If you have literally no experience at all, I’d pick and choose some great standalone episodes to get started with.
Some ideas:
TOS: Balance of terror/Space seed.
TNG: Drumhead/Darmok.
DS9: The House of Quark/Trials and tribulations (harder to find good standalone episodes as so many of the best are part of the main plot.
VOY: Eye of the Needle/The Void.
The 2 parter DS9 and voyager opening episodes are both also pretty good places to start.
I started with the Voyager pilot, it’s so great. It sets up an incredible premise that is so much more compelling than “we are explorers”, at least in my opinion. The whole series has an arc that is integral to every episode in a way that truly doesn’t get old.
I mean… I started with that, my best friend in my first year of high school showed me the first few seasons, and then I pretty much didn’t watch more until now, mumble years later, when I decided to go through the whole of Voyager. It’s genuinely a very good show. There’s some stuff in there that I’ll put down to TV restrictions - low budget and tight schedules mean you can’t close every plot hole - but it’s got a lot of heart. It shows people being mature and dealing with their problems, and just openly saying how much they care about each other on a regular basis, which I love.
Just like… be aware that there are things that haven’t aged well. The three biggest I can think of are:
Chakotay’s character being played by a non-indigenous person and the indigenous consultant actually being a fraud, which leads to some extremely awkward pastiches of indigenous culture.
Kes being “born sexy yesterday”.
The generally exploitative way women are dressed and treated in the whole show. Kes is put in a catsuit, then soon after replaced with 7 of 9 in a catsuit. Plus in general they’ll just shove women in bikinis on screen at their first chance, or even when no chance presented itself at all. For a show that does a lot of openly-feminist stuff with its female captain that insists on being called “captain” over “sir” or “ma’am” and who generally kicks butt, it has a lot of sexism that seems even more dated than the 90s era it was made in.
If you have literally no experience at all, I’d pick and choose some great standalone episodes to get started with.
Some ideas: TOS: Balance of terror/Space seed. TNG: Drumhead/Darmok. DS9: The House of Quark/Trials and tribulations (harder to find good standalone episodes as so many of the best are part of the main plot. VOY: Eye of the Needle/The Void.
The 2 parter DS9 and voyager opening episodes are both also pretty good places to start.
I started with the Voyager pilot, it’s so great. It sets up an incredible premise that is so much more compelling than “we are explorers”, at least in my opinion. The whole series has an arc that is integral to every episode in a way that truly doesn’t get old.
I mean… I started with that, my best friend in my first year of high school showed me the first few seasons, and then I pretty much didn’t watch more until now, mumble years later, when I decided to go through the whole of Voyager. It’s genuinely a very good show. There’s some stuff in there that I’ll put down to TV restrictions - low budget and tight schedules mean you can’t close every plot hole - but it’s got a lot of heart. It shows people being mature and dealing with their problems, and just openly saying how much they care about each other on a regular basis, which I love.
Just like… be aware that there are things that haven’t aged well. The three biggest I can think of are:
Chakotay’s character being played by a non-indigenous person and the indigenous consultant actually being a fraud, which leads to some extremely awkward pastiches of indigenous culture.
Kes being “born sexy yesterday”.
The generally exploitative way women are dressed and treated in the whole show. Kes is put in a catsuit, then soon after replaced with 7 of 9 in a catsuit. Plus in general they’ll just shove women in bikinis on screen at their first chance, or even when no chance presented itself at all. For a show that does a lot of openly-feminist stuff with its female captain that insists on being called “captain” over “sir” or “ma’am” and who generally kicks butt, it has a lot of sexism that seems even more dated than the 90s era it was made in.
Even so, amazing show.