star trek series and movies chronology

Star Trek movies in order: Chronological and release

Untangle the different timelines and get the popcorn: Here are the Star Trek movies in order — both chronological and release.

• Chronological order
• Prime Timeline

The Original Series movies

The next generation movies.

• Kelvin Timeline
• Release order

Upcoming Star Trek movies

We've got a guide to watching the Star Trek movies in order, decloaking off our starboard side!

So long as movies stick numbers on the ends of their titles, it’s easy to watch them in order. Once they start branching out, however, things can get a little muddled, especially when reboots come along and start the whole process over from scratch. 

You may have heard that the even-numbered ones are good and the odd-numbered ones are not. That’s spot on for the films starring the cast of The Original Series (aka Kirk and friends) falls apart once you reach the tenth entry in the series. It would probably be worth your while to have this list of the Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best around to steer clear of the clunkers. Look, we’re not going to pretend everything here is worth two hours of your day, we’re just letting you know which came out after which.

Should your Trek appetite remain unsatiated after your movie watchathon, feel free to pull from either our list of the best Star Trek: The Original series episode s or best Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes . Either one will set you up for a weekend jam-packed with great Trek moments. Consult our Star Trek streaming guide for all the details on where to watch the movies and shows online 

Star Trek movies: Chronological order

Below is the quick version of our list if you just need to check something to win an argument, but it comes with a lot of in-universe time travel-related caveats that we'll explain below.

• 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
• Star Trek: Generations
• Star Trek: First Contact
• Star Trek: Insurrection
• Star Trek: Nemesis
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek: Prime Timeline

The first thing you need to know about the Star Trek films is that while they travel back and forth in time, they also diverge into two (for now) different timelines. The films of the original crew (well, the first iteration of them, anyway – more on that later) are all in what is known as the Prime Timeline. 

Within the Prime Timeline, the movies are then split between The Original Series movies and The Next Generation movies.

1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture

• Release date: December 8, 1979
• Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

This is the film that brought the voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise to the big screen. An energy cloud is making its way toward Earth, destroying everything in its path. Kirk and crew intercept it and discover an ancient NASA probe at the heart of the cloud. Voyager – known as V’ger now – encountered a planet of living machines, learned all it could, and returned home to report its findings, only to find no one who knew how to answer. It’s a slow-paced film, and the costumes are about as 70s as they come, but there’s classic Star Trek at the heart of this film.

2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

• Release date: June 4, 1982
• Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalban

Ask a Star Trek fan what the best Star Trek movie is and more often than not, you’ll get Khan as your answer. A sequel to the events of the “Space Seed” episode of The Original Series, Khan is a retelling of Moby Dick with Khan throwing reason to the wind as he hunts his nemesis, James T. Kirk. Montalban delivers a pitch-perfect performance, giving us a Khan with charisma and obsession in equal parts.

3. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

• Release date: June 1, 1984

Spock might have died in The Wrath of Khan, but this third entry set up the premise for his return, with the creation of the Genesis planet. Essentially a heist movie in reverse, Search for Spock has the crew defying orders from Starfleet in an attempt to reunite Spock’s consciousness with his newly-rejuvenated body. It’s not a great movie, but it does include two very important events: the rebirth of Spock and the death of Kirk’s son at the hands of the Klingons. That’ll be important a few flicks from now.   

4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

• Release date: November 26, 1986
• Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Catherine Hicks

If Star Trek fans don’t say Khan is the best Star Trek movie, odds are very high they say Voyage Home is. It’s a funny film where the mission isn’t destruction, but creation – or more accurately, repairing the devastating effects of humankind’s ecological short-sightedness. 

A probe arrives at Earth, knocking out the power of everything in its path as it looks for someone to respond to its message (yeah, it happens a lot). This time, however, the intended recipient is the long-extinct blue whale. To save Earth, Kirk and co. go back in time to 1980s San Francisco to snag some blue whales. The eco-messaging isn’t exactly subtle, but it doesn’t get in the way of a highly enjoyable movie.

5. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

• Release date: June 9, 1989

A writers’ strike and Shatner’s directorial skills (or lack thereof) doomed this film before a single scene was shot. The core plot is actually pretty good: Spock’s half-brother hijacks the Enterprise so that he can meet God, which he believes to be… himself. Some Star Trek fans have an odd fondness for this movie, as it showcases the camaraderie of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy when they’re off-duty.

6. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

• Release date: December 6, 1991
• Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Christopher Plummer

Right, so if that Star Trek fan you’ve been talking to doesn’t choose either Khan or Voyage Home as the best Star Trek movie ever, they almost certainly name Undiscovered Country (and if they don’t, they have highly questionable taste, frankly). The Klingon moon of Praxis explodes, putting the entire Klingon race at risk. The Enterprise hosts a diplomatic entourage of Klingons, much to Kirk’s discomfort. 

Remember how Klingons murdered Kirk’s son? Well, he certainly hasn’t forgotten. Kirk’s lingering rage makes him the perfect patsy for the murder of the Klingon Chancellor, sending him and McCoy to a prison planet and setting the stage for war. Christopher Plummer is perfection as a Shakespeare-quoting Klingon general with no taste for peace.

7. Star Trek: Generations

• Release date: November 18, 1994
• Cast: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner

And thus the torch is passed from the crew of The Original Series to that of The Next Generation. It’s a bit of a fumble, to be honest, but they all did their best to get Kirk and Picard into the same film and have it make sense. Malcolm McDowell plays Soran, a scientist who will stop at nothing to control the Nexus, a giant space rainbow that exists outside of space-time. 

Soran lost his family when his home world was destroyed and he wants to re-join them (or at least an illusion of them) in the Nexus. He’s not so much a villain as a tragic figure, but the Nexus makes a meeting between Kirk and Picard possible. Not all that sensible, but possible.

8. Star Trek: First Contact

• Release date: November 22, 1996
• Cast: Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Alice Krige

Okay, no, for real, if your Star Trek pal didn’t pick Khan or Voyage Home or… oh, nevermind. Cueing off the iconic two-part episode “Best of Both Worlds,” in which Picard is assimilated by the Borg, First Contact sees the collective traveling back in time in order to disrupt First Contact, the day Earth’s first foray into space attracted the attention of the Vulcans, kicking off the events that would eventually lead to Starfleet’s victory over the Borg. The Borg Queen torments Picard with visions of the past and tempts Data with humanity, going so far as to give him some human skin. 

The fight with the Borg aboard the Enterprise is thrilling, and the work on the surface to get first contact back on track is fun. Plus, there’s just nothing like Patrick Stewart turning it up to 11 as he lashes out at the enemy that haunts his dreams.

9. Star Trek: Insurrection

• Release date: December 11, 1998
• Cast: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, F. Murray Abraham

Essentially an episode inflated for the big screen, Insurrection is about the Federation conspiring to displace a planet’s population in order to harvest the planet’s unique resource – super healing metaphasic particles. In addition to the rejuvenating natural resource, the Ba’ku also have access to exceptional technology, which they shun in favor of a more simple lifestyle. 

Data malfunctions, the villains are Federation allies (and former Ba’ku!), Picard gets to knock boots with a local – Insurrection is the very definition of “fine.” Chronologically, Insurrection is relevant for rekindling the romance between Riker and Troi, but not much else.

10. Star Trek: Nemesis

• Release date: December 13, 2002
• Cast: Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Tom Hardy

Before he mumbled his way into our hearts as Bane, Tom Hardy was Shinzon, a clone of Picard the Romulans created in an eventually abandoned attempt to infiltrate Starfleet. Shinzon is dying, and all that will save him is a transfusion of Picard’s blood. Unfortunately, Shinzon also happens to be a megalomaniac who happens to want to destroy all life on Earth and maybe a few other planets, too, if he’s feeling saucy. 

Nemesis is notable mostly for killing Data with a noble sacrifice, only to resurrect him moments later in a duplicate body found earlier by the Enterprise crew.

Star Trek: Kelvin Timeline

The last of the Prime Timeline movies failed to impress at the box office, so it was a few years before anyone tried to bring the Enterprise back to the big screen. Rather than lean on any of the TV crews, this new slate of movies would serve as a reboot, welcoming new audiences while honoring long-time fans. Welcome to the Kelvin Timeline. (For all the ins and outs, check out our Star Trek: Kelvin Timeline explained article).

11. Star Trek

• Release date: May 8, 2009
• Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban

Back to the beginning! Star Trek introduces us to James T. Kirk, Spock, and “Bones” McCoy as they meet and join the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Though the plot is a relatively straightforward affair of a Romulan named Nero trying to destroy the Earth. His anger borne out of grief, what matters most is how it all came to be. In the future, Spock – the Prime Timeline version – tries to save Romulus from being destroyed by a supernova, but fails. Both his ship and Nero’s are kicked back in time, setting off a chain of events that diverge from the original, “true” timeline. 

The name “Kelvin” refers to the U.S.S. Kelvin, the ship heroically captained by Kirk’s father, which is destroyed in the opening moments of the movie.

12. Star Trek Into Darkness

• Release date: May 16, 2013
• Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch

The benefit of the Kelvin Timeline is that it not only allows Star Trek to explore canon material – such as Khan (he of the Wrath) – but to do something completely new with it. Khan features heavily in Into Darkness, but he has no beef with Kirk. Instead, a Starfleet Admiral is threatening the lives of Khan’s crew, forcing them to craft weapons of mass destruction. 

Khan inevitably eludes captivity and strikes out against Starfleet, killing Captain Pike (and a bunch of others) in the process. Kirk and company eventually take Khan down, but not before Kirk sacrifices himself to save his crew. Don’t worry, these things don’t last in either Star Trek timeline, as Kirk gets better moments later thanks to *checks notes* Khan's super blood.

13. Star Trek Beyond

• Release date: July 22, 2016
• Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Idris Elba

Beyond leans into the camaraderie of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy now that they’ve had some time together, much to the movie’s benefit. The Enterprise is lured to Altamid under false pretenses, leading to much of the crew being marooned on the planet. The architect of the deception was Krall, who wants an opportunity to return to a galaxy where war is the order of the day. 

Beyond is a significant point in the timeline for two reasons. First, it sadly marked the death of Spock Prime due to the passing of Leonard Nimoy. Second, it culminates in the Enterprise embarking on the five-year-mission that started everything back in 1966.

Star Trek movies: Release order

If you can't be bothered remembering two different orders for the Star Trek movies then we've got good news for you — the release order is identical to the chronological order that we've shown above (accounting for the Kelvin timeline as it's own entity anyway).

The full run of Star Trek films currently tops out at 13 entries; the fate of the 14th was hidden within a nebula of conflicting information. “Star Trek 4” was slated for December 22, 2023, but given that filming had yet to begin as of July 2022, it seems inevitable that date will change. Back in February 2022, Paramount that the principal cast would be returning for the fourth installment of the Kelvin timeline, a claim quickly disputed by the agents of those selfsame actors. Awkward.

Soon after, however, Chris Pine eventually signed on the dotted line, and his shipmates reached their own agreements. As of right now, Kirk (Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), McCoy (Karl Urban, assuming he can make it work around filming of The Boys), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Uhura (Zoe Saldaña), and Sulu (John Cho) are all ready to beam up and get filming. Sadly, this will be the first of the Kelvin films to not feature Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov. Yelchin died in an accident at his home in 2016. It’s currently unclear if Chekov will be recast or if a different character will take his place on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Though the Kelvin timeline is often referred to as “J.J. Abrams Trek,” he won’t be directing Star Trek 4; Matt Shakman will take on that responsibility, leaving Abrams to produce. As for what it will be about, that’s anyone’s guess, but Chris Pine told Deadline he hopes this one tells a smaller story that appeals to the core Trek audience. “Let’s make the movie for the people that love this group of people, that love this story, that love Star Trek,” he said. “Let’s make it for them and then, if people want to come to the party, great.” It’s a strategy that makes sense; the disappointment with recent Trek films hasn’t been their content so much as their box office. A Trek film with a smaller scope (and budget) would almost certainly have a very healthy profit margin while also resonating with the fanbase.   

With no new announcements coming from San Diego Comic-Con 2022, it seems that we’ll have to wait for any more insight into the next Star Trek film. Sill, recent comments from Paramount CEO Brian Robbins have us cautiously optimistic: “We’re deep into [Star Trek 4] with J.J. Abrams, and it feels like we’re getting close to the starting line and excited about where we’re going creatively,” he told Variety . 

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Susan Arendt is a freelance writer, editor, and consultant living in Burleson, TX. She's a huge sci-fi TV and movie buff, and will talk your Vulcan ears off about Star Trek. You can find more of her work at Wired, IGN, Polygon, or look for her on Twitter: @SusanArendt. Be prepared to see too many pictures of her dogs.

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Pocket-lint

How to watch the star trek movies and tv shows in order.

The universe is composed of 13 films and eight TV shows. Here's how to watch them all.

Key Takeaways

• Explore the Star Trek universe by watching the franchise in chronological order, based on stardates.
• The original Star Trek timeline includes the TV show Enterprise and the first two seasons of Discovery.
• The original series, The Animated Series, and the first Star Trek movie are important parts of the franchise's origins.

With the Star Trek franchise rapidly expanding on Paramount+ , now is the perfect time to boldly go explore the Star Trek Universe.

The universe is composed of 13 films and nine TV shows. Now, it'd be easy enough to watch them all in the order they premiered, but if you prefer to watch everything chronologically (when the events take place), we've compiled an ultimate viewing guide for you. Below, you'll find the entire franchise organized by stardates. It starts with the oldest event in the original Star Trek timeline.

Speaking of timelines, there are two in Star Trek: The original, which includes nearly all the films and TV shows; and Kelvin, an alternative timeline that kicked off with the latest three reboot films. To better understand what we're talking about, please read the guide below. Those of you who want to proceed spoiler-free, however, can scroll all the way to the bottom for the list version of this guide.

Also at the bottom, we've included another spoiler-free list. It's structured by order of release - or when each film and TV show premiered.

How to watch every Marvel movie and TV show in chronological order

The original star trek timeline.

The thing to remember about this order is that it is chronological - based entirely on the stardate time system in the Star Trek franchise. Think of stardates as years. In that case, the order below starts with the oldest events in the Star Trek Universe - but it excludes the Kelvin timeline films.

There are spoilers below.

1 Star Trek: E nterprise

The first to boldly go where no man has gone before, star trek: enterprise.

Stardate: 2151 to 2156

Enterprise follows the adventures of one of the first starships to explore deep space in the Star Trek Universe.

Set right before the founding of the Federation of Planets (and about 100 years before the original Star Trek series), Star Trek: Enterprise is a TV show that follows the adventures of Captain Jack Archer, played by Scott Bakula, and the Starship Enterprise crew. This ship is the first Federation vessel to have Warp 5 capabilities, allowing its crew to be among the first deep-space explorers.

The series introduces many of the different alien species important to the Star Trek Universe, such as the Vulcans and Klingons. It also begins to lay the groundwork for the Federation of Planets, in the fourth and final season.

2 Star Trek: Discovery seasons 1 and 2

Discover a new type of starship, set ten years before the original series, star trek: discovery.

Stardate: 2256

The first two seasons of Discovery is set ten years before the original series as the crew of the titular ship tests an impressive new warp drive.

Star Trek: Discovery follows Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green, the first officer aboard the USS Shenzhou before she is found guilty of mutineering. However, with the Federation at war with the Klingons, the captain of the new Discovery ship, Gabriel Lorca, played by Jason Isaacs, enlists Burnham to help get the ship’s experimental warp drive properly working.

Discovery's early setting in the Star Trek universe was changed with a leap through time at the end of season two, which is why we're placing the recently released third season elsewhere on our list.

3 Star Trek: Strange New World

A direct prequel to the original series., star trek: strange new worlds.

Stardate: 2258

Strange New Worlds follows the early adventures of the Starship Enterprise, before Kirk became its captain.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds stars Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike.

Pike will be a familiar name to Star Trek fans, as Pike is the man who commanded the starship Enterprise before Captain Kirk. The series follows Pike doing just that, in his final five-year mission as captain of the Enterprise before he becomes Fleet Captain and hands the reigns to Captain Kirk.

This being a prequel to the original Star Trek series, there are also other recognizable names, with Ethan Peck playing Spock and Celia Rose-Gooding as Uhara. A third season is currently in production.

4 Star Trek: The Original Series

Where it all began, star trek: the original series.

Stardate: 2266 to 2269

The original Star Trek series follows Captain Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew as they boldly go where no man has gone before.

This is the original Star Trek TV show. It began airing in 1966 and primarily follows the crew of the USS Enterprise, starting with them embarking on a five-year mission “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before”.

The series introduces William Shatner’s Captain James T Kirk and Leonard Nimoy’s Spock, too.

It also gives us the basis for the universe that makes Star Trek so successful, from introducing numerous alien species like the Vulcans and Klingons to showing us the inner workings of the Federation of Planets. The origins of the Star Trek Universe wouldn’t exist without it.

5 *Optional* Star Trek: The Animated Series

Continue the journey with the original crew, star trek: animated.

Stardate: 2269 to 2270

Continue the adventures of the original series in this animated version that sees most of the cast return to voice their characters.

After The Original Series ended, it quickly became a cult classic. Creator Gene Roddenberry then began work on an animated series that saw most of the original cast provide voice work for the animated versions of their characters. The show essentially functions as the fourth season of the original series, with the original characters navigating unexplored sections of space.

However, it was eliminated from canon by Roddenberry himself, when the rights were renegotiated following the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So, if you want to consume every drop of Star Trek content, add this to your list.

6 Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The first star trek movie, star trek: the motion picture.

Stardate: 2273

Captain Kirk, his crew, and a newly remodeled Enterprise head out to investigate an alien entity known as V'ger.

This is the first feature film in the Star Trek Universe. It sees Captain James T Kirk retake the helm of a renovated USS Enterprise to investigate a mysterious cloud of energy that is moving toward Earth. The energy cloud destroys a Federation monitoring station, as well as three Klingon ships, but before Kirk is able to engage it, he must learn to operate an unfamiliar USS Enterprise.

7 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Star trek: the wrath of khan.

Stardate: 2285

The crew of the Enterprise faces off against it's most fearsome adversary, Khan.

The second Star Trek movie is perhaps the most successful entry in the franchise. It sees Captain James T Kirk taking command of a USS Enterprise staffed with untested trainees in order to track down the adversary Khan Noonien Singh and his genetically engineered super soldiers.

