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As a purist, I'd say watch them all and in release order, but if you really have to be choosy with your time, here's a list of things you can skip (in my opinion):

• Star Trek Into Darkness
• Discovery (whole show)
• Picard S1 and S2
• Short Treks

I know suggesting skipping Discovery outright is going to be seen as... extreme, but I suggest doing so only if time is a crucial factor. It's a dizzyingly uneven show with the lowest points of quality in all of Trek. However, it also has some incredible highs and some truly great characters, so if you find the time to watch it, you should.

On the flip side, Lower Decks is incredible, and Strange New Worlds is good. The third season of Picard is excellent. Prodigy is a little weird but it's got a lot of strength. Star Trek Beyond is also a surprisingly good movie.

Man. Very well put. Very, very well put. I'm so sad that Discovery was as it was. It's not Star Trek to me. I was excited to see how it started out. Things I wanted to see ever since I was a kid. And then it just doesn't do what Star Trek is supposed to do.

To me in each episode (or episode arc) we need an internal and external problem that have no apparent solutions and are worked out towards the end of it all. Self-Contained episodes with ongoing character changes and evolution. Not... "dark gritty" whatever the heck this is.

I'd also strongly suggest watching The Orville @dumples That's the most Star Trek show in the past few years, despite being a bit more light hearted.

I get why they want to show the "The federation isn't flawless either" argument, but it is being done in the most hanfisted way possible.

The most recent episode of Strange New Worlds was an okay take on it, highlighting some hypocrisy in it all, but we really don't have enough information on the legal system to understand if any of it even matters.

I agree. The Federation as a well established monolithic structure around exploration, peace and dialogue helps frame everything else that happens in the show.

Throw that out of the window and what are we left with.

Maybe it is just a symptom of this whole "This is THE HERO" thing that popular story telling has shifted towards. Picard was undoubtedly an important and great captain. He certainty had those "everything hinges on what he and his crew do next" moments, but there were always others out there alongside him. Losing Picard was a blow to the federation when he became locutus. But it didn't break them.

Now watching more modern Star Trek it feels like the only people worthwhile in the entire federation are the people on screen right now and their renegade shenanigans.

@AlteredStateBlob @dumples @tymon @actualeyes

This feels like an overly broad take. I agree that Discovery has some tone issues that make it feel heavy handed, but it has strong characters outside of the crew that represent a healthy Federation.

Strange New Worlds has been if anything very episodic and light, with the exception of the arrest and trial of Una, which was really the writers picking up a thread that has been hanging there since DS9.

Discovery, to me, is simply action SciFi. But what makes Star Trek Star Trek to me, isn't present at all. No self contained little adventures with moral conundrums, etc.

I'm simply not the target audience for that show, so to what I want out of Star Trek, it's not good but rather terrible. If it were simply some random SciFi Action thing, maybe, okay.