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This Is The Correct Order In Which To Watch The Star Trek Franchise

Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard in Picard

Don't look now, but "Star Trek" is a thing again. It's been a while — after redefining television in the 1960s and enjoying a resurgence in the '80s and '90s, the final episode of ""Star Trek: Enterprise" in 2005 marked the beginning of a dark period in which there was simply no "Trek" to be had. Then, in 2017, the drought ended with the premiere of " "Star Trek: Discovery ," and when it rains, it pours. "Discovery" heralded the arrival of a whole new era of ""Star Trek," and that's just the beginning — Paramount+ will soon play host to two new "Star Trek" shows, with three more currently in development, and there's a new movie scheduled for release in 2023 . Suddenly, we are awash in "Trek," which means that if you're unfamiliar with Gene Roddenberry's universe, it's a pretty good time to jump on board. Only where do you start with a franchise this big — and more importantly, what's the proper watch order?

These are the questions we're here to answer. While it's tempting to try and watch "Star Trek" chronologically, using either the fictional timeline or release dates, we recommend an order that's a bit of a blend of both. Following this list should result in an experience that provides a complete picture of what "Star Trek" is while also remaining easy to binge. With that in mind (and with the understanding that a few spoilers are unavoidable ), it's time to boldly go where every previous "Star Trek" installment has gone before!

The Original Series

When you watch "Star Trek," you really need to begin at the beginning. Not with Enterprise, which is set earlier in the "Trek" timeline than any show, but with "Star Trek" — or as it's lovingly called these days, "The Original Series." This is the show that ran on NBC from 1966 to 1969, forever altering the television medium, the science fiction genre, and the experience of being a fan. While some viewers may find the special effects laughable or the political themes unsubtle, the most astonishing thing about "TOS" is how well it holds up, even more than 50 years later. The first two seasons, in particular, are absolutely riddled with classic episodes, and while the third season is significantly worse due to changes in the creative team, it's still fun to watch William Shatner ham it up as Captain Kirk, Leonard Nimoy raise a single Vulcan eyebrow as Mr. Spock, and the original Starship Enterprise soar through space. Most importantly, though, those first 79 episodes introduce rules, concepts, and even characters that "Star Trek" is still playing with today, from Class M planets and the Prime Directive to Khan and the Klingons.

The Animated Series

The unofficial fourth and fifth seasons of "Star Trek," "The Animated Series" aired on NBC from 1973 to 1974, after tempers had cooled somewhat between NBC and Roddenberry, who left "Star Trek" after its second season out of frustration with the network. Not only was the entire original cast back (minus Walter Koenig), but so was Roddenberry, and so was D.C. Fontana, Roddenberry's longtime assistant who had grown into one of the most celebrated "Trek" writers and had also departed after Season 2. Between the return of some of the show's original creative minds and cast, and the fact that animation allowed them to do so much more than live action special effects of the era, "TAS" is pure, undiluted "Star Trek."

It's never been made explicitly clear whether "TAS" is canon, but considering the number of "TAS" ideas re-used in later live-action shows, plus the introduction in "TAS" of canon pieces of backstory, like Kirk's middle name, it's silly at this point to believe otherwise. And it's required viewing for completists who want to see every televised adventure undertaken by the original Enterprise crew.

The first six films

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was released by Paramount in 1979, and while it's not an especially good film, it holds historical importance as the launching point for the "Star Trek" movie franchise. The real highlights in this part of the list, though, are the three films that followed. The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, and The Voyage Home essentially form their own trilogy of movies within the larger "Trek" saga, and are some of the most popular and critically acclaimed installments in the franchise. "The Wrath of Khan," in particular, tends to show up near the top of "best science fiction films in history" lists, making the titular Khan such an iconic villain that he was recast for the J.J. Abrams reboot movies, while "The Voyage Home" is probably the most charming "Star Trek" film, as the Enterprise travels to the past to rescue the humpback whale species from extinction.

Even the most dedicated binge-watcher can safely skip the horrendous fifth movie, "The Final Frontier," but "The Undiscovered Country" is an absolute masterpiece, and taken together, these six films provide a worthy capstone to the franchise's inaugural era.

It might seem counterintuitive to follow up the oldest "Star Trek" series with one of the newest, especially given that "Star Trek: Discovery" actually takes place prior to "The Original Series." But there's a good reason to jump from the tales of Kirk and Spock to the tales of Michael Burnham and...well, and Spock, who shows up in Season 2. "The Original Series" and its accompanying animated and film extensions are foundational to "Discovery," which is set shortly after the events of the rejected "Star Trek" pilot "The Cage." And characters from "The Cage" show up in Season 2 and are also appearing in their own spinoff, "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

While an in-universe chronological watch order would put the first two seasons of "Discovery" before "TOS" and the third season at the very end (as the crew travels forward in time to the far future) it makes more sense to us to treat "Discovery" as its own story. The third season does occasionally reference "past" events from other shows, but that does lead nicely into the next "Trek" installment...

The Next Generation (Seasons 1-5)

For many Trekkies today, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was their introduction to the franchise, and for good reason. If any one series beyond the original can lay a claim to being the single most iconic "Star Trek" story, it's Next Generation, which premiered in 1987 and went on to not only have seven seasons of its own, but to jumpstart a chain of interlocking "Star Trek" shows that would thoroughly dominate the 1990s. Before that, though, the first five seasons of Next Generation stood alone, and if you're trying to get somebody instantly hooked on Trek, this might actually be the place to start, despite the fact that the first couple of seasons don't hold up incredibly well.

If you're absorbing all of "Star Trek," though, "Next Generation" has to be the place to start. After all, it's the next generation of what, exactly? The answer is the Starship Enterprise, which comes with an entirely new cast and crew, introducing the world to Worf, Data, Counselor Troi, and Geordi LaForge, and permanently branding the hearts of a thousand Trekkies with the image of Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard .

The Next Generation (Season 6) / Deep Space Nine (Season 1)

Okay, this is where it gets weird. "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" debuted in January 1993, just a few months after "Next Generation" kicked off its sixth season — a season full of unmitigated classics, incidentally, from the return of Montgomery Scott in "Relics" to the legendary two-parter "Chain of Command." Picard even makes a cameo in the first episode of "DS9," which takes place aboard a space station and uses the ideas and events of earlier "Next Generation" episodes to inform characters like Commander Benjamin Sisko and Quark. It's essentially impossible to understand Sisko's backstory, for example, without first having seen the "Next Generation" episode "The Best of Both Worlds."

Despite the fact that they take place over roughly the same time period, we recommend watching the entirety of Season 6 of "Next Generation" followed by the entirety of Season 1 of "DS9," if for no other reason than the former has more episodes than the latter, making it a complicated process to intercut between them. But however you choose to do it, these two seasons really should be watched back to back.

The Next Generation (Season 7) / Deep Space Nine (Season 2)

Similarly, the second season of "DS9" coincides with the last "Next Generation" season. While it might lack the standout episodes of earlier seasons, Season 7 manages a few achievements. For one thing, it puts a bow on one of the most beloved shows in television history with a flourish, ending the program with an ambitious, timeline-jumping two-parter that ties directly into the events of the very first episode. It also inadvertently lays the groundwork for a much more modern "Trek" show with an episode about junior officers called "Lower Decks." But most importantly, it ties into and reinforces "Deep Space Nine," most notably in the penultimate episode "Preemptive Strike," which deals with concurrent "DS9" problems like the Cardassians and the Maquis.

By the end of Season 2, "DS9" has already proven capable of standing on its own, having picked up and ran with the Maquis threads from earlier "Next Generation" episodes, returned to the Mirror Universe first introduced in the original series, and introduced the Dominion and the Jem'Hadar, who will serve as the series' primary antagonists. But the stories of Picard and company were far from over...

Generations

The four feature films built around the cast of "Next Generation" are a direct continuation of the movies that came before, not least because the first one, 1994's "Generations," serves as a bridge between "TOS" and its descendant, and between Kirk and Picard, in about the most literal way you could imagine. This movie marks the final appearance of several characters from the original show, including Kirk himself (the one played by William Shatner, at any rate) which makes it a crucial piece of the "Star Trek" timeline, as does the introduction of Data's emotion chip. Of course, some might consider the movie worth it just to see Malcolm McDowell chew the scenery like he hasn't eaten in three days, and we can't say they're wrong.

"Generations" launched Picard's crew onto the big screen almost immediately after their exit from the small one, meaning they would continue to be the face of "Star Trek" for the remainder of the decade. But back in the realm of "Trek" TV, things were only heating up, as a new series prepared to take the field and challenge "DS9" for television dominance.

Deep Space Nine (Season 3) / Voyager (Season 1)

Once again, it's time to switch between two seasons of "Star Trek," as the third season of "DS9" overlaps with the debuting "Star Trek: Voyager." The first "Trek" series to feature a woman (Kathryn Janeway) in the captain's chair, "Voyager" also had a unique and fascinating premise. Much of the "DS9" action is driven by the existence of a nearby wormhole that leads to the Gamma Quadrant, a section of space far away from the Federation's native Alpha Quadrant. This allows the titular space station and its intrepid crew to encounter any number of new and dangerous alien species. "Voyager" goes even farther, literally — a solitary ship finds itself transported to the even more distant Delta Quadrant and spends the rest of the series trying to get home.

Due to this premise, there's no reason whatsoever to jump between individual episodes of these two seasons, as the events of one show don't affect the other in any way. But jumping between shows by the season provides a fun and accurate experience of what it was like to watch the interlocking "Star Trek" programs of the 1990s.

Deep Space Nine (Season 4) / Voyager (Season 2)

Like most "Star Trek" shows, "Voyager" takes a couple of seasons to find its feet, and Season 2 in particular contains some of its most notoriously bad episodes, from the tone-deaf Native American implications of "Tattoo" to Janeway and Voyager pilot Tom Paris turning into salamanders and having salamander babies together in "Threshold" to the utter abomination that is "Tuvix." At least it has the consideration to get them all out of the way early on.

"DS9," meanwhile, was encountering its own problems in Season 4, which took a sharp turn away from the burgeoning conflict with the Dominion and instead spent most of its time dealing with the newly antagonistic Klingon Empire. Fortunately, even as the overarching plot went briefly off the rails, the writing was getting better and better, and the diversion is, if nothing else, entertaining. As a bonus, Season 4 features one of television's first lesbian kisses, and also brings in Worf, the Klingon security officer from "Next Generation" — until Picard, Michael Dorn was the only actor to star in the main casts of two different "Star Trek" shows.

First Contact

As a result of his dual roles, Worf would spend the next several years hopping back and forth between television and the movies. One reason it's important to watch Season 4 of "DS9" prior to watching "First Contact," the second film starring the "Next Generation" cast, is because in order to include Worf in the story, the latter is obligated to include a scene in which the Enterprise rescues another ship called the Defiant, introduced in "DS9" and captained by Worf himself. Future "Next Generation" movies, which decline in quality moving forward, come up with increasingly hand-wavy reasons for his presence on the Enterprise bridge.

"First Contact" itself, however, is by far the best of the "Next Generation" films and one of the best "Star Trek" films in general, as the crew travels back in time to prevent the cybernetic hive mind known as the Borg from altering history. Not only is "First Contact" a great movie (and the film directorial debut of Jonathan Frakes, who plays Commander William Riker), it also kicks off a spectacular "Star Trek" run that can stand up against any other period in franchise history.

Deep Space Nine (Season 5) / Voyager (Season 3)

With Season 5, "DS9" gets back on track after the previous outlier season, quickly focusing around a single unified threat thanks to an alliance between the show's original antagonists the Cardassians and the Dominion. The presence of the sinister Changelings adds an intrigue element to the story, as any character could potentially be a Changeling in disguise — a concept that would be used to great effect years later in the 2004 reboot of "Battlestar Galactica." The season concludes with the official start of the Dominion War, a conflict that would dominate the remainder of the show.

"Voyager," meanwhile, was also getting back on track in its third season, which generally sees an uptick in quality — particularly toward the end, with episodes like "Before and After," "Real Life," and "Worst Case Scenario." Robert Picardo, who plays Voyager's holographic doctor, also gets to make a cameo in "DS9" as the Doctor's creator, Lewis Zimmerman, in the episode "Doctor Bashir, I presume." And Season 3 ends with the first installment of "Scorpion," which catalyzed "Voyager's" official rise to greatness in part thanks to a memorable new character.

Deep Space Nine (Season 6) / Voyager (Season 4)

These two overlapping seasons, airing in late 1997 and early 1998, represent the pinnacle of "Star Trek's" '90s golden age. In "DS9," the Dominion War is in full swing, the series' much-discussed religions themes are building in prominence, the mysterious Section 31 is introduced, foreshadowing its prominent role in both "Enterprise" and "Discovery," and most memorably, the showrunners do what almost no iteration of "Star Trek" has ever dared to do: permanently kill off a member of the main cast.

Casting changes are also a major part of Season 4 of "Voyager," which jettisons the little-loved character of Kes and officially introduces Seven of Nine , a liberated Borg drone played by Jeri Ryan who quickly joins the ranks of the franchise's most widely known characters. It's an oversimplification to suggest that the overall brilliance of Season 4 is the direct result of Ryan joining the cast, but no matter how much of it you attribute to her, it's a phenomenal season of television, filled from start to finish with some of the best "Voyager" episodes (and also "Retrospect," but we don't talk about that one).

Insurrection

It's not "First Contact," but 1998's "Insurrection" is still a pretty good "Next Generation" movie, another solid offering from Jonathan Frakes. While "Insurrection" doesn't interact much with the events of "DS9" or "Voyager," watching it at this point in the "Trek" timeline provides an overall context for the state of the Federation, which has been intermittently challenged, as the movie's primary villain points out, by the Borg, the Cardassians, and the Dominion. A sense of the Federation being assailed from all sides isn't strictly necessary for the film's story of familial betrayal on a planet that confers immortality, but it does make viewing it a more interesting experience (though again, the perfunctory inclusion of Worf simply because he's expected to be in "Next Generation" movies is potentially jarring for "DS9" fans who have become invested in his character development, which "Insurrection" largely ignores).

"Insurrection" is Frakes' last "Star Trek" movie as director (though he would later direct episodes of "Discovery" and "Picard") and marks the beginning of the end of the '90s "Trek" boom. There's still plenty of great "Trek" ahead, but the curve is now pointing down.

Deep Space Nine (Season 7) / Voyager (Season 5)

The final season of "DS9" represents one of the single greatest creative accomplishments in "Star Trek" history, as no "Trek" show to date has managed to stick such an ambitious and satisfying landing. In a unique move, the last 10 episodes of the season form a single, series-ending story, and the feature-length finale, "What You Leave Behind," is considered one of the greatest "Trek" episodes of all time. "DS9" had been great for at least two seasons prior to this one, but the success of Season 7 cemented it as a foremost jewel in the crown of the "Star Trek" franchise.

"Voyager," meanwhile, continued its stellar run of episodes, capping off a three-year rehabilitation effort that saw one of the franchise's shakiest shows become one of its best. It was good timing, too, because with "DS9" wrapping up ("What You Leave Behind" aired the week after the Season 5 "Voyager" finale, "Equinox"), Captain Janeway and her crew were suddenly the only starship in the galaxy. And you, intrepid binge-watcher, can finally stop switching between two different shows.

Voyager (Seasons 6-7)

Unlike "DS9," the final seasons of "Voyager" are not its best, though admittedly, after Seasons 4 and 5, that's a high bar to clear. Season 6 comes close with a steady stream of classics, introducing both the popular Holodeck scenario Fair Haven and the "Pathfinder" storyline that sees "Next Generation" vets Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi join up as recurring characters. By Season 7, however, the quality of "Voyager" has begun to dip noticeably — the final season contains few memorable episodes and at least one extremely ill-conceived romantic subplot. It earns some redemption, however, with the two-part series finale "Endgame," which, whether you like it or not, at least fulfills the promise of the show's premise and comes to a definitive conclusion about whether the ship and its crew are ever getting back to the Alpha Quadrant. It's a moment that would have been easy to shy away from, and "Voyager" meets it head on.

"Endgame" aired in May 2001, and in retrospect, the title didn't only apply to "Voyager." The continuous story that "Star Trek" had been telling for the past 14 years over the course of three different shows and three different movies was over. There was, however, one last (incredibly depressing) chapter to get through.

The final "Next Generation" film, released in 2002, is by far the worst of them, and the worst "Star Trek" movie in general since 1989's "The Final Frontier." It was so bad, in fact, that it notoriously killed "Star Trek" — plans for a fifth "Next Generation" movie were scrapped after "Nemesis" bombed at the box office, and creatively, it's an absolute nightmare, introducing a Romulan sister planet with the unfortunate name of Remus, blatantly attempting to restart Data's entire character arc via a literal copy with the also unfortunate name of B-4, and tying these and other unfortunate decisions together with a nonsensical plot featuring Tom Hardy as a secret clone of Picard. After "Nemesis," the scuttling of future franchise installments can honestly be seen as a mercy killing.

"Star Trek" wasn't quite dead in 2002, however. While we've now officially made it through the combined stories of "Next Generation," "DS9," and "Voyager," there's one more show, independent from the others, that now enters the viewing order. And watching it involves going back to the very beginning... and even before that.