In the process of escaping a planet that Kirk trapped him on, Khan learns of a secret device known as Genesis, capable of re-organizing matter to terraform (make them habitable) planets. Khan tries to steal the device, but, of course, Kirk will do all he can to stop him.

8 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

The crew of the enterprise try to resurrect spock, star trek iii: the search for spock.

Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise set out on a mission to recover Spock's body and bring him back to life.

Following their battle with Khan, the crew of the USS Enterprise returns home to Earth in this third feature film.

Once there, Leonard H “Bones” McCoy, played by DeForest Kelley, begins to act strangely, leading to him being detained. Captain James T Kirk, with the help of Spock’s father, Sarek, played by Mark Lenard, then learns that Spock transferred his Katra into McCoy before dying.

If nothing is done, McCoy will die from carrying Spock’s Katra. So, the crew of the USS Enterprise go back to the site of their battle with Khan - in the hopes of retrieving Spock’s body. To top it all off, they must battle with the Klingon Kruge, played by Christopher Lloyd, over control of the Genesis Device. The Search for Spock is also directed by Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy.

9 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Earth is in danger and the only hope is humpback whales, star trek iv: the voyage home.

Stardate: 2286

The Enterprise travels back in time to 1986 and has to untangle a mystery involving humpback whales and an alien probe.

In this film, a mysterious ship begins orbiting Earth and destroys the planet's power grid. It emits strange noises, too, and the newly resurrected Spock realizes the sound is similar to the now-extinct humpback whale. Believing the strange ship is expecting to hear back the song of humpback whales, the crew goes around the Sun and travels back in time to 1986 to get a humpback whale.

Nimoy returned to direct this film, as well.

10 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

The enterprise crew must face off with spock's brother, sybok, star trek v: the final frontier.

Stardate: 2287

The Enterprise heads out on a mission to rescue hostages from the planet Nimbus 3.

After finishing a mission, Kirk, Spock, and Bones are enjoying a camping trip in Yosemite in this film when they are ordered to rescue hostages on the planet Nimbus III. But, once arriving on the planet, the crew realizes Spock’s half-brother, Sybok, is responsible for taking the hostages in order to lure a starship, with the hopes of reaching the mythical planet Sha Ka Ree and meeting a God.

Sybok realizes he’ll need Kirk’s expertise to navigate through the barrier at the centre of the Milky Way that leads to this mythical planet. Along the way, the Klingon Kraa decides to hunt Kirk. The Final Frontier is also the only Star Trek film directed by William Shatner.

11 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

The final film starring the original series cast, star trek vi: the undiscovered country.

Stardate: 2293

After being framed for a political assassination, Kirk and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise must unravel the conspiracy to avoid war with the Klingon Empire.

In the final film of this series, we see the Klingon homeworld nearly destroyed, leading the hostile empire to engage in peace talks with the Federation. Captain James T Kirk is assigned to escort the Klingon ambassador, but is instead blamed when assassins beam aboard the Ambassador’s ship and kill him. The Klingons then sentence Kirk and McCoy to life imprisonment on a frozen asteroid.

At that point, Spock and the rest of the crew must find the true culprits behind the attack of the Klingon ship and rescue Kirk and Bones.

12 Star Trek: The Next Generation

The next generation takes over the uss enterprise, star trek: the next generation.

Stardate: 2364 to 2370

A new crew takes over the Enterprise and heads out on a five-year mission to explore the unknown.

Set 71 years after the USS Enterprise’s last mission with Captain James T Kirk at the helm, The Next Generation introduces us to a new USS Enterprise staffed with the next generation of Starfleet officers, led by Captain Jean Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart).

This TV series also shows us new species of aliens, the Cardassians and the Borgs, which replace the now-friendlier Klingons as the Federation’s primary adversaries.

The Next Generation ran for seven seasons and featured a couple of cameos from The Original Series, like Spock and Bones, among others.

13 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Everyday life in the deepest reaches of space, star trek: deep space nine.

Stardate: 2369 to 2375

Set on a stationary space station instead of an exploring starship, Deep Space Nine explores what life in space is like after the exploring part is done.

This TV show overlaps with the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It focuses on the former Cardassian space station, a backwood outpost that the Federation now controls and has ordered a Starfleet crew to run, with Avery Brook’s Benjamin Sisko as the commanding officer.

It's not about a starship exploring the unknown, but rather the trade disputes and political manoeuvring surrounding a crucial military hub.

14 Star Trek Generations

The two enterprise crews unite to take on a force with the power to destroy stars, star trek: generations.

Stardate: 2371

The first Star Trek film to feature the Next Generation crew also brought back the Enterprise crew from the original series.

Star Trek Generations is the first film to feature the crew of The Next Generation while also starring some of The Original Series cast.

The plot primarily centres around an El-Aurian, named Dr Tolian Soran (played by Malcolm McDowell), as well as an energy ribbon known as the Nexus.

You see, in 2293, Soran is rescued from the Energy Ribbon by a retired Captain James T Kirk, who is attending a maiden voyage of a new USS Enterprise. Then, in 2371, while answering a distress call, Captain Jean Luc Picard finds Soran - and he has a weapon capable of destroying stars.

15 Star Trek: Voyager

A federation starship stranded in uncharted space, star trek voyager.

Stardate: 2371 to 2378

Follow a Captain Janeway and her crew of the USS Voyager as they attempt to find their way home after being stranded in space.

After leaving Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in search of a group of Maquis rebels, the Starship Voyager, led by Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), is captured by an energy wave that sends it - and a ship of Maquis rebels - into the middle of the unexplored Delta Quadrant. With both ships damaged and far from home, the crews agree to join forces and begin a 75-year journey back to Earth.

16 Star Trek: First Contact

The crew of the enterprise travels back before the first warp drive was used, star trek: first contact.

Stardate: 2373

The Enterprise must travel back in time to prevent a Borg ship from assimilating all of Earth.

In this film, the USS Enterprise tries to help defeat a Borg Cube attacking Earth, with Captain Jean Luc Picard assuming command of a fleet of starships. However, just before the Cube is destroyed, it releases a smaller ship that enters a temporal vortex. The USS Enterprise gives chase through the vortex, but in the process, realizes the Borg traveled back in time and assimilated the entire planet.

And once through the Vortex, the crew arrives in 2063. More specifically, they arrive one day before Zefram Cochrane (played by James Cromwell) uses the first warp drive system, which draws the attention of the Vulcans, leading to humanity's first contact with an alien race.

17 Star Trek: Insurrection

The enterprise must uncover the mystery around a nearly immortal group of people, star trek: insurrection.

Stardate: 2375

The crew of the USS Enterprise uncovers a conspiracy involving the forced relocation of a peaceful alien race.

The action now centres around a planet with a type of unique radiation that rejuvenates its people, known as the Ba’ku. The effects of the radiation make the Ba’ku nearly immortal.

In this film, Brent Spinner’s Data is sent undercover to monitor the Ba’ku people and soon begins to malfunction, which causes Captain Jean Luc Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise to investigate.

They uncover a conspiracy between a species, which is hostile to the Ba’ku, and Admiral Mathew Doherty, a Starfleet officer played by Anthony Zerbe. The crew of the Enterprise must stop them both in order to save the Ba’ku from being forcibly removed from their home planet.

18 Star Trek: Nemesis

Picard vs picard, star trek: nemesis.

Stardate: 2379

Captain Picard and the crew face a new, dangerous enemy in the form of a clone of Picard himself.

Captain Jean Luc Picard and the USS Enterprise crew are sent on a mission to meet with the leader of the Romulans, Shinzon, played by a super young Tom Hardy. Once there, they learn that Shinzon is actually a clone of Picard, created in the hopes that he would one day be able to infiltrate the Federation. The Romulans had abandoned the plan and sent Shinzon into slavery.

He led a rebellion, however, and created his own starship, the Scimitar. Soon, the Enterprise learns Shinzon’s true plan is to use a form of radiation poisonous to all life in order to attack the Federation and destroy Earth.

19 Star Trek: Picard

Picard's forced out of retirement one more time

Star Trek: Picard

Stardate: 2399

Captain Picard's retirement is about as full of adventure as his career on the Enterprise.

One of the most popular starship captains in the Star Trek Universe, Jean Luc Picard had retired to a life of wine-making, but a new mission set 20 years after the events of Nemesis sees Captain Jean Luc Picard return to space along with many of his old friends. The first season sees Picard struggling with the events that led to his retirement from Starfleet -- when he's forced into a conflict that sees him thrust into a captain's chair again.

The second season sees Picard transported to an alternate timeline by the interdimensional being known as Q (John De Lancie), who originally appeared in The Next Generation. The third and final season of Picard recently got a teaser and is slated to premiere in spring 2023.

20 Star Trek: Discovery seasons 3 and beyond

The discovery's journey picks up later than any other star trek content.

Stardate: 3188

Catch up with the rest of Discovery after a timejump shifts the story to the end of the Star Trek timeline.

Burnham and the crew of the Discovery make a jump through time that lands them further in the future than we've ever seen in the Star Trek Universe.

There, Burnham is separated from the rest of the crew of Discovery.

While trying to locate the ship, she learns that the United Federation of Planets has fallen following the event known as The Burn, which saw ships simultaneously explode throughout the entire galaxy. The fuel for Star Trek's ships, Dilithium, has also become extremely rare, which makes travel across wide distances of space much harder. In the fourth season, Burnham and the crew of the Discovery begin the process of rebuilding the Federation of Planets. A fifth season of Star Trek Discovery is slated to premiere in 2024.

Kelvin timeline: The alternate Star Trek timeline

These films kick off JJ Abrams' alternate Star Trek timeline. Officially called the Kelvin timeline, it's named after the USS Kelvin. If you want to watch them, you can do so either before or after Star Trek: The Original Series. We prefer you watch it after - in fact, watch it after you've finished the original Star Trek timeline, because it literally takes place in a different timeline.

How to watch Star Trek in order

Whether you're wanting to check out the Original Series or Discovery, figuring out how to watch Star Trek in order is a breeze with this easy guide!

Is it just us or is figuring out how to watch Star Trek in order getting more and more complex with each passing year? The prospect of watching Star Trek in order would be daunting for even the most decorated of starship captains with multiple series being brought to life on both the big and small screens. But fear not Trekkies - we've got you covered!

If you've ever tried to watch the Marvel movies in order , you'd be forgiven for thinking that was the most complicated franchise on the planet, but we kid you not - it has nothing on Star Trek. The 55-year-old sci-fi franchise includes nine (soon to be 11) TV shows and 13 movies and it spans 1000 years, making for one super complicated and vast timeline.

So, what is the best way to watch Star Trek in order? Well, that depends. For you purists out there, you might like to opt for viewing this franchise by release date, just like all the original Trekkie fans did back in the day. This will allow you to follow along as they did and get a similar experience. While the timeline does jump around, ( Star Trek: Discovery , for example, is set at the end of the 32nd century but was released before Star Trek: Picard , which is set in the 24th century), it gives you a more complete picture. 

Because the Star Trek franchise involves movies and TV series that take place at different times, another option is to watch everything in chronological order. This means you get to start with something a little bit more modern, but the one problem with this is that references will often be made to films you've not yet seen, which could make certain elements difficult to follow. 

To be honest, just like we recommend in our guide to how to watch the Star Wars movies in order , it really is a matter of personal preference. As long as you have one of the best TVs , you'll find you enjoy this franchise no matter what order you decide to watch it in.

So, without further ado, here's how to watch Star Trek in order - based on release date and in-universe continuity...

Star Trek TV shows and movies in chronological order

This is probably the list you're looking for if you're trying to figure out how to watch Star Trek in order. It's where things get really interesting, as Star Trek movies and TV shows have a habit of jumping around the franchise's chronology with sequels, prequels and bits in between. There are even two distinct timelines – but don't worry, we'll explain all that.

The original ‘Prime’ timeline was started by the Original Series, the Next Generation-era TV shows, and the first ten movies, The alternative ‘Kelvin’ timeline, meanwhile, was created in JJ Abrams’ first Star Trek (2009) to allow the familiar Enterprise crew of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov to have new adventures without contradicting canon . To avoid confusion, we've defined the two timelines as separate entities below.

This list doesn't, however, include all of the brief Short Treks – short stories which are mostly set around the Star Trek: Discovery era – and adventures where Starfleet crews time-travelled to the eras before any of the shows/movies are set (eg visits to 1986 in The Voyage Home and 2063 in First Contact). We've also left out upcoming Discovery spin-off Star Trek: Section 31 , since it's not yet in production. (Also, we're not entirely sure exactly when it'll be set.)

Let's start with everything in one big list. 

• Star Trek: Enterprise (seasons 1-4)
• ‘The Cage’
• Star Trek: Discovery (seasons 1-2)
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
• Star Trek: The Original Series  (seasons 1-3)
• Star Trek: The Animated Series 
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture 
• Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan 
• Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock 
• Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home 
• Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier 
• Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country 
• Star Trek: Generations (opening sequence)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (seasons 1-5)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (seasons 6-7), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (seasons 1-2)
• Star Trek: Generations
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (seasons 3-4), Star Trek: Voyager (seasons 1-2)
• Star Trek: First Contact 
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (seasons 5-6), Star Trek: Voyager (seasons 3-4)
• Star Trek: Insurrection 
• S tar Trek: Deep Space Nine (season 7), Star Trek: Voyager (season 5)
• Star Trek: Voyager (seasons 6-7)
• Star Trek: Nemesis 
• Star Trek: Lower Decks
• Star Trek: Prodigy
• Star Trek (2009) – Prime timeline sequences
• Star Trek: Picard
• Star Trek: Discovery (season 3-)
• Short Treks: 'Calypso'

If you watch in the order given above, you'll get a continuous ‘history’ of the 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 32nd centuries according to the Star Trek timeline. That said, you will notice some odd discrepancies – thanks to the time in which respective shows were made, the technology in prequel show Star Trek: Discovery is significantly more advanced than what Kirk and Spock used in the Original Series.

Below, we'll explain how the different eras of the shows and movies break down for context. 

Note that Gene Roddenberry's original pre-Kirk Star Trek pilot, 'The Cage', is counted as an instalment of the Original Series. You'll usually find it listed as a bonus episode as part of season one when you're watching it on streaming services.

Star Trek: Enterprise era (22nd century) Begins and ends with: Star Trek Enterprise seasons 1-4

About a century before James T Kirk and his crew embark on their famous five-year mission in Star Trek: The Original Series, Captain Jonathan Archer leads Earth's first steps into the wider universe.

Star Trek: The Original Series era (23rd century) Begins with: 'The Cage' Ends with: Star Trek: Generations (opening sequence)

For many this is the most familiar era of Star Trek, since it involves Kirk, Spock and the classic Enterprise crew.  

This section of the Trek timeline kicks off with the original unaired Star Trek pilot, 'The Cage' . Next up in franchise chronology are the first two seasons of Star Trek: Discovery , which work as a prequel to the Original Series (they even feature a younger version of Spock), but it's all change in season 3 – the events of the season 2 finale send the crew into the distant future of the 32nd century. More on that later...

Upcoming spin-off Strange New Worlds will follow the adventures of Captain Pike, Number One and Spock on the Enterprise after the USS Discovery travelled to the future. And at some point after that, Captain James T Kirk will take command of Starfleet's most famous ship – a role he filled throughout The Original Series , The Animated Series and the first six Star Trek movies ( Star Trek: The Motion Picture , The Wrath of Khan , The Search for Spock , The Voyage Home , The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country ).

The latest point we've seen (so far) in the 23rd century era is James T Kirk being taken away by the Nexus ribbon in the prologue of Star Trek: Generations . This is the event that allows Kirk to meet Picard when the Next Generation crew take on the mantle of headlining the big screen franchise.

Star Trek: The Next Generation era (24th century) Begins with: Star Trek: The Next Generation Ends with: Star Trek (2009) – Prime timeline sequences

The richest, most complicated period in Star Trek chronology. During The Next Generation era, Star Trek was experimenting with the idea of a shared universe years before Marvel got in on the act, with three TV shows (TNG, Deep Space Nine and Voyager ) and four movies ( Generations , First Contact , Insurrection and Nemesis ) interweaving through the same timeline – Voyager's Captain Kathryn Janeway even shows up in Star Trek: Nemesis as a newly promoted admiral.

New animated comedy spin-off Lower Decks is set a year after Picard and the Next Generation crew's final mission in Star Trek: Nemesis, while Nickelodeon kids' cartoon Star Trek: Prodigy will see Kate Mulgrew reprising her role as Voyager's captain, Kathryn Janeway. That suggests it will presumably be set at a similar point in the Star Trek timeline.

In JJ Abrams' first Star Trek movie (2009), the destruction of Romulus and Spock Prime's accidental trip back to the pre-Original Series era (in the Kelvin timeline) also take place after the events of Nemesis.

In the list above, we've shown how the movies (roughly) fit into the chronology of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. 

Picard era (turn of the 25th century) Begins with: Picard Ends with: ???

Aside from glimpses of the destruction of Romulus in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Picard gives us our first post-Star Trek: Nemesis look at what the United Federation of Planets has become. 

Since we last saw Jean-Luc Picard, he's retired to his vineyard in France, an android uprising on Mars has led to a ban on all synthetic life, and a disabled Borg Cube (known simply as the 'Artifact') is being mined for technology.

Distant future (32nd century) Begins with : Star Trek: Discovery season 2 (finale) Ends with: ???

In order to save the galaxy, the brave crew of the USS Discovery set off on a one-way mission 900 years into the future in Star Trek: Discovery 's season 2 finale. Their 32nd century destination is new territory for Star Trek – thanks to the mysterious 'Burn', most of the dilithium in the galaxy has been destroyed, making warp travel impossible. As a result, the Federation is a shadow of its former self – even Earth has decided to go it alone.

This isn't, however, the furthest Star Trek has ventured into the future – Short Trek ' Calypso ' is set on the Discovery in a distant future where the ship's computer has become sentient.

Star Trek's alternate 'Kelvin' timeline explained

In 2009's Star Trek movie directed by JJ Abrams, Spock Prime tries to save Romulus from a supernova, inadvertently creates a black hole while doing so, and gets pulled into the past, along with Romulan mining vessel the Narada. Once there, the Narada attacks the USS Kelvin on the day James T Kirk is born. The ship is destroyed as Kirk's father, George, sacrifices himself to save the rest of the crew. 

When all that happens, the alternative ‘Kelvin’ timeline is created, with events unfolding in parallel (but with remarkable similarity) to the original Prime timeline.

