What are the Most Skippable Star Trek Stories?

[Winter]

Quick question, how many fans and casual viewers have actually seen Star Trek The Motion Picture and The Final Frontier? Insurrection is basically a glorified filler episode that is so unimpfortant that it's never brought by anyone even though Picard is DYING in his series. In the future how many people are going to actually watch Into Darkness when Beyond basically ignores it and builds more upon the 09 film and Star Trek as a whole to build it's story. Who has taken the time to watch the Voyager episode Threshold, TNG's Code of Honor or DS9's Profit And Lace when these episodes have no baring on the plot or characters moving forward.

Or Enterprise and Discovery, regardless how one feels about these series the former has barely had any mention in Trek in the Prime Timeline and only a handful of mentions in the Kelvin Timeline and the latter is stated to be ignored by the series itself in Season 2 and takes place so far into the future in Season 3 that it will likely never affect the series story as a whole.

I've mentioned this before but one thing I enjoyed about Star Trek: Picard is how the series is actually building on the groundwork left by everything that came before it. The events of the Voyager finale is a major plot point in the first season as is the destruction of Romulus from Star Trek (2009) and the Death of Data is important to Picard's character arc. Several characters from TNG make a return too and used in the seasons plot and their arcs are treated as important.

How well these stories were written something will depend on your own opinion but I like that STP is moving Trek forward and using what came before as a foundation for its story instead of just ignoring it.

But that's a topic for another day as I do wonder what Episodes/Movies are ones that can be skipped over without consequences? Quality is not a factor here as the question is the story good but whether or not it adds anything to the series as a whole.

[clearspira]

That was always STD's main problem: it was a prequel that no one wanted and was a badly done prequel that ignored too much lore. If STD was set in the 25th century I have always maintained that it would have done better.

Truthfully, I think you can skip the first two seasons of TNG as they are so different in tone to what the show would become later. The only things of lasting consequence to come out of it would be Q and the Borg.

[CrypticMirror]

That was always STD's main problem: it was a prequel that no one wanted and was a badly done prequel that ignored too much lore. If STD was set in the 25th century I have always maintained that it would have done better.

It had the single most overused fanfic plot as it's anchor: Spock's secret sister. I have read that story so many times, hell, I wrote that fanfic too. Add to that it had the evil-Trek bullshit, and war-Trek bullshit, then it was out of my consideration long before they put Cmdr The Cow Goes Moo and Girl!Wesley in it just to kill the whole thing entirely. I wish modern Trek would stay out of the fanfic box. I'll say this for ENT and VOY, at least they tried to do something not already covered in fanfic.

And I'll say this for STD and LDs, they make ENT and TAS look good. I don't really have an opinion on PIC, other than it fridges too many people, because there is only about two episode's worth of story stretched out over its entire first season. More stories, less arc.

[TGLS]

Random Episode Skippability (From High to Low)
TOS
TNG/VOY/ENT Seasons 1-2
DS9/ENT Seasons 3-4/LD
DIS/PIC

Yes, it's effectively chronological order. But if you were watching Trek all the way through (and treating the two parters as one episode), then missing any episode of TOS would likely have less effect than missing any other episode and so on.

Movies:
II/III/IV
Generations/2009
Other non-Kelvin movies
Other Kelvin movies

II-IV is one continuous storyline; skipping any leaves one more lost than skipping any other movie. Generations gets higher placement because the Ent-D crashes. The Kelvin movies are effectively firewalled off from the rest of the franchise, except for 2009 which blew up Romulus on the way out of the non-Kelvin universe.

[McAvoy]

I skip episodes. Not storylines. Though I do struggle watching the entirety of TNG's first two seasons when I do a rerun. It's just bad overall.

Off the of the top of my head knowing the title of the episodes too, Shades of Gray, Matter of Honor, Move Along Home, Muse, A Night in Sickbay.

I don't really skip the movies. The Abrams though I do. I haven't done a rewatch of Discovery, hell I haven't even watched the third season yet. That series for me is an actuak chore for me.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

>__>
<_<

*gets on my flame-proof outfit and hornet-nest-poking-stick*
*pulls pin out of grenade*

TNG: The Inner Light

[clearspira]

>__>
<_<

*gets on my flame-proof outfit and hornet-nest-poking-stick*
*pulls pin out of grenade*

TNG: The Inner Light

I agree. I think that its an incredibly overrated episode and the aliens in question are a bunch of no-good mind rapists. After all, is there a positive argument that applies to their satellite that doesn't also apply to the memorial from ''Memorial''? They are lucky a Federation ship found it and not the Klingons.

[McAvoy]

>__>
<_<

*gets on my flame-proof outfit and hornet-nest-poking-stick*
*pulls pin out of grenade*

TNG: The Inner Light

Blasphemy! Death by the BB gun!

[Winter]

>__>
<_<

*gets on my flame-proof outfit and hornet-nest-poking-stick*
*pulls pin out of grenade*

TNG: The Inner Light

Blasphemy! Death by the BB gun!

Is that like a Beast Boy gun? Like it shots out tuns of Beast Boys? Cause that would sell like hot cakes.

[McAvoy]

>__>
<_<

*gets on my flame-proof outfit and hornet-nest-poking-stick*
*pulls pin out of grenade*

TNG: The Inner Light

Blasphemy! Death by the BB gun!

Is that like a Beast Boy gun? Like it shots out tuns of Beast Boys? Cause that would sell like hot cakes.

Umm. Small metallic metal balls. Like what you fill shotgun shells. Though I might be wrong but the typical BB gun fires slightly bigger ones.

They are fired by air too.