In a chronological viewing, "Star Trek: Enterprise" would actually be the first show you watch, since it takes place a hundred years prior to "The Cage." Indirectly spinning off from the events of "First Contact," it tells the story of Earth's first warp starship, appropriately named the Enterprise and captained by Scott Bakula's Jonathan Archer, and of humanity's early relationships with alien species like the Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, and Andorians. Despite its status as a prequel, the sheer degree to which "Enterprise" relies on its audience having knowledge of other "Star Trek" properties makes it almost impossible to recommend as an entry point. It fits much better here, as the official end of the franchise's second major era, especially given that the final episode, "These Are The Voyages...," frames itself as a holodeck simulation being watched by the Enterprise crew from "Next Generation."

"There Are The Voyages..." aired on May 13th, 2005. There wouldn't be another "Star Trek" show for more than 12 years. At this point, our watch order breaks away from order of release, but we feel strongly that it's how "Star Trek" from 1987 to 2005 should be watched.

Lower Decks

If you think 12 years is a long gap between "Star Trek" installments, that's nothing compared to the 45 years that went by between "Trek" stories told via animation. "Short Treks" was technically the first "Trek" show since "The Animated Series" to include animated episodes, and that aired in 2019, but 2020 gave us the first season of "Lower Decks," an entirely animated show about the people who don't get to hang out on the bridge.

The first franchise installment to ever concern itself primarily with characters who are not in command of a starship or space station, "Lower Decks" is the "Star Trek" equivalent of shows like HBO's "Harley Quinn" — an irreverent, adult-oriented comedy that revels in its TV-MA rating, delivering violence, sex, and swearing at warp speed frequencies. Chronologically, it's set shortly after the events of "Nemesis," but more importantly to the binge-watcher, it's the dessert following a feast — a vital dose of pure fun after absorbing almost four full decades of space drama.

The Kelvin timeline

After the box office failure of "Nemesis" brought an abrupt end to the "Next Generation" movies, there wasn't a new "Trek" film until 2009. And far from being a continuation of the existing movie franchise, this new version, simply called "Star Trek," was a reboot of "The Original Series," casting new, younger versions of Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the first Enterprise crew. Sequels to the reboot followed in 2013 and 2016.

Watching these three movies as part of a "Star Trek" binge is pretty much entirely optional, since they take place in an alternate timeline created when the USS Kelvin was destroyed in battle with time-traveling Romulan ship from the 24th century, leaving an infant James T. Kirk without a father in the process. Moreover, the trilogy is widely considered to be of uneven quality (though the third movie, "Star Trek Beyond," is considerably better than its predecessor, possibly due to the departure of director J.J. Abrams). Still, if you're going to watch them, this is the place in the viewing order to do it, as a key plot point of the first film — the Romulan sun going supernova — plays a major role in "Picard."

History [ ]

Originally, Star Trek was a product of Desilu Studios as created by Gene Roddenberry in a first draft series proposal " Star Trek is... ", dated 11 March 1964 .

Beginning with a single pilot episode, " The Cage ", filmed in 1964, Star Trek was not placed on the schedule of the NBC network until a second pilot episode, " Where No Man Has Gone Before ", was produced in 1965 .

Star Trek officially went into production on April 21, 1966 and ran for three seasons until it was canceled in 1969 . Four years later, the series returned to NBC as a Saturday morning animated series which ran from 1973 to 1974 .

No new production of Star Trek took place until 1979 , when Star Trek: The Motion Picture took the franchise into feature films , which have continued to be produced periodically since. Star Trek did not return to television until 1987 with the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Following three more spin-off productions, the 2005 – 2006 TV season was the first since 1987 without a new Star Trek series being broadcast, though all series remain in syndication.

As a result of a 2005 split between the former Viacom and CBS , Star Trek television productions fell under the umbrella of CBS Studios . During this period, films continued to be produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures under a licensing agreement. A thirteenth film was released in 2016 . CBS and Viacom were reunited and merged under the name ViacomCBS in late 2019 , reuniting the film and television branches of Star Trek . In 2022 ViacomCBS rebranded itself as Paramount Global , or simply Paramount.

After 12 years off the air, the franchise returned to the airwaves with its first streaming series, Star Trek: Discovery , which premiered in the fall of 2017 . This also saw the franchise expand into companion series, like the aftershow After Trek , which premiered right after the Discovery .

Currently, licensees of Star Trek products ( reference works , novels and collectibles ) include Art Asylum toys, Pocket Books , and IDW Publishing . Older licenses for previously produced material belong to numerous companies.

Conception and setting [ ]

"Star Trek was an attempt to say that Humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms."

"We believed that the often ridiculed mass audience is sick of this world's petty nationalism and all its old ways and old hatreds... and that people are not only willing but anxious to think beyond those petty beliefs that have for so long have kept mankind divided."

– Gene Roddenberry

The stories in Star Trek mostly revolve around the experiences and adventures of the Humans and aliens who serve under Starfleet Command , the space-borne peacekeeping, exploratory, and humanitarian armada of the United Federation of Planets .

Many of the conflicts and political dimensions of Star Trek are allegories of contemporary cultural realities. Star Trek: The Original Series addressed social-political issues of the 1960s, just as later spin-offs have confronted issues of their respective decades. [1] Issues depicted in the various series include war and peace , personal loyalty, authoritarianism, imperialism, economics, racism , religion , Human rights , sexism , and the role of technology . [2]

Roddenberry intended the show to have a progressive political agenda reflective of the emerging counter-culture and the civil rights movement of the 1960s, [3] though he was not fully forthcoming to the networks about this. He wanted Star Trek to show a future of what Humanity might evolve to become, if it would learn from the lessons of the past, most specifically by ending violence. An extreme example is the alien race known as the Vulcans , who suffered a violent history but learned to finally achieve peace by suppressing their emotions and by adopting the guiding principles of logic . Roddenberry also placed great emphasis on an anti-war message in Star Trek , depicting the United Federation of Planets, a vast interstellar alliance founded on the enlightened principles of liberty , equality , justice, progress, and peaceful co-existence, as an idealistic version of the United Nations . [4] (X) His efforts were opposed by the network because of concerns over marketability, as they opposed Roddenberry's insistence that the USS Enterprise have a racially diverse crew.

Production history [ ]

The original series [ ], spin-off series [ ].

Star Trek films

Paramount, 1979–1991
Producers: Gene Roddenberry, Robert Sallin , Harve Bennett , Steven-Charles Jaffe , Ralph Winter
Directors: Robert Wise , Nicholas Meyer , Leonard Nimoy , William Shatner
Paramount, 1994–2002
Producers: Rick Berman
Directors: David Carson , Jonathan Frakes , Stuart Baird
Paramount, 2009–2016
Producers: J.J. Abrams , Damon Lindelof
Directors: J.J. Abrams, Justin Lin
CBS Television Studios/Paramount+

Aftershows [ ]

CBS Television Studios/CBS All Access, 2017–2018

The Ready Room

CBS Television Studios/ Facebook Live , 2019–

Podcasts [ ]

Engage: The Official Star Trek Podcast

CBS Television Studios, 2016–2018

Star Trek: The Pod Directive

CBS Television Studios, 2020–

Unproduced projects [ ]

See: Undeveloped Star Trek projects

Overseas adaptations [ ]

Star Trek has been aired around the world throughout its run of television and film series. Most often, it has been dubbed into the native language of the larger population countries in question, while other, smaller population countries subtitled the productions and kept the original language tracks. During this time, the titles, characters, and so forth have been changed as they move from language to language.

Licensed media [ ]

Floor tile in the NBC gift shop at 30 Rock

Blu-ray Discs
Collectibles
Reference works

Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order

As a media phenomenon, "Star Trek" began on September 8, 1966 with the airing of "The Man Trap" (the sixth episode in production order, but the first aired). Originally, the show's writers, including creator Gene Roddenberry, used the concept of "stardates" to ensure the show's actual timeline was left vague; for several episodes, all audiences knew was that "Trek" was set in the future and that the future was a pretty keen place. It wouldn't be until the episode "The Naked Time" (seventh episode produced, fourth aired, first aired on September 29, 1966) that the Gregorian year would be mentioned out loud, and an actual timeline could begin to be constructed.

Since then, "Star Trek" has extrapolated an extensive, centuries long timeline of events, often skipping merrily back and forth through the centuries, adding more and more to the franchises complex chronology. The chronology of "Star Trek" is so complicated that entire books have been published tracking the various shows' and films' events. Because of the constant production of new "Star Trek," these books became dated immediately.

" Star Trek: Strange New Worlds " is set to debut on Paramount+ on May 5, and it is set immediately before the events of the original "Star Trek," making it the third "prequel" series to the original. To keep matters as clear as possible, here is a (very brief, by the standards of "Trek") rundown of "Star Trek" chronology from within its own canon.

NOTE : This list will not necessarily include single episodes wherein characters go back in time, but give an overall timeframe for each individual film and TV show.

1986: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Although beginning and ending within the proper chronology of the "Star Trek" future, Leonard Nimoy's 1986 feature film " Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home " is set largely in the earliest point in the franchise's timeline (again, excluding single time travel episodes of any given TV series, wherein Mark Twain, the 1950s, and other eras are regularly visited). In the film, the crew of the Enterprise must go back in time to rescue a pair of humpback whales from extinction in order to appease an enormous, inscrutable space monolith that has been draining future Earth of its oceans, looking for its own kind.

The bulk of "Voyage Home" takes place in 1986, and the film gained a lot of critical and audience attention for its fish-out-of-water humor and light tone; the previous three films had been comparatively dour, downbeat, or cerebral.

2024: Star Trek: Picard (Season 2)

As of this writing, the second season of "Star Trek: Picard" is still being released weekly on Paramount+, so the ultimate conclusion of the story is as yet unknown.

What is known is that the trickster god Q (John De Lancie), a playful villain from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," visited an elderly Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) to warn him of a parallel universe. In this parallel universe, Earth is a genocidal conqueror race that has wiped out most life in the galaxy. Picard must travel back in time, paralleling the story of "Voyage Home" in order to stop the fascist timeline from starting. Thanks to the limited information they have, they travel to the year 2024, and the bulk of the season's action takes place there.

A bit of a continuity error already: In previously mentioned "Trek" canon, the Eugenics Wars — the conflagration that wrought Khan from "Star Trek II" — should have already happened by 2024 (I believe the original date for the Eugenics Wars was 1997), but, in "Picard," they had clearly been delayed. One of the subplots of the second season of "Picard,' however, involves a malevolent genetic engineer, so it looks like the Eugenics Wars may finally be nigh.

2063: Star Trek: First Contact

Although never directly filmed, there are constant references throughout "Star Trek" to World War III, an event that left the entire planet devastated. Despite destitution and technological ruin, an inventor named Zefram Cochran managed to invent an engine that allowed humanity to travel faster than light. This technology, when being tested for the first time in the solar system, attracted the attention of some Vulcans who just happened to be passing by. This was the First Contact mentioned in the title of the 1996 film " Star Trek: First Contact ."

In that film, the characters from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" travel back in time to foil a plot by a malevolent species of cyborgs called The Borg, and find themselves in the year A.D. 2063 where they could witness First Contact themselves. This was the event that essentially kicked off creator Gene Roddenberry's vision of a peaceful future. In meeting intelligent space aliens, a hobbled humanity learned that war was churlish, and that unity as a species was preferable in the face of a suddenly occupied cosmos.

"First Contact" is essentially the "Star Trek" origin story.

2151 - 2155: Star Trek: Enterprise

After first talking to Vulcans, humans were eager to take to the stars and join the galactic community. The conceit of the 2001 TV series " Star Trek: Enterpris e" (originally just called "Enterprise") was that the Vulcans, seeing how illogical and roughhewn humanity still was, encouraged them to stay on Earth for nearly a century before actually taking to the stars. In that century, humanity rebuilt, formed a Starfleet, and constructed its very first long-mission starship, the U.S.S. Enterprise NX-01. The show is about the adventures of the very first humans in space, circa A.D. 2151.

"Enterprise" took place before a lot of established "Trek" tech had been invented. There were transporters, but they weren't entirely safe for use on humans. There were no shields around the ship. There were no food replicators, and the Enterprise required a galley. Most notably, there wasn't a Prime Directive yet, so a lot of mistakes are bound to be made. It wouldn't be until 2161 — according to ancillary revelations — that the Federation would be formed.

2254: The Cage

The unused "Star Trek" pilot has probably gained more canonical traction than any other unused footage from any other work of filmed fiction. "The Cage" didn't air in its complete form until 1986, 20 years after its making. Previously, footage from "The Cage" was incorporated into a two-part "Star Trek" episode called "The Menagerie" (November of 1966).

In the pilot, we first meet Capt. Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) and his ship the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701. We were first introduced to Spock as well, although Spock would be the only character carried over into the second pilot that was eventually used. Majel Barrett played the Enterprise's first officer in "The Cage," and she would go on to play multiple other roles throughout "Star Trek," including Nurse Chapel, M'Ress, Lwaxana Troi, and the voice of the ship's computer.

The events of "The Cage" would also be revisited in the second season of "Star Trek: Discovery."

2256 - 2258: Star Trek: Discovery (seasons 1 and 2)

Another cataclysm that had been mentioned multiple times throughout "Star Trek" was a war between the Klingons and the Federation. The first season of "Star Trek: Discovery," which debuted on CBS All Access (now Paramount+) in November of 2017, dramatized those events explicitly, as seen through the eyes of the U.S.S. Discovery. This new ship was a science vessel that had figured out a way to tap into a galaxy-wide network of near-undetectable, microscopic spores into order to teleport anywhere in the galaxy instantaneously.

After surviving the Klingon war, the Discovery teamed up with the U.S.S. Enterprise while it was still being captained by Christopher Pike (now played by Anson Mount), putting the events of "Discovery" immediately after the original pilot. There were a lot — and I mean a LOT — of narrative excuses as to why the high-tech Discovery (realized with late-2010s special effects) didn't match the boxier, monochromatic world of "The Cage."

The show's writers also needed to come up with an organic reason why a ship that can teleport — a technology that would have fundamentally changed the world of "Star Trek" — was never mentioned in any of the "Trek" shows made from 1966 until 2017. As such, at the end of the second season of "Discovery," the ship was thrown almost 1,000 years into the future in order to outrun an insidious computer intelligence that would spread throughout the galaxy if knowledge of it was passed around. As such, the Discovery more or less deleted itself from existence. As panicked, narrative ass-saving measures go, it's a 7.

2258: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

The appearance of Capt. Pike on "Discovery" was so well-received that Paramount+ elected to go back to the Enterprise, bring back the characters from "The Cage," lump in a few familiar faces from the 1966 "Star Trek," and make " Strange New Worlds ," a series that takes place only eight years prior to the events of the original TV series.

"Strange New Worlds" brings back Anson Mount as Pike, as well as a young Spock, a very young Uhura, a young Nurse Chapel, one of Khan's ancestors, and Dr. M'Benga, who showed up in a few episodes if the 1966 show. It also, notably, will not have season-long story arcs, but a single-hour episodic structure, standing in contrast with most of the other Paramount+-era "Star Treks," with "Lower Decks" being the proud exception.

2258 (KELVIN): Star Trek (2009)

Thanks to "Star Trek," the notion of parallel universes is quite well-known to the public. Incidentally, it's been quite odd watching the films and TV shows in the Marvel universe slow-walk the notion of a multiverse over the course of multiple installments when we've already seen Spock with a goatee.

Thanks to complicated studio politics, there was a split in Paramount in the mid-2000s, and the Paramount side of the schism — when wanting to make a new "Star Trek" feature film — was legally required to make something distinguishable from the TV shows. Enter J.J. Abrams and his 2009 feature film " Star Trek " which takes place at the same time as "Strange New Worlds," but in a parallel universe where the characters from the 1966 show now look like a new cast, the Enterprise looks brighter and sleeker, and everything is more intense and action-packed.

This new timeline would be created when a villain went back in time interfered with James T. Kirk right when he was born.

2259 (KELVIN): Star Trek Into Darkness

Although taking place far before the events of 1982's "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," J.J. Abrams' " Star Trek Into Darkness " (2013) drew a lot of story parallels to the Nicholas Meyer film. Taking place almost immediately after the 2009 film, "Into Darkness" involved the character of Khan who, in the timeline of the 1966 series, wouldn't be resurrected from cryogenic sleep for a few years hence. In "Into Darkness," he was awakened early, became involved in a plot to smuggle other cryogenically frozen compatriots.

Originally, the Eugenics Wars were meant to have started in the 1990s, but — as "Star Trek" persisted, and the '90s came and went in the real world — that timeline had to be altered several times. The timeline of the Eugenics Wars in "Into Darkness" are a little unclear. As we saw above in "Star Trek: Picard," we know that they'll now take place sometime after 2024.

2263 (KELVIN): Star Trek Beyond

In Justin Lin's " Star Trek Beyond " (2016), Kirk (Chris Pine) laments that his adventures have already become episodic. It's unusual that the 2009 film and the 2013 sequel are essentially origin stories about the young Kirk coming into his own, and "Beyond" skips ahead to the point where he's already tired of being on "Star Trek." We missed the actual "five year mission" part!

Another interesting wrinkle in "Beyond" is that it alludes to a time somewhere after "Star Trek: Enterprise": The evil Kroll (Idris Elba) was, in fact, a human captain named Edison who led his own starship in the "Enterprise" era. Before the film, he was mutated into an evil alien. "Beyond," in explicitly mentioning the Xindi wars and other events from "Enterprise," anchors the Kelvin films a little more solidly into the "Trek" timeline.

2265 - 2269: Star Trek

After "The Cage" was abandoned by Paramount, the studio and Gene Roddenberry reworked the show into the 1966 program we all know and love. As mentioned, Spock was the only character carried over from the original pilot, and "Star Trek" now featured William Shatner as Captain Kirk and a host of new characters besides. "Star Trek" began as a horror show — there are many monsters and scare moments in the first season — eventually tackling ethical issues in a sci-fi fantasy context.

