sense straight after Khan
The direct sequel, undoing some of what the previous film earned. Watchable, sometimes fun, and mostly a bridge to the next one. Skip it and you will miss nothing the following film does not explain.
The Voyage Home (1986)
1h 58m · worth it
The comedy, and the one non-fans like most
The crew travels to 1986 San Francisco to collect two humpback whales. Almost no action, a lot of jokes about the twentieth century, and a cast visibly enjoying themselves. Works cold, though it lands harder after Khan.
The Final Frontier (1989)
1h 46m · skippable
The one nobody defends
A search for God at the centre of the galaxy, directed by its leading man on a budget that could not pay for the idea. Two good campfire scenes and very little else.
The Undiscovered Country (1991)
1h 50m · worth it
The send-off, and a decent thriller on its own
A cold-war allegory about peace breaking out and the people who would rather it did not. A proper ending for the original cast, and the only late one that stands up.
The Next Generation films (1994–2002)
four films · good next
One classic, three that get progressively worse
First Contact (1996) is the good one and works as a standalone action film. Generations is a curiosity that hands the franchise from one cast to the next. Insurrection and Nemesis are the reason the film series stopped.
Generations (1994)
1h 58m · for later
The handover film, and a muddle
The two captains meet across a hundred years, by way of a plot device nobody has ever been able to explain quickly. Of interest mainly if you have watched the series it hands over from.
First Contact (1996)
1h 51m · watch this
Standalone, fast, and the good one
The Borg travel back in time to stop humanity ever reaching space, and the crew follow them. Half horror film, half comedy about a drunk inventor, and the rare Star Trek film that works with no series behind it.
Insurrection (1998)
1h 43m · skippable
A long television episode with a film budget
A pleasant, low-stakes story about relocating a village, stretched to feature length. Nothing wrong with it, and no reason to seek it out.
Nemesis (2002)
1h 56m · skippable
The one that ended the film series
A grim clone-and-revenge plot that misreads what people liked about this crew. It failed hard enough that Star Trek left cinemas for seven years.
The Kelvin films (2009–2016)
three films · optional
A separate timeline, made for people who had never watched any
A 2009 reboot with the original characters recast and the plot restarted, loud and very well cast. Star Trek (2009) and Beyond (2016) are good; the middle one is not. Nothing in the television series requires them, and they require nothing.
Star Trek (2009)
2h 7m · watch this
The reboot, built for people who had never watched any
The original characters recast as young officers, thrown together by a time-travel accident that conveniently restarts the universe. Loud, quick, and very well cast. Assumes you know nothing, which is the point.
Into Darkness (2013)
2h 12m · skippable
Redoes The Wrath of Khan, worse
A remake in disguise that restages the previous generation’s best scenes without earning them. Handsome and hollow.
Beyond (2016)
2h 2m · worth it
The fun one of the three
The crew crashes on a planet and gets split into pairs, which is the best thing that could have happened to them. This is the closest the reboot run gets to the spirit of the television.
04. The new run
2017– · 7 entries
Star Trek came back as prestige television and then, gradually, remembered it was also fun. Shorter seasons, bigger budgets, serialised plots. Two of these are as good as anything in the franchise, and two are for people who are already in.
Discovery (2017–24)
5 seasons · 65 eps · for later
The comeback show, and the most divisive one
Serialised, expensive and emotionally loud, with a season-long plot each year and a hard reset into the far future halfway through its run. People who like it like it a great deal. It is a poor first Star Trek, because it assumes you already care.
Strange New Worlds (2022–)
4 seasons · 34 eps · start here
The best door in 2026, if you want something current
Standalone episodes, ten a season, made with modern money and an old-fashioned sense of fun, including a musical episode and a courtroom farce. Set before the 1966 series and written so that knowing nothing costs you nothing. Season four is going out weekly as we publish this, four of its ten episodes so far, so it is also the one show here you can catch up on and then watch along with everybody else.
Lower Decks (2020–24)
5 seasons · 50 eps · good next
Funnier the more Star Trek you have seen
A half-hour animated comedy about the people who clean the corridors. Genuinely funny on its own terms, and packed with references that only pay off later. Watch it second, not first.
Picard (2020–23)
3 seasons · 30 eps · for later
A sequel to The Next Generation, and only that
The captain, twenty years on and out of the job. The first two seasons are uneven; the third is a reunion made for people who spent seven years with this crew. Requires The Next Generation, and it is the one entry here that genuinely does.
Prodigy (2021–24)
2 seasons · 39 eps · optional
Made for children, and the best on-ramp for them
Animated, aimed at newcomers and young viewers, about a group of kids who steal a starship and slowly work out what the Federation is. Better than it needs to be. The right thing to put on if you are bringing someone else along.
Starfleet Academy (2026–)
1 season · 10 eps · optional
The newest one, and the only one with no backlog at all
Ten episodes that landed at the start of 2026, following the first intake of cadets in a century, set far enough into the future that nothing else on this shelf is required reading. That makes it a tempting door, and it is a real one if you want to start with something nobody else has finished either. We have not made it a recommended route yet: one season is a thin basis for a promise, and the shows above have decades of evidence behind them.
Section 31 (2025)
1h 36m · skippable
A spin-off film for Discovery viewers
A one-off streaming film following a character out of Discovery. It was not well received and it explains none of its own background. Skip it unless you finished Discovery and want more.
What we left out, and why
We have skipped Short Treks, the animated Very Short Treks, the fan-made material, the games and the various documentaries. The three runs of films are grouped by cast rather than listed flat, because that is how they actually watch: three separate runs, each with two good ones in it. Open a group and every film in it is here with its own verdict. Section 31 sits on its own because it belongs to no run.