New to Star Trek

[Ben Jones]

Hi

Im new to the Star Trek universe and have just completed TNG series and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have no idea why it's taken me so long to get in to Star trek, as i love sci-fi.

I'm starting DS9 next as it seems like the logical step. From what I've read online people say DS9 is the best series however im half way through the first season and while i like the idea of the space station and encountering a variety of humanoids, it just doesn't seem to live up to the hype so far.

Without spoilers can you advise if it gets better and why people rate it better than TNG.

Also any suggestions on the order i should watch the remaining seasons. Like when should i watch the original.

 

[BillJ]

DS9 is a slower boil, many things you see now will have implications down the road, thouugh I don’t rate it higher than TNG. The original Star Trek is my favorite, but mainly disconnected from the rest.

Welcome to fandom, we’re a crazy bunch,

 

[valkyrie013]

DS9 is a more serialized show, so have to watch it in order to see what is happening, but it is a bit slow in the beginning, it'll pick up soon, so just keep with it.
Pretty much most series start off slowly the first few seasons to find its footing, though there are gems in that time to. Just keep with it, watch at your own leisure.

 

[1001001]

I rank DS9 pretty low. It's not bad, it's just...not my cup of tea.

I liked Voyager a lot better, but that's a minority opinion.

Ultimately, there's something to enjoy about each show, so have at it!

 

[Ben Jones]

Thanks for the heads up, I'll stick with it. They all seem to have a similar appeal, ill do voyager next because thats the next chronologically?

What movies stood out to you?

 

[Bornin1980something]

I like the first four movies, but it's best to wait until you've seen most of TOS.

 

[Takeru]

Without spoilers can you advise if it gets better and why people rate it better than TNG.

It does get better, the first seasons are a bit boring and it took the show some time to really find its identity. Personally I don't rate it better than TNG though, DS9 is fine and pretty entertaining but TNG is more memorable and meaningful.

I also rate Voyager higher than DS9, great cast, interesting and memorable stories.

 

[1001001]

Thanks for the heads up, I'll stick with it. They all seem to have a similar appeal, ill do voyager next because thats the next chronologically?

What movies stood out to you?

With the exception of the first one, I liked all the TOS movies. You should definitely watch the series first, though.

The TNG movies were pretty good. Nemesis kinda sucked.

The first and the third Kelvin movies were good. The second one was way too long and had a stupid “plot twist” that one could detect from space.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I love DS9.

The first 2 seasons are a bit slow, but it will get better.

Just like Babylon 5's 1st season wasn't great, but it was setup for the remaining seasons.

Have faith and patience.

 

[The Wormhole]

DS9 gets much better. The first season is easily its weakest, but IMO by the half way point of the second things start picking up. As for the other shows, watch them whenever you want, there's no real order they have to be watched in. Well, I guess one should watch TNG before they watch Picard, but as you've already watched TNG, that should be a non-issue.

 

[arch101]

Highly recommend DS9. I've been a fan since the '70s and rate it as the best Trek, IMHO. Thankfully, you'll see it in the age of streaming, where you can watch as many eps as you want.

 

[NCC-73515]

In S1, only the last 2 episodes (Duet and Hands of the Prophets) stand out, and I highly recommend those. Captive Pursuit and The Nagus are ok as well.
In S2, the first 3 form an arc that continues Hands, and there are 9 more good ones (Melora, Rules of Acquisition, Whispers, Paradise, Shadowplay, Blood Oath, Crossover, Collaborator, Tribunal). The last one is continued in S3.
S3-7 form one coherent block with several arcs, so you might wanna watch all of them. There were 9 great episodes in S3, 13 in S4, 10 in S5, 14 is S6, and 20 great episodes in S7. In the whole series, I liked 82 episodes and didn't like 31 episodes.

 

[Nyotarules]

I am more a DS9 fan than a TNG one, but dislike neither. However the TNG appeal of the 'Roddenberry's vision' disappears in DS9 so if your a vision fan, you might find DS9 a bit on the dark side, but it has great supporting characters. I'll take Garak over Pinocchio Data any day

 

[1001001]

and 20 great episodes in S7.

Season 7 blows massive space chunks.

You all know why.

 

[NCC-73515]

Only Take Me Out to the Holosuite and Prodigal Daughter were bad, and Chimera, Penumbra, Extreme Measures were average.

 

[1001001]

The whole season was a shit show.

The finale was decent, though.

 

[Lord Garth]

DS9's first season is hard to get through. In the second season, things start to become more interesting if you're into Bajoran Politics. If not, you're screwed. The first two seasons of DS9 and the last two seasons of TNG overlapped with each other. But once TNG was over, DS9 inherited the entire Star Trek universe that TNG developed. So DS9's scope expanded during the third season. You get to see what's going on with the Romulans, the Klingons, there's a new threat that comes into focus (and that's all I'll say about that). But DS9 doesn't start to reach its true potential until the fourth season.

But here's the catch: DS9 reaching its true potential and how much you think that's a good thing is entirely dependent on how much you subscribe to Gene's Vision (or, more accurately, Gene's "Vision"). "The Vision" was only really in full force during the first two seasons of TNG and then became less and less as the series went on. So if you're fine with that, then you should be okay with DS9 when it "gets good".

For the movies: I started with the TOS Movies. I saw those before I saw any of TOS or TNG (the only two series out at the time). I managed to get into them just fine. So you don't need to watch TOS to enjoy the TOS Movies, but you'll get more out of them if you do.