"Star Trek" ran for three seasons, ending its initial run on June 3, 1969. Thanks to the gods of syndication, "Star Trek" would remain in reruns for the following decade, building up interest, spawning Trek conventions, and allowing the show to grow into a full-blown cultural phenomenon.

2269 - 2270: Star Trek: The Animated Series

In the opening credits of " Star Trek ," Shatner brazenly informed the audiences that the U.S.S. Enterprise was on a five-year mission. Given that the show was canned after only three years, there was more mission left to witness. In 1973, Roddenberry teamed up with Filmation to make an animated "Star Trek" series that would, by dint of its two seasons, ostensibly complete the five-year mission. Chekov (Walter Koenig) was absent from this show, but other unusual aliens took his place, including a cat woman named M'Ress and Mr. Aryx, a being with three arms. The animated format allowed for wilder ideas, aliens, and ships to be employed, and there are stories featuring flying serpents, aliens made of plants, an undersea episode, and a story with a 50-foot Spock.

This 1973 version of "Star Trek," in only running 30 minutes per episode, cut out a lot of extraneous character moments from the traditional "Trek" structure, and got straight to the story. It's a far more efficient show than the 1966 program, and it has a passionate following of fans.

2273: Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The decade of syndication, "Trek" conventions, and the financial success of George Lucas' sci-fi serial epic " Star Wars " in 1977 led Paramount to start thinking about restarting "Star Trek" on TV. A project was put into production that was to be called "Star Trek Phase II," and would have reunited several familiar "Trek" characters as well as introduce some new ones. For various reasons, "Phase II" was abandoned and elements of it were transformed into what would become the 1979 theatrical release " Star Trek: The Motion Picture ."

If all you had prior to "The Motion Picture" was a failed, low-budget TV show and a little-regarded animated series, this movie would feel grand in ways that you couldn't previously imagine. A lot of time was devoted to the size of the Enterprise, the importance of the characters, and mind-bending notions about the unending vastness of the cosmos. Here was a "Star Trek" film that is often compared to 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey." Good gracious was it enormous.

"The Motion Picture" was successful enough to warrant a sequel, but not so successful that Roddenberry was welcomed back. Remember that detail when we get to "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

2285: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

2285 was a significant year. In the events of Nicholas Meyer's "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982), a thawed out Khan — the version played by Ricardo Montalbán from the 1967 "Star Trek" episode "The Space Seed," not the version played by Benedict Cumberbatch in "Star Trek Into Darkness" — hijacked a starship called the U.S.S. Reliant and set out on a mission of revenge against Admiral Kirk. The good admiral, we find, had forgotten about a lot of irresponsible actions taken in his past and had to face them head on just as he was looking down the barrel of old age. "Star Trek II" didn't end well for Kirk or for Spock. In that film, Spock famously dies.

Not wasting any time, however, Kirk and co. sprang back into action in Leonard Nimoy's " Star Trek III: The Search for Spock " (1984), which picks up immediately after "Khan" ended. Thanks to the fineries of Vulcan psychic powers, and a high tech radiation wave that can generate life out of nothing, Spock could potentially be resurrected, and Kirk hijacks the Enterprise in order to help a friend. In so doing, Kirk destroys the ship, rouses the ire of some Klingons, loses his son (killed by said Klingons), and possibly destroys his career in Starfleet. Oops.

Perhaps one of the reasons "Star Trek IV" (which began in 2286) was so popular was that it was the first "Trek" film to end on a wholly positive note.

2287: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Often cited as the worst of the "Trek" movies, William Shatner's "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" (1989) starts with a promising concept, but was undone by a bad script hastily written during a strike, and a repeatedly cut FX budget. The film ultimately feels flimsy and ill-considered, not able to truly confront the interesting ideas it brings up. Shatner has apologized for the poor quality of his film, which was fraught with production troubles.

In "Frontier," a newly-built Enterprise is hijacked by Spock's half-brother Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill), who is leading a cult of brainwashed followers, freed from pain by their leader's psychic powers. He seeks a mysterious planet at the center of the galaxy where he believes God physically lives. The final frontier of the title is not space, but the soul, religion, or spirituality. Many "Trek" purists will point out that seeking the center of the galaxy, and finding a deity there, is similar to an Animated Series episode called "The Magicks of Megas-Tu," wherein Kirk found the planet at the center of the galaxy is actually home to Satan.

Note : "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" is far better than "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier."

2293: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Made after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nicholas Meyer's " Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country " (1991) was very clearly a metaphor for the end of the Cold War. In it, the Klingon Empire is crippled by the accidental explosion of one of their moons, leaving the entire government requiring Federation help. "Country" is about how difficult it is to give up being enemies, especially when so much of one's identity is tied in with hate. There's an assassination, a investigation, a trial, a prison break ... It's one of the best "Trek" movies.

One might glean from the title of the previous film in the series that the entire Kirk era was meant to end with "The Final Frontier." One might also glean that the poor reception and bad box office of "Final Frontier" led to one last go 'round. Fans may be relieved that the final feature film in the Kirk era was actually, y'know, a good one.

2364 - 2370: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Throughout the 1970s, Gene Roddenberry made tours on the convention circuit, talking about his vision for "Star Trek," and interacting with fans who were inspired by the peace, diplomacy, and calm that "Star Trek" has written into its DNA. Looking back over the 1966 show, notions of optimism and diplomacy are present, but they are mixed in with a lot of violence, sexism, and other now-backward ideas. After Roddenberry was essentially barred from involvement on the "Star Trek" feature films, he decided to make a purer, better version of his old show, set another 80 years in the future, and even more devoted to intelligence and diplomacy than ever before. Hence, 1987's " Star Trek: The Next Generation ."

Taking place on a new ship, the Enterprise NCC-1701-D, and featuring an all new cast, the update of "Star Trek" started a little clumsily, but eventually found its stride to become the best "Star Trek" has offered to date. The tech was more convincing than it ever was, and it featured professional, adult characters who deal with crises with stiff upper lips. More so, it more frequently addressed questions about the meaning of life that humanity will always, it seems, wrestle with.

"Next Generation" last for seven full seasons, and its characters ended up occupying just as large a place in the pop consciousness as the characters from the 1966 TV series.

Yes, "Next Generation" went back in time several times.

In terms of chronology, "Next Generation" overlapped with...

2369 - 2375: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

" Deep Space Nine " (1993 – 1999) was an unusual animal in many ways. It was the first time two "Star Trek" shows would run concurrently, and would take place over the same time frame (Picard from "Next Generation" appeared in the show's pilot). It was not about trekking at all, as it took place aboard a space station. It was also not set in the world of the Federation, often revolving alien species who were not offered protection from the organization. It was a show of healing and animosity. Of war and death. It started with an ensemble of seven or eight people, and eventually expanded to include about 30 main characters. "Deep Space Nine" is "Star Trek" via a Russian historical novel.

When taken as a unit, "Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine," both excellent in their own rights, become a complementary mass that is greater than their sum. The strength of diplomacy vs. its breakdown. The avoidance of war vs. the involvement in it. The absence of fascism vs. its inevitable regrowth.

Yes, "Deep Space Nine" went back in time several times.

"Deep Space Nine's" chronology would overlap with "Star Trek: Voyager," as well as with...

2371: Star Trek: Generations

The 1994 feature film " Star Trek: Generations " was a strange excursion. Although "Next Generation" had already run for seven years, "Generations" was still insistent on "passing the torch" from Kirk to Picard, and it bent over backwards to create the means by which Kirk and Picard, separated by 87 years of history, could meet face-to-face. It was the fan crossover no Trekkie wanted. As such, "Generations" is a flimsy affair, speeding through a ridiculous plot about a mobile temporal nexus that serves as Heaven for the people it scoops up along its path.

Trekkies were even-headed enough to realize that Kirk and Picard weren't meant to meet, and that "Next Generation" was its own entity. The decision to aggressively tie the two shows even more closely together was just baffling.

Notable too: The Enterprise-D was destroyed in "Generations," and would be replaced by a big ol' ugly thing for three additional feature films.

2371 - 2378: Star Trek: Voyager

" Star Trek: Voyager " debuted in 1995 and ran concurrently with "Deep Space Nine" both on television and within the chronology of "Star Trek." To cleverly avoid any interference between the two shows, however — "Deep Space Nine" would eventually become embroiled in a galaxy-spanning war — "Voyager" was given a "Lost in Space"-style premise wherein the title ship was thrown all the way across the galaxy to a portion of space that has never been explored by Starfleet, and could otherwise only be reached by 70 years of space travel.

While the premise would perhaps lead a viewer to believe that "Voyager" was going to be about resource allocation and survival, it quickly became more about the Borg, a character played by actress Jeri Ryan, and Captain Janeway's (Kate Mulgrew) steady slide into autocracy.

"Voyager" struggled with ratings for years, but still managed to last seven seasons like "Next Gen" and "Deep Space" before it. The final episode of "Voyager," a time travel story called " Endgame ," would air in March of 2001.

2375: Star Trek: Insurrection

While "Voyager" and "Deep Space Nine" were running concurrently on television, the "Next Generation" crew were yukking it up in the overwhelmingly mediocre 1998 Jonathan Frakes film " Star Trek: Insurrection ." Like "The Final Frontier," "Insurrection" can be seen straining against the limits of its budget, with bad CGI, bland costumes, and locations clearly found in the California mountains. The cheapness of "Star Trek" has often served as a boon for its story, forcing writers to insert interesting and challenging ideas into their plywood sets. "Insurrection" has no such ideas, asking the ethical question of forced relocation, but never feeling threatening, and offering a magical curative radiation that would require study and collection.

Although one can admit this: "Insurrection" captures the tone of the "Next Generation" TV series far better than any of the other movies in this part of the series. It's a pity, though, that after the grand finale of "Next Generation," we find ourselves with suck lackluster films.

Speaking of lackluster films ...

2379: Star Trek: Nemesis

Released in 2002, Stuart Baird's " Star Trek: Nemesis " was poised to be the final gasp for "Star Trek." "Enterprise" was already taking the franchise in a new direction, and the "NextGen" cast was clearly too tired to handle a continued barrage of poorly planned action movies, and thrillers that didn't resemble the show they were inspired by. "Nemesis" is dark and action-packed and violent and takes a lot of structural cues from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."

In it, Tom Hardy plays a character named Shinzon who is, in fact, a clone of Captain Picard, grown in a Romulan lab, and eventually discarded into a Romulan mine. Shinzon escaped the mine, built an army, and is poised to take a giant death ship into Federation space to revenge all over people. "Nemesis" is also the film in which Data (Brent Spiner) dies, and Captain Picard drives a dune buggy.

The sentiment of the time was reminiscent of T.S. Eliot's " The Hollow Men ." This is the way "Next Gen" ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Worry not. There will be further whimpers for the NextGen crew.

2380 - ?: Star Trek: Lower Decks

Named after a seventh season episode of "Next Generation," and taking place in line with the end of "Nemesis" and "Voyager," " Star Trek: Lower Decks " debuted on Paramount+ in 2020 as part of a slew of "Star Trek"-related indicia that the company was desperate to exploit. And while the all-your-eggs-in-one basket approach to TV production affected by Paramount led to stinkers like "Discovery" and "Picard," it did lead to this surprisingly good animated program.

One of the more appealing aspects of "Star Trek" is that it's essentially a series of workplace shows. The characters are typically vocation-forward, and take their duty to their ship very seriously. Where a "Star Trek" character works speaks powerfully to who they are. "Lower Decks" follows the people who have the worst possible jobs on a Starfleet vessel, often tasked with cleaning holodecks, sanitizing floors, and arranging widgets for the senior staff. It's rough going for ensigns. They sleep in the hallway and are typically not deemed important enough to include on more exciting missions. What's more, the central ship on "Lower Decks" is a tiny, crappy ship with substandard tech. Surely such jobs would exist in "Star Trek."

"Lower Decks" is eager to make "Trek" references, and is clearly made by people who understand "Trek's" ethos, but who still have a raunchy sense of humor. The future is here. And it's still crappy for those on the bottom.

2383: Star Trek: Prodigy

Produced under the auspices of Nickelodeon, " Star Trek: Prodigy " (2021) was the first Trek series to be made explicitly with a younger audience in mind. The series follows a ragtag group of alien youths as they flee a prison mine and discover an abandoned Starfleet vessel called the U.S.S. Protostar. On board is an instructional hologram of Captain Janeway from "Voyager," and she teaches the kids how to behave like Starfleet officers, the importance of duty and compassion, and how their trauma does not define them. The design and the creatures are more reminiscent of "Star Wars" than "Star Trek" (the series features an evil emperor and his powerful masked servant, invoking the Emperor and Darth Vader), but it certainly functions as a generic space adventure. The "Star Trek" stuff is mere window dressing.

It's almost disappointing to include "Prodigy" on this timeline, as one of the show's central mysteries — at least for the first part of its first season, the only part to have aired as of this writing — is when and where it takes place. It was possible that "Prodigy" took place centuries or even millennia beyond the known Trek universe. The last we saw, however, the real Captain Janeway is still alive, giving "Prodigy" a known place in Trek chronology.

2399: Star Trek: Picard (Season 1)

After nearly 20 years of a world without Picard, Paramount+ convinced Patrick Stewart to reprise his role in a new show named for him. " Star Trek: Picard " debuted on Paramount+ in 2020, taking place further in the future than any other Trek show to date. In the timeline of "Picard," the Federation had become soured by xenophobia and openly discouraged the evacuation of Romulus, historically an enemy world, but now in dire straits after their sun went supernova (something something J.J. Abrams). Picard had left Starfleet in disgust, and had now retired to his winery.

The story of the first season is too convoluted to get into here, needless to say it involved a Romulan secret society, a planet of androids, a reclaimed Borg cube, and a robot Cthulhu. I'm not kidding.

It's a pity that "Picard" did not roll with its future setting more, establishing new tech or positive sea changes in the "Trek" universe. Instead, everything is devoted to a chewy, awful story about androids. Indeed, by the end, Picard himself would have his consciousness shunted into an android body. What a snore.

3188 - 3190: Star Trek: Discovery (Seasons 3 and 4)

When last we saw the U.S.S. Discovery, it was being pulled through a time hole into the distant future. In the third and fourth seasons , Discovery's crew learns that they are stranded 930 years from home, and now must rediscover their function as Starfleet officers after the Federation went into hiding. A galaxy-wide disaster — The Burn — spontaneously destroyed millions of starships, and a fierce new criminal enterprise, The Emerald Syndicate, now rules the galaxy.

The 23rd-century ship now has to learn how to use 32nd-century technology. The Discovery was redesigned, and the new mission became to spread diplomacy in a galaxy unready for it. This is the premise, it seems, that Discovery should have started with two years prior. The writing is still rather weak, and the characters are callow and weepy, but "Discovery" does excel in one notable way: Queer representation. Seven of the main cast members are openly queer. After 55 years of a dodgy relationship with queerness, "Discovery" finally nailed it.

I just wish it were a better show.

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How to Watch Every Star Trek Series (and Movie) in the Right Order

Ready for a rewatch but not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered.

Have you ever wondered what the best way is to stream Star Trek from start to finish? Look no further.

Approaching the chronological watch of a franchise that’s been on over fifty years can be daunting. Especially with a science-fiction universe that has time travel, multiple universes, concurrent shows and entirely new timelines.

Fear not, as we have created a handy binge-watch guide using the Stardate of each series and film. Here is our guide on how to watch every Star Trek series and movie in the right order.

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The setting in every series is sometime in the distant future featuring a collection of broadly similar rubber-foreheaded polities spanning (fairly small) segments of the so-called 'quadrants' of the Milky Way galaxy, with the stories centered around an Earth-based interstellar government called the United Federation of Planets and the exploits of its fleet of starships, Starfleet . Every series dealt with a particular crew, mostly of various ships named Enterprise .

It is, for the most part, way on the idealistic side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism , at least partially because of its solid allegiance to the Enlightened side of Romanticism Versus Enlightenment . While the ships and officers of Starfleet can wield Frickin' Laser Beams , Deflector Shields , Photoprotoneutron Torpedoes and essentially invented Technobabble , the main way they solve problems is by talking; finding out the Commonality Connection between us humans and the Monster of the Week . All series have sought to show that while you may think the world is falling apart and there is no chance of global unity, humanity will figure things out and explore the cosmos. There are still shades of a more cynical future, humanity endured terrible troubles in multiple future wars only to rise above them but still have serious problems like hostile interstellar powers and lingering reminders that Humans Are Flawed . These issues are mitigated by the optimism of Starfleet, each officer is an experienced professional who will find a solution using any means at their disposal .

The series has also had a profound impact on modern culture and media. Everyone with any exposure to Western pop culture has heard of the starship Enterprise , and the series predicted (and possibly inspired) the PC, tablet, automatic doors, cell phones, natural-language AI and more, decades before their invention. Finally, while there were previous antecedents (such as the case of Sherlock Holmes and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ), Star Trek effectively gave rise to Fandom as we know it: when Star Trek: The Original Series began to pick up steam in syndication, fans organized conventions, wrote fanfiction , dressed in costume , and generally made lots of noise. The first African-American woman in space, Dr. Mae Jemison, was inspired to become an astronaut because of Nichelle Nichols ' pioneering role as Lt. Uhura. The Space Shuttle prototype was going to be named the Constitution until then-President Gerald Ford received "hundreds of thousands of letters" from Trekkies who had different ideas on the subject note While the Enterprise OV-101 did not fly in space, it did make atmospheric test flights, and was used for numerous other test purposes , and the Virgin Galactic's first commercial spacecraft followed suit. A similar letter-writing campaign granted The Original Series a third season. Every fandom since has taken its cues from that original outpouring of activity and devotion.

