I started all of Star Trek in story order last year.* (Off-Topic)

by Leviathan , Hotel Zanzibar, Monday, December 09, 2013, 07:52 (3791 days ago) @ ncsuDuncan

I had seen random episodes before, mostly Picard, and I was halfway-familiar with most of Kirk's films, but I thought it was time to invest in this other deep sci-fi universe I knew little about. And yeah, I ran out of things to watch on Netflix. :)

Plus, they're great to make art to (unless the episode is really good).

To be honest, part of my inspiration was the new Trek films. Although they are light on sci-fi concepts, they captured an enthusiastic drive for the future. They were optimistic, with bold, sweeping colors and lines. It got me riled up!

So I was really surprised to find Kirk was my Captain. He just barrels forward into the unknown (sometimes literally). And I think TOS and Enterprise captured that futurist/exploratory drive the best for me. The colors and lighting alone of TOS is fascinating. And in terms of character dynamics, you can't beat Kirk-Spock-Bones!

After The Animated Series (which are great audio books) and Kirk's primary movies, I was again surprised, as TNG was not as immediately phenomenal as people had built up in my mind. As others have said, it takes a while to get consistently good, but there are still some fun episodes before that like the first Borg encounter. They actually made an enemy fearsome!

Picard has some of that childlike-drive for exploration showcased in Enterprise and TOD, but he's usually too distracted by delicate political matters and complicated moral concepts, which are interesting in their own right. I feel like he really becomes a Captain I'd proudly follow in Season 3 and 4. And his character has some great developments in episodes like The Inner Light and Lessons.

You should try DS9 if you end up liking TNG. A lot more politics but it has some great arcs and the character Garrek. It also reaches consistency much faster than TNG, since it had TNG's foundation to leap from. As a whole, I might end up liking it more than TNG. We'll see - I'm still only halfway through it. :)

Voyager... I'll have to get back to you on. I went from watching one to three Star Trek episodes a day until I started Voyager and that motivation then just grounded to halt. I'm going to keep trying as every other series has surprised in their unique ways... But this one is the toughest by far!

Oh, and I hope you like Lt. Barclay - one of my favorite parts of TNG!

*Heavily edited for horrible morning writing.