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Ask Slashdot: How To Introduce Someone To Star Trek?
First time accepted submitter red$hirt writes "I have a few friends, plus my girlfriend, who I would like to introduce to Star Trek. They do have a general interest to watch it, but I'm not sure what's the best way to start. There are so many series and movies and I would like to pick an order that keeps them interested. My first idea is to start off with a few good TNG episodes, and then let them watch First Contact. What does Slashdot think? I'm sure some of you have introduced others to Star Trek before. How did you do it, and how successful were you? Which particular episodes would you recommend watching for someone who is completely new to all this?"
As someone who introduced my ex to Trek a few years back, and who's still in largely into it despite not being together anymore, I took the simple approach of "show the good, skip the crap".
More specifically, this is what I did:
- Saw Star Trek 2009. Explained beforehand, very briefly, that it was a "darker and edgier reboot" of the original series that for canon purposes took place in an alternate universe. Answer any questions she has ("Why is Spock bleeding green? What is a Romulan? What is Warp?")
- Showed her DS9 and TNG, especially First Contact, since that's one of my favourites, along with Generations.
- Watched some Voyager, some Enterprise, etc. A bit of everything.
And that was it. Again... show the good stuff, skip the crap stuff ("Threshold"? What is that? I am not aware of any episode with that title). It's a show with a huge body of content; there are some gems in there, but there are some poo nuggets too.
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Watch the original series episode that introduces Khan back to back with the movie.
Most of the faults of DS9 are however made up for by the Defiant when it decides to blow shit up in what usually amount to fantastically one sided fights.
I think DS9 was the best. It was the most emotionally complex Trek series, and showed a future that wasn't so clean and utopian, with people who weren't so predictable. The introspective and rather cynical view it took of the Federation was by itself enough to elevate it above other series.
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>>>Please not Deep Space 9!
Probably not a fan of Babylon 5 either. (Or novels.) I know it sucks when shows make you have to remember plot details over the course of an entire season, but hey, that doesn't mean the show is bad. ;-)
B5 and DS9 still rank up there as my favorite SF shows. Add-in Hercules and Xena and the X-Files and seaQuest (year one) and earth2 and Buffy and Twilight Zone and Outer Limits..... and the 90s was an awesome decade for fantasy/science fiction television. Most of it was produced off-network as individually-funded shows (syndicated). It's a shame the syndication market died out. CW/MyNetworkTV is a poor substitute..... the independent channels died out.
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Agreed. It's the only series that's really put forth the possibility that the Federation as a whole wasn't necessarily the "good guys" that knew what was best for everyone. Avery Brooks might actually be my favorite Captain, even above Picard. Definitely a BMF.
Over the past 18 months or so, I've been watching TNG with my (now) almost-14 year old daughter. To start things off we shot through the first 6 films, then switched to TNG. Having recently finished TNG we've flipped back to the films (from Generations onwards) and are about to watch Insurrection. Due to time constraints (she's also chewing her way through Buffy* plus normal evening TV) we only did 'highlights' of TNG - about 10-12 episodes per season picked by me. I tried to ensure that all the key episodes were watched and that each character had enough screen time to develop over the seven seasons (interestingly, Seasons 6 and 7 are on reflection, almost all about Data).
Her stand-out TNG moment so far are the Four Lights scenes in Chain of Command. Her favourite character is unsurprisingly Data**.
Not sure where to go next to be honest, thinking of doing ENT - mainly because I've only seen it through once, so a revisit would be nice for me too.
As far as Star Trek (2009) stands - I really didn't gel with it. Can't put my finger on what was wrong, but it definitely isn't proper Trek for me. :(
* Thankfully she hates Twilight :D :/
** SPOILER ALERT: The end of Nemesis is really going to hit her HARD.
Oh while, I'm at it - on topic for the OP: Almost 13 years ago I went to a house party. On the shelf there was a limited edition numbered box set of the first 5 Trek films on VHS so I asked whose it was. I'm now rapidly approaching my 10 year wedding anniversary with the owner of those tapes, and she is my soulmate, my inner trill, and a woman who loves Sci-Fi even more than I do. :D
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