@GreenSkyOverMe @bytebro

TNG is still episodic, where a lot of very good episodes work on their own, without needing too much context. And there are quite a number of those.

Strange New Worlds feels very TOS-y in a lot of ways.

DS9 is more of a slow burn and does some story-arcs with multi-episode stories. (Probably takes longer than an evening)

Lower Decks is a funny TNG spin-off. it goes a bit over the top and has a lot of TNG references.

(These are my four recommendations, in order)

@bytebro

Indeed. ST:TNG is where the idea of the 'Star Trek reset button' originally came up, when the series first came out.

There's a slight bit of back story to prequel Spock and Pike from Star Trek: Discovery that one has to know in order to fully appreciate ST:SNW, but not much and not the whole series.

If you do watch ST:SNW, then to fully appreciate its 'Those Old Scientists' episode, you really need to also watch Lower Decks.

There's, obviously, a similar mild dependency from ST:TNG to Star Trek: Picard. And, because of Janeway and Crusher, from both Voyager and TNG, to Prodigy.

That said, if someone were looking to binge-watch something #SciFi, I wouldn't recommend anything as mass-market as #StarTrek at all.

@fleuron @GreenSkyOverMe

@JdeBP

Oh, now I want to hear your binge-watching sci-fi recommendations. 😀 I did enjoy The Expanse for all its different/nouanced characters a lot.

@fleuron

If we are casting a net wide enough to encompass @bytebro not having even seen ST:TNG, there's a lot of scope.

I'm going to consider Stargate as similarly mass-market, and ignore the superhero things like the Arrowverse and Marvel.

#Babylon5 almost goes without saying. There's also #PersonOfInterest. Both of those are multi-season epics that will take more than a week, let alone an evening, but are mandatory. Fascism, war, resistance, good and evil not being what you think, spiritualism, civilisational suicide, AI, propaganda, and the surveillance state. Plus, you'll never look at 'reset button' stuff the same way again, after seeing things with season-long and series-long arcs.

#TheLexx, of course, just to find out that Sci-Fi can be a lot weirder than you think. (-:

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#SciFi

@fleuron
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Other smaller things worth watching are #DarkMatter and #VagrantQueen, especially if one liked #Firefly. Likewise #Farscape, although again this is far too long for one evening, especially if one liked the Stargates and some of the universe building in Riddick.

#SpacePrecinct is forgettable, although the #AlienNation series was alright (as was the #RoboCop telly spin-off, apparently, but I never saw it); but #MaxHeadroom and #DarkAngel are better if one is looking for near-future urban stuff.

Definitely watch Dark Angel if you like the Hitman and Salt movies and want to see how a telly series with #JessicaAlba got there years before and explored the ideas in a lot more depth.

There were 21st C remakes of #BionicWoman and #TheInvisibleMan that are under-remembered. For the latter: Of course the USPS has a secret service. (-:

@bytebro
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#SciFi