Some background: I've been a Star Trek fan since childhood, and have seen just about every episode of the series, save Voyager. A few weeks ago my girlfriend, who has never seen any Star Trek, started watching with me. Just to get her started, I showed her an episode each from TOS, TNG, and Enterprise, to give her an idea of the franchise. She loved it all, and wanted more. I figured the best place to start was the beginning, The Original Series. Now, I love TOS with all my heart and soul, but I'd be lying if I said some of it didn't age well, or otherwise is pretty incongruous with what would later be established as canon. So, I went through the episode list and came up with what I felt to be the most important and concise viewing possible of TOS for new viewers.
This inspired me. As it turned out, I had been doing my own separate rewatch on the side using the fantastic [Star Trek Chronology Guide], with the goal of finally watching every single episode of Star Trek, in canonical order. I printed the list out, and as I watched each episode I took a quick note of my thoughts on it, and if it was something to be skipped or not on my next rewatch. Once I started watching with my girlfriend however I realized that, considering how large in scope the franchise had become, a more condensed list for new viewers could actually be quite helpful, and also make for some much more enjoyable rewatches. Just for fun, I decided to use my rewatch list, as well as my memory, to create [this], a list of every Star Trek episode that is important to canon, character development, and the fabric of their respective series. The idea being to cut out the especially boring, inconsequential, filler-like episodes.
Which brings me here today. I'd love to hear what you guys think about this. It's far from finished. As I said, I've yet to watch past S2 of Voyager, so it's not on the list yet. I realize how blasphemous this all may sound, and please understand I'm not trying be a revisionist. Certainly to get the strongest grasp on the franchise it's good to watch each episode. I'd also like to point out that this is not necessarily a "best of Star Trek", there are still some really bad episodes on this list, but ones I felt were still very important to the show. So, please let me know if this is something anyone is interested in. And, if there are any episodes you feel are left out, please let me know. I invite any and all discussion from this great community. Thank you.
This inspired me. As it turned out, I had been doing my own separate rewatch on the side using the fantastic [Star Trek Chronology Guide], with the goal of finally watching every single episode of Star Trek, in canonical order. I printed the list out, and as I watched each episode I took a quick note of my thoughts on it, and if it was something to be skipped or not on my next rewatch. Once I started watching with my girlfriend however I realized that, considering how large in scope the franchise had become, a more condensed list for new viewers could actually be quite helpful, and also make for some much more enjoyable rewatches. Just for fun, I decided to use my rewatch list, as well as my memory, to create [this], a list of every Star Trek episode that is important to canon, character development, and the fabric of their respective series. The idea being to cut out the especially boring, inconsequential, filler-like episodes.
Which brings me here today. I'd love to hear what you guys think about this. It's far from finished. As I said, I've yet to watch past S2 of Voyager, so it's not on the list yet. I realize how blasphemous this all may sound, and please understand I'm not trying be a revisionist. Certainly to get the strongest grasp on the franchise it's good to watch each episode. I'd also like to point out that this is not necessarily a "best of Star Trek", there are still some really bad episodes on this list, but ones I felt were still very important to the show. So, please let me know if this is something anyone is interested in. And, if there are any episodes you feel are left out, please let me know. I invite any and all discussion from this great community. Thank you.