The Original Series was greenlit and produced by Desilu Studios and aired on NBC . Shortly into it's run Gulf+Western acquired Paramount Pictures and Desilu, and as such all movies are released under the Paramount banner. In The Next Generation era the TV shows were produced by Paramount Domestic Television but aired in first run syndication (many which were CBS affiliates), though later installments were used as UPN flagship shows. The Discovery era shows were produced by CBS Studios and used initially to bolster CBS All Access subscriptions, but were later folded into Paramount+ . The exact details of international broadcasts and streamer releases vary, for some they can be found on Netflix .

The franchise consists of:

Television series.

Star Trek: The Original Series , just called Star Trek at the time ("TOS", 1966-1969, NBC ) Set 2265-2269 — The one everyone has heard of. Captain James T. Kirk ( William Shatner ) leads the brave crew of the Cool Starship Enterprise on a mission "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no man has gone before." The format was pitched as a Wagon Train to the Stars , with new planets and aliens encountered every week, though the Klingons and Romulans would become regulars in the Star Trek galaxy. The original series suffered in the ratings , but gained a devoted fanbase. Uncancelled after the second season, and then cancelled again at the end of the third. It really picked up steam in syndication, which was about the time demographics came into play — and the Real Life moon landing happened a week after its last episode aired. The series was also notable for depicting a racially diverse cast of characters working together peacefully; a bold, progressive move at a time when racial tensions were at an all-time high. The show's writing was highly innovative and sought out a high-quality cast playing iconic characters, to the point of creating three new archetypes: The Kirk , The Spock , and The McCoy . In fact, this series created so many new tropes that it has left an unmistakable mark on both television and pop culture ever since. Not to mention inspired a lot of mostly affectionate parodies .
Star Trek: The Animated Series , also just called Star Trek at the time ("TAS", 1973-1974, NBC) Set 2269-2270 — Showcases the final year or so of the Enterprise crew's 5-year mission from The Original Series . Used most of the original cast (and a few additions) to provide voices for the animated versions of their characters. The show was more experimental in this stage, being a lot more flexible in alien designs and fantastical plots, but earned the franchise's first Emmy award. 22 episodes were produced over the course of two seasons. The official canonicity of this series has gone back and forth note The official Star Trek website currently considers it canon, though Gene Roddenberry, prior to his passing, apparently didn't. However, the episode "Yesteryear" is consistently included in official canon lists, even if the entire rest of the series is not. , but at least some elements have bled over into the rest of the franchise (most notably, identifying the "T" in James T. Kirk to stand for "Tiberius" ) and the addition of the cat-like Caitians to the mythos (see Star Trek Into Darkness ).
Star Trek: The Next Generation ("TNG", 1987-1994, First-Run Syndication ) Set 2364-2370 — The other one everyone has heard of. Takes place in the mid-24th century on the Enterprise - D , with a new batch of Starfleet officers led by Captain Jean-Luc Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) on the same mission of exploration as the original. The show originally was just an updating Star Trek's episodic adventures, but would go on to redefine many conceptions of what Star Trek can be. The show defined the Klingons as being a society of honor and war , had the omnipotent Q place Humanity on Trial , introduced the holodeck for Holodeck Malfunctions note although a version of it appeared first in the Canon /noncanon "TAS" and the malevolent Borg loomed as the most dangerous enemy of the Federation. The same basic creative team was responsible for the subsequent three television series and often referred to as "The Next Generation Era".
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (" DS9 ", 1993-1999, first-run syndication) Set 2369-2375 — Takes place concurrently with the end of Next Generation and the lion's share of Voyager , and conceived as a Spin-Off of TNG. Set on a former Cardassian space station (formerly Terok Nor, renamed Deep Space Nine) led by Captain Benjamin Sisko ( Avery Brooks ), in a politically unstable part of space near the planet Bajor, with exclusive access to a rare stable wormhole that leads from the Alpha to the Gamma Quadrant. The show utilized Story Arcs almost exclusively, rather than persisting with a strictly episodic format. The whole series progressively got much darker, focusing on a galaxy-spanning conflict between the Gamma Quadrant's Dominion and the impact it has on not just the Federation but their nominal allies and rivals of the Alpha Quadrant, escalating into a full-scale war. Generally considered the Oddball in the Series as far as the television shows go, due to very little exploration and the focus on local politics.
Star Trek: Voyager ("VOY", 1995-2001, UPN ) Set 2371-2378 — Another Spin-Off of Next Generation , conceived as a more direct successor to it than DS9 . While searching for a group of rogue Federation citizens called the Maquis, both the title ship and the Maquis vessel are flung across the galaxy and stranded in the Delta Quadrant, 70,000 light years and seventy-five years' travel from home ( Lost in Space a la Star Trek ). Introduces Kathryn Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew ), the first female main character captain in the franchise. Due to its isolation from the rest of Starfleet, there is very little story continuity between this show and DS9 , and Voyager persists in a largely episodic fashion as they make their way back home. While there are some story arcs, the Reset Button is used quite frequently and Techno Babble often drives the resolutions. But the show also experimented with some Two-Part Episode tele-movie formats, and because of their isolation had to deal with moral and ethical situations that the other shows wouldn't touch.
Star Trek: Enterprise , previously titled as just Enterprise until season 3 ("ENT", 2001-2005, UPN) Set from 2151-2155 — The first Prequel series set over a hundred years before the voyages of James T. Kirk, when humans were just getting their space legs (and the Applied Phlebotinum is not nearly as reliable), aboard Earth's first, experimental Warp 5-capable starship, the Enterprise NX-01 led by Capt. Jonathan Archer ( Scott Bakula ). It began with a Myth Arc involving the Enterprise crew getting caught up in a "Temporal Cold War" being fought by several rival Time Travel factions, all with an eye on Enterprise because they are a focal point in the foundation of The Federation . The series played around in their relative backyard for the first two seasons, showing Earths first introduction to classic Trek aliens. The third season then embarked on an ambitious season-spanning Story Arc centering around the sudden appearance of a mysterious new aggressor called the Xindi. The fourth and ultimately final season directed itself to use "mini-arcs" consisting of several two-to-three-episode-long stories, a hybrid of episodic storytelling with more long-form story arcs. These episodes would pick up on past events while also laying the groundwork for the Federation in earnest.
Star Trek: Discovery ("DIS", 2017-2024, Paramount+ ) Set 2256-2258 & 3188-3191 — Co-created by Alex Kurtzman, co-writer of the first two Kelvin Timeline films, and Bryan Fuller , this is set in the Prime Timeline about ten years before Kirk's command of the Enterprise. It would be the "Action-Adventure" show in the stable. In a break from the usual Star Trek formula, the show's central protagonist is not The Captain : Starfleet officer Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) is a disgraced Number One who was demoted and reassigned to USS Discovery (NCC-1031) as the Science Officer , experimenting with advanced tech during a period when tensions with the Klingons had escalated to full-scale war. Burnham, who was instrumental in said escalations, seeks to redeem herself. The show uses serialized season-long Story Arcs , with each new season having a Retool as the stakes are changed, parts of the cast rotate out and a new Captain takes command; the show's fifth and final season is the only one without a new captain. The show also switches from prequel (during the first two seasons) to sequel as the Discovery jumps forward almost a thousand years, discovering a radically changed galaxy on the other side.

Star Trek: Lower Decks ("LD", 2020-2024, Paramount+) Set 2380-ongoing — In a radical departure from the franchise's usual output, this is a half-hour animated series functioning as a sci-fi Work Com (and Affectionate Parody ) developed by Mike McMahan of Rick and Morty fame. It focuses on Military Maverick Ensign Beckett Mariner (voice of Tawny Newsome ) and Ensign Newbie Brad Boimler (voice of Jack Quaid ), two of the lowest-ranked crewmembers on the USS Cerritos , NCC-75567), "one of Starfleet's least important ships." The show focuses more on the bureaucracy and hard labor involved in following up on First Contact missions and maintaining Starfleet outposts, with a high density of Continuity Nods and Mythology Gags . At its' core it is a Coming of Age story where the low-ranking officers learn about the excitement of exploration and the danger of conflicts that comes with being part of Starfleet, which is reflected even by the senior officers who feel they are ignored as a clean-up crew . Most episodes are independent from each other, but there is some ongoing story arcs and moments where things get a lot more serious .
Star Trek: Prodigy ("PRO", 2021-2024, Season 1: Paramount+, Season 2: Netflix ) Set 2383-2385 (along with multiple time-jumps) — An All-CGI Cartoon aimed at children, co-produced with Nickelodeon . Set in the Delta Quadrant, it focuses on a group of alien teenagers who escape from a prison colony in an abandoned Starfleet ship, the USS Protostar (NX-76884). Kate Mulgrew reprises her Voyager role as Kathryn Janeway – a holographic version of Janeway, to be exact, who is the ship's Emergency Training Hologram. This series focuses on aliens and alien worlds away from familiar territory, making it lean more into Xenofiction than Star Trek normally does. Nickelodeon, which gave it a two-season order, was initially set to air it alone, until it was announced that the episodes would be streamed on Paramount+ first before landing on the cable network. It was aired in two parts for its first season; however, it was canceled by Paramount, the third such Trek series to meet this fate, with its second season mostly complete. Both seasons were subsequently picked up by Netflix.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ("SNW", 2022-ongoing, Paramount+) Set 2259-ongoing — This show stars Captain Pike ( Anson Mount ), Number One ( Rebecca Romijn ), and Spock ( Ethan Peck ), picking up after the events of Discovery season 2, and features their adventures on the USS Enterprise prior to the events of The Original Series . This does not mean that other familiar characters from The Original Series don't appear; Jess Bush plays Nurse Christine Chapel, Celia Rose Gooding appears as Ensign Newbie Nyota Uhura, and Paul Wesley takes on the guest-star role of Lt. James Kirk. The show is ultimately unique in that it forgoes the season-long plot arcs of the Secret Hideout era for the more episodic focus of the first two eras — if we go by the " Recycled with a Gimmick " premise, then, yes, this show is indeed " Star Trek , but as a Star Trek show". While there are ongoing stories, recurring themes and character arcs, the show is content to let each episode largely stand alone.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy , announced in March 2023, will be a Coming of Age Story focusing on the titular Academy training new generations of Starfleet cadets. Its marketing blurb, which claims the Academy is re-opening after 125 years, implies it to take place after Discovery 's time travel. It's not slated to begin production until 2024.

Movie Series

Original Movie Series When the Phase II network project died and the insane success of Star Wars made sci-fi films profitable again, Paramount elaborated the series pilot into The Movie , which ultimately led to a whole line of movies.

Movies in the franchise include:

December 7, 1979 — Star Trek: The Motion Picture (c. 2273) — Kirk rallies the old crew to intercept a technological Eldritch Abomination heading towards Earth.
June 4, 1982 — Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (2285) — Khan Noonien Singh from the TOS episode "Space Seed" returns intending to exact revenge against Kirk .
June 1, 1984 — Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (2285) — The crew find that for Vulcans, Death Is Cheap , while Kirk and crew risk everything to bring Spock back.
November 26, 1986 — Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (2286/1986) — To save Earth from a destructive, silent alien probe, Kirk and crew Time Travel to The '80s and save the whales .
June 9, 1989 — Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (2287) — After a botched attempt to rescue hostages, the Enterprise is commandeered by a radical Vulcan who intends to find God.
December 6, 1991 — Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (2293) — Klingons sue for peace, causing Starfleet to question ulterior motives and if they can ever become allies.
November 18, 1994 — Star Trek: Generations (2293, then 2371) — A Mad Scientist seeks to destroy billions to reach Nexus that converges space and time , allowing Kirk to meet Picard .
November 22, 1996 — Star Trek: First Contact (2373/2063) — The Borg attempt to assimilate Earth in the past, with Picard slowly becoming Captain Ahab against them. note This would later lead to Patrick Stewart playing Ahab himself in a miniseries.
December 11, 1998 — Star Trek: Insurrection (2375) — Finding that The Federation intends to pillage a Shangri-La planet , Picard rebels to protect them.
December 13, 2002 — Star Trek: Nemesis (2379) — The perpetually secretive Romulans invite the Federation to engage in a new era of peace talks, but their new leader has deadly plans against the Federation.
May 8, 2009 — Star Trek (2233 - 2258) — An Origins Episode of sorts where characters from The Original Series come together on their (new) first adventure to stop an Ax-Crazy , Time Traveling , continuity-rebooting Romulan from destroying Federation space.
May 17, 2013 — Star Trek Into Darkness (2259 - 2260) — Kirk and crew finds themselves dealing with an enigmatic and powerful terrorist intent on Revenge against Starfleet.
July 22, 2016 — Star Trek Beyond (2263) — The crew of the Enterprise fights to escape the clutches of a ruthless warlord after being stranded on an alien planet.

Invariably ( and unofficially ) referred to as the "Abramsverse" or " JJverse " among fans since the 2009 film's release, this new continuity was officially named the " Kelvin Timeline " (after the Point of Divergence in the first movie's prologue where Romulans destroy the USS Kelvin with Kirk's father within, changing the captain's upbringing) shortly before the release of Star Trek Beyond . Also referred to as simply the "Alternate Reality" by the Star Trek Wiki "Memory Alpha". This also makes the original continuity referred to as the " Prime Timeline ".

In total, to watch every minute of Canon Star Trek would require 23 days and 25 minutes of your time. Of Science Fiction franchises, only Doctor Who and its various canon spinoffs are even within a week, and the Super Sentai franchise, which started later than Star Trek or Doctor Who , but has been running continuously since 1979.

The Star Trek Expanded Universe consists of the expected novels and video games; these are somewhat infamous in many circles (compared to the Star Wars counterparts) for the casual disregard the producers of the shows often hold for them.
The Star Trek Novel 'Verse , a collection of novels which generally have a single continuity, including various "relaunch" series detailing what happened after the finales of the Trek shows.
The Star Trek Shatnerverse written by William Shatner and co-writers that have a continuity centered around James T. Kirk's resurrection following the events of Star Trek: Generations .
The Star Trek: Discovery novels, are a collection of novels set in their own continuity from the Star Trek: Discovery television show.
The Star Trek: Picard novels, are a collection of novels spinning off into their own continuity from the Star Trek: Picard television show.
The Star Trek Autobiographies series that follows its own separate continuity.
The Star Trek library that contains dozens of video games produced for the franchise.
The Trek Verse — a discussion of internal Trek history as viewed from a real-world perspective as well as how it affected modern culture.

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‘Star Trek’ is the greatest sci-fi franchise of all. Why it’s stood the test of time

Illustration for Robert Lloyd's story about the greatness of the Star Trek franchise.

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Of all the science fiction franchises in the known universe, the one I would take to a desert island — or planet, I guess — is “Star Trek.”

I am not a Trekkie by any means (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I have never dressed as a Vulcan. I can’t speak a word of Klingon or identify the starships by their silhouettes or tell you how many tribbles it takes to make trouble. But a lot of general knowledge has seeped into my brain over the years: “Beam me up, Scotty.” “Fascinating.” “He’s dead, Jim.” “I’m a doctor, not a [insert any other profession].” “Make it so.” “Engage.” I’m au fait with all those catchphrases. I’ve watched every series, if not in their entirety, and all of the movies . (I do not count the J.J. Abrams big screen reboots, which operate on another timeline, though I’ve seen those too.) And I have greeted each new iteration with interest and a certain “Hello, old friend, what are you up to now?” affection.

This year marks the centenary of creator Gene Roddenberry’s birth and 55 years since the premiere of what is now officially referred to as “The Original Series” or “TOS,” and there are various home video remasterings and reboxings available. Thursday sees the premiere of the excellent “Star Trek: Prodigy,” streaming on Paramount+, where the franchise is star-based. This new CGI series is about a bunch of misfit teenagers escaping a slave-labor camp in a stolen Federation starship, on the run from a very bad guy — but kind of joyriding too. (It’s being advertised as the first “Trek” series aimed at young audiences, somehow forgetting or reclassifying the early 1970s “Star Trek: The Animated Series,” which featured William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley in their original roles as Kirk, Spock and McCoy, aired Saturday mornings, and won a Daytime Emmy as a “children’s series” in 1975.) None of the characters is human or in some cases even humanoid, apart from the hologram of Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), employed here as a kind of interactive help-bot. It is quite lively in terms of action, and funny where it’s supposed to be, but as in all “Star Trek” series and films, character is what counts most.

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From the name forward, the franchise bears comparison with “Star Wars,” with its spaceships and aliens and interplanetary scope, not to mention the range of storytelling platforms — movies and TV, cartoons and comics, novels and fan fiction.

I wouldn’t deny that there’s fun to be had from George Lucas’ baby, now bouncing for Disney, but “Star Wars” is not science fiction. It’s a fantasy set in space, where wizards do magic and heroes fight with swords and prophesied chosen ones take up their lightsabers; a special effects western cum samurai film cum collection of war movies in which, a few defections notwithstanding, good fights bad until one obliterates the other; and an expensive homage to the cheap Saturday serials of the 1930s. Its one endlessly repeated theme is bad parenting — or, in the case of “The Mandalorian,” the first “Star Wars” live-action television series, good (surrogate) parenting . But “Star Wars” on the whole has no real interest in ideas, in asking “Why?” or “What if?” The droids are comic relief, and slaves. Joseph Campbell’s the Hero with a Thousand Faces has often been cited, by Lucas and others, to connect these characters to a deeper storytelling tradition; the problem with a thousand-faced hero, however, is that you have seen that shtick a thousand times.

