The whole Trek-chilada

An old friend on Facebook asked for recommendations about consuming the whole Trek-chilada, so of course, I had Things To Say.

***Rolling up sleeves, cracking knuckles***
You knew I would jump on this, right? HERE WE GO.

It's impossible to say what you can/should skip, because it's entirely a matter of personal taste. Many people (like your friend above) hate Enterprise and will tell you not to bother. I, on the other hand, think Enterprise beats the living daylights out of TNG, which I think is much cheesier. So you are about to embark on hundreds of hours of TV viewing to decide for yourself. So my recommendation is to watch in broadcast order, which is not the internal chronological order (ENT is a TOS prequel, after all), but gives you the sense of the conceptual evolution of the franchise. In other words, broadcast order is internal-logic order. So my viewing order would be:

TOS: Cuz it's first and best, duh.

The Animated Series: OK, no one includes this, but YOU SHOULD. TAS is weird as hell. The animation quality is the lowest of the low. But the stories themselves range from dumb cartoon to surprisingly sophisticated -- so much so that you quickly come to realize why this series totally failed as a children's cartoon. Bonus: There's one episode that takes place on Vulcan that offers some interesting insight into Vulcan culture you'll get nowhere else. Extra bonus: When we were kids and TAS was first broadcast, it was on Saturday mornings, which meant I couldn't watch. So instead, I read the novelizations by Alan Dean Foster. This is actually not a bad way to tackle this part of the ST canon, because, as I said, the animation quality is terrible, and the stories have to be stripped down to the bare minimum to fit a 1/2 hour cartoon, so the novelizations are actually superior.

The TOS movies: 1 & 5 are the worst and most skippable. The rest are super-groovy-rad. Enjoy.

TNG: Oy. I will never understand the appeal for so many fans. It certainly got better as it went along (the first couple of seasons are truly painful), but I find most of the characters really hard to take, and if I never see another holodeck episode, it'll be too soon. Poor Wesley Crusher took the brunt of fan hate, but it's Troi I want to throw out an airlock. That said, there are more than a few very good episodes (spread thinly over 7 seasons!), and obviously a ton of vital world-building. Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner are great; I like Q and the Borg (though Q gets overused and loses much of his luster). As tempted as I am to say just skip the first couple of seasons, canon is canon, and you'll be confused later if you don't know it, however painful it might have been to sit through. (I'm looking at you, "Skin of Evil.") TNG is a good choice for watching while cleaning or paying bills.

TNG movies: Now that you know my feelings about TNG, you won't be surprised to learn that I never saw any of these after the first one. This is the only ST I have not seen. Make of that what you will.

DS9: You may have heard that there was much kerfuffle about its similarity to J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5, and who stole what from whom. IMO DS9 clearly did rip off B5's concept, and B5 is overall better because of its more heavily serialized, planned-out story line. That said, DS9 is much better than TNG, in large part because Roddenberry wasn't involved, and his "characters aren't allowed to be in conflict with each other" rule was dropped. At the moment I'm nearly though rewatching the whole series for the first time since it aired, and it really holds up. I find that I like Sisko much better this time around. Initially, Avery Brook's weird, stilted line delivery bugged the crap out of me, but I guess you just get used to it when binging. While there are certainly quite a few weak filler episodes, overall I find the acting in this series to be much better than TNG, and it's very easy to binge. It keeps me company while cooking. Enjoy.

VOY: Such a mixed bag. They started with an interesting premise of a combined Federation and Maquis crew lost on the far side of the galaxy, then quickly abandoned everything that was interesting about it. And Janeway is my least favorite commanding officer. And, while DS9 is beginning to do more serialized storytelling, VOY is still heavily episodic, which by the late 90s already felt antiquated. A lot of people see VOY as TNG-lite. But IMO, the fact that the premise builds in a higher level of jeopardy for this series actually helps keep up a level of dramatic tension that TNG usually lacks. VOY is another good choice for multitasking viewing.

ENT: I will go to my grave defending this much-maligned series. Yes, the Rod Stewart-sounding theme song is painful (and yet it grew on me upon rewatch in ways I am ashamed to admit). Yes, they shamelessly used T'Pol in teen-titillating ways that gratuitously sexualized an inherently good character. Yes, the characterization of Jonathan Archer is somewhat inconsistent. And yet I find it overall to be a much more ripping yarn than anything told by TNG or VOY. I think the third season Xindi story arc, created in response to 9/11, is bloody good (literally). I think the story of a Vulcan woman grappling with inner demons is the most compellingly complex characterization ST gave us up to that point. I think Shran is a wonderful character. I don't want to spoil anything, but this series goes to places with character relationships that breaks the suffocating rules of drama previously aimed at a male teen demographic. Sit down and watch this. Give it a chance. It does not disappoint.

DISCO: Wheeeeeee! Away we go!