Join your host Garhdo for a Fandom Primer looking at the entire Star Trek franchise. From the icons of Kirk and Picard and their adventures on the Enterprise, to the recent shows of Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy, Garhdo will introduce you to every series, telling what you need to know, and where are the best places to begin!
September 17th 2026
The final Primer I have released for now, giving a brief overview for every series in the 60 year old Star Trek franchise, and highlighting some of the best places to start, as well as the most important characters in the franchise.
Hello my friends, Welcome to Garhdo Goes Geek for this Fandom Primer. Today we are learning about Star Trek. Star Trek is a science fiction franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, beginning in 1966. It is one of the most influential sci-fi franchises ever made, and is one that has formed a large part of pop-culture.
Many people who may not have ever seen an episode of Star Trek will know of the Starship Enterprise, Captain James Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard, aliens such as the logical Vulcans or honour-bound Klingon warriors, the bright red, blue and gold uniforms of the Federation, or the mission statement of the show: “Space, the Final Frontier. Our Continuing Mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations. To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before”. While originally just the self-titled series, the franchise has expanded over its 60 year history to include 13 feature films, three animated series, 8 further live-action series, a fiction audio podcast, and a streaming film, as well as multiple series of novels and comics of various canonicity.
The Original Series from the 60s remains one of the most famous entries, featuring the Federation Starship USS Enterprise, Captained by James Kirk, his Vulcan first officer Spock and crotchety southern Doctor McCoy, known more often as Bones, played by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelly respectively. The crew was rounded out by other notable faces Uhura, the communications officer, the helmsman Sulu, young russian Pavel Chekov, and Chief Engineer Scotty, however the series focused more on the main three than the full cast, due to that being the style of pulp adventure shows of the era, however the presence of the diverse cast was notable for the time period, and as the episodes tried to also contain a moral message as well as a fun adventure story there were episodes commenting upon topical events such as civil rights, authoritarianism, the futility of war, racism, and other progressive political topics, as the crew used their altruistic values to solve difficult conflicts. The Original Series was cancelled in its third season, despite a huge effort from its passionate fans to save it, but it survived and grew popular in syndication, eventually leading to this cast reuniting for an Animated Series and six films continuing their adventures. Many of the episodes stood alone, however the films bought back some concepts from the series, such as the genetic superman Khan, and the warriors of the Klingon Empire, who opposed Kirk in many episodes as a cold war allegory, as well as the logical Vulcans that sought peace between the Klingons and the Federation.
However this also led to the second wave of Star Trek, The Next Generation, set a century after Kirk’s adventures, and featuring Captain Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, and his ensemble crew on a brand new Enterprise, including his Number One the jazz-loving Commander Will Riker, the Andoid Data, blind engineer Geordi La Forge, empathic counselor Deanna Troi, Klingon security officer Worf, Doctor Beverly Crusher, and her son and genius prodigy Wesley, and finally the Bartender Guinan, played by Whoopi Goldberg. This ship and crew were recently profiled in a feature Lego set, the first one made by the company under the Star Trek license. This show was a huge success, running for seven seasons, bringing back and developing the clandestine Romulans from The Original Series, and introducing several new enemies for the crew, such as the capitalist and big-eared Ferengi, the cybernetic Borg, who saw Resistance as Futile and assimilated other races into their Collective, and the omnipotent and all-powerful Q, who saw Picard as a rival he could toy with as part of putting humanity on trial.
Several spin-offs soon debuted and aired alongside Next Generation and its four subsequent films, The first was Deep Space Nine, set on a space station near the formerly occupied planet of Bajor, rather than a starship, and focusing heavily on its characters and ongoing plots. The station was commanded by Benjamin Sisko, single father to Jake, and selected by the people of Bajor as the Emissary of the Prophets, their gods who live in a newly discovered wormhole, something sought by the planet’s former rulers the Cardassians, led by the menacing Gul Dukat, as well as exploring ongoing tensions with an alien group called the Dominion from the other side of the Wormhole. Worf eventually joined the crew of the station to help Sisko and his crew as tensions between the Klingons and Cardassians boiled over. The next spin-off was Voyager, which followed Captain Kathryn Janeway as she tried to bring her ship and crew home after they had been flung halfway across the galaxy, where they encountered many strange new races before being joined by the former Borg drone Seven of Nine. The final series of this era was a prequel series, Enterprise, set in the early days of human exploration, a century before Kirk, with Scott Bakula playing Captain Jonathan Archer. However while Deep Space Nine and Voyager both ran for seven years as well, Enterprise was cancelled due to dwindling viewing figures, which saw the end of 18 years of Star Trek on television.
