How to introduce Star Trek to someone

I've a friend who doesn't like scifi terribly much, but has watched MCU. She's mentioned the need to watch some Trek and SW in terms of filmmaking etc (she's a film major in India); what would be the best series of Trek for someone to start with?

My initial feeling would be Picard for the cohesive long-form story and Lower Decks for the traditional episodic stories, yet both of them rely on heavy references to earlier series and movies.

TrekForge, give me the pros and cons of each series and movies!

It depends on the purpose of the class, but TNG is pretty standard academic wise. You have a single episode arc, with multiple acts. You have longer running themes over the course of a season. You have obvious plots and subplots to go through in each episode. You have the opening teaser.

The episodes back then were really paint by the numbers when you break them down into elements. They are obvious too. If you are talking for a film class to analyze a formula to create an episode or season TNG is simple and easy. There are also enough bits of creative nuance thrown about for some advanced dissection.

See my signature.

The classic movies rely the least on deep lore dives.
Can't go wrong with 2,3, 4, and 6.

Trying to think of the minimum homework to get up to Picard...


Farpoint, Best Of Both Worlds, First Contact, Scorpion.

If she is interested in the film making aspect then I would recommend the 5 best episodes of the original series, movies 2-4, and the 5 best episodes of next generation.

That would give her some exposure to good sci-fi storytelling as well as some insight into the way film was shot and produced in various decades. And by the starting with the best of Trek, it may inspire her to watch more.

Definitely would not recommend any of the newer Trek series. if she wants to learn about modern filmmaking there are plenty of better sci-fi/fantasy shows today than current Trek.

And for Star Wars, of course always start with the original trilogy.

It's hard to say because there's so much lore, and having been steeped in it for more than 30 years, it's hard for me to separate what will and won't make sense without its context. (Except for the obvious cases, like the reference-laden Lower Decks.)

In many ways TNG feels like the most accessible, but there was so much cringe in the first two seasons that you'd have to start partway through, and I don't know where to jump in.

Then there's the filmmaking question ... are you mostly looking for a selection of episodes that are interesting cinematically and help tell the story not of the Star Trek universe, but of the evolution of visual storytelling from the 1960s to now?

Stop. Perpetuating. The. Myth.

Season two of TNG was actually one of the better seasons, and included some of the best episodes of the entire series.

Yeah if it’s film making none of the 24th century Trek is significant. It’s was all very by the book and static.

I’d say for modern audiences, DS9 would be the way to go. I’d definitely recommend the best episodes of TOS and the trilogy TOS movies. TVH was the first Trek I watched and it got me interested in wanting to see more.

As tafkats says, it kinda depends on what the intention is. Is she interested in getting into Star Trek as she studies it, or looking for some really good filmmaking, or looking at the progression of TV/filmmaking, or ? And what would interest her?

The One With The Whales is pretty low on the Oh No They're Doing Science Stuff My Brain Is Checking Out scale, so might be a way to ease in. OTOH TWoK has some good, easily perceived directing decisions to watch, including decisions to make it easier for a general audience to buy in.

And TMP is boring as fuck but has some pretty beautiful cinematography ...

You watch TMP once you’ve seen everything else.

Gonna have to agree with Diacanu here. They link forward and back, plus they get some of those classic literature references young filmmakers crutch on to feel profound and intellectual.

@Shirogayne, explain yourself.

"Q Who" and "The Measure of a Man" are arguably among the top five episodes of TNG. Do you really want me start going through the list of season two episodes?

Anyway, I seem to recall you were a fan of Enterprise, so you are in no position to be throwing tomatoes.

I don't think many people would say those two episodes and others were not great episodes. That is not the same thing as recognizing that there was a lot of cringe in the second season, or disputing that S2 was one of the better seasons in TNG. I think it's fair to say it was a great season even, but I don't think it is better overall than any season other than 1 and 7, and even that is debatable.

By my count TNG S2 has about 5 or 6 great episodes: Q Who, The Measure of a Man, A Matter of Honor, Time Squared, The Emissary and the Schizoid Man.

It also has about that many terrible episodes, starting with Shades of Grey (the clip show), Manhunt (Lwaxana and the holodeck), The Royale (crew is stuck in a bad novel), Samaritan Snare (the Pakleds), Up the Long Ladder (the Space Irish).

There are other episodes that are somewhat in the middle but I'd personally rate them low because they had cheesy or awkward moments, like The Dauphin (Wesley falls for a shapshifter) or The Icarus Factor (for making me think about Riker's dad getting it on with Pulaski).