For the TNG Movies, I don't see how anyone could enjoy most of them unless they were already into TNG to begin with. I like all the TOS Movies (though a lot of people don't like the first or fifth one). But the only TNG Movie that I'd say is actually good (in my opinion) is First Contact. Nemesis recently went up a little (again in my opinion), but only because the new TV series Star Trek: Picard salvaged it and made lemonade from a lemon. You'll see what I mean (or not) when you get there.

EDIT: I like DS9 more than TNG, but I personally think Picard blows both of them out of the water. But I don't think that's anywhere close to consensus here. And you probably shouldn't watch Picard until you've seen all of TNG, DS9, and VOY (even though you could get by with just TNG).

 

[somebuddyX]

I liked DS9 because it wasn't afraid to try new things over it's life, from waystation in the middle of nowhere, to frontier fort near the entry to a new enemy, to occupied locale while our heroes are on the run, and space fleet base as the war goes on. It's semi-serialisation of storylines meant that the show might deal with one storyline for an episode then go off and deal with other things for a bit and then circle back around, like the Bajoran arc and then a Mirror universe arc and a Dominion arc or something. You got to see characters change, so even people like Nog or Dr Bashir weren't the same from the pilot to the finale. It's funny and can be loose with things, like episodes like In the Cards or Fascination or when Rom and Quark get lost in the crawlways and end up in Sisko's office. It could be really serious about things like the Bajoran occupation and Cardassian atrocities, suicide, injuries, duty and responsibility. It takes a critical eye to the idea of Earth as a utopia and humanity at it's best and how striving for those ideals isn't the same as achieving them. I think it's best years were seasons 3-5. And it has Garak.

 

[Damian]

I'm starting DS9 next as it seems like the logical step. From what I've read online people say DS9 is the best series however im half way through the first season and while i like the idea of the space station and encountering a variety of humanoids, it just doesn't seem to live up to the hype so far.

I recall when DS9 first came out I was a bit underwhelmed as well. I felt that way about TNG and Enterprise as well honestly. It took a little while for DS9 to get its footing. But it's well worth it. It starts to get better in season 2 and it really hits its stride by season 3. DS9 was really the first Star Trek show to really get into serialized story telling. There are still plenty of single story episodes, but it's definitely best to watch it in order. There's a lot of character growth throughout that you will see.

What movies stood out to you?

As others have noted, I'd probably wait until you see the original series before watching the first 6 films, and even the 3 Abrams films.

However, you could watch the 4 TNG films (Generations, First Contact, Insurrection & Nemesis) anytime now since you've watched the series. DS9 and Voyager really don't factor into the TNG movies except some token items. Generations does feature Captain Kirk from the original series, but I think you could probably watch that one without seeing the original series (it still does focus mostly on TNG crew).

You'll hear a lot of people trash Nemesis. I always say I'm one of the 10 people that liked Nemesis. I could never understand the hate that movie gets. Once you see it I'll be interested to see what someone new to Star Trek and TNG thinks about it. I recommend watching all 4 films without reading any specific reviews about them in fact. It'd be interesting overall to see what someone thinks about them all these years later who had little to no exposure to them. We don't get to see someone take a fresh perspective on them often.

Season 7 blows massive space chunks.

You all know why.

Really? I honestly don't know why

Spoiler: Season 7 Spoiler

(unless it's just the death of Jadzia that ruined it for you).

I thought it was fine, at least no better or worse than other seasons.

But then, as I always say, TMP was my favorite Trek film and I liked Nemesis so what do I know

 

[LastCaress1972]

Hi

Im new to the Star Trek universe and have just completed TNG series and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have no idea why it's taken me so long to get in to Star trek, as i love sci-fi.

Hi Ben!

Like you, I only started watching Star Trek this year. Well, I watched TOS, the TOS movies and the JJ Abrams movies all for the first time about four years ago but I watched TAS, TNG (plus the four TNG movies), DS9, VOY, ENT, DIS and PIC all this year, from January to July.

Personally, I found DS9 to be by far the best series. It was the only series wherein I liked all of the principal characters more-or-less immediately (even though my internal jury is still out on some of Avery Brooks ' performances). Also, I felt that TOS and TNG trod a very similar path - not that that's a bad thing in and of itself - and the galaxy they'd built looked as though it could withstand a number of different approaches whilst still remaining fundamentally "Star Trek" at their core, and I believe DS9 did just that.

One of the things I was careful to bear in mind throughout my 2020 Star Trek adventure was that, whilst it's all new to me, much of it was in fact a few decades old. So, when I heard from folk suggesting that, say, DS9 was much darker than the rest - which would've been very much a recommendation to my ears - I felt it was important to still try to remember that what they may well have meant was that it was dark by Star Trek standards, a quarter of a century ago. So it would probably be unfair to expect it to be as dark thematically and sophisticated visually as, say, the Battlestar Galactica remake, which was over a decade old to me but which was itself a decade more advanced than DS9, made at a time when television production had had something of a revolution. But, with expectations tempered somewhat, I bloody loved DS9. Quark, Garak, Martok, Ben Sisko, Dukat, Kira, Dax, Odo, Weyoun - these are some of the best characters in the entire franchise imho. I even liked Worf about 500% more with his sleeker DS9 hairstyle.

Anyway, whether you wind up taking to DS9 or not, I hope you go on to enjoy your Star Trek voyage as much as I did. I've no doubt you will.