Hi there. A friend of mine wants to get into Star Trek (finally, yay). She asked me which series would be a good start since she loves binge watching. I honestly couldn’t say. My favourites are VOY, ENT S1/S2 & SNW, but I’m a big fan of all series and watched them so many times back to back (with the exception of DIS & PIC - only once and never again). So, instead I thought we could watch the top 3 episodes of each series and then she can pick one to start watching the entire thing. Let me hear your top 3 episodes of one or several series. Just keep in mind she doesn’t know any of the lore yet. I’m really looking forward to see your takes.
In no particular order, two-parters count as one episode.
TOS:
- Balance of Terror
- The Trouble with Tribbles
- The Doomsday Machine
TAS:
- The Infinite Vulcan
- The Slaver Weapon
- The Lorelai Signal
TNG:
- Measure of a Man
- The Inner Light
- Cause & Effect
DS9:
- Pale Moonlight
- Past Tense
- Far Beyond the Stars
VGR:
- The Killing Game
- Latent Image
- Scorpion
ENT:
- Regeneration
- A Night in Sickbay
- A Mirror Darkly
Those are the only series I’ve seen in their entirety, so I’ll leave it at that.
For Voyager, where is Year of Hell??
I’m with you on all the others, but Year of Hell is probably my favorite episode of all the Treks.
I understand.
There are so many episodes to choose from, it’s almost cruel to make a Trekkie pick just three. There are, like, ten more episodes I could have picked for TNG alone.
Year of Hell is amazing, especially since it was a prophecy from earlier in the series. But I think Killing Game and Scorpion make better two-parters because they had a lasting effect on the ship and the show. Killing Game was huge in scale and necessary to address the power balance with the Hirogen. And Scorpion gave us Seven. Year of Hell, for all it did, fell victim to the big red reset button. And to pour salt on the wound, no one even remembered what happened.
DS9 Pale Moonlight: is my second favorite startrek episode. This is like the deepest exploration into a starfleet captain and how easy it is to lose yourself to corruption and operate outside of your government even when you’re working towards the same goal.
VOY The Thaw: an unironic cathartic watch. I’m ready invested in the characters and I get to see A1 star trek grade acting actually brings me back to that episode.
No, I actually meant The Infinite Vulcan. Not sure how I got those titles mixed up. Thanks for pointing that out.
“Data’s Day” is actually a pretty great one to get someone into TNG, it’s fun, but most importantly, Data is essentially walking around introducing all of the main characters to the audience.
I typically recommend starting with TNG in general (I used to say because it was “modern” 😭) as it naturally leads into DS9 and VOY. That said if your friend doesn’t typically watch older shows but is open to them, then just starting with SNW or ENT is an excellent intro to the rest of Trek.
My friend is absolutely open to older shows. I somehow forgot about “Data’s Day”. I don’t know how that one slipped past me, but it’s truly great for beginners of Star Trek. I appreciate it!
Happy to help! I would love it if you report back, we used to get 100 “How do I get a friend into Trek” posts/day on /r/StarTrek but very few follow ups on if it stuck!
TOS: Balance of Terror, The Doomsday Machine, City on the Edge of Forever
TNG: The Measure of a Man, Yesterday’s Enterprise, Deja Q
DS9: Progress, Duet, Trials and Tribbleations
VOY: Body and Soul, Year of Hell, Tuvix
Specifically for a new viewer who wants 3 shows that would be different and enjoyable:
TNG:
The Inner Light, Cause and Effect, Lower Decks
DS9:
Duet, The Visitor, Trials and Tribbleations
TNG and DS9 are the only two series that I really know well enough to make these recommendations for.
I would highly recommend watching TNG before DS9, even if she likes DS9 better. TNG and DS9 work best as companion shows, with TNG building up a lot of DS9 plot-lines in its latter seasons. I would also highly recommend against starting with any episodes involving Q or the Borg, or any of the series “highlights”. Let those plots build, and you don’t want to spoil some of the best episodes in a sampler. My go-to TNG introduction picks are:
-Cause and Effect
-Darmok
-Measure of a Man
DS9 can be harder to pick introductory episodes for. Its more serialized nature means that a lot of later episodes have a lot of spoilers. I would highly recommend against picking any episodes that highly involve the Dominion or the Dominion War, let that plot build itself up. That does however, leave us with a lot fewer options. My DS9 introduction picks are:
-Duet
-Past Tense
-Bar Association