I don't disagree, but TNG pretty much peaked at season 4. There were definitely some bright lights in seasons 5 through 7, but for the most part the series had more mediocrity and cringe than it did stellar episodes. I don't know if it was the unceremonious the departure of Dr. Crusher, but fans always seem to have a hate on for season 2 that I don't think is justified when you look at the overall series.

P.S. - You forgot "Elementary, Dear Data" and I happen to like "The Royale".

Keyword: "was"

Given how polaring JJ Trek still is, ya may wanna stop casting stones from your glass house, there

I mean, I came into TNG knowing Crusher left for a season. I also gave the show a rewatch specifically because people told me how much better it was than Enterprise. To say I was extremely underwhelmed is an understatement and if this had been my introduction to Trek, I wouldn't be here right now.

I will say S2 had a higher batting average than S1, but it isn't nearly enough to make me spring for one of CBS's insanely overpriced DVD sets. I dunno, the luster of TNG hasnt aged all that well for me in general, though.

Context is important. There was pretty much fuck-all decent sci-fi on television in 1988/89. (I get you probably weren't even born then, or at the very least were still crapping your diapers.)

Even looking back, you can see there was a lot more creativity in the storylines in season two than in subsequent seasons. In the later seasons, the stories were primarily character-driven likely due to the fact that the actors had become megastars and could make bigger demands of the showrunners. Just look at Nemesis as an example of what happens when actors primarily drive the story.

But I definitely agree that TNG has not aged as well as I would have hoped.

I would say overall TNG S1 is better than S2, personally. S1 had only one standout episode in Conspiracy, but only Code of Honor and Justice sunk to the level of the S2 stinkers mentioned above. And I have a soft spot for Code of Honor even as questionable on race as that is.

I was born in '86, so yeah I was hella young and while I fuck with Trek, I'm not much of a sci-fi fan in general.

There's a whole lotta "you had to be there" stuff in TNG for me, the most prominent example being BOBW, an episode that was hyped like Fyre Fest, only to watch it and go "....that's it?!" (Yeah, I know about P-Stew's possible exit and all that, but even apart from that, I felt more engaged with the Riker story )

But the story that is way overhyped is "The Inner Light," a story whose beats TNG had done to better effect in previous episodes like "Family" and didn't reset itself at the end.

Someone did a video on it, and she ain't wrong:

TNG is very much a product of its time, but then all of Trek is.

TOS being preoccupied with them dirty 'puters taking hardworking humans' jobs just hasn't aged as badly as TNG trying to make a virtue of bending over backwards for the Unenlightened Society Of The Week.

If it's in terms of filmmaking and not for the sake of enjoying Trek itself, start with The Cage to show what Trek was always capable of, then The Menagerie to show what the network would actually let them do.

Oh, and I'd also show the first Abrams film next to Where No One Has Gone Before for the contrasting introductions of the premise and the cast, and Into Darkness to contrast Space Seed/TWOK.

Encounter at Farpoint and The Vulcan Hello/Battle of the Binary Stars show different ways Trek has tried to reintroduce itself after it's previous incarnations fizzled out.

If you want to look at something from a feminist perspective, Masks has a scene where all the important stuff is happening between Picard and the intelligence that's possessed Data, but the camera is focused on Troi's ass with an obviousness that would make Michael Bay blush.

I think most of TNG does hold up, but TNG isn’t suited for modern audiences and modern story telling. That being said, there are plenty of people below the age of thirty who are discovering it for the first time and are loving it.

And don't get me started on episodes like "The Chase" and "Force of Nature", which were shoehorned into the final two seasons. These episodes fundamentally changed the Trek universe, but were quickly brushed aside by the next episode-of-the-week. If TNG were done today, these stories would have warranted season-long arcs.

For fucks sake, don't start her with Picard.

I agree with Wrath of Khan as a good starting place and if filmmaking is the focus of her interest in Trek. It works as a standalone movie, but it helps if she knows the characters and Space Seed (though not absolutely essential).

For episodes, there are a lot of good standalone episodes that work in terms of storytelling, directing, and acting:

• The City on the Edge of Forever
• The Measure of a Man
• The Inner Light
• The Drumhead
• Duet (just an incredible episode in an otherwise "meh" first season, especially considering it's a bottle episode)
• The Visitor
• Blink of an Eye

Just from TOS, The City on the Edge of Forever for sheer storytelling, Obsession for how far into Kirk’s character it goes, and The Doomsday Machine for the cinematic beats not seen in any other episode.