Where to Start with Star Trek: Every Series and Easy Entry Points

Sixty years is a lot of Star Trek. The original series premiered on NBC on Sept. 8, 1966, with the episode "The Man Trap," and the franchise has kept boldly going ever since: animation, syndicated TV, big-screen movies and a whole run of streaming shows. If you're standing at the airlock wondering which door to open first, here's the good news. There isn't a wrong answer, and plenty of the best episodes work just fine as a first taste.

Below you'll find every series in release order, then a handful of friendly entry points for each era.

Every series in release order

1. Star Trek (often called The Original Series), 1966–1969. Three seasons, 79 episodes. Captain James T. Kirk, Spock, Dr. "Bones" McCoy and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise explore the galaxy in the 23rd century.
2. Star Trek: The Animated Series, 1973–1974. Two seasons, 22 episodes. More adventures of Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise crew, with many of the original cast voicing their characters.
3. Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1987–1994. Seven seasons, 178 episodes. Captain Jean-Luc Picard commands a new Enterprise nearly 100 years after Kirk's era.
4. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, 1993–1999. Seven seasons, 176 episodes. Benjamin Sisko and his team run a remote space station near a strategically important wormhole.
5. Star Trek: Voyager, 1995–2001. Seven seasons, 172 episodes. Captain Kathryn Janeway and her crew face a 70-year journey home from a far-off part of the galaxy.
6. Star Trek: Enterprise, 2001–2005. Four seasons, 96 episodes. A prequel following Captain Jonathan Archer in the years before the United Federation of Planets existed.
7. Star Trek: Discovery, premiered 2017. Five seasons following Michael Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery.
8. Star Trek: Picard, premiered 2020. Three seasons that pick up Jean-Luc Picard's story about 20 years after we last saw him command the Enterprise.
9. Star Trek: Lower Decks, premiered 2020. Five seasons of animated comedy about the junior officers of the U.S.S. Cerritos, a ship the official synopsis cheerfully files among Starfleet's least important.
10. Star Trek: Prodigy, premiered Oct. 28, 2021. Two seasons of animated adventure; StarTrek.com describes it as the first Star Trek series aimed at younger audiences.
11. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, premiered 2022. Captain Christopher Pike, Spock and Number One aboard the Enterprise in the years before Captain Kirk came aboard. Season 4 premiered July 23, 2026.
12. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, premiered Jan. 15, 2026. A group of cadets train to become Starfleet officers in the far future. Season 2 is slated for March 2027.

There are also 13 theatrical films plus a streaming movie, Star Trek: Section 31. We cover those in our guide to the Star Trek films.

Two ways to binge

StarTrek.com's own viewing guide lays out two approaches. Release order follows how audiences first met each show. Chronological order follows when the stories happen in-universe, which flips things around a lot: Enterprise, the sixth series to premiere, comes first in the story. Neither is "correct." Release order shows you how the franchise built on itself over the decades; chronological order lets you follow the in-universe history from start to finish.

You also don't have to commit to a whole series up front. Sampling a few standout episodes from different eras is a perfectly good way to find the crew that clicks for you. Here are some places to start, drawn from StarTrek.com's essential-episode picks and its newcomer guides.

A light spoiler note: the descriptions below stick to each episode's setup. Nothing here gives away an ending.

Classic era entry points

• "The City on the Edge of Forever" (The Original Series, season 1, episode 28). Dr. McCoy slips through a mysterious time portal and changes history, so Kirk and Spock follow him to 1930s Earth. The teleplay is by Harlan Ellison. Keep tissues nearby.
• "The Trouble with Tribbles" (season 2, episode 15). The episode that showed Star Trek could do comedy: Klingons, bureaucrats and a ship filling up with small, furry, fast-multiplying creatures. Deep Space Nine's "Trials and Tribble-ations" is a companion piece to watch afterward.
• "Balance of Terror." A tense standoff with a cloaked Romulan ship that StarTrek.com compares to submarine thrillers like Run Silent, Run Deep. The Romulan commander is played by Mark Lenard, who later played Spock's father, Sarek.
• "Yesteryear" (The Animated Series). A time-travel story that digs into Spock's formative years on Vulcan, and a good argument for giving the animated show a chance.

Next Generation era entry points

• "The Measure of a Man" (The Next Generation, season 2, episode 9). When the android Data refuses to be disassembled for research, Picard defends his rights in court. It's one big idea followed all the way through.
• "The Best of Both Worlds," Parts 1 and 2 (season 3, episode 26 and season 4, episode 1). The Borg arrive in force. It's a cliffhanger two-parter, so line up both before you press play. StarTrek.com notes the pair goes a long way toward explaining Picard's unease when he faces the Borg again in the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact.
• "Duet" (Deep Space Nine, season 1, episode 19). Major Kira suspects that a Cardassian visiting the station is a notorious war criminal. A sharp political allegory.
• "Blink of an Eye" (Voyager). Voyager gets stuck above a planet where a second on the ship is a day on the surface, and a whole civilization grows up watching it.
• "Similitude" (Enterprise, season 3, episode 10). After engineer Trip Tucker is injured, Dr. Phlox grows a clone of him to save his life, and the crew faces an uncomfortable moral question.

Streaming era entry points

• "Children of the Comet" (Strange New Worlds, season 1, episode 2). A comet is about to hit an inhabited planet, and something inside it won't let the Enterprise move it. StarTrek.com calls it a character-driven adventure in the classic Star Trek tradition.
• "wej Duj" (Lower Decks). The title is Klingon for "three ships," and the episode follows low-ranking crew on a Starfleet ship, a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and a Vulcan cruiser. StarTrek.com suggests it for introducing friends. Save "Crisis Point" (season 1, episode 9) for later, since it's packed with movie references.
• "That Hope Is You, Part 1" (Discovery, season 3, episode 1). Michael Burnham arrives 930 years in the future in a galaxy she no longer recognizes. StarTrek.com points to it as useful background before Starfleet Academy.
• Starfleet Academy, from the first episode. It's billed as a stand-alone series, so you can start here with no homework.
• Prodigy, from the first episode. A natural pick for watching with kids, since it follows a crew of young aliens who learn about Starfleet as they go.

Matching a show to your mood

Imagine a few different first-time viewers:

• Someone who wants the roots of it all might start with the original series and its essential episodes, then follow the crew into the movies.
• Someone who loves big, morally knotty stories could try "The Measure of a Man" and "Duet" and see which show pulls harder.
• A family looking for something to share could start with Prodigy.
• A friend who just wants to laugh could try Lower Decks with "wej Duj."

A couple of connections are worth knowing before you dive in. Picard's third season is a full reunion with The Next Generation's main cast, so The Next Generation pays off there. And Strange New Worlds grows out of Discovery's second season, where Anson Mount plays Captain Pike; StarTrek.com flags Discovery's "Through the Valley of Shadows" (season 2, episode 12) as laying the groundwork for the newer show.

However you begin, the opening narration says it best: "Space—the final frontier" (Star Trek, opening narration). Pick a ship and enjoy the ride.