Contemporary Star Trek Viewing Guide

[PGage]

For reasons not important here, I have not yet watched the latest seasons of the three current Star Trek series. [With as few spoilers as possible] is there a recommended viewing order for watching Picard Season 2, Discovery Seasons 3 & 4, and Strange New World Season 1?--

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[Kevin M.]

Strange New Worlds has been the biggest positive surprise of them all. Good stories… good Trek stories… hit and miss sci-fi stories. Hard to believe it was developed by the abysmal Discovery producers. In case you couldn’t tell, I could not be more against that series, and I feel genuine sympathy for Discovery’s cast which was is capable of far better. 

Honorable mention to the animated Lower Decks.  

On Sat, Jul 9, 2022 at 4:58 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

For reasons not important here, I have not yet watched the latest seasons of the three current Star Trek series. [With as few spoilers as possible] is there a recommended viewing order for watching Picard Season 2, Discovery Seasons 3 & 4, and Strange New World Season 1?--

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Jon Delfin]

There's no cross-referencing, so you can watch them at your convenience.

On Sat, Jul 9, 2022 at 7:58 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

For reasons not important here, I have not yet watched the latest seasons of the three current Star Trek series. [With as few spoilers as possible] is there a recommended viewing order for watching Picard Season 2, Discovery Seasons 3 & 4, and Strange New World Season 1?--

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[David Bruggeman]

From what you've written, you've already seen the Strange New Worlds characters when they appeared on Discovery, so you should be fine.

[PGage]

Thanks. I like Picard, and so interested to see Strange New World, but for reasons related to what Kevin noted, would be just as happy to leave Discovery behind for now.

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[Pete Ahles]

Before watching Strange New Worlds, you should watch the Original Series two part episode "The Menagerie".

The Season 1 finale references "Balance of Terror" heavily.

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[PGage]

I’m not too worried about TOS references, as I have had multiple close viewings of all of those episodes throughout the years.

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[PGage]

Just finished Picard Season 2. Thanks to the list for the help, I  Feel like I made the right choice. I liked so much about this, but they had me with the Gary 7 reference early on (and we’ll paid off later). Season 1 was hit and miss for me and led me to the conclusion that hyper serialized Star Trek just can’t produce the same character development and interconnections that more stand alone episodes can. But Season 2 of Picard is just about what you want from Star Trek in terms of characters, and still told a pretty involved serialized story.

[Kevin M.]

Strange New Worlds does have little Easter Eggs for fans of TOS, but none of them are integral to the stories. Mostly they stayed true to their promise of a stand-alone episodic series, which I liked. No prior knowledge required, but some knowledge increases enjoyment… especially of the season finale. 

I didn’t write much about season 2 of Picard, mostly because I’m of mixed feelings about it. It was good, but the story arc stretched too long… it would’ve made a good two-parter with additional stories for the characters. I also feel the bond between the characters is too forced, especially Picard and Raffi, which I might not have felt if we’d seen additional adventures they shared. But it was watchable, and that era of Trek will probably always be nearest to my heart purely due to my age, so I’ll keep watching.

But since they went out of their way to negate the very existence of Discovery from the prime universe, I’ll gladly go ahead and ignore it completely, too. 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[M-D November]

I think Picard S2 was helped by the fact that the series-long arch was much clearer than in S1:

• The Borg are back
• Q cocked up the timeline
• OH SHIT, THE CONFEDERACY!
• We have a ticking clock to fix things

As for SNW, I was apprehensive given its starting point (specifically, Discovery, a/k/a "The Trek with ALL THE FEELS"), but IT'S SO GOOD.

[Bob Jersey]

Is this Variety article useful to any of you?
https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-1-kirk-pike-spock-gorn-sybok-hemmer-1235315542/ (link)     B

M-D November, to PGage et al, July 11th: