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Introducing people to ST

I find that it's best only to introduce friends if they ask about it, or express some sort of interest.

I introduced my husband to Star Trek recently, because I told him I found it on Amazon Prime and was feeling nostalgic. He said "we could watch it together", and so we are near the end of The Next Generation season 2. He is enjoying it, though of course I never expect him to like it as much as he likes Star Wars. I got him into Harry Potter the same way: he now asks to rewatch the movies and has read all the books.

My sister-in-law constantly puts Star Trek down for some reason. She says she hates it, though I don't think she has ever really watched it. On Thanksgiving we were having a discussion about the upcoming Star Wars movie, and I said I still have reservations about JJ Abrams, particularly since I found the most recent Star Trek movie to "suck". She said "Well it sucked because it's Star Trek". I ignored that and moved on. I would never bother trying to "convert" her.

A few years ago, my sister tried to introduce myself and my husband to "Doctor Who". I wasn't really interested, since I had seen bits and pieces of Doctor Who stuff before and did not really care for it, but was willing to give it a chance (she said she picked out some of the "better" episodes of the show). The episodes we watched with her made me think "This is god-awful", and my husband felt the same way. We now constantly joke about how bad the show was.

If a friend whom had never seen Star Trek before and she knew that I liked it expressed interest, I would probably say something like "I have always liked this show. Would you like to come over and watch it with me?" I'd then ask her if she would prefer to start at the beginning of a series (as my husband wanted to do), or just watch some of the best episodes. If the latter, I would probably pick ones such as "Darmok", "Tapestry", "The Inner Light", etc. Either way I would almost certainly start with The Next Generation, since that is hands-down far and away the best quality Star Trek series. I would not go to a friend though whom I knew doesn't like Star Trek and say "I like this old tv show from the 90s, you should watch it too", unless she expressed interest at some point. That's just me though.
 
I'd start with the JJ movies, then First Contact, then some TNG episodes. Probably a Data or Picard centric episode.
 
The fourth movie, The Voyage Home. It's the most accessible.

Good one. Although you should probably warn newbies that the first ten minutes or so, where they're still dealing with loose ends from the previous movie, might be a bit confusing.

But once Kirk and Co. take off back into past to find the whales, it's fun for everyone, even people who don't know what a "Genesis Device" is . . ..

FYI: I seem to recall that there was a similar thread along these lines not too long ago. Might be worth tracking down if anyone's interested.

TVH was my first movie, I made it through okay but I do agree with you.
 
Depending on the types of movies and TV shows your friends are generally interested in, there there is a great range of variety in the types of Trek stories that you can use to introduce them to Trek.

For example, if somebody is accustomed to today's fast-paced action films, then the Abrams movies are the way to go.

Kor
 
The most recent movies are probably the safest bet, then the best of the older movies, like Star Treks II, III, IV and VI. After that I'd go for the more entertaining episodes of the original series, like The Trouble with Tribbles, The Doomsday Machine, Mirror Mirror, City on the Edge of Forever, The Enterprise Incident, etc.

If someone really didn't want to go for the very old material I'd probably move on to the better Deep Space Nine episodes after that.
 
A few years ago, my sister tried to introduce myself and my husband to "Doctor Who". I wasn't really interested, since I had seen bits and pieces of Doctor Who stuff before and did not really care for it, but was willing to give it a chance (she said she picked out some of the "better" episodes of the show). The episodes we watched with her made me think "This is god-awful", and my husband felt the same way. We now constantly joke about how bad the show was.
With Doctor Who, the first story you try out can definitely make a difference. "The Pirate Planet" was my first full one, and only the promise I'd made to the friend who asked me to "watch just one complete story" (at that time they were shown in 4 separate episodes, 1 per night, on PBS) kept me watching. Fortunately the next story was excellent, and I got hooked a few days later.

But if you started out with nuWho, with a story other than "Rose" (first Eccleston story), I'm not surprised you didn't care for it.

As with Star Trek, please don't judge Doctor Who by just one story. Some were excellent, some were/are crap, most are somewhere in the middle - and that's how it is with most TV shows.


Star Trek can also be used to introduce people to other things... like historical drama. The phrase I used to introduce a couple of people in my local Star Trek society to I, Claudius was "wanna see Patrick Stewart in a 'Roman miniskirt'? He's got hair on his head in this one..."

The reaction was "Yeah!!! :drool:"

So over a weekend, I showed them all 13 episodes of I, Claudius, in which Patrick Stewart played the villain Lucius Aelius Sejanus.
 
I tried to introduce a younger member of my family to Star Trek at Xmas 2009. I had just received the ST09 DVD as a gift. But she had received a laptop computer for a gift and was not interested in continuing to watch it at the time. I had previously got her interested in Stargate, Indiana Jones, Brendan Fraser's Mummy series and the National Treasure movies. And I helped get her interested in Star Wars.

She saw me watching Voyager on DVD once and I got the impression she thought it would be boring.
 
As with Star Trek, please don't judge Doctor Who by just one story. Some were excellent, some were/are crap, most are somewhere in the middle - and that's how it is with most TV shows.
Agreed, and I also want to add that if you don't care for one Doctor, try out an episode of a different actor's take on the Doctor. You may enjoy him or the style of episodes he is in more.

(Sometimes you also can come to the main fandom via the spin-off series. A lot of German fans had been Torchwood fans first and only then discovered Doctor Who - mainly because one was on free TV while the other was on pay TV)


Star Trek can also be used to introduce people to other things... like historical drama. The phrase I used to introduce a couple of people in my local Star Trek society to I, Claudius was "wanna see Patrick Stewart in a 'Roman miniskirt'? He's got hair on his head in this one..."

