I love Star Trek. I grew up with Star Trek. Star Trek is very important to me.
As a TV series, though not every episode is great, or even good, I can't think of any other series that has so consistently delivered great sci-fi ideas in 45-minute chunks. It delivers so many different
kinds of story. It manages to be fresh and rewatchable because every episode is going to be something different.
You've got your courtroom dramas:
Political intrigue:
Character drama:
You've got stories centered on deep philosophical questions, wacky episodes where the emotionless android Data tries to make a relationship work, or
spooky episodes where people start having weird flashbacks in their waking hours, and slowly begin to realize they're all having flashbacks of being in the same place:
There are so many different kinds of Star Trek episode, and the fact that they could pull that off is a testament to both the versatility of the actors, and to the degree that they really *inhabited* these characters.
And man, let me tell you, as much as I like Star Wars, I don't want to live in Star Wars. There's a big Galactic Empire? They're probably gonna murder everybody I know! Everybody's at war all the time! Sucks!
Fully luxury automated space communism? Encountering new forms of life and new civilizations? I want to learn about Klingon opera! Just, uh, pretend I'm doing the Drake meme thing:
: Endless war between good and evil in a cycle that will never end because the movies make too much money
: Fully luxury automated space Communism! Sometimes war, but usually not.
Have you never watched Star Trek? The original series is classic, but very hokey, and has some very questionable '60s gender politics. You should start with Star Trek: The Next Generation. Except, uh, the first season of TNG is very very bad. The standard advice I've heard is that you should jump in when Riker grows his beard, which happens partway through season 2. I say you can just start in season 3 if you don't want to fuck around trying to figure out which episode that is. The whole show is very episodic, so don't worry too much about skipping around.
Do you want to hear some schlubby internet nerds tell you their favorite Star Trek TNG episodes? Yes, I think you do:
In seriousness, I really really like hearing these guys talk about things that they really really like, after having them get famous for spending 100000 hours ripping on things they hate. This might also serve as good advice if you're looking to get into Star Trek, but don't know where to start first.
Talk about your favorite episodes!
Talk about things you didn't understand/appreciate if you watched it as a child!
Talk about how the very goofy looking tar monster from season 1 scared the *shit* out of you!
Talk about the couple episodes from Voyager/Enterprise that you think are actually pretty good!
Star Trek: Picard is the worst, stupidest, most poorly thought and planned out series maybe ever. The show is dumber than LOST, and it shits all over everything I love about Star Trek. Talk about that if you want to! I bet that people on this forum for a podcast where nerds make fun of dumb shit will like to make fun of dumb shit.