Got all that? There are just three movies set in the Kelvin timeline:

• Star Trek (2009)
• Star Trek into Darkness
• Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek TV shows and movies in release date order

• Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-1969)
• Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974)
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
• Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
• Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock (1984)
• Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (1986)
• ‘The Cage’ (previously unavailable Star Trek pilot from 1965, given VHS release in 1986)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
• Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier (1989)
• Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)
• Star Trek: Generations (1994)
• Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) 
• Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
• Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
• Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005)
• Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
• Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
• Star Trek Beyond (2016)
• Star Trek: Discovery (2017-)
• Short Treks (2018-2020)
• Star Trek: Picard (2020-)
• Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020-)
• Star Trek: Prodigy (2021, TBC)
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (TBC)

Considering The Original Series was cancelled after just three seasons in 1969, it's remarkable that Star Trek is still around half a century later. But as the show's popularity grew in syndication on US TV, Trek fandom became a big enough force for the five-year mission to resume via Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1973. Most of the original cast – with the notable exception of Walter Koenig (Chekov) – were enticed back to voice their characters. 

Then, helped by Star Wars turning sci-fi into the hottest genre in Hollywood, Star Trek beamed onto the big screen with 1979's The Motion Picture . The original crew headed up five more movies ( The Wrath of Khan , The Search for Spock , The Voyage Home , The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country ) before bowing out in 1991. The ’80s also gave the world a hint of the Star Trek that never was when 'The Cage' , the original unaired pilot, was released on VHS in 1986 (it appeared on TV two years later). Of the pilot crew, only Leonard Nimoy's Spock went on to reprise his role in the TV show, though footage from 'The Cage' was used extensively in the Original Series’ only two-parter, 'The Menagerie'. 

While the Enterprise was making it big in cinemas, the franchise returned to its TV roots in 1987 with The Next Generation . Set over 70 years after Kirk and Spock's final mission, it featured a new crew – led by Captain Jean-Luc Picard – on board a new starship Enterprise. The Next Generation was arguably even more successful than the Original Series, spawning two spin-off series: Deep Space Nine (which began in 1993) played with the Trek format by focusing on a space station, while Voyager (1995) dumped its crew on the other side of the galaxy, hundreds of light years from home. 

The Next Generation crew also fronted four movies of their own ( Generations , First Contact , Insurrection and Nemesis ) between 1995 and 2002.

After Voyager came to an end in 2001, Star Trek left the Next Generation era behind, and went in a completely different direction – Star Trek: Enterprise was a prequel set a century before Kirk and Spock's adventures. Enterprise lasted only four seasons, however (The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager all made it to seven), and was canceled in 2005.

These were also dark times for the movie branch of the Trek franchise, as the disappointing box office performance of Nemesis had put the film saga on hiatus – it wasn't until 2009 that Star Trek warped back onto the big screen. 

Future Star Wars: The Force Awakens director JJ Abrams (already hot property as director of Mission: Impossible 3 and co-creator of Lost) gave the franchise an action blockbuster makeover, recasting Kirk, Spock and the rest of the original crew as rookies on their first mission. The reboot, simply titled Star Trek , made more than twice as much at the box office as any of its predecessors, and two sequels ( Star Trek into Darkness , Star Trek Beyond ) followed. 

Star Trek belatedly returned to TV in 2017 with Star Trek: Discovery . Set a decade before the Original Series, it was a darker, more serialized Trek than we’d seen before – more in tune with the prestige shows of the so-called Golden Age of TV. As it’s turned out, it was just the beginning of Star Trek's renewed assault on TV...

A series of brief Short Treks appeared online ahead of Discovery's second season, while The Next Generation follow-up Star Trek: Picard left spacedock in January 2020. Animated series Lower Decks followed in August 2020, and Discovery spin-off Strange New Worlds – featuring Anson Mount's Captain Pike, Rebecca Romijn's Number One and Ethan Peck's Spock on the pre-Kirk Enterprise – is now in production. 

There's also another cartoon offering heading for the Alpha Quadrant, in the form of animated kids show Star Trek: Prodigy.

And there's potentially even more to come, as the much-talked about Michelle Yeoh vehicle Section 31 is still in development. But with Paramount Plus programming boss Julie McNamara telling Variety that the streaming service's current aim is to debut "a new Trek every quarter", we may have to wait for Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks and/or Strange New Worlds to stand aside before we get a new TV iteration of Trek.

To keep things simple, all the shows above are listed by the date their first episode aired. While the chronology does jump around if you watch Star Trek in order of release date, there are some benefits. For example, the prequel shows assume a fair bit of knowledge of earlier series, like the Borg's appearance in Star Trek: Enterprise episode 'Regeneration', or Star Trek: Discovery's revelations about the ultimate fate of Christopher Pike (the Enterprise captain in 'The Cage', who later shows up in 'The Menagerie'). Moments like that undoubtedly make more sense in the context of later events in the Star Trek timeline. 

How to stream Star Trek TV shows and movies

If you just want to know how to stream the 13 Star Trek movies and eight TV shows in the US and the UK, we've laid it out below. 

In the US, the newly rebranded Paramount Plus (formerly CBS All Access) is definitely the place to go, with every TV show available to watch. In the UK, Netflix hosts all the Star Trek series except for Picard and Lower Decks.

Watching the 13 Trek movies is a rather more complex affair, with the films spread across numerous streaming services in the US and UK – and some of them you'll have to pay to rent/buy.

The TV shows

• Star Trek: The Original Series ( US: Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime Video UK: Netflix)
• Star Trek: The Animated Series ( US: Paramount Plus UK: Netflix)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation ( US: Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime Video UK: Netflix)
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ( US: Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime Video UK: Netflix)
• Star Trek: Voyager ( US: Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime Video UK: Netflix)
• Star Trek: Enterprise ( US: Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime Video UK: Netflix)
• Star Trek: Discovery ( US: Paramount Plus UK: Netflix)
• Star Trek: Picard ( US: Paramount Plus UK: Amazon Prime Video)
• Star Trek: Lower Decks (US: Paramount Plus US: Amazon Prime Video)
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture ( US: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu UK: Only available to rent/buy)
• Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan ( US: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu UK: Sky Cinema/Now TV)
• Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock ( US: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu UK: Sky Cinema/Now TV)
• Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home ( US: Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime Video UK: Sky Cinema/Now TV)
• Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier ( US: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu UK: Only available to rent/buy)
• Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country ( US: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu UK: Only available to rent/buy)
• Star Trek: Generations ( US: Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime Video UK: Sky Cinema/Now TV)
• Star Trek: First Contact ( US: Paramount Plus UK: Only available to rent/buy)
• Star Trek: Insurrection ( US: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu UK: Only available to rent/buy)
• Star Trek: Nemesis ( US: Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime Video UK: Only available to rent/buy)
• Star Trek 2009 ( US: DirectTV UK: Sky Cinema/Now TV)
• Star Trek Into Darkness ( US : FX Now UK: Amazon Prime Video)
• Star Trek Beyond ( US: Amazon Prime, Hulu UK: Amazon Prime Video)

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Richard is a freelance journalist specialising in movies and TV, primarily of the sci-fi and fantasy variety. An early encounter with a certain galaxy far, far away started a lifelong love affair with outer space, and these days Richard's happiest geeking out about Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel and other long-running pop culture franchises. In a previous life he was editor of legendary sci-fi and fantasy magazine SFX, where he got to interview many of the biggest names in the business – though he'll always have a soft spot for Jeff Goldblum who (somewhat bizarrely) thought Richard's name was Winter.

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Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order

As a media phenomenon, "Star Trek" began on September 8, 1966 with the airing of "The Man Trap" (the sixth episode in production order, but the first aired). Originally, the show's writers, including creator Gene Roddenberry, used the concept of "stardates" to ensure the show's actual timeline was left vague; for several episodes, all audiences knew was that "Trek" was set in the future and that the future was a pretty keen place. It wouldn't be until the episode "The Naked Time" (seventh episode produced, fourth aired, first aired on September 29, 1966) that the Gregorian year would be mentioned out loud, and an actual timeline could begin to be constructed. 

Since then, "Star Trek" has extrapolated an extensive, centuries long timeline of events, often skipping merrily back and forth through the centuries, adding more and more to the franchises complex chronology. The chronology of "Star Trek" is so complicated that entire books have been published tracking the various shows' and films' events. Because of the constant production of new "Star Trek," these books became dated immediately. 

" Star Trek: Strange New Worlds " is set to debut on Paramount+ on May 5, and it is set immediately before the events of the original "Star Trek," making it the third "prequel" series to the original. To keep matters as clear as possible, here is a (very brief, by the standards of "Trek") rundown of "Star Trek" chronology from within its own canon. 

NOTE : This list will not necessarily include single episodes wherein characters go back in time, but give an overall timeframe for each individual film and TV show.

1986: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Although beginning and ending within the proper chronology of the "Star Trek" future, Leonard Nimoy's 1986 feature film " Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home " is set largely in the earliest point in the franchise's timeline (again, excluding single time travel episodes of any given TV series, wherein Mark Twain, the 1950s, and other eras are regularly visited). In the film, the crew of the Enterprise must go back in time to rescue a pair of humpback whales from extinction in order to appease an enormous, inscrutable space monolith that has been draining future Earth of its oceans, looking for its own kind. 

The bulk of "Voyage Home" takes place in 1986, and the film gained a lot of critical and audience attention for its fish-out-of-water humor and light tone; the previous three films had been comparatively dour, downbeat, or cerebral.

2024: Star Trek: Picard (Season 2)

As of this writing, the second season of "Star Trek: Picard" is still being released weekly on Paramount+, so the ultimate conclusion of the story is as yet unknown. 

What is known is that the trickster god Q (John De Lancie), a playful villain from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," visited an elderly Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) to warn him of a parallel universe. In this parallel universe, Earth is a genocidal conqueror race that has wiped out most life in the galaxy. Picard must travel back in time, paralleling the story of "Voyage Home" in order to stop the fascist timeline from starting. Thanks to the limited information they have, they travel to the year 2024, and the bulk of the season's action takes place there. 

A bit of a continuity error already: In previously mentioned "Trek" canon, the Eugenics Wars — the conflagration that wrought Khan from "Star Trek II" — should have already happened by 2024 (I believe the original date for the Eugenics Wars was 1997), but, in "Picard," they had clearly been delayed. One of the subplots of the second season of "Picard,' however, involves a malevolent genetic engineer, so it looks like the Eugenics Wars may finally be nigh.

2063: Star Trek: First Contact

Although never directly filmed, there are constant references throughout "Star Trek" to World War III, an event that left the entire planet devastated. Despite destitution and technological ruin, an inventor named Zefram Cochran managed to invent an engine that allowed humanity to travel faster than light. This technology, when being tested for the first time in the solar system, attracted the attention of some Vulcans who just happened to be passing by. This was the First Contact mentioned in the title of the 1996 film " Star Trek: First Contact ." 

In that film, the characters from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" travel back in time to foil a plot by a malevolent species of cyborgs called The Borg, and find themselves in the year A.D. 2063 where they could witness First Contact themselves. This was the event that essentially kicked off creator Gene Roddenberry's vision of a peaceful future. In meeting intelligent space aliens, a hobbled humanity learned that war was churlish, and that unity as a species was preferable in the face of a suddenly occupied cosmos. 

"First Contact" is essentially the "Star Trek" origin story.

2151 - 2155: Star Trek: Enterprise

After first talking to Vulcans, humans were eager to take to the stars and join the galactic community. The conceit of the 2001 TV series " Star Trek: Enterpris e" (originally just called "Enterprise") was that the Vulcans, seeing how illogical and roughhewn humanity still was, encouraged them to stay on Earth for nearly a century before actually taking to the stars. In that century, humanity rebuilt, formed a Starfleet, and constructed its very first long-mission starship, the U.S.S. Enterprise NX-01. The show is about the adventures of the very first humans in space, circa A.D. 2151.

"Enterprise" took place before a lot of established "Trek" tech had been invented. There were transporters, but they weren't entirely safe for use on humans. There were no shields around the ship. There were no food replicators, and the Enterprise required a galley. Most notably, there wasn't a Prime Directive yet, so a lot of mistakes are bound to be made. It wouldn't be until 2161 — according to ancillary revelations — that the Federation would be formed. 

2254: The Cage

The unused "Star Trek" pilot has probably gained more canonical traction than any other unused footage from any other work of filmed fiction. "The Cage" didn't air in its complete form until 1986, 20 years after its making. Previously, footage from "The Cage" was incorporated into a two-part "Star Trek" episode called "The Menagerie" (November of 1966). 

In the pilot, we first meet Capt. Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) and his ship the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701. We were first introduced to Spock as well, although Spock would be the only character carried over into the second pilot that was eventually used. Majel Barrett played the Enterprise's first officer in "The Cage," and she would go on to play multiple other roles throughout "Star Trek," including Nurse Chapel, M'Ress, Lwaxana Troi, and the voice of the ship's computer. 

The events of "The Cage" would also be revisited in the second season of "Star Trek: Discovery."

2256 - 2258: Star Trek: Discovery (seasons 1 and 2)

Another cataclysm that had been mentioned multiple times throughout "Star Trek" was a war between the Klingons and the Federation. The first season of "Star Trek: Discovery," which debuted on CBS All Access (now Paramount+) in November of 2017, dramatized those events explicitly, as seen through the eyes of the U.S.S. Discovery. This new ship was a science vessel that had figured out a way to tap into a galaxy-wide network of near-undetectable, microscopic spores into order to teleport anywhere in the galaxy instantaneously. 

After surviving the Klingon war, the Discovery teamed up with the U.S.S. Enterprise while it was still being captained by Christopher Pike (now played by Anson Mount), putting the events of "Discovery" immediately after the original pilot. There were a lot — and I mean a LOT — of narrative excuses as to why the high-tech Discovery (realized with late-2010s special effects) didn't match the boxier, monochromatic world of "The Cage." 

The show's writers also needed to come up with an organic reason why a ship that can teleport — a technology that would have fundamentally changed the world of "Star Trek" — was never mentioned in any of the "Trek" shows made from 1966 until 2017. As such, at the end of the second season of "Discovery," the ship was thrown almost 1,000 years into the future in order to outrun an insidious computer intelligence that would spread throughout the galaxy if knowledge of it was passed around. As such, the Discovery more or less deleted itself from existence. As panicked, narrative ass-saving measures go, it's a 7.

2258: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

The appearance of Capt. Pike on "Discovery" was so well-received that Paramount+ elected to go back to the Enterprise, bring back the characters from "The Cage," lump in a few familiar faces from the 1966 "Star Trek," and make " Strange New Worlds ," a series that takes place only eight years prior to the events of the original TV series. 

"Strange New Worlds" brings back Anson Mount as Pike, as well as a young Spock, a very young Uhura, a young Nurse Chapel, one of Khan's ancestors, and Dr. M'Benga, who showed up in a few episodes if the 1966 show. It also, notably, will not have season-long story arcs, but a single-hour episodic structure, standing in contrast with most of the other Paramount+-era "Star Treks," with "Lower Decks" being the proud exception.

2258 (KELVIN): Star Trek (2009)

Thanks to "Star Trek," the notion of parallel universes is quite well-known to the public. Incidentally, it's been quite odd watching the films and TV shows in the Marvel universe slow-walk the notion of a multiverse over the course of multiple installments when we've already seen Spock with a goatee. 

Thanks to complicated studio politics, there was a split in Paramount in the mid-2000s, and the Paramount side of the schism — when wanting to make a new "Star Trek" feature film — was legally required to make something distinguishable from the TV shows. Enter J.J. Abrams and his 2009 feature film " Star Trek " which takes place at the same time as "Strange New Worlds," but in a parallel universe where the characters from the 1966 show now look like a new cast, the Enterprise looks brighter and sleeker, and everything is more intense and action-packed. 

This new timeline would be created when a villain went back in time interfered with James T. Kirk right when he was born.

2259 (KELVIN): Star Trek Into Darkness

Although taking place far before the events of 1982's "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," J.J. Abrams' " Star Trek Into Darkness " (2013) drew a lot of story parallels to the Nicholas Meyer film. Taking place almost immediately after the 2009 film, "Into Darkness" involved the character of Khan who, in the timeline of the 1966 series, wouldn't be resurrected from cryogenic sleep for a few years hence. In "Into Darkness," he was awakened early, became involved in a plot to smuggle other cryogenically frozen compatriots. 

Originally, the Eugenics Wars were meant to have started in the 1990s, but — as "Star Trek" persisted, and the '90s came and went in the real world — that timeline had to be altered several times. The timeline of the Eugenics Wars in "Into Darkness" are a little unclear. As we saw above in "Star Trek: Picard," we know that they'll now take place sometime after 2024.

2263 (KELVIN): Star Trek Beyond

In Justin Lin's " Star Trek Beyond " (2016), Kirk (Chris Pine) laments that his adventures have already become episodic. It's unusual that the 2009 film and the 2013 sequel are essentially origin stories about the young Kirk coming into his own, and "Beyond" skips ahead to the point where he's already tired of being on "Star Trek." We missed the actual "five year mission" part!

Another interesting wrinkle in "Beyond" is that it alludes to a time somewhere after "Star Trek: Enterprise": The evil Kroll (Idris Elba) was, in fact, a human captain named Edison who led his own starship in the "Enterprise" era. Before the film, he was mutated into an evil alien. "Beyond," in explicitly mentioning the Xindi wars and other events from "Enterprise," anchors the Kelvin films a little more solidly into the "Trek" timeline.

2265 - 2269: Star Trek

After "The Cage" was abandoned by Paramount, the studio and Gene Roddenberry reworked the show into the 1966 program we all know and love. As mentioned, Spock was the only character carried over from the original pilot, and "Star Trek" now featured William Shatner as Captain Kirk and a host of new characters besides. "Star Trek" began as a horror show — there are many monsters and scare moments in the first season — eventually tackling ethical issues in a sci-fi fantasy context. 

"Star Trek" ran for three seasons, ending its initial run on June 3, 1969. Thanks to the gods of syndication, "Star Trek" would remain in reruns for the following decade, building up interest, spawning Trek conventions, and allowing the show to grow into a full-blown cultural phenomenon.