“Star Trek” is a different animal. From the beginning it had a mission, not just to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no earthlings had gone before, but to model a future for its audience that was a little ahead of its time. Where “Star Wars” was slow off the mark with diversity — the only Black actor in “A New Hope,” James Earl Jones, supplied the voice of a white character, and even now has only managed one same-sex kiss between minor characters — “Star Trek” made diversity a point from the beginning, with George Takei’s Sulu and Nichelle Nichols ’ Uhura on the bridge. (Whether the 1968 kiss between Kirk and Uhura was the first interracial kiss on television is a subject of debate and semantics, but it was in any case ahead of its time.) The third series, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” put a Black man (Avery Brooks’ Sisko) in charge; the next, “Star Trek: Voyager,” a woman (Mulgrew’s Janeway). Throughout the various series, and in the sci-fi tradition, contemporary earthly issues — racism, Cold War politics, environmental degradation, despotism, sexism — are seen through the lens of future, extraterrestrial exploits. The presence of aliens (also ethnically diverse), on the crew or just passing through, offered writers a chance to comment with distance on the puzzlements of human behavior.

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That “Star Trek,” which originally ran from from 1966 to 1969, returned to television in the first place — there was a nearly 20-year break before “Star Trek: The Next Generation” — owes something to “Star Wars,” of course, which made space operas eminently bankable. But it had plenty of firepower of its own, charged by the the post-cancellation success of the original series, which flourished in syndication. A 1975 “Star Trek” convention in New York City, two years before “Star Wars” premiered, reportedly drew a crowd of 15,000 and turned thousands more away at the door; by 1986, the year before “The Next Generation” premiered, it was the most successful syndicated series going. A big-screen franchise, eventually numbering six films with the original crew, was up and running by 1979, followed by four “Next Generation” films — the first of which paired Shatner’s Kirk and Patrick Stewart’s Picard in a timeless corner of space.

To be sure, the revival of the brand may also be seen as a bottom-line event, designed to bring subscribers to what was then known as CBS All Access and is now called Paramount+, much as “The Mandalorian” was a boon to Disney+.

But it has produced excellent results. I’m a fan of all these shows: “Star Trek: Discovery,” especially in its adventuresome second and third seasons, with a fourth season premiering Nov. 18; the deep and thoughtful “Star Trek: Picard,” with Stewart back in the saddle (though going rogue); “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” an adult cartoon about service workers on a “second contact” vessel, that both parodies and celebrates the spirit and story conventions of the live-action shows while adding quotidian context and details. (We see how the ordinary crew lives; I can’t tell if it’s canonical, but it should be.) And there are more “Treks” arriving: the aforementioned “Prodigy”; “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” a spinoff at once from the second season of “Discovery” and the original “Star Trek” pilot, with Ethan Peck as a well-cast young Spock, Anson Mount as Capt. Christopher Pike and Rebecca Romijn as his Number One; and when one of the current series departs and other stars align, “Star Trek: Section 31,” another “Discovery” spinoff, with Michelle Yeoh reprising her role as Philippa Georgiou.

Because it was born and grew up on television, in an age when special effects were a luxury and not a given, the franchise has been devoted less to action than talk, and to philosophical questions — what it means to be human, or Vulcan, or Klingon, an android or noncorporeal. The fact that there are many, many, many hours of “Star Trek” content — which are, to some extent, preserved in the new series, with their intersecting plotlines — means that “Star Trek” has had the space to tell many sorts of stories: mystery stories, love stories (and impossible-love stories), funny stories, family stories, spy stories, horror stories, workplace stories. Much of the charm in the original series derives from the double act Shatner and Nimoy developed, based in a kind of affectionate mutual incompatibility, and subsequent “Treks” developed bonds between characters it is easy to invest in, and which in some cases (as with Capt. Picard and Data) became their very foundation.

It’s an emotional show, and not infrequently a show about having emotions — giving in to them, repressing them, making use of them. On the one hand you’ve got Spock, and all the Vulcans who came after, pumping for logic; on the other, there’s Data the android, a logical being who dearly wants to know what it is to be human, like his friends. It’s significant that the second series, “The Next Generation,” added a therapist to the crew — Marina Sirtis’ Deanna Troi — and eventually a bartender (Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan), which is to say, another sort of therapist.

The original series could be incredibly silly, unwittingly (and sometimes wittingly) self-parodying. The lack of money, one might say, was on the screen. One could practically smell the gray paint and plywood on the Enterprise sets. The series’ celebrated technobabble is just a kind of reformulated abracadabra; human characters get the hang of alien gear faster than you could look up how to reset your car’s clock in the owner’s manual. Everything happens in the nick of time. Kirk’s occasional romantic interludes might have seemed kind of hilarious even at the time, but certainly are risible now; and although there were strong roles written for women from the beginning, they were often stuck in some sort of minidress.

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And despite their hopeful tenor, these shows’ creation was not always peaceable. Roddenberry, whose involvement was lesser and greater over the years for reasons of health or business, could be critical of “Trek” made under others’ watch if he felt they weren’t staying true to his big themes. (Wikipedia will give you a pretty good idea of the rough roads some series and films have taken on the way to launch, and after.) But taken as a whole over time, “Star Trek” has remained remarkably true to a vision: Peace is better than war; violence is dramatically less interesting than discussion; difference is not merely respected but portrayed as a positive good.

There is the convention of the disposable crewman (“redshirts,” referring to the color of their uniform, has become a generic term for an anonymous character who dies early in a scene to indicate danger), but death even of the nameless is not usually paid back with death; revenge, while it is a motivating factor for characters in many stories, is regarded in the “Trek” universe as a dish best not served at all.

Mighty heroes mowing down hordes of literally faceless enemies, crowds cheering military victories — that is not the “Star Trek” style. There is relief when a foe is sent packing, but rarely glee. Phasers are usually set to stun. Spock’s Vulcan nerve pinch can send an opponent to the floor, but the Vulcan death grip (“The Enterprise Incident,” Season 3) is a fiction, a subterfuge. Current custom and affordable, high-quality modern SFX technology does mean that there is more space battling in the new “Treks” and more martial arts-style fighting (you are not going to leave Yeoh sitting in a chair, after all), but diplomacy remains the goal, and it is only when that fails that big things are blown up. “Get us out of here” is a thing Capt. Kirk would regularly say.

A aging space captain works on a hologram screen

“Star Trek” envisions an Earth in which, as in John Lennon’s “Imagine,” the old dividing lines — ethnic, political, religious — have all disappeared; there is no war, no poverty, no pollution, and technology finally works for us rather than against us. Though these things seemed possible in the progressive era when “Star Trek” was born, I’ve grown increasingly doubtful about humanity’s ability to intelligently regulate its most local affairs, let alone join with alien species in a project of interplanetary goodwill.

Which may be why I love the “Star Trek” universe, and why I melt when, at the end of the third season of “Discovery” — a season very much about coming to terms with one’s nature and needs, limits and abilities — Sonequa Martin-Green’s (newly promoted) Capt. Burnham says, “The need to connect is at our core as sentient beings. It takes time effort and understanding … but if we work at it a miracle can happen.”

And who knows? The future is a long road.

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Santa Monica, CA, Tuesday, May 21, 2024 - Exterior views of the Sci Fi World Museum. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

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Alan Tudyk, who stars in "Resident Alien," at his home in Los Angeles , May 13, 2024. (Ethan Benavidez / For The Times)

‘Resident Alien’ star Alan Tudyk is in no hurry to return to his home planet

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Upcoming Star Trek TV Shows: What's Ahead For The Sci-Fi Franchise

Here's what's ahead for Star Trek.

It’s a golden era for Star Trek tv shows, as the franchise is churning out more content than ever before. Fans with a Paramount+ subscription can stream a plethora of old and new content from one of the greatest sci-fi franchises of all time.

There’s a ton of new Star Trek content coming in the future, including the debut of a new show as well as the return of all the ones fans already know well. For those who need a breakdown of what all to expect, look no further because here’s where and when all the new Trek will arrive in 2023 and beyond. There’s even some information on planned shows that aren’t quite ready yet, but hopefully, we’ll see them soon enough.

Sonequa Martin-Green in Star Trek: Discovery

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 - Premiering On April 4th 2024

Captain Michael Burnham and the crew are back, and based on what we've seen and heard about Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 so far, some changes are on the way. Season 5 will see the crew race against others in an attempt to secure an ancient power, and will apparently have a tonal shift that will skew more toward action and adventure. We also learned that this coming season will be the final adventure , as Paramount+ decided to end the series after this coming season. The final season will kick off in April and, fingers crossed, leave an avenue open for more stories with these characters in the 32nd century.

Anson Mount as Christopher Pike in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 - In Production

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is coming back for Season 3, and is currently filming for the upcoming season. It's likely the season will kick off with the second part of the adventure started in the Season 2 finale . Pike must decide whether or not he's going to listen to Starfleet and retreat to avoid further conflict with the Gorn or to stay and try to save the kidnapped crew members. I have a hunch I know what decision he'll make, but I'm also very invested in seeing if Scotty will remain with the crew and what other adventures will come as well.

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 - Coming In 2024

Paramount+ originally renewed Star Trek: Prodigy for Season 2, but announced later that it had been canceled alongside other shows on the platform. While the news was a bummer to many and encouraged responses from stars like Kate Mulgrew , there is a silver lining. After some talk with other companies, Paramount managed to negotiate a deal where the series will transition over to Netflix , and Season 2 will release over there. At this time, it's unknown whether or not this will lead to more seasons of Prodigy , but fans are thankful they'll at least get to see the season that was being worked on coming up in 2024.

Section 31 Movie - Production Complete

Section 31 was one of the first Star Trek spinoffs announced after Discovery , and yet it took the longest to get off the ground. The series was supposed to Michelle Yeoh ’s Phillipa Georgiou and her efforts in the secret ops Starfleet faction that does the jobs that others in the organization would rather not know about. Other former Discovery stars, like Shazad Latif, were involved at one point, but some believed the odds of it happening aren't great after Michelle Yeoh's Oscar win .

It turns out Yeoh was interested in making it happen, and Paramount+ decided to alter the idea to a movie . Fans are excited about the project all the same, and ready to see Michelle Yeoh back in her role. Production on the film is officially underway, and it's looking like a premiere sometime in late 2024 to 2025 is likely.

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Starfleet Academy - Production Starting In 2024

Alex Kurtzman revealed not long ago that Star Trek is actively working on another new live-action series , and it’s going to be set at Starfleet Academy. Of course, we don’t know exactly what era this series is set to take place during or who is going to star in it yet. We don’t really know much of anything, though it’s worth noting that Star Trek: Discovery did write off its character Tilly when she took an offer at Starfleet Academy. The episode where that happened seemed like it could be a backdoor pilot for the show, but again, we have no idea. We do know that the writer's room is underway, but details are scant beyond that.

As shown above, there’s still a ton of Star Trek on the way in 2024, and beyond. The only way to watch these shows is with a Paramount+ subscription , which is totally worth picking up with the increasing amount of shows and movies available to watch.

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

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Star Trek Canon Is Suddenly Going In Several Different Directions

The venerable sci-fi franchise has to pick a future.

Star Trek has few equals when it comes to longevity. In 1966, The Original Series brought hardcore sci-fi concepts to network television, and in 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture became the most successful feature film based on a TV show. In the ‘90s, with Star Wars movies on hiatus and Marvel mostly limited to comics, Trek maintained several TV shows, a feature film empire, and countless tie-in novels.

“We [Star Trek] were actually a harbinger of things to come, just look at the universe of entertainment we currently live in,” LeVar Burton told Inverse in 2021 . Indeed, from the MCU to the Monsterverse, every genre franchise is trying to be a sprawling empire of TV and film. And while Star Trek is arguably the foundation for this reality, it still feels like an underdog constantly struggling to stay relevant. As Discovery and Lower Decks end in 2024, the franchise is poised to revamp its canon and make yet another comeback. Here are all the latest Trek developments, and what they mean for fans.

A New Trek Movie and a New Timeline?

The USS Enterprise in 'Star Trek' (2009).

What happened before this version of the Enterprise ?

The next Trek movie is thought to be an “Untitled Star Trek Origin Story,” which will take place before the J.J. Abrams-directed 2009 reboot film. Directed by Toby Haynes ( Andor ) with a script from Seth Grahame-Smith ( The Lego Batman Movie ), the movie (and the entire Trek film franchise) has g ained a producer in Simon Kinberg, best known for helming the X-Men film franchise from 2006 to 2019.

Notably, the Star Trek films have been completely separate from the current TV shows ever since Abrams’ 2009 Trek. While there are perpetual rumors about bringing TV and film back under the same umbrella, Alex Kurtzman remains in charge of TV Trek for now, so don’t hold your breath for, say, a Strange New Worlds film. But buried in these behind-the-scenes developments is a rumor that the prequel’s storyline will be set, according to The Hollywood Reporter , “...likely around modern times. It is said to involve the creation of the Starfleet and humankind’s first contact with alien life.”

As depicted in First Contact, humanity met the Vulcans in 2063. So if this rumor is true, it’s possible a third Trek timeline could emerge, one that contradicts the events of the Abrams movies (the Kelvin Timeline) and the ongoing TV shows (the Prime Timeline).

Star Trek has changed its history many times before, and Strange New Worlds recently altered the Prime Timeline to accommodate real 21st-century developments that the Trek of 1966 couldn’t anticipate. This could be a similar change, not a whole new timeline. Either way, the next Trek film appears poised to rewrite fictional history again.

Star Power For Starfleet Academy

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 13: Holly Hunter poses at The Vineyard Theatre 40th Anniversary 2023 G...

Holly Hunter will lead the next Star Trek series.

Simultaneously, a major casting announcement dropped for the next live-action Star Trek TV series, Starfleet Academy . The lead will be acclaimed actress Holly Hunter, who, according to Variety , “will serve as the captain and chancellor of the Academy, presiding over both the faculty and a new class of Starfleet cadets as they learn to navigate the galaxy in the 32nd century.”

Casting a heavyweight like Hunter feels similar to what Trek did in 2016 when it was revealed that Michelle Yeoh would (initially) lead Discovery. Once again, a big name is brought in to give a new Trek series a fresh start. While Starfleet Academy is technically set within the Discovery timeframe, rumors suggest it will be young adult and even somewhat comedy-oriented, which means it has to win over a new demographic. So while Star Trek films are going back to the beginning, TV is heading into a risky future.

Picard Spinoff Legacy Is On Ice... For Now

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 19: Terry Matalas and Jeri Ryan speak during Q&A at the IMAX "Picard...

Terry Matalas and Jeri Ryan, who’s the current captain of the USS Enterprise-G.

After the ending (and post-credits scene ) of Picard Season 3, showrunner Terry Matalas made it clear he was ready to make a spinoff series, tentatively titled Star Trek: Legacy , which would explore the further adventures of Captain Seven, Raffi, and Jack Crusher on the newly christened Enterprise-G . But with Paramount and CBS in financial limbo amid rumored mergers , Legacy has yet to be greenlit.

Now, it appears Legacy won’t likely be happening anytime soon. Terry Matalas has signed with Marvel to run Vision , a Disney+ series set after WandaVision . While Marvel fans should welcome Matalas’ talents, it suggests the balance of nostalgia and forward thinking that Matalas perfected on Picard won’t continue in future Terk shows.

Still, the future is uncertain. The next Trek film has already undergone several permutations, leaving fans with no idea what the final product will be. Starfleet Academy could shake up the idea of what Trek can be. As Spock tells us, “ there are always possibilities.” And whatever happens next to Trek canon, there will be no shortage of adventures to watch.

Phasers on Stun!: How the Making — and Remaking — of Star Trek Changed the World

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Every Star Trek TV Series Ranked

We're ranking all the Star Trek TV series, from The Original Series to Strange New Worlds and beyond!

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Since its debut in 1966, Star Trek has boldly gone to nearly every cultural aspect of modern life. The franchise has included 13 feature films with various crews, numerous board and video games, hundreds of action figures, commemorative plates — you name it, and there’s probably a version with a Starfleet logo on it.

But despite all this exploration into other media and fields, Star Trek remains best on television. And after a long drought, the franchise is finally thriving again in its original medium, despite the bumbling of its parent company Paramount. Even with Picard done and Discovery entering its fifth and final season, multiple series are still in production, including the acclaimed Strange New Worlds .

But as the greatest Trek theme song reminds us, it’s been a long road getting from there to here. The Original Series was canceled after a budget-strapped third season in 1969 and only built its following in syndication. Star Trek: The Next Generation overcame its rocky start to launch a renaissance that lasted throughout the 90s, but the cancelation of Enterprise led to 13 years without a new Trek show on TV.

With all of that behind us, and in the midst of a second Star Trek renaissance, it’s time to look back at the best and worst that the franchise has to offer.

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12. Enterprise (2001 – 2004)

Enterprise will always be known as the series that ended the first Star Trek renaissance. What began with The Motion Picture and peaked with multiple excellent television series finally fizzled out with a lackluster series that too often felt perfunctory.

The series certainly had the right idea in mind. Instead of continuing the storyline set out by The Next Generation or revisiting the Kirk era, Enterprise went back to the beginning, showing the rough early days of humanity’s warp-capable exploration and the establishment of the Federation.