Star Trek eventually came back a few years later with a big screen reboot in 2009, with Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana as Kirk and Uhura respectively leading an all-star cast in a film by JJ Abrams. It took place in an alternate timeline, where an incursion into the past had drastically changed Kirk and Spock’s lives, and saw Leonard Nimoy return as an older Spock alongside the new crew as they faced the powerful Romulan warlord Nero. This film had two sequels, Star Trek Into Darkness, with Benedict Cumberbatch playing a new version of Khan, and Star Trek Beyond, released for the Franchise’s 50th Anniversary and featuring Idris Elba as the mysterious villain Krall.
This was soon followed by a new wave of shows on television helmed by producer Alex Kurtzman, starting with Discovery, which began its story about a decade before The Original Series, before jumping to the 32nd Century, further into the future than any other series had ever gone before, where it helped to rebuild the Federation after a devastating event called The Burn. Two series and a film directly span off from it. First was Strange New Worlds, which featured Kirk’s predecessor Christopher Pike in command of the Enterprise, with younger versions of characters like Spock, Uhura and Scotty among the cast, and has recently begun its fourth season. The film was called Section 31, and focused on a black ops group within the Federation as they performed a dangerous mission, with frequent Discovery guest star and Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh leading the cast. And finally there is the brand new spin-off set in the 32nd Century, featuring a new class at Starfleet Academy and several returning characters, that recently began airing on Paramount+.
There was also a three-season show focused on Picard, picking up with him twenty years after we last saw him, and teaming him up with a new cast including Seven of Nine. There were also two new animated shows. First was Lower Decks, a comedy series following The Next Generation-era featuring junior officers on the USS Cerritos, with two of the characters even appearing in live-action in an episode of Strange New Worlds. The second was Prodigy, which featured the return of Janeway and Wesley Crusher, but focused much more on a group of teens who found a powerful new starship, with a great voice cast that included Ella Purnell and Jason Mantzoukas, and their quest to stop an enemy from the future who wanted to destroy the Federation.
Now this is a vast franchise, with plenty of great places to start. You will find the fanbase to be very accepting, and very eager to support new fans. In fact Trekkies or Trekkers, as the fanbase has become known, are one of the most passionate fanbases in science fiction, with Star Trek having dedicated conventions and cruises with guest celebrities, cosplay, and even constructed languages on Duolingo and elsewhere. But beyond that if you want to enjoy Star Trek there are a few good places to start. Obviously The Original Series and The Next Generation, as the two most well-known series, are probably the two best places to begin, with many great episodes of science fiction among them. Episodes like Balance of Terror, The Trouble With Tribbles and The City on the Edge of Forever from The Original Series, and A Measure of a Man, Deja Q and The Best of Both Worlds from The Next Generation are all great standalone episodes to get a feel for the show before diving deeper. Any of the films also work as a great standalone experience. Most fans, including myself, rate Deep Space Nine as a favourite series, particularly for its rich character arcs and ongoing plotlines, but I think it works best with a familiarity with The Next Generation at least. If you would prefer a modern show though any of them are great, but as the newest Starfleet Academy is incredibly accessible and seems to be plenty of fun from what I have seen. Honestly though even bad Star Trek is still very interesting science fiction adventure, and so is generally worth a look, anchored as it is by great characters and a very positive vision of what mankind’s future could look like.
Also for my gamers out there I want to recommend Star Trek Online, a free-to-play MMO that allows you to create a character of any of several races and factions, take to your ship, and explore a rich story with numerous returning actors from the various shows joining you. It has been running for 16 years now and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon, and is available on PC, Xbox and Playstation.
Hopefully by now you have all you need to start exploring this fandom. If you enjoyed this please like and share it with your friends. I also have other content available in my attached Linktree. Please take care of yourselves and look after your health as best as you can. Until next time my friends.
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