2269 - 2270: Star Trek: The Animated Series

In the opening credits of " Star Trek ," Shatner brazenly informed the audiences that the U.S.S. Enterprise was on a five-year mission. Given that the show was canned after only three years, there was more mission left to witness. In 1973, Roddenberry teamed up with Filmation to make an animated "Star Trek" series that would, by dint of its two seasons, ostensibly complete the five-year mission. Chekov (Walter Koenig) was absent from this show, but other unusual aliens took his place, including a cat woman named M'Ress and Mr. Aryx, a being with three arms. The animated format allowed for wilder ideas, aliens, and ships to be employed, and there are stories featuring flying serpents, aliens made of plants, an undersea episode, and a story with a 50-foot Spock. 

This 1973 version of "Star Trek," in only running 30 minutes per episode, cut out a lot of extraneous character moments from the traditional "Trek" structure, and got straight to the story. It's a far more efficient show than the 1966 program, and it has a passionate following of fans. 

2273: Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The decade of syndication, "Trek" conventions, and the financial success of George Lucas' sci-fi serial epic " Star Wars " in 1977 led Paramount to start thinking about restarting "Star Trek" on TV. A project was put into production that was to be called "Star Trek Phase II," and would have reunited several familiar "Trek" characters as well as introduce some new ones. For various reasons, "Phase II" was abandoned and elements of it were transformed into what would become the 1979 theatrical release " Star Trek: The Motion Picture ."

If all you had prior to "The Motion Picture" was a failed, low-budget TV show and a little-regarded animated series, this movie would feel grand in ways that you couldn't previously imagine. A lot of time was devoted to the size of the Enterprise, the importance of the characters, and mind-bending notions about the unending vastness of the cosmos. Here was a "Star Trek" film that is often compared to 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey." Good gracious was it enormous. 

"The Motion Picture" was successful enough to warrant a sequel, but not so successful that Roddenberry was welcomed back. Remember that detail when we get to "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

2285: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

2285 was a significant year. In the events of Nicholas Meyer's "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982), a thawed out Khan — the version played by Ricardo Montalbán from the 1967 "Star Trek" episode "The Space Seed," not the version played by Benedict Cumberbatch in "Star Trek Into Darkness" — hijacked a starship called the U.S.S. Reliant and set out on a mission of revenge against Admiral Kirk. The good admiral, we find, had forgotten about a lot of irresponsible actions taken in his past and had to face them head on just as he was looking down the barrel of old age. "Star Trek II" didn't end well for Kirk or for Spock. In that film, Spock famously dies. 

Not wasting any time, however, Kirk and co. sprang back into action in Leonard Nimoy's " Star Trek III: The Search for Spock " (1984), which picks up immediately after "Khan" ended. Thanks to the fineries of Vulcan psychic powers, and a high tech radiation wave that can generate life out of nothing, Spock could potentially be resurrected, and Kirk hijacks the Enterprise in order to help a friend. In so doing, Kirk destroys the ship, rouses the ire of some Klingons, loses his son (killed by said Klingons), and possibly destroys his career in Starfleet. Oops. 

Perhaps one of the reasons "Star Trek IV" (which began in 2286) was so popular was that it was the first "Trek" film to end on a wholly positive note. 

2287: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Often cited as the worst of the "Trek" movies, William Shatner's "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" (1989) starts with a promising concept, but was undone by a bad script hastily written during a strike, and a repeatedly cut FX budget. The film ultimately feels flimsy and ill-considered, not able to truly confront the interesting ideas it brings up. Shatner has apologized for the poor quality of his film, which was fraught with production troubles.

In "Frontier," a newly-built Enterprise is hijacked by Spock's half-brother Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill), who is leading a cult of brainwashed followers, freed from pain by their leader's psychic powers. He seeks a mysterious planet at the center of the galaxy where he believes God physically lives. The final frontier of the title is not space, but the soul, religion, or spirituality. Many "Trek" purists will point out that seeking the center of the galaxy, and finding a deity there, is similar to an Animated Series episode called "The Magicks of Megas-Tu," wherein Kirk found the planet at the center of the galaxy is actually home to Satan. 

Note : "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" is far better than "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier."

2293: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Made after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nicholas Meyer's " Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country " (1991) was very clearly a metaphor for the end of the Cold War. In it, the Klingon Empire is crippled by the accidental explosion of one of their moons, leaving the entire government requiring Federation help. "Country" is about how difficult it is to give up being enemies, especially when so much of one's identity is tied in with hate. There's an assassination, a investigation, a trial, a prison break ... It's one of the best "Trek" movies. 

One might glean from the title of the previous film in the series that the entire Kirk era was meant to end with "The Final Frontier." One might also glean that the poor reception and bad box office of "Final Frontier" led to one last go 'round. Fans may be relieved that the final feature film in the Kirk era was actually, y'know, a good one.

2364 - 2370: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Throughout the 1970s, Gene Roddenberry made tours on the convention circuit, talking about his vision for "Star Trek," and interacting with fans who were inspired by the peace, diplomacy, and calm that "Star Trek" has written into its DNA. Looking back over the 1966 show, notions of optimism and diplomacy are present, but they are mixed in with a lot of violence, sexism, and other now-backward ideas. After Roddenberry was essentially barred from involvement on the "Star Trek" feature films, he decided to make a purer, better version of his old show, set another 80 years in the future, and even more devoted to intelligence and diplomacy than ever before. Hence, 1987's " Star Trek: The Next Generation ." 

Taking place on a new ship, the Enterprise NCC-1701-D, and featuring an all new cast, the update of "Star Trek" started a little clumsily, but eventually found its stride to become the best "Star Trek" has offered to date. The tech was more convincing than it ever was, and it featured professional, adult characters who deal with crises with stiff upper lips. More so, it more frequently addressed questions about the meaning of life that humanity will always, it seems, wrestle with.

"Next Generation" last for seven full seasons, and its characters ended up occupying just as large a place in the pop consciousness as the characters from the 1966 TV series. 

Yes, "Next Generation" went back in time several times.

In terms of chronology, "Next Generation" overlapped with...

2369 - 2375: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

" Deep Space Nine " (1993 – 1999) was an unusual animal in many ways. It was the first time two "Star Trek" shows would run concurrently, and would take place over the same time frame (Picard from "Next Generation" appeared in the show's pilot). It was not about trekking at all, as it took place aboard a space station. It was also not set in the world of the Federation, often revolving alien species who were not offered protection from the organization. It was a show of healing and animosity. Of war and death. It started with an ensemble of seven or eight people, and eventually expanded to include about 30 main characters. "Deep Space Nine" is "Star Trek" via a Russian historical novel. 

When taken as a unit, "Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine," both excellent in their own rights, become a complementary mass that is greater than their sum. The strength of diplomacy vs. its breakdown. The avoidance of war vs. the involvement in it. The absence of fascism vs. its inevitable regrowth. 

Yes, "Deep Space Nine" went back in time several times. 

"Deep Space Nine's" chronology would overlap with "Star Trek: Voyager," as well as with...

2371: Star Trek: Generations

The 1994 feature film " Star Trek: Generations " was a strange excursion. Although "Next Generation" had already run for seven years, "Generations" was still insistent on "passing the torch" from Kirk to Picard, and it bent over backwards to create the means by which Kirk and Picard, separated by 87 years of history, could meet face-to-face. It was the fan crossover no Trekkie wanted. As such, "Generations" is a flimsy affair, speeding through a ridiculous plot about a mobile temporal nexus that serves as Heaven for the people it scoops up along its path. 

Trekkies were even-headed enough to realize that Kirk and Picard weren't meant to meet, and that "Next Generation" was its own entity. The decision to aggressively tie the two shows even more closely together was just baffling. 

Notable too: The Enterprise-D was destroyed in "Generations," and would be replaced by a big ol' ugly thing for three additional feature films.

2371 - 2378: Star Trek: Voyager

" Star Trek: Voyager " debuted in 1995 and ran concurrently with "Deep Space Nine" both on television and within the chronology of "Star Trek." To cleverly avoid any interference between the two shows, however — "Deep Space Nine" would eventually become embroiled in a galaxy-spanning war — "Voyager" was given a "Lost in Space"-style premise wherein the title ship was thrown all the way across the galaxy to a portion of space that has never been explored by Starfleet, and could otherwise only be reached by 70 years of space travel. 

While the premise would perhaps lead a viewer to believe that "Voyager" was going to be about resource allocation and survival, it quickly became more about the Borg, a character played by actress Jeri Ryan, and Captain Janeway's (Kate Mulgrew) steady slide into autocracy. 

"Voyager" struggled with ratings for years, but still managed to last seven seasons like "Next Gen" and "Deep Space" before it. The final episode of "Voyager," a time travel story called " Endgame ," would air in March of 2001.

2375: Star Trek: Insurrection

While "Voyager" and "Deep Space Nine" were running concurrently on television, the "Next Generation" crew were yukking it up in the overwhelmingly mediocre 1998 Jonathan Frakes film " Star Trek: Insurrection ." Like "The Final Frontier," "Insurrection" can be seen straining against the limits of its budget, with bad CGI, bland costumes, and locations clearly found in the California mountains. The cheapness of "Star Trek" has often served as a boon for its story, forcing writers to insert interesting and challenging ideas into their plywood sets. "Insurrection" has no such ideas, asking the ethical question of forced relocation, but never feeling threatening, and offering a magical curative radiation that would require study and collection. 

Although one can admit this: "Insurrection" captures the tone of the "Next Generation" TV series far better than any of the other movies in this part of the series. It's a pity, though, that after the grand finale of "Next Generation," we find ourselves with suck lackluster films. 

Speaking of lackluster films ...

2379: Star Trek: Nemesis

Released in 2002, Stuart Baird's " Star Trek: Nemesis " was poised to be the final gasp for "Star Trek." "Enterprise" was already taking the franchise in a new direction, and the "NextGen" cast was clearly too tired to handle a continued barrage of poorly planned action movies, and thrillers that didn't resemble the show they were inspired by. "Nemesis" is dark and action-packed and violent and takes a lot of structural cues from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." 

In it, Tom Hardy plays a character named Shinzon who is, in fact, a clone of Captain Picard, grown in a Romulan lab, and eventually discarded into a Romulan mine. Shinzon escaped the mine, built an army, and is poised to take a giant death ship into Federation space to revenge all over people. "Nemesis" is also the film in which Data (Brent Spiner) dies, and Captain Picard drives a dune buggy. 

The sentiment of the time was reminiscent of T.S. Eliot's " The Hollow Men ." This is the way "Next Gen" ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Worry not. There will be further whimpers for the NextGen crew.

2380 - ?: Star Trek: Lower Decks

Named after a seventh season episode of "Next Generation," and taking place in line with the end of "Nemesis" and "Voyager," " Star Trek: Lower Decks " debuted on Paramount+ in 2020 as part of a slew of "Star Trek"-related indicia that the company was desperate to exploit. And while the all-your-eggs-in-one basket approach to TV production affected by Paramount led to stinkers like "Discovery" and "Picard," it did lead to this surprisingly good animated program. 

One of the more appealing aspects of "Star Trek" is that it's essentially a series of workplace shows. The characters are typically vocation-forward, and take their duty to their ship very seriously. Where a "Star Trek" character works speaks powerfully to who they are. "Lower Decks" follows the people who have the worst possible jobs on a Starfleet vessel, often tasked with cleaning holodecks, sanitizing floors, and arranging widgets for the senior staff. It's rough going for ensigns. They sleep in the hallway and are typically not deemed important enough to include on more exciting missions. What's more, the central ship on "Lower Decks" is a tiny, crappy ship with substandard tech. Surely such jobs would exist in "Star Trek." 

"Lower Decks" is eager to make "Trek" references, and is clearly made by people who understand "Trek's" ethos, but who still have a raunchy sense of humor. The future is here. And it's still crappy for those on the bottom. 

2383: Star Trek: Prodigy

Produced under the auspices of Nickelodeon, " Star Trek: Prodigy " (2021) was the first Trek series to be made explicitly with a younger audience in mind. The series follows a ragtag group of alien youths as they flee a prison mine and discover an abandoned Starfleet vessel called the U.S.S. Protostar. On board is an instructional hologram of Captain Janeway from "Voyager," and she teaches the kids how to behave like Starfleet officers, the importance of duty and compassion, and how their trauma does not define them. The design and the creatures are more reminiscent of "Star Wars" than "Star Trek" (the series features an evil emperor and his powerful masked servant, invoking the Emperor and Darth Vader), but it certainly functions as a generic space adventure. The "Star Trek" stuff is mere window dressing. 

It's almost disappointing to include "Prodigy" on this timeline, as one of the show's central mysteries — at least for the first part of its first season, the only part to have aired as of this writing — is when and where it takes place. It was possible that "Prodigy" took place centuries or even millennia beyond the known Trek universe. The last we saw, however, the real Captain Janeway is still alive, giving "Prodigy" a known place in Trek chronology. 

2399: Star Trek: Picard (Season 1)

After nearly 20 years of a world without Picard, Paramount+ convinced Patrick Stewart to reprise his role in a new show named for him. " Star Trek: Picard " debuted on Paramount+ in 2020, taking place further in the future than any other Trek show to date. In the timeline of "Picard," the Federation had become soured by xenophobia and openly discouraged the evacuation of Romulus, historically an enemy world, but now in dire straits after their sun went supernova (something something J.J. Abrams). Picard had left Starfleet in disgust, and had now retired to his winery. 

The story of the first season is too convoluted to get into here, needless to say it involved a Romulan secret society, a planet of androids, a reclaimed Borg cube, and a robot Cthulhu. I'm not kidding. 

It's a pity that "Picard" did not roll with its future setting more, establishing new tech or positive sea changes in the "Trek" universe. Instead, everything is devoted to a chewy, awful story about androids. Indeed, by the end, Picard himself would have his consciousness shunted into an android body. What a snore.

3188 - 3190: Star Trek: Discovery (Seasons 3 and 4)

When last we saw the U.S.S. Discovery, it was being pulled through a time hole into the distant future. In the third and fourth seasons , Discovery's crew learns that they are stranded 930 years from home, and now must rediscover their function as Starfleet officers after the Federation went into hiding. A galaxy-wide disaster — The Burn — spontaneously destroyed millions of starships, and a fierce new criminal enterprise, The Emerald Syndicate, now rules the galaxy.

The 23rd-century ship now has to learn how to use 32nd-century technology. The Discovery was redesigned, and the new mission became to spread diplomacy in a galaxy unready for it. This is the premise, it seems, that Discovery should have started with two years prior. The writing is still rather weak, and the characters are callow and weepy, but "Discovery" does excel in one notable way: Queer representation. Seven of the main cast members are openly queer. After 55 years of a dodgy relationship with queerness, "Discovery" finally nailed it.

I just wish it were a better show.

pop culture

A guide to the 'star trek' movies in order.

Perhaps you've started watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and you're wondering where this whole thing (like the whole thing ) originated from. Maybe you're completely ingrained in the Star Trek universe but want to start all over from the beginning for the hundredth time. Whatever the case may be, you're currently reading this because you plan on watching or re-watching all of the Star Trek movies in order. No worries, we've got you all covered with everything you need to know before you get to it. When you're dealing with franchise that has been around many different decades and has had different iterations things can get a bit tricky.

We're going to break it down the best way we can.

RELATED: How to Watch the Marvel Movies in Chronological Order

How Many Star Trek Movies Are There?

All-in-all, there are thirteen total films in the Star Trek franchise as of this writing. That's the simple version. Now we're really going to break it all down.

Star Trek "Original Series" Movies in Order:

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Star Trek "Next Generation" Movies in Order

• Star Trek Generations (1994)
• Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
• Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
• Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Star Trek "Kelvin Timeline" Movies in Order aka the "New" Star Trek Movies in Order

• Star Trek (2009)
• Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
• Star Trek Beyond (2016)

1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

• Release Date: December 8, 1979
• Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nicholas
• Extra Recommended Viewing:  While it isn't required to watch Star Trek: The Original Series in its entirety before Star Trek: The Motion Picture , seasons one and two in particular can help prepare you for the overall pace of the movie and familiarize yourself with the characters as they are the ones that star in the film.

Ten years prior to the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture , the television series, Star Trek: The Original Series , was cancelled after three seasons. Despite the cancellation, Paramount Pictures had been lobbying for a feature film which originally began development in 1975, but was scrapped in 1977 for another television series that was to be titled Star Trek: Phase II . However, after the success of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounter of the Third Kind in 1977, plans for a feature film were put back into motion since that particular film showed that science-fiction movies could be successful.

Finally, after many years, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released on December 8, 1979, as we just mentioned, it featured the cast from the television series. Adm. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the Starship Enterprise is called upon by the federation to help contain an object that is on a crash course with earth. This object is an alien cloud that is wreaking havoc on everything getting in it's way. Kirk uses his leadership expertise to intercept the cloud, which eventually leads to an alien attack.

We then find out that Voyager aka V'Ger,  a 20th-century Earth space probe previously believed lost in a black hole, was found by an alien race of living machines, learned all the information it could, returned home to report what they discovered, but that nobody knew how to respond to the findings. Some people believe that you can skip this film altogether, but if you want to say that you've watched every single Star Trek , you've gotta get it in.

2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

• Release Date: June 4, 1982
• Extra Recommended Viewing: Similar to the first film, nothing is required to be watched in order to understand the movie. However, if you want to get super nerdy, you can watch "Space Seed" (season 1, episode 22) from the television series as that's when Khan is originally introduced.

Despite the mixed reviews of Star Trek: The Motion Picture , the follow-up Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was released three years later on June 4, 1982. Many consider The Wrath of Khan to be the best Star Trek movie of all time, which makes for a fun debate amongst fans and movie critics. Adm. James T. Kirk and Capt. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) are monitoring trainees at Starfleet Academy when they discover that another vessel from the United Federation of Planets is about to test the planet-creating Genesis Device, which leads to two of Kirk's officers being captured and a showdown.

The Wrath of Khan was a huge box office success, grossing $97 million at the box office along with positive reviews from critics.

3. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

• Release Date: June 1, 1984
• Extra Recommended Viewing: For Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , you will need to watch The Wrath of Khan as this film is a continuation of the events that happened in that movie.

Fast forward two years later, Spock is dead. Or is he? Adm. James T. Kirk succeeded in defeating Khan, but that defeat apparently came with the cost of losing Spock. While investigating  the Genesis planet from aboard the science vessel  Grissom , they discover that Spock has been resurrected, but in the form of a child and that he has lost consciousness. The crew defies orders disables the USS  Excelsior , and steals the  Enterprise in the attempt to retrieve Spock's body. While The Search for Spock did gross $87 million at the box office (which in reality wasn't that much less than its predecessor), the film was still considered a "moderate" success compared The Wrath of Khan .

4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

• Release Date: November 26, 1986
• Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nicholas, Catherine Hicks
• Extra Recommended Viewing: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home completes the arc of The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock , so you will need to watch both in order to understand what's going on.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is another debate starter as it is frequently put up against The Wrath of Khan in terms of which one is better. In it, Adm. James T. Kirk and his crew go back in time to San Francisco in 1986 to retrieve humpback whales — which is the key to communicating with a probe that's dangerously looking for somebody that understands it/them/whatever you want to call it. The plot is inexplicably corny 1980s, but you can't deny its charm as it pulled in $133 million worldwide at the box office, and received four Academy Award nominations for cinematography and sound.

5. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

• Release Date: June 9, 1989
• Extra Recommended Viewing: No required viewing, but it is recommended that you watch the previous films.

Alright, we're going to save you the trouble here — the mark was missed with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier . It has a case for being one of if not the worst Star Trek film of all time. That said, The Final Frontier centers around Sybok, the half brother of Spock, who hijacks the Enterprise in order to meet God, who he also believes is himself. Interesting. We're not going to say skip The Final Frontier completely, but we will say to have proper expectations before you watch.

6. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

• Release Date: December 6, 1991
• Extra Recommended Viewing: While it's recommended you watch the previous films, it should be noted that some have started their Star Trek journey with The Undiscovered Country . You don't have to watch the television series to understand what's going on this film either.

Whenever Star Trek would take a step backward in terms of critical and commercial success, they would always follow it up with a stronger attempt. The Undiscovered Country is a whirlwind journey as Capt. Kirk and the USS Enterprise Crew are carrying Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) to Earth as leverage for a peace treaty with the United Federation of Planets. Their ship gets confused for firing on a Klingon vessel, which kills Gorkon. This leads to Kirk and Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) being arrested for murder as it is thought to be a revenge attempt by Kirk for the Klingons murdering his son. Now it's all left up to Spock to save the day.

7. Star Trek: Generations (1994)

• Release Date: November 18, 1994
• Starring: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn, William Shatner
• Extra Recommended Viewing: It is our recommendation that you watch at least a few episodes of the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series that ran from 1987 to 1994, as the movies are set at the end of series and preceded by the 1994 series finale "All Good Things."

And here begins The Next Generation era of Star Trek . While not as captivating as the prior films, the movie had its own strong points as the Starship Enterprise gets sent to a giant energy field on the verge of engulfing two ships that presumably kills Capt. Kirk. Fast forward several years later, Capt. Picard (Patrick Stewart) learns that one of the survivors, Dr. Soran (Malcolm McDowell), has big plans to enter the field by destroying a neighboring star, and must be stopped. While The Next Generation received mixed reviews, it did gross $118 million at the box office, so it was a good first start to the new generation.

8. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

• Release Date: November 22, 1996
• Starring: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner
• Extra Recommended Viewing: "The Best of Both Worlds" (season 3, episode 26 and season 4, episode 1)

The story behind Star Trek: First Contact goes a little something like this — Paramount Pictures asked writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore to start working on the next film. Braga and Moore wanted to feature the Borg in the storyline, but Rick Berman, the producer, wanted the plot to focus on time travel. The solution? They decided to combine both ideas, pulling references from the two-part episode "The Best of Both Worlds" from Star Trek: The Next Generation , which served as both a season finale for season 3, and a season premiere for season 4.

First Contact features the crew following a Borg ship and traveling back in time to prevent the Borg from taking over the Earth in a past era. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) and a space travel guru (James Cromwell) are stuck trying to create the first time warp, whereas Capt. Picard and mdr. Data (Brent Spiner) are trying to battle the borg queen as she attempts to take over The Enterprise. Fun stuff.

9. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

• Release Date: December 11, 1998
• Extra Recommended Viewing: Any episode from The Next Generation and the previous movies in The Next Generation series.

When a mission to planet Ba'ku gets disrupted by a malfunctioning android named Data (Brent Spiner) taking the cultural task force hostage, Capt. Picard and crew learn that the Federation mission was actually a ploy by the Son'a to remove the inhabitants of Ba'ku. There's also the romance between Troi and Riker that gets rekindled in the process. While some may argue other Star Trek films are more dynamic, we'd argue that Insurrection stands on its own two feet.

10. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

• Release Date: December 13, 2002
• Starring: Patrick Stewart, Stuart Baird, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Tom Hardy
• Extra Recommended Viewing: You could watch the entire Next Generation series and all the prior films before tackling Nemesis , but it also works as a standalone.

The final film of The Next Generation series sees Capt. Picard diverting Enterprise's trip to Cmdr. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Troi's (Marina Sirtis) wedding in order to negotiate a peace treaty with the Romulans. Pre-Bane Tom Hardy takes on the role of Shinzon, the new Praetor of the Romulans, who needs Picard’s blood to survive. The only problem is Shiznon is also trying to destroy the entire Earth and take everyone down with him, so there's that.

11. Star Trek (2009)

• Release Date: May 7, 2009
• Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban
• Extra Recommended Viewing: The 2009 Star Trek essentially restarts the whole series. You can watch it without having seen any of the prior series or movies.

Back to the beginning we go! We get re-introduced to Kirk, Bones, Spock and the rest of the USS Enterprise crew as they are dealing with the villainous Romulan commander Nero (Eric Bana) who's kinda threatening all of mankind. It's up to Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and everybody else to defeat Nero before it's too late. Nothing too complicated here — just a simple plot to introduce newcomers to the franchise.

12. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

• Release Date: May 16, 2013
• Extra Recommended Viewing: Star Trek (2009)

Capt. Kirk gets removed from his commander position by violating the Prime Directive, Admiral Pike replaces him, Spock gets transferred to another ship, and that's just the beginning. Khan is back, but he's actually kind of... somewhat... nice, and Kirk and the rest of The Enterprise team set out to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction which leads to a life or death battle. Fun stuff again.

13. Star Trek Beyond (2016)

• Extra Recommended Viewing: Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

And this is where the Star Trek movies (emphasis on movies) leaves us in this era until Star Trek 4 which is currently in development. Star Trek Beyond was about The Enterprise being deceived by Krall (Idris Elba), a vicious enemy who gets his energy from sucking the life out of his victims. Long story short, Krall needs an artifact that's on The Enterprise ship, and Kirk and the crew have got to battle against him. The events of Star Trek Beyond effectively serve as a prequel to the 1960s series, so you can actually watch Star Trek: The Original Series after this.

The Star Trek Movies in Release Order:

Unlike other franchises or universes , the Star Trek movies in order of release date is actually exactly the same as the chronological order.

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture - December 6th, 1979
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - June 4th, 1982
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock - June 1st, 1984
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - November 26th, 1986
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - June 9th, 1989
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - December 6th, 1991
• Star Trek: Generations - November 18th, 1994
• Star Trek: First Contact - November 22nd, 1996
• Star Trek: Insurrection - December 11th, 1998
• Star Trek: Nemesis - December 13th, 2002
• Star Trek - May 7th, 2009
• Star Trek Into Darkness - May 16th, 2013
• Star Trek Beyond - July 22nd, 2016

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• Series & Movies

Published Apr 24, 2024

Stuck in a Loop: The Best of Star Trek's Time-Jumping Episodes

From The Next Generation to Discovery, going around and around is sometimes very revealing.

StarTrek.com

In the Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 episode, " Face the Strange ," Captain Burnham and Commander Rayner find themselves both stuck in a loop, but also, jumping all around the timeline of the titular starship. From the point before the U.S.S. Discovery was launched, to pivotal moments in Season 4, Season 3, Season 2 and even very early in Season 1, Rayner notes at one point that, "We’ve gone back in time to when you went forward to the future. That’s a little confusing."

Throughout all of Star Trek 's history, time travel has been just as propulsive to the narratives as space travel. But, within the various time travel stories of Trek , there is a special kind of time-skipping episode — the time loop story. Discovery has recently shaken-up this formula with "Face the Strange," but many elements of this episode pay homage to a proud Star Trek tradition. Here’s the history of the best time loop, and time-jumping episodes across the entire Final Frontier.

" Cause and Effect ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5, Episode 18)

"Cause and Effect"

Perhaps one of the greatest science fiction episodes of all time, The Next Generation set the gold-standard for how to do time loop episodes.

When the Enterprise collides with another starship in the first scene, this episode poses one question right off the bat: What happens after you blow up the ship — and everyone on it — before the credits roll? The answer is mostly connected to whether or not we can even remember when we're stuck in a loop. Without actually spoiling this classic episode, let's just say thank the stars for Dr. Crusher and Data.

The brilliance of "Cause and Effect" cannot be overstated, but the 21st Century legacy of this episode is utterly appropriate. When Geordi reveals how the time loop works, Riker says, "You mean we could have come into this room, sat at this table and had this conversation a dozen times already?" This scene has become a popular meme format across various social media platforms, satirizing the time loop of some aspects of the internet experience.

" Parallels ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7, Episode 11)

"Parallels"

Arguably, when Worf starts slipping between realities in "Parallels," the story is more focused on other dimensions, rather than a true time loop. But, each time he pops into a new reality, Worf does tend to reply to his own personal log, which is what began the episode.

Obviously, in each new timeline, Worf's personal log is different, and because he checks it so often in the episode, this gives "Parallels" the feeling of a time loop story, even though Worf is technically moving both forward in time, and also, side-to-side.

On top of all of this, "Parallels" feels time-loopy because so many ideas and plot points from previous seasons of The Next Generation are revisited here. From references to " The Best of Both Worlds ," to the return of Wesley Crusher, "Parallels" brings all the good things of TNG back around again for another look, from a different point of view.

" All Good Things... ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7, Episode 25)

"All Good Things..."

Speaking of the best of The Next Generation , the immortal series finale is, from a certain point of view, one big time loop. As Jean-Luc Picard shifts between past, present, and future, the biggest mystery of "All Good Things…" is what caused the anomaly in the Devron system? Eventually, we learn that the ending and the beginning of this story are inextricably connected, a paradox that creates a kind of loop that must be broken.

Twenty-nine years later, in the Star Trek: Picard episode, " Imposters ," Captain Liam Shaw references this moment, and notes that Picard and Riker have a "real chicken and egg thing going on." It doesn’t get any more time-loopy than that!

" Visionary ," Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Season 3, Episode 17)

"Visionary"

When O'Brien starts seeing another version of himself appearing randomly throughout the station, Dr. Bashir briefly floats the idea that he's just having really boring hallucinations. But, as the episode goes on, it becomes clear that O'Brien is actually seeing brief moments in the future, and then, catching up to those moments in the present.

"Visionary" messes with what we expect from a time loop episode, because in all instances of future occurrences, there are literally two O'Briens present, and, when the past O'Brien catches up to the future moment, the duplication effect happens again, creating a kind of visual loop for the audience. The funny thing is, in several instances, the future doesn't play out exactly the way past O'Brien saw the first time, making this one of the wobblier time loops in all of Star Trek .

" Relativity ," Star Trek: Voyager (Season 5, Episode 24)

"Relativity"

In a move very similar to Discovery 's "Face the Strange," this unforgettable episode of Voyager briefly takes us back to a point before the series even begins, showing us Janeway's first moments on Voyager before the ship left the Utopia Planitia Shipyards on Mars. (In "Face the Strange," Burnham and Rayner see Discovery in a drydock on Earth well before the events of Season 1.)

But, Voyager 's jaunt into its own prehistory is just the beginning of a very specific type of time jumping episode. Here, Seven of Nine isn't exactly repeating a loop, but, making several attempts at different times, to prevent a bomb from destroying Voyager . As Tuvok aptly puts it when encountering one version of Seven from the future, "Like many time paradoxes, it's improbable, but not necessarily illogical." Because this episode features multiple versions of Seven, and leaps to various eras of Voyager , it pairs very nicely with Burnham and Rayner's similar jumps in "Face the Strange." Especially the moment where Seven meets herself.

" Shattered ," Star Trek: Voyager (Season 7, Episode 11)

"Shattered"

Does Voyager have the best timey-wimey episodes in all of the Trek franchise? It's hard to say, but if there's another Trek episode that feels like an older sibling of Discovery 's "Face the Strange," it's almost certainly "Shattered," a fan-favorite episode from Voyager 's final season. Here, the captain and the first officer — Janeway and Chakotay — find themselves on a version of the ship that has been split into different time periods.

"Shattered" is one of Star Trek 's greatest retrospective episodes, touching on moments across all of Voyager 's story, and teaming past versions of characters with ones closer to the present. It's a touching story, and, structurally, it's wonderfully homaged in Discovery .

" Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad ," Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1, Episode 7)

"Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad"

One of Discovery 's stand-out moments from Season 1 fully set the stage for "Face the Strange" in Season 5. In "Magic to Make The Sanest Man Go Mad," Harry Mudd sets the ship on a true time loop, in which only Stamets can truly remember what is going on. Like in "Face the Strange," Stamets has a perception that exists outside of time, thanks to taking on the Tardigrade DNA in "Choose Your Pain."

This detail comes in handy in "Face the Strange," where Burnham and Stamets again have to re-team to get Discovery out of a time loop caused by nefarious enemies using time travel technology as a weapon. In Season 1, Burnham and Stamets barely knew each other, much like Burnham and Rayner's relationship in Season 5. But, if there's one thing a time loop or time-jumping episode can do, it’s make people who are just colleagues into best friends for life.

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Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

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Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Reflects On Its Choices In “Mirrors”

| April 25, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 119 comments so far

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5 – Debuted Thursday, April 25, 2024 Written by Johanna Lee & Carlos Cisco Directed by Jen McGowan

A solid episode with plenty of lore and character development gets weighed down with a bit too much exposition.

No, I didn’t kiss you in the past last week, what makes you say that?

WARNING: Spoilers below!

“Maybe we’re not so different.”

As the crew regroups following the time bug incident that lost them 6 hours, they try to trace the trail of their main rivals in the search for the Progenitor tech. Book takes this time to reflect on the choices he has made in life and how it isn’t too late for Moll; perhaps he can redeem the daughter of his mentor and namesake Cleveland Booker. Stamets and Tilly figure out the trail didn’t disappear into nowhere: Moll and L’ak went through a wormhole. The aperture isn’t big enough for the Disco, so the captain assigns herself to shuttle duty—over the objections of her new XO, who is still struggling a bit. After a little bonding over old Kellerun poetry, she leaves him with “I know you can lead this crew” and heads off with her ex. Returning to their old banter, including some teasing about what happened during her time tour last episode, Book and Michael head through the wormhole. Things get really choppy as they fly through exotic matter “deaf and blind,” losing comms with the Disco, and dodging debris. Skilled piloting and good ol’ Starfleet engineering saves them, but things aren’t so hot for Moll and L’ak, whose ship is spotted cut in half. Their only hope for survival is another relatively intact ship that looks familiar. A 24 th -century scientist hiding a clue in this pocket dimension on a shipwreck from another universe makes as much sense as anything.  It’s the ISS Enterprise—and that’s no typo. If the “Mirrors” title wasn’t clue enough, the ISS does it: Things are about to get Terran, again.

After docking, Michael and Book make their way through the mess of a ship to the bridge with more playful banter. The warp drive has been bricked and all shuttles and escape pods are gone, very out of character for ruthless Terrans. They track three quantum signatures in sickbay, but start with a trace in the transporter room, which looks more like a makeshift refugee camp. A chronicle reveals the crew mutinied after the Terran High Chancellor (aka Mirror Spock) was killed for making reforms. A certain Kelpien rebel leader (aka Mirror Action Saru) led refugees to the Prime Universe, where they abandoned ship. While Book expositions, Michael puts a piece of her badge (and its important Prime Universe quantum signature) in a locket she finds. Pay attention BTW, or you will be confused later. In sickbay, they find Moll and L’ak, Moll and L’ak, and Moll and L’ak—until they take out the holo-emitters so the four former couriers can face off for real. Book tries the “I knew your father” gambit and is immediately rebuffed by Moll’s serious daddy issues. The baddies figure they have the clue so they have all the leverage, but Michael uses that locket as a bluff, claiming she has the real clue. Still, no deal with the Federation is good enough because they need the Progenitor tech to get rid of an Erigah… a Breen blood bounty. That’s right, L’ak is Breen. Holy refrigeration helmet , Batman.

Mirror McCoy was a bit of an evil pack rat.

“You both still have choices .”

Cut to a series of Burn-era flashbacks when Moll was delivering dilithium to the Breen Imperium. The “bucket heads”  are not amused by the wisecracking courier who gets into a fight with one of them, but she turns the tables, revealing she knows he’s a disgraced member of the royal family—and she even knows his name. It’s L’ak, of course. He is intrigued by her plan to skim more latinum, getting payback for being humiliated for this cargo duty demotion. Soon enough, this unlikely pair is hooking up between cargo containers and he even takes off his helmet to show her his face, as well as his “other face.” It turns out the Breen have two: the one we have been seeing with L’ak and a glowing eyed translucent one.  Later, the star-crossed romance is threatened when Moll is drawn to the lure of even more latinum by delivering to the Emerald Chain. Before they can sort out if he should join her, Uncle A-hole shows up, not happy about his nephew’s little interspecies exchange program. He’s also not cool with L’ak using that old face and not the “evolved” glowy face. L’ak is given one chance at redemption: Kill Moll. He picks door number 2, killing some guards but sparing Primarch Ruhn, who declares the Erigah. L’ak knows this means they will never stop hunting him, but Moll is all-in on being a fugitive, so they escape together. Ah, true love.

Back on Mirror Enterprise, the standoff devolves into another quick firefight as the Breen/Human duo chooses not to take the offered off-ramp before going too far down the bad guy road. Moll and Book end up outside force fields that pop up around sickbay, so she reluctantly agrees to a ceasefire. The current Cleveland Booker tries again to connect, but Moll only has bad memories of a brutal childhood of abandonment after her Cleveland left her on her own at age 14. L’ak is all she has. L’ak feels the same about Moll, telling Michael that he would die before being separated, but seems open to the idea of them sharing a cell in the Federation pen. On the bridge, Book pivots to use his relationship with Michael to connect, but Moll’s need to get back to L’ak means no waiting for computer hacking, so she starts yanking out wires. The resulting short does lower the forcefield, but now the ship is out of control. Their shuttle is flung off with the jolt and there’s only eight minutes until the Big E is squished in the little wormhole. Book takes his final shot, handing over his phaser and telling Moll she is the only family he has left. She finally relents and they head to sickbay, where Michael and L’ak have resumed fighting. The captain gets the upper hand and ends up with the clue L’ak was holding and the Breen is left with a knife in his side, but impressed by the locket bluff. Moll arrives and is super pissed, so the Disco duo makes a quick exit before things escalate into yet another phaser fight. This former courier couple’s double date is over.