The reaction was "Yeah!!! :drool:"

So over a weekend, I showed them all 13 episodes of I, Claudius, in which Patrick Stewart played the villain Lucius Aelius Sejanus.
Funny ;) I love time-loop movies and therefore would watch any episode of a series that is about a time-loop, even though I have never seen anything else in this universum before. It was the first I watched from X-files, I think my brother once gave me a Supernatural one and espcially the Stargate episode "Window of opportunity" made me huge fan of the whole series.

Usually I am more inclined to watch something because of certain actors being in it. Unfortunately this list grows with every new show and new discoveries.

As for Star Trek, since I am so late to the fandom, I am in the comfortable situation to not having to convert anybody, as all my friends have been fans for years or rather decades. So the only bemused reaction I got was "Great of you to join us finally - what took you so long?" and "Sooner or later everyone surrenders" :D And I also discovered that a few more were fans where I didn't even know about it. Whenever I started the topic I would get a "Yeah, me too" in response so it did seem to me indeed that basically everyone is a fan or has at least used to love it once in his life.
 
The thing holding me back from really getting into Dr Who is the difficulty of seeing them even roughly in order. I don't want to see a collection of what other people think are the most important episodes, I want to see for myself. But season collections of the old series don't seem to exist, only themed collections. Only episodes I've seen are the first four from the first new series and they felt a bit too campy to draw me in.

I would only use the JJ movies to introduce someone to Trek if my goal was to find something somebody who hates Trek for being too cerebral to enjoy. And even then I'd only use the first one. You need the context of TWOK to really get ID. Seeing ID before TWOK is like seeing Revenge of the Sith before Empire Strikes Back.
 
^ That's an interesting thought.

On the other hand, a friend of mine who had never seen any Trek at all (not even ST09) happened to see "Into Darkness," and absolutely loved it, and said "now I understand why people like Star Trek!" :lol:

Kor
 
As with Star Trek, please don't judge Doctor Who by just one story. Some were excellent, some were/are crap, most are somewhere in the middle - and that's how it is with most TV shows.
Agreed, and I also want to add that if you don't care for one Doctor, try out an episode of a different actor's take on the Doctor. You may enjoy him or the style of episodes he is in more.

(Sometimes you also can come to the main fandom via the spin-off series. A lot of German fans had been Torchwood fans first and only then discovered Doctor Who - mainly because one was on free TV while the other was on pay TV)


Star Trek can also be used to introduce people to other things... like historical drama. The phrase I used to introduce a couple of people in my local Star Trek society to I, Claudius was "wanna see Patrick Stewart in a 'Roman miniskirt'? He's got hair on his head in this one..."

The reaction was "Yeah!!! :drool:"

So over a weekend, I showed them all 13 episodes of I, Claudius, in which Patrick Stewart played the villain Lucius Aelius Sejanus.
Funny ;) I love time-loop movies and therefore would watch any episode of a series that is about a time-loop, even though I have never seen anything else in this universum before. It was the first I watched from X-files, I think my brother once gave me a Supernatural one and espcially the Stargate episode "Window of opportunity" made me huge fan of the whole series.
I'm not sure what you mean by "time-loop movies." :confused:

I, Claudius is a 13-part historical drama, based on the novels by Robert Graves (I, Claudius and Claudius the God). Patrick Stewart's character is in several episodes during the middle of the series.

This series is where I first saw Patrick Stewart, and he plays a villain very well. The next thing I saw him in was Dune.

The thing holding me back from really getting into Dr Who is the difficulty of seeing them even roughly in order. I don't want to see a collection of what other people think are the most important episodes, I want to see for myself. But season collections of the old series don't seem to exist, only themed collections. Only episodes I've seen are the first four from the first new series and they felt a bit too campy to draw me in.
The Key to Time season is available. That involves an entire season in which the White Guardian sends the Doctor, Romana, and K-9 on a quest to retrieve the six segments of the Key to Time. The stories, in order, are:

The Ribos Operation
The Pirate Planet
The Stones of Blood
The Androids of Tara
The Power of Kroll
The Armageddon Factor

My first full Doctor Who story I ever saw was The Pirate Planet. I do not recommend this to others as a starting point, because the first few minutes of that story are utterly ridiculous. But keep in mind that this one was written by Douglas Adams, and at the time when I saw it (fall of 1982) I hadn't yet learned to appreciate his humor. The Ribos Operation is a good straightforward adventure story, so start with that one and work your way through the rest of the season.

Some people have definite preferences over which Romana they like - the first or second. She's a Time Lady, so she can regenerate (and does so in Destiny of the Daleks, the story following The Armageddon Factor). The actress in the Key to Time series is Mary Tamm.

Other Fourth Doctor collections that are available are the E-Space trilogy:

Full Circle
State of Decay
Warrior's Gate

and the Master trilogy (which includes the regeneration of Tom Baker's Doctor into Peter Davison's Doctor):

The Keeper of Traken
Logopolis
Castrovalva

Note that The Keeper of Traken immediately follows Warrior's Gate.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by "time-loop movies." :confused:
Like the movie "Groundhog Day"? Where time always loops back to a beginning point, no matter what you try to do differently this time. Or movies like "The Butterfly Effect", where they try to fix things, but end up with things being worse than before, and have to fix them again creating a big mess. The "What if" interests me.

I saw Patrick Stewart first in the "Hamlet" production with David Tennant. He also played Claudius there ;)
 
I saw Patrick Stewart first in the "Hamlet" production with David Tennant. He also played Claudius there ;)
Patrick Stewart did not play Claudius in I, Claudius. He played Sejanus.

Derek Jacobi played Claudius.
 
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