Getting into Star Trek

[Mr. A]

DS9 was waaaaay too much drama. It felt like I was watching "Days of Our Lives" on a space station.

You are exaggerating waaaaay too much. Sure, DS9 had more drama than all the other ST series, but it wasn't so slow as to force you to constantly FF the episodes, the stories had many levels of depth and the characters were intriguing if not likeable. It's still ST at its core and like GF'76 alluded to, it just keeps getting better and better with each season.


Yoshi, since you are a fan of SGU, I'd really recommend you start with DS9. That's why I did it when I first introduced ST to my wife. She's more into drama and comedy than action or hardcore scifi. She had watched only a couple of TNG episodes but never got into it before. This is how we walked through it:
- We first watched the TNG episode "Q Who" - the first with the Borg.
- Then came the TNG episode "The best of both Worlds" - where the battle of Wolf359 takes place (although it's a very balanced episode with suspense, drama and intelligent action). Something that gets referenced all over the place in ST.
- From there we watched the DS9 pilot "The Emissary" (can't skip that one if you want to understand DS9).
- We mostly skipped seasons 1, 2 and 3, saving some of season 3 for later.
- We started on DS9 "The Jem'Hadar" (season 2 finale), "The Search" (season 3 pilot), "The Abandoned" (season 3) and "The Adversary" (season 3 finale). You need these to understand the whole Dominion war spanning over the next 4 seasons, and because they are referenced a lot!
- From there we started with the pilot of season 4 and watched through until the last episode.

My wife just loved it! Later we caught up on some of the other stuff from seasons 1-3, but she agreed it was good to skip those.
From then on we went to watch almost all of ST:Voyager and are now starting on ST:TOS.

Try this plan for DS9. It will save you a lot of time and I think you'll really enjoy the series. From there you can go on to either ST:TNG or ST:Voy. Have fun!

 

[Bluce Ree]

You are exaggerating waaaaay too much. Sure, DS9 had more drama than all the other ST series, but it wasn't so slow as to force you to constantly FF the episodes, the stories had many levels of depth and the characters were intriguing if not likeable. It's still ST at its core and like GF'76 alluded to, it just keeps getting better and better with each season.
[...]

There was a point between the 1st season and the last few seasons where I just couldn't bare to watch it anymore. It was far too soapy for me. I agree that it got better with each season, especially in the later seasons when the pace picked up. I actually enjoyed the late seasons but I feel it took too long to get there.

I disliked TNG in the first few seasons. It was way too cheesy and reeked of early Roddenberry. I became a total addict after "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the series got exponentially better with every season. To this day, TNG is still my favorite series. It's too bad they only made one good TNG movie, IMO -> First Contact.

 

[YoshiKart64]

Thanks for all the advice guys, it's really appreciated. Usually I just watch shows/franchises beginning to end but I didn't want to risk early episodes putting me off.

A few thoughts so far based on what I've seen - Deep Space Nine's political elements are intriguing and actually really well written. I only mention this because after seeing The West Wing, most shows seem really vague and broad when discussing politics, but here it really works.
- Picard is a lot more serious than I thought he'd be. Also apparently he hates Wesley more than some of the fans. Having Sisko hate Picard is an interesting way to start a spin-off series.
- The makeup on the alien characters is much better than the term "rubber faced aliens" would lead you to believe.
- I just saw the start of an Enterprise episode - the opening titles are pretty different.

I'll post some more thoughts and questions as I watch more. Thanks again guys.
PS: Doesn't it annoy any of the fans that the new movie pretty much kills any hope of more adventures with the original canon? Genuine question because I wondered that as soon as Spock decided to stay in the AU.

 

[Graybrew1]

NO you can actually have ten more movies and six more shows and then bring back the temporal police to fix it back to original canon and move forward till end. Lol

 

[Gatefan1976]

Thanks for all the advice guys, it's really appreciated. Usually I just watch shows/franchises beginning to end but I didn't want to risk early episodes putting me off.

A few thoughts so far based on what I've seen - Deep Space Nine's political elements are intriguing and actually really well written. I only mention this because after seeing The West Wing, most shows seem really vague and broad when discussing politics, but here it really works.
- Picard is a lot more serious than I thought he'd be. Also apparently he hates Wesley more than some of the fans. Having Sisko hate Picard is an interesting way to start a spin-off series.
- The makeup on the alien characters is much better than the term "rubber faced aliens" would lead you to believe.
- I just saw the start of an Enterprise episode - the opening titles are pretty different.

I'll post some more thoughts and questions as I watch more. Thanks again guys.
PS: Doesn't it annoy any of the fans that the new movie pretty much kills any hope of more adventures with the original canon? Genuine question because I wondered that as soon as Spock decided to stay in the AU.

It does stop anything else from happening in the "TOS" era trek, sure, but realisticly, the actors are too old to reprise thier roles again (those that are still alive). As to TNG era, not really because the events of TNG onwards are one reality and the ST '09 events are in a seperate one.

 

[Mr. A]

A few thoughts so far based on what I've seen - Deep Space Nine's political elements are intriguing and actually really well written. I only mention this because after seeing The West Wing, most shows seem really vague and broad when discussing politics, but here it really works.

Agreed. You got it right!

Thanks for all the advice guys, it's really appreciated. Usually I just watch shows/franchises beginning to end but I didn't want to risk early episodes putting me off.

Yeah, normally one would do that. But with Deep Space 9 you can safely skip the first 3 seasons and go straight to where it starts getting really good (season 4) without missing out on anything really good or noteworthy, except for the ones I listed for you:
"The Emissary" (Pilot season1), "The Jem'Hadar" (season 2 finale), "The Search 1&2" (season 3 pilot), "The Abandoned" (season 3) and "The Adversary" (season 3 finale).

It's sad to say, but DS9 just diddled around until they found their direction during season 3.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Agreed. You got it right!

Yeah, normally one would do that. But with Deep Space 9 you can safely skip the first 3 seasons and go straight to where it starts getting really good (season 4) without missing out on anything really good or noteworthy, except for the ones I listed for you:
"The Emissary" (Pilot season1), "The Jem'Hadar" (season 2 finale), "The Search 1&2" (season 3 pilot), "The Abandoned" (season 3) and "The Adversary" (season 3 finale).

It's sad to say, but DS9 just diddled around until they found their direction during season 3.

I'm glad we have some common ground on that point.

 

[Mr. A]

I'm glad we have some common ground on that point.

We actually do. DS9 isn't my favorite ST series. I just thought it's the one Yoshi would enjoy the most.