Uh, can you go back to the other face now?

“Maybe we can shape our own futures too.”

As Moll tries to patch up her boyfriend, Michael and Book work through the problem on the bridge, deciding that the tractor beam as their only hope. Over on the Disco, they detect an oscillating pattern, 3-4-1-4, which means something to Rayner. He now wants the nerds to figure out how to open the wormhole aperture big enough for a ship, offering kegs of Kellerun booze for the best idea. Adira sparks a team effort and Rayner rallies around the crowdsourced solution involving a hexagon of photon torpedoes. “We are only going to get one shot at this. I trust you will all make it count, red alert.” That’s the stuff. With what may be the last seconds of her life, Michael lets Book know she shared a “happy” moment with his past self during the whole time bug incident. Discovery fires the torpedoes and the crew is surprised to see the ISS Enterprise emerge at the last minute from the permanently collapsing wormhole. Everyone releases their tension as the captain informs her crew they saved her… but why is the Enterprise about to fire? A warp pod is launched! It’s Moll and L’ak. Before you can say “plot armor,” they escape to another episode. The captain returns to the Disco to tell Rayner she’s impressed with how he handled the crew during her time away, and he tells her how impressed he was with her subtle “3-4-1-4” message using the Kellerun “Ballad of Krull.” Alien poetry FTW!

In the background of the episode, Tilly has been noticing that Dr. Culber seems out of sorts. Everyone else leans on him, so she offers to be a friendly ear. As things wrap, Hugh takes her up on her offer over drinks at Red’s, admitting that ever since he was possessed by a Trill a few episodes back, he has been feeling a bit off, and he’s beening having some trouble coming to grips with the quest they are on with questions “so big and impossible to grasp.” He is not sure his matter-of-fact husband will understand what Tilly points out is a sort of spiritual awakening. This thread is left unresolved, unlike Adira’s mini-crisis of confidence: They were losing their science mojo due to guilt over the time bug, but got it back through Rayner’s tough love and being the one to come up with the hexagon of torpedoes solution. Things wrap up with Michael and Book looking over their prize, the latest piece of the map and a mysterious vial of liquid hidden inside, ready to set up the next episode once Stamets unlocks its secret. Burnham is starting to see a pattern with these clues and how the scientists who left them were trying to teach lessons along the way to the successful questers. The clue hidden in the ISS Enterprise came from Dr. Cho, a former Terran junior officer who later became a Starfleet Admiral. This happy ending for her and the others from Saru’s band of Mirror refugees fills them with hope as they can’t wait to find out what they will learn when they put the map together. There are just 2 more map pieces and 5 more episodes to go.

I think I have a thing for being possessed—no judgment.

Love stories

This halfway point episode is a bit of a mixed bag. Strong performances were a highlight, bringing extra life to welcome character development for both heroes and villains. But valiant attempts to expand upon franchise lore got weighed down in overly complicated exposition. And for an episode with a strong (and yes, often repeated) theme about choices, some of the directorial choices just didn’t work, potentially leaving some audience members confused or requiring a second viewing to follow the narrative. On the other hand, the episode carried on the season’s reflection on Discovery’s own lore and the evolution of its characters. David Ajala stands out as the episode MVP as he shows Book’s struggle to navigate the emotional complexities of his own choices and those of Moll while desperately trying to forge a new family connection. While some of the action scenes in this episode felt a bit perfunctory, the show is still getting better (for the most part) in finding moments for those character sidebars to talk about their emotional journeys and relationships. That was especially important in this episode, which took a closer look at how the events of the season are impacting some of the key romantic pairings of Book and Michael, Paul and Hugh, and Moll and L’ak.

Eve Harlow—and especially Elias Toufexis—stepped up to add layers and nuance to Moll and L’ak, with Discovery finally embracing how fleshing out adversaries and their motivations goes a long way towards making your plot hold together. The nicely drawn-out reflection of their love story with the rekindling one between Michael and Book adds another layer to the more obvious meaning behind the episode title “Mirrors.” Moll’s single-minded anger and L’ak’s desire for safety now all make sense, as does their unshakable bond. The episode also did a good job weaving in a handful of substories, including Rayner’s growing connection with the crew, with a nice sprinkling of Kellerun lore-building — adding some color to his character. Callum Keith Rennie continues to be a stand-out addition for the season, although Doug Jones is sorely missed, presumably not appearing in two episodes in a row for some scheduling reasons. Culber’s spiritual journey also gets just enough time, as it and these other substories all feel like they are heading somewhere without distracting or spinning their wheels, something that often weighed down mid-season Discovery episodes in past seasons.

Okay, let’s just agree we both have daddy issues.

Under the mask

The reveal that L’ak is a Breen was a surprise, but also nicely teased through the previous episodes. Fans of Deep Space Nine should relish finally getting some answers about this enigmatic race and finally having a first look under those helmets. “Mirrors” picked up on many elements from DS9, including the Breen language, refrigeration suits, neural truncheons, and the position of Thot , while adding lots to the lore, including some worldbuilding behind this new Breen Imperium and its “faction wars.”

Setting the Breen up as what appears to be the real big bads for the season involved a lot of data dump exposition here, surely keeping the editors of Memory Alpha busy for the next week. The notion that Breen have two forms with their signature suits and helmets allowing them to hold the more “evolved” form and face makes sense. If one were to get nitpicky, the Breen aren’t supposed to bleed, but perhaps that was a function of his suit; fill in your own headcanon. L’ak’s desire to hold the other, less evolved form making him a pariah in Breen society has echoes of allegorical episodes such as TNG’s “The Outcast.” That being said, the nuances are still not entirely clear, and fans who like the lore shouldn’t have to rewatch scenes to pick up the details. It feels like some details were cut, perhaps because this episode was already trying to cram in too much exposition with the Breen, Kelleruns (they boil cakes?), and the Mirror Universe.

Like the previous time travel adventure, this was a mid-season bottle show, this time using the conveniently located Strange New Worlds sets. Bringing back the ISS Enterprise was clever and fun, with the twist of how this time the Mirror Universe came to us. If you follow closely, “Mirrors” did a nice job of filling in some lore gaps and tying together the MU storylines from the first visit in “Mirror, Mirror” to follow-ups in Deep Space Nine , Enterprise , and Discovery . There is now a nice throughline from Emperor Georgiou saving Mirror Saru through to Mirror Spock, killed for the reforms he instituted after being inspired by Kirk. However, the redress of the Enterprise sets was not very inspired, with only a smattering of Terran wall sconces and some repainting, instead of demonstrating the brutality of the Empire with elements like agony booths. But what was even more missed was the promise of any character crossovers. There was a lot of talk about Mirror characters like Spock, Saru, Dr. Cho, and others, but we don’t get to see any, one of the many examples of how this episode broke the golden rule to show not tell. There were plenty of opportunities for a flashback or holo recording. Burnham longingly gazing at her brother’s science station is no substitute for Ethan Peck with a goatee.

We’re back!

Final thoughts

“Mirrors” is a decent episode, but it could have been much better with a few tweaks here and there. While not falling into the pointless plate-spinning trap of past mid-season Disco outings, it still dragged a bit for something so jam-packed with lore and revelations. Still, it provided a nice hour of entertainment, and possibly more with rewatches to catch up on the little details. The episode also continues the season’s welcome trend of weaving in the show’s own past, which makes it work better as a final season, even if they didn’t know that when they crafted it. Season 5 hits the halfway mark, and it’s still the best season yet, and hopefully the second half of the season will nail the landing.

Wait, we’re in this episode too? Anyone remember their lines?

• Like the previous episode, “Mirrors” began with a warning for flashing images.
• The episode is dedicated “to the loving memory of our friend Allan ‘Red’ Marceta ,” the lead set dresser who died in a motorcycle accident in 2022.  Presumably the USS Discovery bar “Red’s” was named in his honor.
• This is the first episode where Book’s personal log starts it off.
• Stardate: 866280.9
• Booker examined wanted notices for Moll from the Federation, Orion/Emerald Chain (who have a new logo), and the Andorian Empire.
• Tilly was able to reveal the wormhole by compensating for the “Lorentzian Coefficient,” referencing the real Lorentz Factor used in special relativity equations.
• A new ensign on the Discovery keeps a Cardassian vole as a pet.
• The ISS Enterprise was built at Tartarus Base, possibly referencing Tartarus Prime , from the TOS novel The Rings of Time .
• Moll refers to Breens as “bucketheads” (just as Reno did to Emerald Chain Regulators last episode). This could be a nod to the use of “ bucketheads ” in Star Wars as a derogatory term for stormtroopers.
• Moll’s mother died on Callor V in a mine for Rubindium , a substance first mentioned in TOS “Patterns of Force.”
• Linus can play the piano.
• Breen Primarchs may be a nod to the genetically engineered Primarchs from Warhammer 40,000 .
• How does Book know that Pike’s catchphrase is “Hit it”?
• This is the third (of five) season 5 episodes in which Oyin Oladejo and Emily Coutts do not appear, but their characters, Detmer and Owosekun, are mentioned when they get the honor of escorting the ISS Enterprise back to Starfleet HQ.
• Even though we didn’t see it warp away, presumably the missing intermix chamber was replaced, otherwise Owo and Detmer’s trip is going to take a very long time.
• Tilly says her long day makes her feel like she has been through a Gormangander’s digestive tract.

Remember when Mudd hid inside a Gormagander? Gross.

More to come

Every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast  covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Pocket Casts ,  Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

The fifth and final season of  Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery  will also premiere on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuts on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Keep up with news about the  Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

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waste of ISS Enterprise

While I enjoyed the episode overall, the ISS Enterprise was a huge letdown and not even worth being an easter egg with what little they did with it. They should have just made it a generic constitution class ship from the mirror universe.

It felt like it was nothing more than a budget saver. Use existing sets from the other show. Which is weird because one of the arguments in favor of mini seasons is it allows more money to be spent.

That’s exactly what it felt like. Along with the missing, yet again, Detmer and Owosekun.

There must have been some deep budget cuts for the season.

Detmer and Owosekun were replaced by other characters so I don’t think they are missing for budget reasons. It’s more likely that the actresses were unavailable.

I get the budget issues considering what’s going on with the studio. But the end result was it showed that there isn’t much difference at all in the 900 years between the SNW Enterprise and the aesthetic of Star Trek Discovery. They both look as if they were set in the exact same era.

And there really shouldn’t be much. Discovery is from the same era, as the Enterprise. While the ship gets a technological upgrade, why would it get an interior design makeover?

Since it was deemed important (Stamets certainly makes since) that the crew stay on the Discovery, I would certainly think that psychologically having its design aesthetics stay similar to what it was would help give the crew a little bit of their past to hold on to, versus having all physical interactions be with a timeline that they aren’t native to.

Now where we should see it is in native places in this time. And we have seen some differences in design from standard Starfleet settings, versus Starfleet settings on this time (I actually wish we got more).

I did wish for a little more of self reflection from Burnham’s point of view as the ISS Enterprise should of course remind her of Spock (the Enterprise tie in), but also Georgiou (the ISS tie in). We get a small brief nod to Spock, but nothing to Georgiou (and while I still question the use of the character, there is no question that Burnham did have a connection with her, even if its primarily transference from her former Captain, not the mirror Universe Empress.

It’s not just the ship. It’s everything. Everything else looks like it matches the ship’s aesthetic. As if 900 year old retro is the current fad in design.

That’s always been my issue with Discovery.

To me that is part of the downfall of going so very far into the future. What aesthetic you make should be radically different. Not just shinier.

This is a VERY common trope in Trek, historically. Using redressed older sets, even ones from distant eras, to save money. It’s just downright foolish to think that a big budget series with fewer episodes to get better production value would simply have no limits at all. Discovery is one of the most expensive-looking sci-fi shows out there for a reason: a lot of money is being spent. On sets, effects, and even the cast. Oded Feherer, Callum Kieth Rennie, Michelle Yeoh, Jason Isaacs, Sonequa, David Cronenberg, Tig Notaro, and plenty of others during its run — its cast is broad and extremely strong, with well-known, talented actors, not to mention some of the best TV directors, set decorators, costumers, etc in the business.

Now, sure I think it’s fair to be let down by a budget-saving measure, particularly because of how much money IS being spent, so I get the logic here, but it’s sorely misplaced. The fact is, Trek has done this for decades, and often not nearly as well. Let it go — just try to enjoy the show and not worry about that kind of thing. But that’s the thing I struggle with, with you on this board: you seem to be looking for reasons NOT to like this show because you find more enjoyment in watching and hating it than anything else. Go watch a show you actually like, it’s been five years and it’s ending now. It’s time to let it go, my good friend.

Agreed. The last two episodes just felt very budgeted and basically bottle episodes. And this just felt like a twofer, a way to use an existing set and add a little fan service but that’s all it was. I thought the Enterprise itself was going to be a viral part of not just the episode but the story overall.

Instead it was just a backdrop. And yeah it’s obvious they cut the budget for this season but all the live action shows have felt this way starting with Picard season 3 and SNW season 2. That all felt pretty bare a lot of the times. I guess this was all during Paramount+ belt tightening and probably not a shock why the show was cancelled.

And maybe the I.S.S. Enterprise should have been the refit or maybe the Phase II Enterprise? That would have been a lot of fun but combine a lack of vision with a reduced budget and this is what you get.

Looking back on “In a Mirror: Darkly”, season 4 of Enterprise was dealing with a reduced budget but managed to recreate sets from TOS, introduced a few new set pieces and did a lot of great effects work.

This was a missed opportunity.

Which was added by stretching that story over two episodes, so that they had the budget to recreate the sets they used. Having half the episode count, doesn’t really help avail yourself to planning out a two parter for a way to save costs.

If Picard could pull off recreating the bridge of the Enterprise D for three days of shooting with barely half the budget of Discovery season 5, they could have done something equally as fun for Discovery on the cheap without actually having to building anything new and using the Enterprise as a crutch. They could have come across Deep Space Station K-7, where the exterior would have been immediately familiar and with interiors served by redressed sets from virtually anything available from Discovery or SNW.

I thought Discovery is basically the PII Enterprise?

The Phase II Enterprise looks like a slickly modified version of the Enterprise from TOS, falling squarely between the Enterprise from TOS and the refit. The “Star Trek: Phase II” fan series did a great job bringing it to screen.

No, Discovery resembles the Enterprise concept for the Planet of the Titans movie.

I don’t get that. I never assumed that the Enterprise (or its mIrror Universe history) was going to feature in significant manner (certainly the producers and promotional department didn’t make a significant deal about it). Perhaps it’s the time difference. But I literally assumed it would be as significant as the Defiant going in and out of phase like TOS “Tholian Web” the time difference. And that was primarily set dressing. That’s not a bad thing. I mean Tholian Web is considered one of the better third season episodes.

And the only reason I assumed it was the Enterprise versus another Connie, is simple to give Burnham a moment to reflect on Spock. Now I do freely admit that I wish this was a slightly larger moment. But I never expected it to be anything but a small moment. Roughly my preconceived notion would be something like Spock’s Mind Meld scene with La’an in SNW where she is able to get a peak into Spock thinking about his sister and the emotion that comes with it. It’s a very brief scene, but I thought SNW did a good job in conveying the emotional aspect, especially from a half Vulcan/ Half Human.

Ok fair enough. This is probably more my hang up and to be fair since they never really promoted the the Enterprise being back then clearly they weren’t trying to make it that big of a deal.

But same time a lot of people do feel there could’ve been more done. The main problem is it just feels like a ridiculous stretch this ship itself is even there. It’s a ship from 900 years ago from a DIFFERENT UNIVERSE that conveniently happens to be the ship that gives them their next clue. I know it’s Star Trek so whatever lol. But when you go through the effort to present it I think it would’ve nice to build a bigger story around it. It could’ve just been any ship.

Exactly! The ship could have been any ship. The fact that with such an enormous universe(s) they would happen to find the next clue on a Mirror Universe ship and the ISS Enterprise no less–it’s such “Small Universe Syndrome”.

When you feel like the Mirror Universe has been nothing but a let down after the initial TOS episode, It’s really not a surprise. There’s really nowhere to go with it, but I did find that the fulfilling of the promise that Prime Kirk spoke to Mirror Spock about from the original TOS episode quite satisfying. The ship’s inhabitants embraced the benevolence of the prime universe, and I thought that was great.

I felt the idea that the MU people just easily adapted was pretty ridiculous. But then, they admitted SNW was an alternate timeline. It’s not a stretch that alternate extends to all the Secret Hideout productions.

I’m not sure I would feel the same about Picard given it depicts the Prime events of ST:2009. The others tho yeah I think of it that way too. Although The Chase does make that harder to swallow about DISCO

I liked the MU in DS9. It was fun to revisit and a great reminder of the Prime Directive. But… after that it got tiresome.

It was pretty benign there, but the problem with it, is finding it plausible. It was a fun idea in the 1960’s, and it had a good message. After that, it an indulgence. The notion that that the same people would even exist in the same fundamental places, and that the same ships would exist with virtually the same crew just seems like too much of a stretch even for modern Star Trek.

That’s my only complaint about this episode. Seeing the tantalus field show up would have been really cool. When Michael talked about how she was sure that Mirror Spock was a savage just like the other Terrans, I was sure that we would see a recording or something of Ethan Peck in a goatee to prove her wrong. Or flashbacks with Ethan Peck and Paul Wesley as their mirror counterparts would have also been cool.

All the stuff with the Breen and Mol and Lak was really cool though.

“ waste of ISS Enterprise” should be the official episode description.

waste of series

They ate Mirror Saru in season one…

Was that Saru or another Kelpian? It’s been a while since I watched Season 1, but I recall Mirror Saru saving Burnham from Tyler just as Voq’s personality re-emerged. I know Mirror Georgiou served Burnham some Kelpian, I just didn’t remember it being Mirror Saru.

Mirror Saru saved Michael from Tyler in The Wolf Inside, which was the episode that preceded the one in which they ate the food made from a Kelpien (Vaulting Ambition).

Looking at Memory Alpha now, it says that the chosen Kelpien ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVQSipQlJR8 ) was played by someone other than Doug Jones, but they look so much alike that I thought for sure she had chosen Mirror Saru.