Despite those noble intentions, Enterprise mostly floundered, starting with its cast. Trip Tucker made for a fun swashbuckling hero from the beginning, John Billingsley brought a delightful weirdness to his alien Doctor Phlox , and Jolene Blalock brought depths of nuance to the oft-underdressed Vulcan T’Pol, but the rest of the crew got either underutilized or used poorly. The incredibly likable Scott Bakula struggled to get a handle on Captain Archer, Linda Park’s Hoshi Sato got less to do than TOS Uhura, and Travis Mayweather had no qualities beyond being born in space.

However, Enterprise did eventually become a worthy Trek series. The Temporal Cold War gave the NX-01 more immediate relevance to other entries and the Xindi Civil War allowed the series to tackle questions raised by its post-9/11 present. However, even these advancements got overshadowed, partially by Ronald D. Moore leaving Trek to make the morally complex competitor Battlestar Galactica and by the producer’s decision to end the series by foregrounding Riker on the holodeck. In the end, Enterprise ’s time never came.

11. The Animated Series (1973 – 1974)

We don’t know what it was like to watch The Animated Series during its original run, but it must have been magical. A beloved series, seemingly gone forever, gets one more crack. While the cheap TV animation of the 1970s must have been a disappointment to even the show’s first viewers, and surely some lamented the loss of Walter Koenig’s Chekov , who was cut from the show for budget reasons (a script written by Koenig was used for the episode “The Infinite Vulcan”), most would take more Trek in any form available.

And to be sure, TAS was a worthy continuation of the original series. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley and their co-stars proved to be able voice actors, breathing life into decidedly more static representations of their characters. Even better, the series benefited from scripts by some of the best sci-fi writers of the era, including the ever-reliable D.C. Fontana and Ringworld creator Larry Niven.

To be sure, some of the novelty of TAS has worn off. Star Trek has proven to be a reliable franchise, and fans no longer have to be satisfied with the scraps that the studio tosses them. Even the best animated episodes feel diminished by their medium; less a second chance for the Enterprise crew and more a lesser version of the franchise we’ve come to love.

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Star Trek - Short Treks: Children of Mars

10. Short Treks (2019 – 2020)

Short Treks is exactly what it sounds like: 8-15 minute short movies set in various parts of the Star Trek universe. This small-scale approach means that it’s easy to forgive the Short Treks entries that go awry, and some certainly have. The series closer “Children of Mars” feels like an after-school special with slick music video aesthetics, made all the worse by the fact that it’s a lead-in to Picard season one, perhaps the worst season of Trek ever. The great composer Michael Giacchino finds some delightful turns in the Pixar -inspired “Ephriam and Dot,” but it’s a tonal disaster that makes the Discovery crew look like monsters.

Fortunately, most of Short Treks ’ ten episodes are pretty great. “Calypso” takes a horror turn with Aldis Hodge playing a crewman alone on a haunted ship. The hilarious “The Trouble with Edward” stars H. Jon Benjamin as an insecure scientist whose arrogance gives tribbles their mass reproduction abilities. And “Q&A” foregrounds the wonderful Strange New Worlds , as Spock and Number One bond over show tunes while stuck in a turbo lift.

Unfortunately, the inessential nature of Short Treks cuts against these stronger entries as well. Buried someplace on the Paramount+ app, Short Treks rarely have strong relevance to mainstream stories, and thus can be easily ignored, the good and the bad.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 4 Review

9. Picard (2020 – 2023)

Picard ended with a miracle season, a perfect mixture of fan service and proper character development. Deftly helmed by showrunner Terry Matalas , Picard season three caught up with the beloved Captain and his crew twenty years later to find them grown older and different, not just stuck in their old routines. Combined with exciting newcomers, especially the stick-in-the-mud Captain Liam Shaw , Picard season three whet viewers’ appetites for more adventures, hopefully in a series called Star Trek: Legacy .

Notice how I keep specifying “ Picard season three”? Because up until that season, Picard was an absolute disaster, the worst that the franchise ever put on screen. To be fair, it’s easy to understand Patrick Stewart’s trepidation at bringing back the old crew , worrying that the show would be a sad rehash of thirty-year-old stories. But in trying to avoid easy nostalgia, the first two seasons of Picard seemed to hate the very franchise it continued. The first season featured the brutal on-screen dismemberment of Icheb, a domesticated Riker with a pizza oven, and Starfleet officers decrying the “pure fucking hubris” of Picard. Season two was even worse, with its ‘Q has dementia’ plotline and a misguided approach to the Borg Queen.

Fortunately, the Captain eventually righted the ship and gave us the story we wanted. Notably, the third season didn’t achieve success by avoiding darker moments. Picard has painful confrontations with Ro Laren and Beverly Crusher, the loss of a child threatens to tear apart Riker and Troi, and Worf straight-up beheads a dude. But all of these unpleasant notes come from a place of respect for the characters, building on what came before instead of destroying it for shock value.

"Hear All, Trust Nothing" - Ep#306 --Jerry O'Conell as Commander Ransom, Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs , Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman of the Paramount+ series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS

8. Lower Decks (2020 – Present)

There’s a unique joy to watching the Star Trek animated series Lower Decks , something akin to getting back together with old friends. Created by one-time Rick and Morty showrunner Mike McMahan, Lower Decks follows a quartet of ensigns on the USS Cerritos, a Starfleet ship tasked with mundane missions. With lower stakes, the characters have more downtime, allowing them to debate the merits of TNG ’s Rambo riff Roga Danor or play a Klingon DVD game hosted by Martok (voiced again by J. G. Hertzler). In these moments, Trekkies can’t help but chuckle with recognition. How is it that anyone else in the world laughs about these arcane parts of Trek lore?

But at the same time, Lower Decks can get somewhat exhausting. The jokes come fast and furious, as leads Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid , Eugene Cordero, and Noël Wells sometimes shout their lines (a fact referenced in the recent crossover with Strange New Worlds ). And at times, the multitudinous in-jokes can become the point of the episode, banking way too much investment in the humor of a Tom Paris commemorative plate.

However, Lower Decks has also proven itself to be capable of genuine character exploration. Over the course of the series, Newsome’s Beckett Mariner has revealed herself not to be a too-cool-for-school rebel from an 80s “slobs vs snobs” comedy, but an incredibly capable future officer whose difficult relationship with her mother drives her to self-sabotage. Wells’s Tendi fights against stereotypes about Orion pirates and sex slaves to establish herself as a good-hearted scientist. In these moments, LD finds its jokes in character motivations, not just in winking references.

7. Prodigy (2021)

We really hate putting Prodigy so low. As a children’s animated series with ties to the still-underrated Voyager , it’s easy to see why so many Trekkies have skipped over it. That oversight certainly had something to do with Paramount’s boneheaded decision to remove it from Paramount+, the so-called “Home of Star Trek .” But those who did catch Prodigy , especially with their Trek -agnostic kids, discovered a truly delightful series that captured everything great about the franchise.

Set deep in the Delta Quadrant, Prodigy follows a group of alien teens , led by Dal R’El (Brett Grey) and Gwyn (Ella Purnell), who escape a prison colony via the abandoned Starfleet craft the USS Protostar. With help from a holographic Captain Janeway , the kids learn to embrace the ideals of the Federation, while also uncovering their connection to the evil overlord the Diviner (John Noble). The kids’ idealism and desperate situation allows them to reaffirm Starfleet’s first principles, even as they encounter adults from the Federation who have forgotten the meaning behind the symbols they wear.

By making outsiders the focus, Prodigy serves as a perfect entryway into Trek for its younger primary audience. But that doesn’t mean it avoids deep cuts. The main cast counts among its number a Tellurite (voiced by the always hilarious Jason Mantzoukas) and a Medusan (Agnus Imrie). Everyone from Spock and Crusher to Odo and Chakotay have appeared as holograms, and the series even featured the return of one-offs Admiral Jellico and the Outrageous Okona. Through Prodigy , even the most uninitiated Trek fan gets to see the franchise’s goofiest characters and most inspiring ideals.

6. Discovery (2017 – 2023)

Strangely, Discovery only gets better as other Star Trek series embrace the standard form. When it first launched under the direction of the often wonderful but always idiosyncratic Bryan Fuller , Discovery aggressively separated from and connected to everything that came before. Instead of taking advantage of its likable cast, Disco focused almost entirely on Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), the heretofore unmentioned adopted sister of Spock. Season-long serialized arcs often built to disappointing reveals (all the dilithium in the 32nd century burned because a Kelpian had a temper tantrum?) and nobody asked to watch a topless Klingon woman commit sexual assault.

But as Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks become more prominent during the second Trek renaissance, Disco ’s oddities can be accepted as the experiments they were meant to be. After all, Fuller intended the series to be an anthology, focusing on different characters and timelines each season. That offbeat spirit remained in the show, even after Fuller left production. As it heads into its fifth and final season, Disco remains committed to taking Trek into new, uncharted territory.

Nowhere is that more clear than in its most controversial aspect: the crying. Emotion has always been a key part of Star Trek , represented by McCoy in the triumvirate with Kirk and Spock. But with Disco , emotion became a valid form of problem-solving, taking its place beside the franchise’s favored approach, logical thinking. Even if the crying in Discovery doesn’t work for everyone, there’s no denying that it serves the franchise’s core goals by finding new ways of understanding humanity.

5. Voyager (1995 – 2001)

Most Trek series get off on the wrong foot, but few screw things up like Voyager . Despite a fantastic premise, in which Captain Janeway strands her crew in the Delta Quadrant and is forced to work with Maquis dissidents, the series stumbles through some terrible decisions. Not only does it try to push the incredibly stupid and ugly Kazon as the chief enemy race (the way-better Vidiians are right there!), but it also acts like Neelix, who is controlling and petty with his two-year-old girlfriend Kes, is a lovable goof. Even for a Rick Berman-produced show, that’s creepy.

You do have to get over the fact that the show chooses standalone episodes over serialization, basically killing any larger tension and most character development, but the show quickly makes it easier to forgive that shortcoming by telling some fantastic single episodes. By the time the fantastic Jerry Ryan joins the show in season four as ex-Borg Seven of Nine and the Kazon get left behind, Voyager delivers some all-time great Trek episodes, including “Year of Hell” and “Blink of an Eye.”

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Even better, the series settles into fleshing out its primary characters. Yes, this does mean that some go by the wayside — not just the departed Kes, but also Chakotay becomes a big nothing, Paris and B’Elanna get pushed into the domestic bliss corner, and Kim stays an ensign. But the tensions between Seven of Nine, Janeway, and the Doctor make for a classic Trek trio, allowing the show to explore the nature of humanity while also making the Captain the most adventurous of Starfleet leaders. Plus, Voyager gives us the best Trek kid ever in Naomi Wildman and no we will not hear counterarguments.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 10

4. Strange New Worlds (2022 – Present)

Aside from TOS , nearly every Trek series has started off with a bad season or two. But that’s not the case with Strange New Worlds , which has not had a single bad episode yet.

SNW returns to the early days of the USS Enterprise, following the adventures of Kirk’s predecessor Captain Christopher Pike and a crew that includes young Spock and Uhura. What could have been a reactionary retreat to a safe era of Trek , complete with a straight white guy in the captain’s chair, has turned out to be Trek at its best. Anson Mount makes for not only an affable, big brother of a leader as Captain Pike , but he’s also a remarkably generous performer. Time and again, Mount finds new ways of supporting his scene partners, whether it’s playing a baffled straight man when Spock gets overwhelmed by his human side or reassuring his security chief La’an with words of gentle wisdom.

Thanks to Mount’s ability to share the spotlight, SNW has been able to develop the best ensemble cast of any Trek series, a remarkable feat given its use of well-known characters. Ethan Peck has successfully established his own take on Spock, playing a more emotional version of the character that still feels like someone who will grow up to be Leonard Nimoy . Celia Rose Gooding plays Uhura as an incredibly talented Ensign who doesn’t yet know that she’ll become the legendary Starfleet comms officer. Babs Olusanmokun, Jess Bush, and Rebecca Romijn fully round out characters barely glimpsed in TOS .

With this outstanding cast and crew, SNW puts a modern sheen on TOS themes and even episodes, without diverging too hard from what came before. Case in point: the season one finale “ A Qu a lity of Mercy ,” which revisits the classic episode “Balance of Terror” in an alternate reality. It’s our love for Pike and other characters that makes us want them to sacrifice a better life in order to restore the original timeline, even if it means Pike must accept his fiery fate.

Spock and Kirk stand together in Star Trek's "A Taste of Armageddon"

3. Star Trek (1966 – 1969)

Newcomers to the franchise sometimes struggle with the original series, finding it hopelessly dated. TOS does definitely embrace the aesthetics of its time, with its miniskirt uniforms, technicolor background lighting, and, yes, space hippies. But like The Twilight Zone , its closest counterpart of the era, both in terms of themes and influence, Star Trek used its outlandish premise to speak to the heart of the human condition.

At this point, it’s easy to make jokes about William Shatner ’s idiosyncratic delivery, but there’s no denying how well it works for Captain Kirk. Every pregnant pause, every sparkle in his key-lit eyes reveals a genuine love for exploration. When combined with the logical Spock and the irascible McCoy, Star Trek establishes a perfect formula for spacefaring television adventures. Even as they encounter low-budget baddies like the costume-shop Gorn or the blocky supercomputer Landru, Kirk and Co. remain focused on the human element.

Thanks to this approach, TOS perfected the sci-fi tension between high-concept ideas and terrestrial concerns. Gene Roddenberry and writers such as D.C. Fonatana and Gene L. Coon got to grapple with issues such as racism and the Vietnam War with stories about Klingons and Romulans. As rich and fantastic as TOS got, it never lost the humans at the center, making it ripe for continuing adventures and spin-offs.

2. The Next Generation (1987 – 1994)

Patrick Stewart didn’t empty his suitcase. That’s how certain he was in the failure of Star Trek: The Next Generation . Stepping in for the hammy masculinity of the established Captain Kirk, the patrician, thoughtful (and bald) Jean-Luc Picard seemed like an ill-fit for the franchise, even with the more traditionally heroic Will Riker in tow. And for the first two seasons, Stewart seemed to be correct, especially when Roddenberry and others tried to restrict the TNG cast to TOS -style stories.

But by the time it hit its third season, TNG perfected the Star Trek formula, embracing what was so great about TOS while also emphasizing its most underutilized asset, the ensemble cast. Instead of putting Picard at the center of a trio, which initially included Data and LaForge, the Captain became the imperfect parent of a family filled with interesting personalities. Debates about morality and philosophy occurred around a table in the ready room, where several voices chimed in on important issues.

This isn’t to say that TNG didn’t grapple with big ideas like its predecessor. “The Measure of a Man” raised questions about the dignity of life, “ Chain of Command ” looked at the cost of war, and “Ensign Ro” considered the morality of resistance. It’s just that all of these episodes came from a place of love and investment in the characters. We tuned in every week not just to seek out new life and new civilizations, but to spend more time with interesting characters whom we loved, making even the most outlandish adventure feel as comfortable as a poker game with old friends.

1. Deep Space Nine (1993 – 1999)

What initially seemed like too far a departure from the Star Trek formula has now become the standard hipster answer for ‘best Trek ’. But, you know, Deep Space Nine is the best Trek !

DS9 veered from its predecessors in several important ways. Instead of focusing on a space-faring Enterprise, it remained on the titular space station (although the addition of the Defiant in season three allowed the show to indulge in standard “ship and crew” storylines). It dealt directly with religion, thanks to its engagement with the Bajoran prophets who chose Commander Sisko as their Emissary. And it took a notably darker tone as the space station shifted from the outpost at the edge of Federation space to the frontline of the massive Dominion War.

Despite these diversions, DS9 combined the best of the two previous series. Like TNG , DS9 boasted an excellent cast of interesting characters. As Benjamin Sisko , Avery Brooks played the best dad in television history, a grieving widower whose ideals often put him at odds with his Starfleet superiors. Armin Shimerman , Aron Eisenberg, and Max Grodénchik singlehandedly redeem the Ferengi, turning them from annoying and ugly enemy aliens to complex creatures with their own morality. And Nana Visitor’s Kira Nerys found layers of nuance in her Bajoran freedom fighter forced to work with the Federation.

With these complex characters in place, DS9 told some of the most complex and compelling stories in Trek history, episodes that both challenged and upheld the franchise’s core utopian ideals. “In the Pale Moonlight” found Sisko bending his principles to force a treaty with the Romulans and “Far Beyond the Stars” reaffirmed the importance of science fiction. The show even made space for some of the best comedic episodes in Trek history, such as the baseball romp “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” and the 30th-anniversary special “Trials and Tribble-ations.” Deep Space Nine showed Trek at its most humane, ambitious, complex, and idealistic, making it the best show in the franchise.

Joe George | @jageorgeii

Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!

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Walter Koenig, Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, and Nichelle Nichols in Star Trek (1966)

In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets. In the 23rd Century, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy and defend the United Federation of Planets.

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Trivia In the hallways of the Enterprise there are tubes marked "GNDN." These initials stand for "goes nowhere does nothing."
Goofs The deck locations for Kirk's Quarters, Sickbay and Transporter Room vary (usually between decks 4-7) throughout the series.

Dr. McCoy : "He's dead, Jim."

