Someone laid down the gauntlet about three years ago. Watch Star Trek in chronological order, meaning start with Broken Bow, the pilot for Star Trek: Enterprise and watch every episode, short, and movie in chronological order until reaching “Calypso,” set centuries after Discovery‘s final season.
I did it once before when there was considerably less Trek: 3 seasons of Discovery, 1 season of Picard, and no Strange New Worlds. It took me six months, and I added a couple of episodes of Alexander Siddig’s Sid City, where he, Andrew Robinson, and in one case, Nana Visitor, read some post-Deep Space Nine fan stories. I also tacked on a fan-made movie about Robert April at the end. (I wouldn’t mind seeing a full-blown production with Adrian Holmes.) During full lockdown, it took six months. And while I still work remotely 80% of the time, my job has gotten more demanding. My wife wants, needs, and deserves my attention. And there are other shows I want to watch.
That said, I realized I could do it in a year, with the caveat that I’ll be watching other shows. I mean, there’s a new season of Bosch I haven’t dug into yet. And it’s a given I’ll watch For All Mankind.
The fun is watching the story unfold. Yes, Enterprise, Discovery, and Strange New Worlds stretch canon a bit. They’re setting up back story to The Original Series, where the writers had no clue this would last sixty years. But, while it’s not that jarring to go from Enterprise, an early 2000s show, to the more recent Pike and Discovery-related Treks, it is jarring when you have two Captain Pike shorts only to slip “The Cage” in the middle. The budget and special effects, even with remastering are… Well, the rope suspending disbelief strains a bit.
So here’s the how it’s going to go, adjustments made from the last time. Or… How I spent my 2024. I will watch Prodigy Season 2 and Discovery Season 5 as they’re released, but as they will be completed while I’m watching The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, they will get added to the watch list. Additionally, the Kelvin movies will be treated as a branch from the events following Nemesis and will fit between Prodigy and Picard.
TREK IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
Enterprise Seasons 1-4
Short Treks: “The Girl Who Made the Stars”
Short Treks: “The Brightest Star”
Short Treks: “Q&A”
“The Cage”
Short Treks: “The Trouble with Edward”
Short Treks: “Ask Not”
Discovery Season 1 – Short Treks: The Escape Artist after “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”
Discovery Season 2 – Short Treks: “Runaway” after episode 1
Strange New Worlds Seasons 1-2
Short Treks: “Ephraim and Dot” (Optional)
TOS Seasons 1-3 – “Where No Man Has Gone Before” first, then rest of Season 1
TAS Seasons 1-2
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
TNG Seasons 1-6
DS9 Season 1 (Alternate from TNG “Chain of Command” forward)
TNG Season 7/DS9 Season 2
DS9 Season 3/alt w/VOY from Civil Defense onward/Generations after VOY “Parallax”
DS9 Season 4/VOY Season 2
DS9 Season5/VOY Season 3/First Contact after DS9 “Warlord”
DS9 Season 6/VOY Season 4
Star Trek DS9 Season 7/VOY Season 5 thru “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (DS9)/”Counterpoint”(VOY)
Insurrection
DS9 Season 7 thru “Inter Arma Silent Leges”/VOY Season 4 thru “The Disease”
VOY Season 5 Eps 15-20
DS9 Season 7 thru series finale
VOY Season 5 remaining
VOY Seasons 6-7
Nemesis
Lower Decks Seasons 1-4
Prodigy Season 1-2
Short Treks: “The Children of Mars”
Star Trek
Star Trek Into Darkness
Star Trek Beyond
Picard Seasons 1-3
Discovery Seasons 3-5
Short Treks: “Calypso”