Welcome to the Star Trek Franchise Rewatch Party - The Stardate Chronology: Part I!

FAQ

“The what?”

For those that don’t know, I just finished rewatching the existing episodes of The Orville over on that community. Since I’ve been wanting to rewatch “all of Star Trek” for a while now, I’ve decided to turn it into a community event.

“All of Star Trek, meaning ALL of Star Trek?”

Yes, e-ven-tu-al-ly.

“By Stardate?”

In order by Stardate and/or calendar date. Meaning the first two episodes in the list are The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before, because those two episodes occur the earliest, chronologically. For the most part, the official Stardate given in the episode or assigned to it by official sources is used and the calendar date is extrapolated, with rare exception where an episode or movie is “out of order” to correct a continuity issue. An explanation will be provided anytime that happens.

“What does ‘Part I’ mean?”

Part I = The original run of shows and movies first conceived by Gene Roddenberry & Majel Barrett and continued by… that other guy. Simply put, everything from the original Star Trek series through to Voyager and all the movies through to Nemesis.

“So, Part II would be…”

The Kelvin Timeline (Enterprise & the Kelvin movies). And Part III would be the modern timeline; Everything from Discovery to Academy, in chronological order.

“Why are you separating the old shows from the new shows? If it’s chronological, then shouldn’t Enterprise be first?”

Due to all the differences and changes seen in the timeline since Star Trek began producing prequel series, I ascribe to a three-timeline continuity. The original timeline (TOS, TAS, movies I~VI, TNG, DS9, VOY, & movies VII~X), the Kelvin timeline (ENT, & Kelvin movies), and the modern timeline (ENT, DIS S1 & 2, BNW, LD, PRO, PIC, DIS s3~5, S31, SA, and the Short Treks when they occur).

This post and rewatch isn’t about arguing the validity of how I believe everything fits together, that’s just how I make everything make sense without excluding anything. In addition to that:

  • I want to watch the shows I grew up with first, then everything else. I also don’t want to wait several years before watching The Next Generation (my favorite show and arguably the best of Star Trek). ;)
  • Splitting the rewatch into those three groups also very roughly keeps the entire franchise in production order. The most-notable changes being TAS begins and ends within TOS, movies V & VI coming before the beginning of TNG, DIS is split into two distant segments, and BNW comes before all the shows that aired between it and DIS. Another way to look at it is: Part I is 20th-century Star Trek, Part II is Kelvin Star Trek, and Part III is the rest of 21st-century Star Trek.

I’ve spent a few years fine-tuning my chronological lists but I haven’t watched through Star Trek in this order before. I’m using this as an excuse to test my work and see if anything needs fixing.

“Okay, whatever. So when is this happening?”

Starting this weekend, and continuing every weekend unless I am indisposed (or WWIII starts. In which case, I will move to Montana to help the surviving scientists build warp drive). Once Part I is completed (in a few years), Part II will immediately begin, and so on.

“How frequently? How many episodes per week?”

Two episodes per week, each with a separate post. This weekend, as mentioned above, is the two original pilots: The Cage & Where No Man Has Gone Before. To improve the speed of the rewatch, two-parters will be treated as a single episode (But differently-named episodes of an arc, such as in DS9, will not) and share the same post. If one or more of the episodes that week is animated (30 minutes instead of an hour) or a short, there will be three episodes that week.But if that week has a movie, the whole weekend will be exclusively dedicated to the movie.

This will also be a master post containing links to every entry watched so far. The master post will be linked to in each rewatch post.

“Where will you post?”

Here on c/startrek on lemmy.world. This is for the greatest amount of exposure to subscribers and non-subscribers alike and to get the best odds against the instance collapsing a few years into the run, which would force me to re-upload everything somewhere else. I also don’t want to make ANOTHER Star Trek community just for this.

“Where can I see the list for Part I?”

Right here.

This list is complete, but I still need to finish adding notes to each entry. The content of those notes will be included with each entry anyway. (The list also includes a fan production, which is explained in the description. Ignore those for now. I’m either going to skip those episodes entirely or watch them alongside the first six movies.)

MASTER TIMELINE (new entries are added weekly) 
KEY:

ERA

- No. SERIES, "Episode Title!"
  - Stardate(s) (Earth calendar month & year)

(Off-camera continuity)

TOS = Star Trek The Original Series
TAS = Star Trek The Animated Series
CON = Star Trek Continues (fan production)
MOV = movie
TNG = Star Trek The Next Generation
DS9 = Star Trek Deep Space Nine
VGR = Star Trek Voyager

(The USS Enterprise is constructed and commissioned under Captain Robert April.)

(The USS Enterprise is transferred to Captain Christopher Pike.)

PIKE’S MISSIONS

THE FIVE-YEAR MISSION

(The USS Enterprise is transferred to Captain James T. Kirk.)

(The USS Enterprise begins its five-year mission.)

I hope you will join me in wasting the next several years of my life doing this!

“See you, out there.” - Q