Crazy credits On some episodes, the closing credits show a still that is actually from the Star Trek blooper reel. It is a close-up of stunt man Bill Blackburn who played an android in Return to Tomorrow (1968) , removing his latex make up. In the reel, He is shown taking it off, while an off-screen voice says "You wanted show business, you got it!"
Alternate versions In 2006, CBS went back to the archives and created HD prints of every episode of the show. In addition to the new video transfer, they re-did all of the model shots and some matte paintings using CGI effects, and re-recorded the original theme song to clean it up. These "Enhanced" versions of the episodes aired on syndication and have been released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Connections Edited into Ben 10: Secrets (2006)
Soundtracks Star Trek Music by Alexander Courage

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September 8, 1966 (United States)
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Star Trek: The Original Series
Backlot, Culver Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA
Desilu Productions
Norway Corporation
Paramount Television
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Runtime 50 minutes

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Chris Pine Wonders How ‘Star Trek 4’ Will Deal With Kirk Now That He Is “A Lot Older”

| July 3, 2024 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 51 comments so far

We are just a few weeks away from the 8th anniversary of the release of Star Trek Beyond , the third entry in the Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies staring Chris Pine as James T. Kirk. Paramount continues to say they are committed to a follow up movie, and now the star is starting to wonder how it will deal with how he isn’t getting any younger.

Pine curious about Star Trek 4

For the last couple of years, since he has recommitted to return as James T. Kirk for a fourth Star Trek movie, actor Chris Pine has often expressed his enthusiasm for the return, but also some frustrations. His latest comments from from a recent appearance at ACE Superhero Comic in San Antonio, TX. Pine acknowledged the well-reported ups and downs the Beyond sequel has gone through over the past decade (via PopVerse ), saying “In terms of the next phase of [Star Trek], obviously you’re all fans, so I’m sure you’ve read it.”

Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek Beyond

The actor then talked about how he and his fellow cast are ready to get back to the Enterprise, but he wonders how the movie will deal with how he is getting older, saying:

“We all like one another a lot. I’m good friends with everybody I’ve worked with. We have a great time doing it. I’m a lot older now, so I would be curious where that next story lands us in terms of what it would be and what we’ve said in the press.”

Pine, now 43, was 29 when he first appeared as James T. Kirk in the 2009 Star Trek movie. Last year the actor talked about how he was hoping to do “many more” movies as Kirk, saying it would be “super cool” to play the same character through the course of his career. Original Kirk actor William Shatner was 35 when the Star Trek television show premiered and 63 when he last appeared as the character in the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations . Pine is still younger than Shatner when he played Admiral Kirk in Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. In Star Trek Beyond , Kirk turned down a promotion to admiral and was set to head out on a new USS Enterprise (NCC 1701-A). If the next movie were set a decade later, Kirk and his crew could have already completed two 5-year missions.

Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) looking up at new Enterprise in Star Trek Beyond

Various follow-ups to Beyond have been in the works over the last 8 years. In March of this year, it was reported that Paramount and producer J.J. Abrams had brought on yet another screenwriter to take a crack at what the studio is now calling the final movie for the Kelvin crew. Pine later expressed some frustration with this move, telling Business Insider “I thought there was already a script, but I guess I was wrong, or they decided to pivot. As it’s always been with ‘Trek,’ I just wait and see.”

Even now entering middle age, Pine is still keeping it sharp. He recently shaved off his beard (but kept the ‘stache) as can be seen from an appearance at a fashion event in Milan in mid-June…

Chris Pine turned Father’s Day into a weeklong holiday by repeatedly serving Daddy in Milan during Men’s fashion week (click for more): https://t.co/d4559OI35P — Tom and Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo) June 19, 2024

The next Star Trek feature film expected to come out of Paramount is the “ Untitled Star Trek Origin Story ” which Paramount recently confirmed as part of its 2025/2026 slate. This movie would have a new cast. Earlier this year, Paramount and producer J.J. Abrams had tapped Andor ‘s Toby Haynes to direct, based on a script from Seth Grahame-Smith ( The Lego Batman Movie ). Paramount is also reportedly talking to producer Simon Kinberg about shepherding the film franchise , starting with that origin movie. This next Star Trek movie was mentioned during the Paramount Global shareholder meeting in June with co-CEO Brian Robbins saying it is “coming soon,” and touting Trek as one of the company’s “billion dollar brands.”

Find more news and analysis on upcoming Star Trek feature films .

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This is the longest five-year mission in history…

Just because the TOS timeline had 5-yr.missions, there is no reason the Kelvin timeline would.

They mention it’s a five year mission in one of the movies.

But Into Darkness established that they did, and Beyond confirmed that they were halfway through one.

It certainly is. Eight years since Beyond, wow.

It’s been so long since the last Star Trek movie set in the Kelvin timeline, that by the time they finally make another one none of the crew of the Enterprise will still serve on that ship.

They’ll all have moved on to other assignments, pretty much like the original cast did in The Motion Picture.

I mean I don’t think they can just pick up where they left off in Beyond , so yeah the next one (if it happens) will hopefully skip ahead a decade or so.

At this point, what was it all for? The Kelvin movies did nothing for Star Trek. It was Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, SNW, etc that saved it. The Kelvin movies contributed nothing.

While certainly not my favorite Trek, I would like to see it get a final outing. Of course, as long as that final outing doesn’t come at the expense of other Trek.

Star Trek did not need saving and Discovery has done the franchise no favours.

‘Beyond’ flopped and stalled the movie series. Disc at least has led to multi spin off shows and ST first TVM.

During the moments that worked (not saying there were a ton of them), BEYOND felt a lot more like STAR TREK than anything else I’ve seen this whole century.

didn’t help the film series though.

That seemed to a big reason the movie underperformed!, JJs films seemed to hit that sweet spot of appealing to moviegoers who wouldn’t been seen dead watching ST and the hardcore trekkies (ok maybe not ID for some fans lol), but Beyond missed the target .. Ironically Orci’s ST3 was apparently canned for being ‘too star trek’ yet sounded much more appealing for movie audiences (dealing with time travel/timelines and Shatner) whereas what they eventually did in Beyond sounded/looked so ‘star trek’ it turned off the average Joe moviegoers! plus there was that Fast and Furious action teaser trailer turning off the fans, a double whammy!

That is a flaming photon torpedo of truth. Beyond is generally well liked and appreciated by Trek fans, but I was surprised to find most non-fans I’ve heard from found it, quote, “boring and dull”. I could quite believe that take, but it’s definitely better received by fans than the public. Into Darkness was the reverse.

I think it’s probably too late to make this movie starting where they left off on the Enterprise. They really would need to write a story where they have to reconnect for one final mission, which might be worth doing. That being said, an aging crew is nothing new for Star Trek.

Bust him back to cadet.

i imagine the writers/abrams etc are trying to figure out to do a standalone thing with the cast like Beyond (i.e. their TMP and TUC in one movie) or buy into the multiverse stuff going around and have them interact with their primeverse counterparts (via CG/AI ) or the TNG cast etc for a big anniversary movie ..

maybe they’ll go with the 1st option (Kelvin standalone/finale) and do a primeverse only ST Legacy movie for Paramount+ (various actors from TNG/DS9/VOY maybe ENT and SNW) – both aimimg for 2026

I mean you have a 40 something year old playing a 25 year old Kirk on Strange New Worlds and he looks older than Pine!

The casting decision there continues to baffle me. And yeah I agree, Pine does look younger than Wesley.

Now, Wesley has grown on me a bit, but it does still baffle me as well. He reminds me more of Crawley’s Kirk (fan film) than Shatner’s Kirk, and that’s not a good thing.

Yikes, you just hit the nail on the head there.

Ummm…..

Admiral deciding he’s sick of being in a desk job…kinda like last time?

In ’09, the snark was to call this Trek/Muppet Babies in Space. The then producers wanted a cast that could last for several movies without getting too old. AND… that might have worked if the studio(S!) hadn’t delayed so many of these films. Frankly, we should have five or six, not three. Thank god, the suits all got their bonuses and golden parachutes (several deployed btw) and important stuff like that.

We’ve seen how the Prime Kirk ages from young captain to admiral to old captain. It would be interesting to see Kelvin Kirk take a different pathway. Maybe he has a family. Maybe he is stuck in a Klingon prison. Maybe he is riding through the desert with a picnic lunch.

If JJ was available and Skydance ends up buying Paramount, they should get him to direct part 4. Make it an event movie, no more nonsense about spinoffs or low budget this or that. Disney Star Wars is dead. Capitalize on that.

Should have gone all in after Into Darkness, instead they played it safe with Beyond a tired old formula. Should have been new worlds, new twists if we had to have characters from Prime, do something different with them in Kelvin now that they were done with Khan, but no they had to make insipid Beyond. Guardians of the Furious.

I think you’re right. Go all out and make a final, great film for the Kelvinverse characters.

As to where they go with it, I don’t know. The simplest thing is to just have them on the ship, maybe coming home from their mission and then they get a call about an emergency. One last adventure. Maybe someone has to die, for drama. Maybe somehow, someway, via the Nexus or Q or the Guardian of Forever, Pine meets Shatner’s Kirk. Yeah, that probably will not happen but that would certainly help the film if they could find some way to make it an important part of the film.

Anyway, I’m all in for another Kelvin film. I loved all three of them, even though I had quibbles with some of JJ’s choices in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness and thought making Sulu gay in Beyond was a complete and embarrassing fail.

Sulu being gay in ‘beyond’ a minor issue compared to the film’s real faults

Good point about SW its cooked atm, no movies being made anytime soon , that Rey movie not even the hard core wants and the Dawn of the Force movie from Mangold (whose Indiana Jones movie tanked to tune of a 100m loss), and the other film based on the Zahn novels like an Episode 6.5 (probably with not quite there CGI deaged Han Luke Leia) , any of those probably as likely to happen anytime soon as the Beyond sequel after 2016, (a loong wait with lots of faux announcements). so really you got similar scenario as that late 00s/early 10s era with ST09/ID filling in for SW for space action.

And yeah they messed up on Beyond , letting Orci go when he had the obvious way to go for the 3rd film/anniversary – Shatner returning, battle for the timelines stuff.

The last SW film to feature rey made a billion so there is still an audience waiting for a new one. But I bet rey will not be the central character this time.

Reading between the lines here……”a lot older” suggests he knows another movie is still years, maybe even decades away.

I think Pine’s just resigned to whatever happens will happen. He’s not getting his hopes up.

I think the 4th film should be titled, Star Trek: Kirk.

I wish they can adapt William Shatner’s first Star Trek story, Ashes of Eden.

Kelvin cast sequel is the ONLY viable movie worth making at this stage. Anything else will bomb hard.

I remember watching “Beyond” in the theater. No way that was 8 years ago already… wow.

Time flies. I also watched Beyond in the theater, and out of the three Kelvin-verse films it felt the most Trekkian to me. I can remember the smell of the popcorn and the twizzlers from that day.

The age of the crew or the actors is not the biggest problem with previous or upcoming films.

If it another ‘mad man with a grudge and a galactic WMD….’

If it is that, then I’m out. I blame TNG movies for first getting stuck on that, but it seems to be the only thing Hollywood screenwriters think a Star Trek film could ever possibly be about.

They should adapt the Prime Directive novel for the next film. I would go see it. I doubt any of these writers know the book exists.

Meh. Some of the original cast members of Star Trek found about a hundred ways to keep on showing up despite being decades older. It’s sci-fi! All ya gotta do to explain stuff away is wave your hands around in the air and say stuff like, “quantum singularity!” or “it’s The Borg! The Borg did a thing!”. Inexplicable aging and time-space continuum inconsistancies are basically all one 8-second mumbo-jumbo explanation away with that franchise. It’ah be fiiiiiiine. lol

In general, I prefer a story with more “seasoned” characters, so it’s not a bad place to pick up for me. Showing the characters more matured is one of the major draws of a sequel.

It’s simple Chris – it’s time to put on the Monster Maroons! He’ll look as old as Shat from TWOK, TSFS, TVH

Also dark rinse with perm

Star trek 4 need a title like New horizon coming summer 2026 and the New starship enterprise a on a mission to explore strange New worlds and New villian of This epic final chapter of the kelvin timeline im a Star trek fan long live trekkies live long and prosper

Star Trek Wayyyy Beyond

Pull the plug on the Kelvin timeline and crew.

At some point Vger should be showing up to destroy Earth in the alternate universe that diverged with the Kelvin incident. I don’t want to see The Motion Picture remade but there might be a story there to tell somewhere …..

Use elements from Ellison’s intro to his movie pitch (which also had a huge threat to earth, but from time travelling lizards), with a cloaked figure going round kidnapping members of the old crew from wherever they are now and you finally realize it is Kirk who is doing it. Then do a variation on TMP, maybe with less of a police-procedural feel, one where we get to see how tough it is to match speeds and fly alongside something at warp 7+ from 1500 away .

Willl never happen

Whatever the next movie is, Giacchino’s going to have to write a new score, this time called “Enterprising Old Men “.

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Watch ‘Discovery’ and ‘Strange New Worlds’ EP Alex Kurtzman Explain Why ‘Star Trek Will Go on Forever’

Christian blauvelt.

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To celebrate the end of “Discovery” and also a second season of “Strange New Worlds” considered among the best runs of episodes in “Trek” history, Kurtzman joined IndieWire alongside his VFX Supervisor on these series, Jason Zimmerman — someone who’s done as much as anyone to shape the look of “Star Trek” in the 21st Century and give the franchise a whole new cinematic gloss — for our Consider This Event at The Grove June 8. The event was presented by Paramount+ , and you can watch the video of our interview above.

Kurtzman practically beams about where “Star Trek” is seven years after “Discovery” launched.

“I’m so proud of ‘Discovery’ because I think that it’s been enormous,” Kurtzman said. “It’s been enormous for ‘Star Trek,’ for sci-fi, for streaming, and in the area of representation. I think that it took hugely bold swings in terms of storytelling, with a leap 900 years into the future , which was a huge risk that could have just both ended ‘Discovery,’ and it could have ended any future ‘Star Trek’ shows, but in fact, it paved the way for more.”

Alex Kurtzman and Jason Zimmerman at the IndieWire & Paramount + Consider This FYC Event at Studio 10 on June 8, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.

His lead VFX Supervisor on all these shows, Zimmerman, shares that appreciation. When this writer suggests he’s able to do things that weren’t possible on previous “Trek” shows, he immediately rallies to those earlier series’ defense: “‘Star Trek’ was always at the cutting edge of visual effects,” Zimmerman said. “Even back in the day, the things that they were doing at the time were the absolute newest technology.”

Citing a number of “Trek” historians they have always working on the latest production, Zimmerman is careful to understand where the franchise has been so that what’s happening now is consistent with what came before. “The first thing we do, even with the new script that doesn’t seem to have as much to do with the past, is that we always go back and look at everything, see what the ships look like, see how they behave,” he said. “There are certain behaviors you still have to stick to. A starship is a massive thing. It needs to move like a battleship. It doesn’t matter if we’re doing that model from miniatures back in the day or if we’re doing it digitally now. But we also have a lot of reference to choose from.”

The evolved ship designs for the far future of the 32nd Century also built off what came before: The 29th Century Federation starship designs glimpsed in “Star Trek: Voyager” and the 31st Century designs seen on “Star Trek: Enterprise.” As Zimmerman put it, “You’re always looking, ‘Well, what’s the last closest era [that’s been depicted]?’ ‘What did we see there?’ And then ‘How would we evolve from there?’” You want to feel that each show in some form is represented in some total of what Discovery looks like or what anything in the 32nd century looks like.”

Christian Blauvelt, Alex Kurtzman and Jason Zimmerman at the IndieWire & Paramount + Consider This FYC Event at Studio 10 on June 8, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.

Those kind of choices build off the past, but don’t linger on it overly other than to evolve it: Such as the way “Discovery” in the final season used the previously mysterious “Deep Space Nine” villains, the Breen, in a whole new way that revealed more about their culture. They were a part of the previous show, so, for the worldbuilding of “Trek” going forward, they played an integral role again: It wasn’t just a shout-out for the sake of a shout-out, something Kurtzman is increasingly keen to avoid. “[Using the Breen] wasn’t really just like, ‘Oh, fan service,’” he said. “I think typically fan service can be very annoying. If you do it wrong and you are tipping your hat to it, but you’re not actually giving it any depth, it actually feels, weirdly, like it achieves the opposite of what you are intending to do.”

He’s also had a sounding board in Roddenberry’s son, Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, who provides some guidance as to the original intent of the franchise, and was in attendance in the audience with his own 10-year-old son at IndieWire’s Consider This Event June 8. “I value my relationship with Rod so much because I think that he gives us the freedom to explore and to claim a certain authority over ‘Star Trek’ because we all understand that ‘Star Trek’ belongs to his father and to the family. That’s who it really belongs to. So we’re all stewards of it in the meantime, and our goal is to take care of it and to treat it like a very precious egg, and then hand it on to the next person, and hopefully they’ll treat it like a very precious egg.”

A gem, a precious egg, a gift. Just some of the things Kurtzman in the span of a 20-minute conversation likened “Star Trek” to. As the franchise boldly approaches its 60th anniversary and beyond, it’s hard not to think it’s in fantastic shape — and in the best hands.

Watch the video of our conversation with Kurtzman and Zimmerman above.

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Could 'Star Trek: Prodigy' Boldly Go To The Big Screen?

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The Big Picture

Star Trek: Prodigy 's potential feature-length film discussed by co-executive producer Aaron J. Waltke.
Season 2 of Star Trek: Prodigy premieres on Netflix July 1st, continuing the story of young aliens and their found Starfleet ship.
Prodigy 's future includes threads for subsequent seasons or a film.