As per Memory Alpha, we never saw him again after The Wolf Inside until season three, but that was in the alternate timeline Carl sent Georgiu to, so it wasn’t the same Mirror Saru.

Nope, that was another Kelpien.

“They ate Mirror Saru in season one…”

They didn’t.

Wasn’t Mirror Saru established as having survived in Season 3 (can’t remember the episode name).

A s per Memory Alpha, we never saw Mirror Saru again after The Wolf Inside until season three, but that was in the alternate timeline Carl sent Georgiu to, so it wasn’t the same Mirror Saru.

Loved this episode. I liked seeing the I.S.S Enterprise though i would of loved to of seen maybe a video log of Mirror Spock.

As a big fan of DS9 I’m glad we finally get to see what a breen looks like and the 32nd century breen outfits look great.

I enjoyed seeing Book/Burnham trying to get through to Moll/L’ak and i hope they can eventually get through to them. With this season about connections and 2nd chances i can see Book and Burnham talking both of them down before they do something that they can’t come back from.

The shot of the I.S.S Enterprise coming out of the ‘wormhole’ is probably one of my favorite CGI scene in all of Trek.

I’m glad they didn’t. I think the conceit of using the I.S.S. Enterprise was not much more than a budgetary decision to be able to use the sets. Could have made it a different constitution class, but then they don’t get to tell the story of the crew’s transformation into our society. Just don’t think about it too much.. because that universe is just pushing out its own doppelgängers into our universe.. which seems problematic. lol.

As a big fan of DS9 I’m glad we finally get to see what a breen looks like and the 32nd century breen outfits look great.

Any kind of big reveal was bound to be disappointing, I suppose. Still, the idea that they were just another latex alien was a letdown. I had always hoped that the Breen were gaseous or plasma creatures.

Ethan Peck with a goatee would have been EPIC

“This is the way.” 😉

But seriously that was a pretty good episode. I’d like to see a 31st century restored Terran empire that never went through “the burn.”

“ The reveal that L’ak is a Breen was a surprise ”

It really wasn’t, though. That was many viewers’ guess since the beginning of the season, and it’s been a common discussion on many websites. The surprise would have been if he HADN’T been a Breen.

I am on a lot of other sites and I haven’t heard anyone thinking he was Breen. And I don’t believe anyone voiced that in Trekmovie either.

LOL. It’s been a common theory.

Obviously not THAT common. LOL

I’ve seen the theory mentioned in the comments here on TrekMovie.

Yes, quite common from what I’ve been reading. I just commented on this very site a couple weeks back that I liked the idea, when somebody else theorized it (forget who it was)!

I guess it’s just where you go for these discussions but yeah the first YouTube review of episode one I saw theorized Lak was a Breen in the first scene he was in when he took off his helmet. And this was obviously before the species was mentioned on the show.

So yeah some people caught on the first episode the way others theorized Tyler was Voq the first time he showed up. Others needed more convincing.

I never saw it but I certainly don’t read the majority of comments. And almost never watch video reviews. Now Voq, was something I remember seeing in many places. Though in fairness, the amount of conjecture done about any Trek series for its Pilot and early couple episodes has been in my experience far more than what you see for most regular episodes. So that shouldn’t;t surprise me.

It was a surprise to me.

The Breen being so ordinary looking was a bit of a surprise.

Well, one of their forms are. It explains the frozen wasteland/tropical paradise. Their “evovled” form needs cryo suits, their “normal form” doesn’t

Was a surprise to me. Then again, I don’t run around the internet and over analyze the show.

This season started out so well. What happened? It’s falling apart.

I hate to a agree. But its once again a long slow burn (pardon the bun) that I fear is going to lead to another whimper of a conclusion. I feel like the season could have been a movie instead. Where is Chapel?!

Wrong show. Chapel is on SNW. The ending was rewritten and new scenes were shot to make it a series finale. They had already started shooting when they got the word that it was ending after season 5.

presumably on Her show, SNW?

“pardon the bun” …🍔⁉️

What’d that poor bun do for it to be in need of a pardon? 😋

This is what happens in every single season of Discovery. Two lovers who want to destroy the galaxy so they can get to paradise was the plot of season four, and now they are recycling the exact same plot for this season.

Did you watch the show. In no seasons has two lovers wanted to destroy the galaxy….Period. L’ak and Moll want to pay off their bounty. Nothing about what they are doing is about wanting to destroy the galaxy.

Outside of the destruction caused by the aliens referred to as 10-C, did any character want to destroy the galaxy let alone a couple. The only couple we had, was one person wanting peaceful means of communication to prevent destruction, while the other wanted to use force to ensure the destruction doesn’t occur. In no case does that equal people wanting to destroy a galaxy.

I can understand not liking the show, but to have such a misconstrued concept of the plot of the seasons shows a shocking lack of basic understanding of what the plot and motivations of the characters are.

I mean the show has plenty that one can find legitimate issues with. Thats not one of them.

They want to pay their bounty by giving a weapon of potential mass destruction to the Breen, thus destroying the galaxy, as seen in the time jumps last episode. They want to do that so they can escape to the Gamma Quadrant while the Breen take apart the Alpha Quadrant.

Last season the scientist wanted to let the 10-C species bulldoze the Alpha Quadrant so he could get across the galactic barrier to meet his lover in paradise, without caring what happened to trillions of other lives.

It is the same basic plot point. Your analysis is incorrect, Wood.

I think you’re overreacting a little. As always.

This episode was disappointing and fell flat. The return of the ISS Enterprise from the mirror universe was of no interest. I had hoped to possibility see a video log from Kirk, Spock, or another familiar character. Why not explore other Constitution Class Starships like the ISS Lexington, Hood, or Potemkin? Enterprise, Enterprise, Enterprise. (Sigh)

Maybe cause the enterprise is the trek ship pretty much everyone knows even if they are a new trek fan or a casual trek fan or not even a trek fan it is so engrained and intertwined with the name Star Trek that is why they chose to make it the iss enterprise instead of one of the others you mentioned

Because exploring a random ship isn’t the plot of the episode. It’s basically set dressing. Having it be the Enterprise versus a different Connie, gives it a tie to the lead character and part of her family she left behind. That it sorry wise. Another ship wouldn’t have any emotion aspect to the characters. Now production wise its to save a ton of money, as creating a random ship with multiple settings to take use of takes money (if your trying to give it the same level of production that you see for the primary ship). Now of course they could have just created a redress of an existing set to be random alien ship of the week. Those usually aren’t done to the same level of using the existing bridge set of another show. So it serves a small story purpose (ie a setting), it serves a small character purpose *reflection for Burnham, and it serves a production purpose (having high quality set pieces without having to build or do a serious redress and thus saving some money).

Seems rather obvious, to me.

I’m annoyed by what they seem to be doing with Owosekun and Detmer this season. I assume that the actors are absent because Paramount wanted to pay them less, and that’s poor treatment for characters who have been around since practically the beginning of the series.

“ I’m annoyed by what they seem to be doing with Owosekun and Detmer this season. ”

…as opposed to the previous four seasons, when all they did was sit in chairs and look meaningfully at each other?

Which is all Sulu and Chekov do in the average TOS episode. So yes, it’s aggravating for them to be replaced by other actors who are doing the same thing.

I doubt they are paid exorbitantly as recurring guests. It could be similar to what happened in season 4 and Bryce Ronnie Rowe Jr’s absences – he had another gig.

I have a theory that before it was decided that Disco would be cancelled, they were going to replace some of the characters. I think Owosekun and Detmer were going to be replaced, and also that Rayner would become captain and Burnham would go away to do something else. But then that didn’t work out, and so to us it just makes no sense why those two main characters are suddenly missing.

You might be right — I hadn’t considered that revamps due to cancellation might be involved.

Well… It is what it is . This was easily the worst episode of the 5. Tropes galore and really bad plot contrivances.

It feels like the reshoots for when they got the cancelation news are getting dropped in throughout the season. A lot of scenes appear grossly out of place. It feels like they just aren’t even trying anymore to be honest. As flawed as the show has been one thing that never came across among the other problems was a lack of trying.

I am loving the addition of Rayner and the professional Starfleet officer energy he is bringing to the ship. I also liked when he told Burnham the mission was too dangerous for the captain to go on. He is turning out to be a nice counterbalance to the unusual way Discovery has been run as a Starfleet ship after season 2.

I hope he doesn’t get killed off.

Sorry but this was another big fat ‘meh’ for me. This was very very disappointing. Nothing of consequence happened. We learn Mol and Lak backstory basically and it is cool we learn that Lak is a Breen which has been the leading theory since he showed up but it just felt sooo bare overall. Like another Discovery infamous spinning wheel episode where they do the bare minimum to move the plot along but just through a lot of action scenes and inconsequential dialogue to feel like we were getting any real development.

And the biggest elephant in the room (or dimensional wormhole) was the ISS Enterprise. Such a let down. It almost felt like a gimmick or just shoehorned fan service. There was no real reason it needed to be there other than HEY THE ENTERPRISE IS BACK!

Again one of the problems with this show, no real development just there for another connection. Think about what they did with In a Mirror Darkly on Enterprise. They brought in the Defiant as obvious fan service from TOS but the ship had a very vital part to the story. It helped changed the dynamics of the MU. It wasn’t there just for show like this was. And Anthony made a great point the redress felt like a joke. It just felt like an excuse to use the set but little else.

Here it was nothing more than just a backdrop and a really forced one at that. And the whole Saru thing just felt very contrived.

I did like all the Breen stuff though and hopefully they will be the big bad the rest of the season. I still think they should’ve used the Breen as the main villain for SNW instead of the Gorn but I digress.

But yeah this is probably the weakest one for me which is disappointing since last week is my favorite so far. I’m getting a little nervous now. It’s usually the second half of the season this show begins to falls apart but still open minded. Still enjoying it overall but please don’t end up a tedious bore like last season felt once it got to its mid season.

You have one last chance Discovery, make it count!

I never considered the Breen in SNW before, but that’s a cool idea. Yeah, I would’ve liked that much more than the Gorn.

For me it was literally the first Gorn episode I thought the Breen would’ve been a better idea. You get the same type of stories and it doesn’t feel like it’s breaking any canon like the Gorn obviously does. I ranted enough about it but nothing about their appearance on SNW feels remotely canon anymore.

But the Breen could’ve been a great substitute if they wanted a known species not named Klingons and zero canon issues.

Agreed. I always enjoyed the mysterious quality of the Breen. Seems ripe for exploration.

This season is largely working for me. Not as good as last week, but the chase is enjoyable. I have a little trouble buying that Mol and L’ak fell in love so fast. I would have liked to have seen that handled better.. but the slow burn of the plot works because of what they do to sustain individual episodes. Only episode I thought was kind of wasteful was the one on Trill.

That is a big part of the problem, yes. The characters have little chemistry.

The flashbacks took [place over an extended period of time, it wasnt THAT fast

They both felt like outcasts in their family/society, fusing them together like lightning. I had no problem with that as it gave me a Bonnie & Clyde-vibe which is historical.

It’s fine, but the romance piece just isn’t clicking for me.

Tarka was a similar situation last season with the reveal of his motivation not really moving me, but I’m also not the biggest fan of waiting several episodes to fill in a lot of backstory in a flashback. It’s not easy to pull off, and Discovery hasn’t really perfected it.

It’s a wonder I stuck with Lost as long as I did, now that I think about it.

“ it’s still the best season yet ”

Well, it was for the first two episodes, but the three since then have been a downward spiral. Seasons one and two were much better than this week’s episode and last week’s.

I’ve enjoyed it all except for the Trill episode. I think it’s been fun with a faster pace.. which has helped with a lot of issues that haven’t gone away. Raynor has been a very welcome addition to the cast.

Overall, very entertaining!

For complaints: any other constitution ship would be cool – but I also feel like we don’t know what happens next – there could be some Prime Mirror Universe people out there. & the “hit it!” joke felt like Dad was in the writer’s room.

Otherwise, I the pairings felt very TOS. Rayner is a little bit Serious Scotty when performing a captain’s role. And he took pride in rescuing her – which is feels good.

For me, this season has been 5/5.

Personal Log. Stardate: Today.

Week 4 of not-watching Discovery continues without incident. Opinions gleaned from critics on the latest episode seem to confirm that ‘mid-season malaise’ has been reached right on schedule.

Based on the collective opinion of commentators, there have been a grand total of one episode out of five that qualifies as “actually good”.

In conclusion, it appears the decision to not-watch until the penultimate episode has been vindicated. The plot points I am privy to following the one episode I watched are:

– There is a chase (or ‘The Chase 2.0’) for the Holy Grail / the technological marvel Salmone Jens left behind.

– The Cylon is now the First Officer.

– The Trill and the Robot are no longer together.

All in all, I remain confident that the recap at the beginning of the penultimate episode should be sufficient to fill in all the key points required.

Again, my thanks go out to the resolute souls who manage to endure what I could not.

these threads are for people to talk about the episodes they have seen. CLOSED.

Am I wrong or did the DS9 episode Through the Looking Glass make a reference to the Mirror Spock being on Romulus? Also given all the DS9 cross overs with the Mirror Universe you would think Burnham would have known something more about her brother’s counterpart.

Spock was not mentioned in Through the Looking Glass. We know between Crossover and the new dedication plaque of the ISS Enterprise that he reformed the Terran Empire and was killed for it. Burnham has clearly boned up on a lot of info since coming to this century, but easy to assume the future history of the mirror universe wasn’t part of that. Also, that info could have been lost or been classified.

Wow! The Breen. From CGI to burn victim.

Does anybody think the Commander Rainer is gonna become the Commandant of Starfleet Academy?

Everything involving Book is incredibly tedious. They brought back the ISS Enterprise as a way to resurrect the OG Enterprise in continuity. Perhaps it ends up as the Enterprise Q or whatever, if Saru is in command then ok. Burnham insisting on going on the away mission is diametrically opposed to how TNG dealt with this – e.g., when Riker as captain insisted on boarding the Borg cube in Best of Both Worlds, and his senior officers reminded him his place was on the bridge. I guess everyone got much dumber in the 32nd century, but “dumber” is Discovery’s whole concept.

This post missed an important Easter egg towards the end: Morn was at the bar “Red’s” just like he did on Quark’s on DS9.

We don’t call out or find every little egg, but when the bar was introduced last season we noted the Lurian (Morn’s species), who has been there ever since. We don’t usually do repeated easter egg bits for each episode

Yay! Good seeing the Breen again and their evolved design in the 32nd Century is great.

Boo! Pretty much everything else except Rayner who is the best character in the show.

Imagine they used the Star Trek: Tour set in Trekonderoga for the ISS Enterprise? What a cool surprise that would have been. But nope, we got the generic canon-breaking Discoprise. Not surprised.

I swear if they make the new Enterprise in the 3190s a refitted Constitution, I will facepalm. Just a stupid idea, when you have far superior tech and designs in the future time period. Please don’t, Disco-writers. Bad enough they did it with the Ent-G (one of my few criticisms of the great PIC S3).

here are 6 points for a reply to each of your issues with snw and dsc as a whole and this episode in particular

1.there is already a constitution class in the 32nd century it’s design was also used pre burn in the late 31st century so i dought they would refit iss enterprise like they did with the discovery plus they did say the ship was being taken to a federation storage facility

2.as for why they used the snw sets and cg assets well two reasons for one location/budget convenience as snw is shot in toronto at the same studio as dsc is and two they have said from the start they visually updated the 23rd century to fit visually better between ent era and tmp era mainly star trek 5/6

3.and there is nothing canon breaking about any of the new shows as they give explanations that tie back to enteprise and first contact since enterprise tied into that movie for the reasons of in unverse changes to the prime timeline universe and that is time travel to fix the past either on it’s own or part of the temporal cold war

4.and the temporal Cold War which later turned into the temporal wars is the reason the discovery was refited and givin the -A at the end of the registry is to hide the fact the ship and crew time traveled and broke the law agaisnt any form of time travel that was put into place after the temporal wars and a smaller part to protect starfleets butt

5.and if you have to don’t look at seasons 1 and 2 of dsc and snw as prequels to tos but as sequels to ent and then veiw ent as a sequal to first contact as i hear it makes it easier for some tos fans to enjoy these trek shows

6.or use the in universe reasons for the changes mentioned above in point 3 to be able to enjoy watching new trek shows mentioned above in point 5

Would it have been too much if Dr. Cho was instead Marlena Moreau? Just saying. Kind of like Dax in Jinaal… I feel like they are making all of these deep cuts, why not make them count a bit more to the overall lore, instead of just throwing the ISS Enterprise in with no good reason. Making these deep cuts actually count towards the overall lore might make the obvious (potential) budget cuts, set reuses, etc. be a bit more forgiving. Giving loved characters some finality that affect the course of this in our face galactic scale quest… might make it hit harder? Maybe I’m wrong, I’m sure someone here will think so lol

Overall the episode was okay. I do understand using the ISS Enterprise since this is supposed to be the final season of Discovery it was a nostalgia play and kind of wrap up the history of that ship in regards to the series. But overall it just seems kind of mashed together. Have to see how it ties in with the rest of the season.

I would say this episode along with the one before it were definitely the weakest of the season. They started out with a bang on the first few, and while I know that they tend to slow down in the middle of the season before ramping up the action for the final few, this episode dragged. There were also a few things with the Breen and the Enterprise that seemed a bit confusing:

– The Breen have 2 faces…great! Awesome twist to the species and fantastic to finally be able to see them after all the mystery around them in DS9. If the second face is supposed to be the more evolved one though, why do they need the masks and the suits? Can the more evolved face not breathe in a standard atmosphere? When L’ak and his uncle opened up their masks, they seemed fine, so there’s still quite a bit we don’t know about why they use that whole setup, especially when they’re around their own people

– Does the more evolved form extend past the face?

ISS Enterprise

– The stardate on the commemorative plaque is 32336.6. Popping that number into a couple of online stardate calculators puts that around mid-2355, which would be a few years before the prime universe Enterprise-D was commissioned in 2363. They mentioned that Dr. Cho came back to the Enterprise to hide the clue, so the assumption is that she also placed the plaque there at the same time. The timing doesn’t quite add up though because The Chase took place in 2369. Nobody would have known about The Progenitors or their technology before that, so they were at least 14 years off with the plaque

– If this Enterprise has been caught in extradimensional space since at least 2355, that means it’s been there for over 800 years by the time it’s discovered. How does it still have power?