As Trekkies gear up to watch Season 2 of Star Trek: Prodigy on Netflix , the question of the characters returning in a feature-length film is not out of the question. On the Virtual Trek Con's Star Trek and Chill podcast, co-executive producer Aaron J. Waltke talked about the possibility. "You can find articles from 2019 where Brian Robbins and the folks at Nickelodeon and CBS, I think before our show had even come out, hinted that that was a possibility."

More Star Trek: Prodigy on the horizon is already a good sign. The show was canceled (and subsequently removed) by Paramount+ last summer. Netflix picked up the show for the second season. The show is a part of the Star Trek franchise aimed towards a younger audience. It follows a group of young aliens in the Delta Quadrant that find an abandoned Starfleet ship. That ship, the U.S.S. Protostar contained advanced technology and a hologram of Captain Kathryn Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew ) from Star Trek: Voyager . The real Janeway, now an Admiral, is back in the Alpha Quadrant as the show is set five years after the return of the U.S.S. Voyager .

What Would A Feature Length Star Trek: Prodigy Mean For the Series?

"[A]s far as what a feature could be. I have a note on my phone’s notepad." Waltke says, "I have a whole docket that’s about seven pages long of just Star Trek: Prodigy ideas." The second season of Prodigy will be a full 20 episode season, just like the first season (a welcomed concept to many fans of the Star Trek franchise as a whole who have had to get used to a 10 episode or less season from the live action shows.) Back in December, Collider's Maggie Lovitt sat down writers and executive producers Kevin and Dan Hageman and Dan says, "at the end of episode 40 there's a nice wrap-up."

The pair do hint that there are threads that could be picked up for subsequent seasons of Prodigy or even a movie, as Waltke would suggest has been in the back of their minds since 2019. Kevin echoes Waltke's sentiments for a movie saying "I hope people will look back at our show and be like, 'Oh my god, they followed the footsteps of The Original Series . It got canceled, they got brought back to life. Oh, here comes Star Trek the motion picture.' Why not?" Why not a Star Trek: Prodigy movie indeed, and maybe even with a limited theatrical release?

Season 2 of Star Trek: Prodigy premieres on Netflix July 1st in the U.S. Season 1 is already available to stream.

Star Trek: Prodigy

A group of enslaved teenagers steal a derelict Starfleet vessel to escape and explore the galaxy.

Watch on Netflix

star trek prodigy

Chris Pine On Possibly Playing a Different Captain Kirk in Star Trek 4

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Chris Pine is curious about playing an older Captain Kirk in a potential Star Trek 4 .
Pine is open about his love for his Star Trek co-stars and hopes for a future project together.
Pine's directorial debut, Poolman , received negative reviews, but he remains positive.

The future of Chris Pine in the Star Trek universe is currently uncertain, but the actor is curious about playing an older version of Captain Kirk in the future . Pine played Kirk in all three of J.J. Abbrams' Star Trek movies between 2009 and 2016, and is considered by many to be as good as William Shatner (who played the same character in Star Trek: The Original Series ). It's been 8 years since Pine last appeared as Captain James T. Kirk on the big-screen, but the actor recently revealed he wonders where the characters he appeared alongside could be in the long-delayed Star Trek 4 .

Speaking at ACE Superhero Comic Con 2024 (via PopVerse ), Pine shared his love for his old co-stars (which included Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldaña, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, John Cho, and the late Anton Yelchin), and pondered about what a new Star Trek movie could look like. Pine said:

"In terms of the next phase of [Star Trek], obviously you’re all fans, so I’m sure you’ve read it… We all like one another a lot. I’m good friends with everybody I’ve worked with. We have a great time doing it. I’m a lot older now, so I would be curious where that next story lands us in terms of what it would be and what we’ve said in the press."

A fourth Star Trek movie featuring the same characters has gone in and out of development hell for years. At one point, Quentin Tarantino was on board to direct the movie, but that concept was ultimately shelved. The original cast members have all reportedly agreed that they would return for a fourth installment, but the likelihood of the movie making it out of production hell is currently uncertain.

Chris Pine Recently Made His Directorial Debut with the Critically Maligned Poolman

Poolman (2023).

While news about Chris Pine's return to the Star Trek franchise is currently uncertain, the actor is still incredibly busy with new projects. Pine recently made his directorial debut with the comedy Poolman . The movie follows Pine's titular poolman, Darren Barrenman, as he's approached by a mysterious femme fatale to help uncover a shady business deal. The movie features an ensemble cast, including DeWanda Wise , Jennifer Jason Leigh, Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Clancy Brown, and Juliet Mills.

Chris Pine Left a Little Confused Over Star Trek 4 Development: 'I Guess I Was Wrong'

Chris Pine has been discussing the long-awaited arrival of Star Trek 4...

The reviews have not been kind to Poolman . The movie is currently Chris Pine's lowest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes, sitting at 22%, with a 20% audience score. However, Pine has taken the negative reviews in stride. The actor described bad reviews as part of the Hollywood business , and the critical reception made him love his work even more. Pine said:

"When the film came out at Toronto and just got f*cking panned. I guess I wasn't totally surprised. I tried to make a joyful film... I was not trying to make some sort of Niche film. But [there] was so much joy behind it, to then be met with this fuselage of not so joyous stuff was like, 'Oh my God!' So the cognitive dissonance there was quite something. t's been really, ultimately, kind of the best thing that's ever happened to me, because it's forced me to double down on joy. And really double down on what I love most about my job."

Alongside Poolman , Pine recently lent his voice to the role of King Magnifico in Wish , which is now available to stream on Disney+.

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Danny trejo’s car attacked with water balloon at 4th of july event, ‘star trek: prodigy’ season 2 trailer: a classified mission & an unstable time rift — update.

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Netflix picked up the series last October after Paramount+ decided in June to remove a number of originals , including Star Trek: Prodigy , from the platform in a cost-cutting content write-down and not to proceed with the previously commissioned 20-episode season of the animated show which was already in the works.

This marks the third home for Prodigy , which originated as a Nickelodeon series given its younger skew that does not match the rest of the franchise. The series then migrated to Paramount+.

Star Trek: Prodigy follows a motley crew of young aliens who must figure out how to work together while navigating a greater galaxy, in search of a better future. These six young outcasts know nothing about the ship they have commandeered – a first for the Star Trek franchise – but over the course of their adventures together, each will be introduced to Starfleet and the ideals it represents.

The series was developed by Emmy winners Kevin and Dan Hageman ( Trollhunters ), along with Star Trek universe chief Alex Kurtzman and his team at Secret Hideout. Star Trek: Prodigy is from CBS Studios’ Eye Animation Productions; Nickelodeon Animation; Secret Hideout; and Roddenberry Entertainment. Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Aaron Baiers, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth serve as executive producers, alongside co-showrunners Kevin and Dan Hageman. Ben Hibon directs, executive produces and serves as the creative lead of the animated series. Aaron Waltke and Patrick Krebs also currently serve as co-executive producers.

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'It's heart-forward:' Q&A with 'Star Trek: Prodigy' creators about Season 2 (exclusive)

A chat with Kevin and Dan Hageman on this brilliant series' second chance.

Five alien teenagers stand together wearing spacesuits

Fortified with an optimistic spirit and settling into its new home on the Netflix streaming platform, "Star Trek: Prodigy" is boldly shifting into second gear for its 20-episode sophomore season.

This season finds our crew of intergalactic alien teenagers under the protective wing of Vice Admiral Janeway as they embark on a daring series of adventures in the final frontier aboard the Voyager-A starship.

Here's the official Season 2 synopsis:

"In Season 2, these six young outcasts who make up the ' Prodigy ' crew are assigned a new mission aboard the USS Voyager-A to rescue Captain Chakotay (voiced by Robert Beltran) and bring peace to Gwyn's (voiced by Ella Purnell) home world. However, when their plan goes astray, it creates a time paradox that jeopardizes both their future and past."

a large alien observes a giant whale behind glass

Emmy Award-winning creators and showrunners Kevin and Dan and Hageman ("Trollhunters," "Ninjago") couldn’t be more pleased that their beloved " Star Trek " brainchild has a new online landing pad. The colorful second season of this underrated all-ages show appears to have an abundance of the engaging, character-driven, story-first momentum that made it such a satisfying sci-fi series when it first debuted on Paramount+ and Nickelodeon three years ago.

Related: 'Star Trek: Prodigy' warps into Season 2 with new Netflix trailer (video)

"Kevin and I, our first entry into 'Star Trek' was ' The Wrath of Khan ' and that special Kirk and Spock relationship," Dan Hageman told Space.com . "Being children of the '80s, we’re very Amblin with earnest storytelling, so all of that is into Prodigy.

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"In Season 2 with time travel , we always got the note, 'Is a younger viewer going to understand this?' We just need to spark something in their brain to want to dig into it more. We had a writer in the room who talked about a 'Star Trek' episode where they found Data's head buried in the sand, and it made his wheels start spinning of how that was possible. All 'Trek' fans will know that they were that kid too, where you take apart devices to see how they work. You want to know these things."

For the Hageman brothers, emotionality is everything; it surrounds and binds the entire animation project.

"It's heart-forward," Kevin Hageman adds. "When we think of the movies that stick to our bone as a kids, it's like ' E.T. ' He was dead lying on a table for a bit and I was crying. That's what makes a great story versus just some fun, funny comedy I saw as a kid. For us, whether it was 'Trollhunters' or even 'Ninjago,' it sticks with them. We've talked to 18-year-olds, and they said that show meant something to them because we went there, and that’s what we wanted to do with 'Prodigy.'"

Everything You Need to Know on Star Trek: Prodigy | StarTrek.com - YouTube

Exploring new territory was foremost on the creators' minds launching into this resurrected Prodigy outing, and the award-winning filmmakers were full of "Star Trek" universe ideas.

"We didn't want to have the same ending as Season 1, so it's got completely different feelings," said Dan Hageman. "These are now kids in the adult world. And also it's not just kids learning from the adults, but the adults learning from the kids. So, if anything, Season 1 is an entry point, and now we’re getting into real 'Trek.'"

One of the biggest challenges for the showrunners was to avoid being like " Star Trek: Lower Decks ," in which all the main characters are treated like underlings.

"How to do you do that, treat it for real, but still allow for some wish fulfillment and spirit of adventure?" Kevin Hageman said. "And you'll see that as you watch more of the new season. How do you balance that in a military system?"

"Prodigy's" return vocal cast includes Kate Mulgrew (Kathryn Janeway), Brett Gray (Dal), Ella Purnell (Gwyn), Rylee Alazraqui (Rok-Tahk), Angus Imrie (Zero), Jason Mantzoukas (Jankom Pog), Dee Bradley Baker (Murf), and John Noble (The Diviner).

Season 2's added co-stars feature Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Jason Alexander (Doctor Noum), Daveed Diggs (Commander Tysess), Jameela Jamil (Ensign Asencia), Ronny Cox (Admiral Jellico) and Michaela Dietz (Maj’el).

a stern woman in a futuristic uniform flanked by two aliens

— 'Star Trek:' History & effect on space technology

— Star Trek streaming guide: Where to watch the Star Trek movies and TV shows online

— 'Star Trek: Prodigy' warps into Season 2 with new Netflix trailer (video)

Mulgrew and Picardo have expansive vocal duties in this Netflix season, and the Hagemens were fortunate to welcome such talented "Star Trek" luminaries aboard.

"We felt like after the death of Hologram Janeway at the end of Season 1, we were tickled with this idea that they needed a new mentor," Dan Hageman explained. "Admiral Janeway isn’t as soft and lovey and Hologram Janeway, and we thought it was hilarious that the Doctor would want to be endeared to the kids as much as they were to Hologram Janeway. She was Mary Poppins in Season 1, and he's like Mr. Belvedere in Season 2, trying to keep them out of shenanigans. We weren't trying to make a ' Voyager ' spinoff, but naturally if you have Kate Mulgrew and Janeway at the center of it, these characters are going to gravitate toward her."

Buoyed by fan appreciation, the Hagemans have high hopes for "Prodigy's" future.

"I'm always inspired by our crew and cast," Kevin Hageman said. "From out of the writers room and the ideas and scripts that were coming out, I was loving this show. And to see the animation and hear the music and the vocal records. Everyone loved this show and poured their hearts into it. I hope that we'll get future seasons or animated film installments to keep this going."

All 20 episodes of "Star Trek: Prodigy" Season 2 are now streaming on Netflix.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Jeff Spry is an award-winning screenwriter and veteran freelance journalist covering TV, movies, video games, books, and comics. His work has appeared at SYFY Wire, Inverse, Collider, Bleeding Cool and elsewhere. Jeff lives in beautiful Bend, Oregon amid the ponderosa pines, classic muscle cars, a crypt of collector horror comics, and two loyal English Setters.

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Star trek debuts its awe-inspiring council of the gods, confirming members from across franchise history.

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Star Trek's Council of the Gods is unveiled in Star Trek #21, composed of beings from across the franchise's history.
The Council of the Gods meets to discuss matters of universal importance.
The Pleroma and the Council may not be as safe as they think, with both Kahless and Lore still on the loose.

Warning: contains spoilers for Star Trek #21!

For months, Star Trek has dropped tantalizing hints about the Pleroma, and now it stands revealed in all its glory, and is composed of members from across the franchise’s 58-year history. In Star Trek #21, Captain Sisko and the Theseus enter the Pleroma, and are greeted with an awe-inspiring sight: gods from across the franchise, gathered to decide on matters of universal importance.

Star Trek #21 is written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly and drawn by Megan Levens. Sisko and his senior officers are brought before the gods in the Pleroma, who have gathered to debate on the Organian issue. A text piece, made to resemble a Starfleet briefing, lists each of the gods on the council. Among those present are Trelane, Apollo, Charlie Evans and the Metrons, from the original Star Trek, as well as Kevin Uxbridge from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The Caretaker, who kicked off Star Trek:Voyager, is also among the gods.

Star Trek's Gods Are Facing a Threat Unlike Any Other

The council of gods is a historic development in the star trek universe.

In late 2022, IDW relaunched their line of Star Trek comics, creating a massive, franchise-spanning “god war.” The Klingon Emperor Kahless launched a campaign against the gods, slaughtering them with a powerful weapon. Captains Sisko and Worf were able to stop Kahless’ plans for the time being, but the damage had been done. Sisko and the crew of the Theseus traveled to the Pleroma to help fix the damage, but found themselves faced with a chilly reception. T’Lir, who was revealed to be the last of the god-like Organians, was seeking the restoration of his powers.

The introduction of the Pleroma may rank as one of the most important developments in the Star Trek franchise. In the various shows and movies, the crew often encounter god-like beings, and this stretches back to the franchise’s first days. The Pleroma gives these beings new depth, showing that they are, in many ways, just another race in the Star Trek universe. The gods of the universe have their own laws and governance, much like the Federation. However, the gods are obviously working on a far greater scale, meeting to decide the fates of entire species.

The Pleroma May Not Be the Safe Haven It Appears to Be

Will kahless or lore find the pleroma.

Yet, as Star Trek’s god war has shown, these beings can be killed. Both Kahless and Lore are still on the loose, and the Pleroma would make a highly desirable target for them. Furthermore, Section 31 gave Lily Sato a mysterious device to be used at a later date, perhaps suggesting the shady agency has an interest in the Pleroma. The gods of the Pleroma proceed as if they are invulnerable and infallible, but Kahless has thrown all of this into doubt. Despite its great power and elusive nature, the Pleroma may soon be under siege.

Star Trek #21 is on sale now from IDW Publishing!

IMAGES

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This Is The Correct Order In Which To Watch The Star Trek Franchise

The Original Series

The Animated Series

The first six films

The Next Generation (Seasons 1-5)

The Next Generation (Season 6) / Deep Space Nine (Season 1)

The Next Generation (Season 7) / Deep Space Nine (Season 2)

Generations

Deep Space Nine (Season 3) / Voyager (Season 1)

Deep Space Nine (Season 4) / Voyager (Season 2)

First Contact

Deep Space Nine (Season 5) / Voyager (Season 3)

Deep Space Nine (Season 6) / Voyager (Season 4)

Insurrection

Deep Space Nine (Season 7) / Voyager (Season 5)

Voyager (Seasons 6-7)

Lower Decks

The Kelvin timeline

History [ ]

Conception and setting [ ]

Production history [ ]

Aftershows [ ]

Podcasts [ ]

Unproduced projects [ ]

Overseas adaptations [ ]

Licensed media [ ]

Related topics [ ]

Other topics [ ]

External links [ ]

Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order

1986: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

2024: Star Trek: Picard (Season 2)

2063: Star Trek: First Contact

2151 - 2155: Star Trek: Enterprise

2254: The Cage

2256 - 2258: Star Trek: Discovery (seasons 1 and 2)

2258: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

2258 (KELVIN): Star Trek (2009)

2259 (KELVIN): Star Trek Into Darkness

2263 (KELVIN): Star Trek Beyond

2265 - 2269: Star Trek

2269 - 2270: Star Trek: The Animated Series

2273: Star Trek: The Motion Picture

2285: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

2287: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

2293: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

2364 - 2370: Star Trek: The Next Generation

2369 - 2375: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

2371: Star Trek: Generations

2371 - 2378: Star Trek: Voyager

2375: Star Trek: Insurrection

2379: Star Trek: Nemesis

2380 - ?: Star Trek: Lower Decks

2383: Star Trek: Prodigy

2399: Star Trek: Picard (Season 1)

3188 - 3190: Star Trek: Discovery (Seasons 3 and 4)

How to Watch Every Star Trek Series (and Movie) in the Right Order

The franchise consists of:

Movie Series

Movies in the franchise include:

Tropes common across all series:

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