– It’s been discussed by the Disco production team that the Discovery-era Enterprise was designed so that it could eventually be refit into the TOS Enterprise. The ISS Enterprise was contemporary with Kirk’s version and was seen on screen in TOS in that configuration. Why is the version in this episode the Discovery one? I know the real-world explanation is that it was easier to just re-use that model to align with the sets, but we saw a TOS-era Constitution class USS New Jersey at the Fleet Museum in Picard, so they had that model available to use. Just a bit sloppy

– How did Stamets immediately know that the ship exiting the wormhole was the ISS Enterprise and not a different prime Constitution class ship?

Photon Torpedo

– The solution to hold the wormhole open for the Enterprise to escape was to remove the payload from the torpedoes and replace them with antimatter. Photon torpedoes are matter/antimatter weapons, so this is a little confusing. Are they taking out the matter and just loading them with more antimatter?

I don’t know that it’s been there for 855 years.. not sure if it’s kind of like the Nexus or the black hole in Trek 09, where time does things differently. My guess is, that’s how the people on board were able to integrate into society. Their doppelgängers were long deceased.

Here’s the other thing… if the idea of revolution started with Mirror Spock, and the crew of the Enterprise more or less went along with him.. this is a way of explaining how they didn’t spread the idea to teh rest of the Empire.. they were lost in space and didn’t have much, if any, influence off of their own ship.

But they did spread the idea enough to weaken the empire to the point where it could be conquered.

Yeah I was wondering that also. It’s possible since it was extradimensional space that it didn’t put them in exactly the same time that they left. Also odd that they said Dr. Cho went BACK to the Enterprise to hide the clue. That’s a pretty risky trip unless the wormhole was more stable back in the 24th century.

It is strongly implied, if not explicitly stated, that the wormhole’s instability was caused by the Burn. So, it had to be more stable in the 24th century.

they never said that the ship would be refited into the tos version as they said those 60’s sets and ship model design would not look good or belivable as from our future with modern filming cameras they said from the start they visually updated the mid 23rd century to fit better visually between ent era designs and tmp era designs mainly using Star Trek 5/6 as the basis for the tmp era side of the designs

as for the new jersey that was just a pandering memberberry easter egg for the fans that hate the visual updates and even blass has said he objected to using the 60’s design for the ship and pointed out that it should have used the snw model for it and that it was all on terry who was more interested in filling episodes with those easter eggs and memberberries like all the stuff on daystrom station and for having data come back instead of having a brand new soong type android that was exactly as alton soong designed it to be a amalgamation of data lore lal and himself

I feel like I’m seeing the same episode over and over, what a waste this series is became.

Great episode! This season has really been fantastic so far. The writing has been consistent, the acting of the principals is fantastic, and the pacing has been great.

I really loved the scenes with Rayner in command. That worked so well!

Loved getting the backstory about Moll and L’ak – it really did add layers to their characters and their story. And the reveal that L’ak was a Breen! I never saw that coming! Was great to know more about the most underdeveloped and mysterious alien race in Trek history.

Seeing the ISS Entreprise was a treat! I am guessing it was lost quite some time after mirror Spock took over from mirror Kirk. Nice Easter Egg… better than having some unknown ship in there.

Looking forward to the remaining episodes.

Did anyone else see “Morn” (or one of his species) sitting at the bar in Red’s?

Yes, I did catch that. It was a fun detail.

Seriously, an episode doesn’t go by without at least one eye roll over the touchy feely huggy share my feeling vibe that is shoe-horned into worst places. I wonder what this series would be like if Bryan Fuller had stayed on…

It would had been .. a Star Trek show, not this happy sad feeling sharing at all costs every single time somebody speaks.

I have a question because I’m really confused:

So discovery originally was set less than a decade before ToS. (And then they ended up far in the future)

The ISS enterprise is a reference to the ToS episode about the mirror universe. So that means the ISS enterprise is a contemporary with ToS and the USS enterprise, which means Dr Cho (who was expressly stated to be Terran) was about back in Kirk’s day.

However the progenitor technology and science in general was only discovered in TNG under Picard and i think it was expressly stated that the scientists that hid this research were originally asked to research it after the discovery by Picard in the first place.

TNG is set in the 24th century but ToS is set in the 23rd century – theirs about a hundred years between them.

So I’m trying to understand the timeline here because at the moment, from what I understand, it’s a human from the 23rd century somehow became a scientist on a study in the late 24th century and then stole the research and helped hide it with her 4 pals.

No the iss enterprise entered that anomaly in the mid 24th century sometime after 2355 going by the stardate on that plaque and the ship got unstuck in time via the anomaly and the refugees and survivors of mirror Saru’s revolt ended up in the late 31st century prime verse timeline sometime prior to the burn happening and then doctor Cho who was one of those survivors returned later to the ship to hide the clue there before leaving again and never returning and wiping all references to the ship from records so that it would not easily be found

I thought for sure the Real Captain Lorca would be found in the transporters.

What a waste of an episode… filler and feelings…. Rinse and repeat

What an empty, disappointing episode. Discovery feels smaller and smaller every season.

the basic idea of the episode was already good. and it would have been really great to connect the MU and the 32nd century. in the end, however, the solution and especially the writing was weak. there could have been so much more …

what really annoys me is how owo and bryce are said goodbye with a side sentence, “so long …” and so on. the way DISCO treats secondary characters is really sad at times. there should have been much more space for a bridge member like owo … sad. again and again we are given hints of interesting background stories, but then nothing else happens. that’s really lousy. compare that to the way supporting characters in earlier series were built up into really multi-faceted carriers of stories …!!

This episode was the perfect opportunity for the series to bring back Prime Universe Lorca.

Instead of having Mirror Saru be the one that brings the ISS Enterprise from the Mirror Universe to the Prime Universe, it should have been Lorca that does it.

Additionally, they could have revealed that Lorca was STILL onboard the ship, trapped in the transporter buffer like Scotty was in Relics.

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Star Trek Movies in order

• Movies or TV
• IMDb Rating
• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

G | 143 min | Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi

When an alien spacecraft of enormous power is spotted approaching Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk resumes command of the overhauled USS Enterprise in order to intercept it.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , James Doohan

Votes: 96,627 | Gross: $82.26M

Star Trek I

2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

PG | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

With the assistance of the Enterprise crew, Admiral Kirk must stop an old nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh, from using the life-generating Genesis Device as the ultimate weapon.

Director: Nicholas Meyer | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , James Doohan

Votes: 129,238 | Gross: $78.91M

Star Trek II

3. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

PG | 105 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Admiral Kirk and his bridge crew risk their careers stealing the decommissioned U.S.S. Enterprise to return to the restricted Genesis Planet to recover Spock's body.

Director: Leonard Nimoy | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , James Doohan

Votes: 86,178 | Gross: $76.47M

Star Trek III

4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

PG | 119 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

To save Earth from an alien probe, Admiral James T. Kirk and his fugitive crew go back in time to San Francisco in 1986 to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it: humpback whales.

Votes: 91,497 | Gross: $109.71M

Star Trek IV

5. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

PG | 107 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Captain Kirk and his crew must deal with Mr. Spock's long-lost half-brother who hijacks the Enterprise for an obsessive search for God at the center of the galaxy.

Director: William Shatner | Stars: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley , James Doohan

Votes: 64,214 | Gross: $52.21M

Star Trek V

6. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

PG | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

On the eve of retirement, Kirk and McCoy are charged with assassinating the Klingon High Chancellor and imprisoned. The Enterprise crew must help them escape to thwart a conspiracy aimed at sabotaging the last best hope for peace.

Votes: 80,906 | Gross: $74.89M

Star Trek VI

7. Star Trek: Generations (1994)

PG | 118 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery

With the help of long presumed dead Captain Kirk, Captain Picard must stop a deranged scientist willing to murder on a planetary scale in order to enter a space matrix.

Director: David Carson | Stars: Patrick Stewart , William Shatner , Malcolm McDowell , Jonathan Frakes

Votes: 87,058 | Gross: $75.67M

Star Trek VII

8. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

PG-13 | 111 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

The Borg travel back in time intent on preventing Earth's first contact with an alien species. Captain Picard and his crew pursue them to ensure that Zefram Cochrane makes his maiden flight reaching warp speed.

Director: Jonathan Frakes | Stars: Patrick Stewart , Jonathan Frakes , Brent Spiner , LeVar Burton

Votes: 132,077 | Gross: $92.00M

Star Trek VIII

9. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

PG | 103 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

When the crew of the Enterprise learn of a Federation conspiracy against the inhabitants of a unique planet, Captain Picard begins an open rebellion.

Votes: 79,477 | Gross: $70.12M

Star Trek IX

10. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

PG-13 | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

The Enterprise is diverted to the Romulan homeworld Romulus, supposedly because they want to negotiate a peace treaty. Captain Picard and his crew discover a serious threat to the Federation once Praetor Shinzon plans to attack Earth.

Director: Stuart Baird | Stars: Patrick Stewart , Jonathan Frakes , Brent Spiner , LeVar Burton

Votes: 83,935 | Gross: $43.25M

Star Trek X

11. Star Trek (2009)

PG-13 | 127 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father's legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time.

Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Simon Pegg , Leonard Nimoy

Votes: 620,322 | Gross: $257.73M

Star Trek XI

12. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

PG-13 | 132 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction.

Director: J.J. Abrams | Stars: Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Zoe Saldana , Benedict Cumberbatch

Votes: 497,110 | Gross: $228.78M

Star Trek XII

13. Star Trek Beyond (2016)

PG-13 | 122 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

The crew of the USS Enterprise explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a new ruthless enemy, who puts them, and everything the Federation stands for, to the test.

Director: Justin Lin | Stars: Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , Karl Urban , Zoe Saldana

Votes: 258,527 | Gross: $158.85M

Star Trek XIII

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How to read a court of thorns & roses book series in order.

A Court of Thorns & Roses is probably Sarah J. Maas’ most popular series, but newcomers may be wondering about what order to read the books in.

• The release order and chronological order for A Court of Thorns & Roses is the same.
• While the books tell a linear story, readers don't need to pick up the newest ACOTAR books after the first three.
• Fans of ACOTAR should finish the series before starting the Crescent City books to avoid missing out on crossovers.

A Court of Thorns & Roses is probably Sarah J. Maas' most well-known series , but those reading it for the first time may have questions about what order to tackle the books in . Since the first installment debuted back in 2015, ACOTAR has become a massive hit among fans of " romantasy " books . The series often dominates conversations in online book spaces, which gives it the opportunity to attract new readers frequently. But newcomers who are less familiar with Maas' books may not know the best entry point to Feyre and Rhysand's story.

Even those who have read Maas' Throne of Glass series will know that her books don't always follow a chronological sequence of events. Add in the fact that ACOTAR started out as a trilogy — then went on to include a novella and spinoff novel — and the series' reading order could be considered confusing. Fortunately, reading A Court of Thorns & Roses is more straightforward than newcomers might assume . And it could be worth picking up the current installments now, as there are even more ACOTAR books on the horizon.

10 Books To Read If You Love A Court Of Thorns & Roses

The court of thorns & roses books in release order, sarah j. maas used to release an acotar book every year.

Reading books in the order that they're released is always going to work out, as that's the way they're meant to be consumed. A Court of Thorns & Roses' release order is simple enough to follow , even if the length of time between books has gotten longer with recent additions to the series. Maas released the first four ACOTAR novels a year apart from one another, capitalizing on the series' popularity and allowing it to gain momentum quickly.

A Court of Frost & Starlight came out in 2018, and A Court of Silver Flames hit shelves three years after that. Another ACOTAR book is already confirmed, but it's unclear what the wait will be like for this one. Those hoping to read the rest of the series in its release order can dig into the books as follows:

The Court Of Thorns & Roses Books In Chronological Order

Acotar's release order & chronological order are the same.

Unlike Throne of Glass — which takes readers back in time with The Assassin's Blade and sees Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn unfolding side by side — A Court of Thorns & Roses follows a chronological narrative . This means that there's no difference between the release order and chronological order. Readers can only tackle A Court of Thorns & Roses one way, though they don't technically need to read the more recent books to enjoy the first three. A Court of Thorns & Roses, A Court of Mist & Fury, and A Court of Wings & Ruin tell a complete story.

Meanwhile, A Court of Frost & Starlight and A Court of Silver Flames expand on it. The latter doesn't even follow Feyre and Rhysand, shifting the focus to Nesta and Cassian instead. But despite this perspective change, its events take place after those of the first four books. For that reason, readers can pick them up in the order they were released. This is likely to be the case for the next ACOTAR book as well, though Maas hasn't confirmed much about its plot. And because of its chronology, the reading experience for ACOTAR is easy to follow.

How ACOTAR Overlaps With The Crescent City Books

Its characters appear in 2 of the books.

While ACOTAR 's reading order is straightforward, the Crescent City books complicate things slightly . That's because there are ACOTAR cameos in two of the three Crescent City novels, and Maas may be building to a greater crossover later on. With that in mind, readers should read A Court of Thorns & Roses all the way through before picking up Crescent City. While they could get away with reading the first book, they shouldn't tackle House of Sky & Breath or House of Flame & Shadow without being caught up on ACOTAR.

When Will The Next ACOTAR Book Be Released?

Sarah j. maas is working on the sixth acotar book next.

With another ACOTAR book already confirmed , readers may also find themselves wondering when to pick up the series. Unfortunately, there's still no word on when Maas' next installment will hit shelves . During an interview with TODAY.com , the author confirmed that it's the next thing she's writing after Crescent City 3. Depending on how fast she writes, the new book could come up sometime in 2025 or 2026. Until then, there are plenty of reasons to revisit A Court of Thorns & Roses and Maas ' other books. Then readers will be ready when the sixth ACOTAR book finally arrives.

Source: TODAY.com

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Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from ‘Star Trek’ boldly goes home after twisting voyage

The first model of the USS Enterprise is displayed at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Heritage Auctions, left, and Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, shake hands over the recently recovered first model of the USS Enterprise at the Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Heritage Auctions, left, and Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, view the recently recovered first model of the USS Enterprise at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

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DALLAS (AP) — The first model of the USS Enterprise — used in the opening credits of the original “Star Trek” television series — has boldly gone back home, returning to creator Gene Roddenberry’s son decades after it went missing.

The model’s disappearance sometime in the 1970s had become the subject of lore, so it caused a stir when it popped up on eBay last fall. The sellers quickly took it down, and then contacted Dallas-based Heritage Auctions to authenticate it. Last weekend, the auction house facilitated the model’s return.

Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said he’s thrilled to have the model that had graced the desk of his father, who died in 1991 at age 70.

“This is not going home to adorn my shelves,” Roddenberry said. “This is going to get restored and we’re working on ways to get it out so the public can see it and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere.”

AP AUDIO: Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from ‘Star Trek’ boldly goes home after twisting voyage.

AP correspondent Margie Szaroleta reports on the return of the original model of the USS Enterprise from the TV show “Star Trek.”

Heritage’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, said the auction house was contacted by people who said they’d discovered it a storage unit, and when it was brought into their Beverly Hills office, he and a colleague “instantly knew that it was the real thing.”

They reached out to Roddenberry, who said he appreciates that everyone involved agreed returning the model was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t go into details on the agreement reached but said “I felt it important to reward that and show appreciation for that.”

Maddalena said the model vanished in the 1970s after Gene Roddenberry loaned it to makers of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which was released in 1979.

“No one knew what happened to it,” Rod Roddenberry said.

The 3-foot (0.91-meter) model of the USS Enterprise was used in the show’s original pilot episode as well as the opening credits of the resulting TV series, and was the prototype for the 11-foot (3-meter) version featured in the series’ episodes. The larger model is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

The original “Star Trek” television series, which aired in the late 1960s, kicked off an ever-expanding multiverse of cultural phenomena, with TV and movie spinoffs and conventions where a fanbase of zealous and devoted Trekkies can’t get enough of memorabilia.

This USS Enterprise model would easily sell for more than $1 million at auction, but really “it’s priceless,” Maddalena said.

“It could sell for any amount and I wouldn’t be surprised because of what it is,” he said. “It is truly a cultural icon.”

Roddenberry, who was just a young boy when the model went missing, said he has spotty memories of it, “almost a deja vu.” He said it wasn’t something he’d thought much about until people began contacting him after it appeared on eBay.

“I don’t think I really, fully comprehended at first that this was the first Enterprise ever created,” he said.

He said he has no idea if there was something nefarious behind the disappearance all those decades ago or if it was just mistakenly lost, but it would be interesting to find out more about what happened.

“This piece is incredibly important and it has its own story and this would be a great piece of the story,” Roddenberry said.

Thankfully, he said, the discovery has cleared up one rumor: That it was destroyed because as a young boy, he’d thrown it into a pool.

“Finally I’m vindicated after all these years,” he said with a laugh.

New to Paramount+ in April 2024

I t’s a bittersweet April for Star Trek: Discovery fans at Paramount+. The series finale of the Star Trek series will premiere on April 4, according to Get Your Comic On.

While waiting for the third installment of Paramount’s smash hit Sonic the Hedgehog movies, this April also marks the debut of the new Sonic: The Hedgehog spinoff series Knuckles. Idris Elba will voice Knuckles the Echidna as he teaches the way of the Echidna warrior to deputy Wade Whipple (Adam Pally). The six-episode animated series will debut on April 27.

For the Sonic the Hedgehog movie Jim Carey is rumored to reprise Dr. Robotnik, while Jessica Jones star Kristen Ritter is also joining the sequel .

The 2023 British crime comedy film Sumotherhood will make its streaming debut on April 10. The movie follows the story of two friends who get into trouble after an attempted bank robbery gone wrong.

The Challenge All-Stars season four will also make its two-episode premiere on April 11.

The Ewan McGregor-led A Gentleman in Moscow continues with the rest of its episodes next month.

Here are the rest of the titles available on Paramount+ this April.

Star Trek: Discovery – season 5, episodes 1-2

A Gentleman in Moscow – episode 2

Sumotherhood – exclusive film

Star Trek: Discovery – season 5, episode 3

The Challenge All Stars – series 4, episodes 1-2

A Gentleman in Moscow – episode 3

Star Trek: Discovery – season 5, episode 4

The Challenge All Stars – series 4, episode 3

A Gentleman in Moscow – episode 4

Star Trek: Discovery – season 5, episodes 5

The Challenge All Stars – series 4, episode 4

The Retirement Plan – exclusive film

A Gentleman in Moscow – episode 5

Knuckles – box set drop

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