DISCOVERY
Beginner’s Guide: The Top Five Episodes
Into the Unknown, Then Into the Future
Discovery premiered in September 2017 as the first Star Trek series made for streaming, and it ran for five seasons, ending in 2024. It begins in 2256, about a decade before Captain Kirk's mission, and follows Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), a Starfleet officer raised by Vulcans who starts the series in disgrace. Alongside her are the scientist Paul Stamets, the Kelpien officer Saru and the irrepressible Ensign Tilly. Midway through, the ship leaps nearly a thousand years into the future, to a Federation that has been shattered and has to be rebuilt.
Unlike older Trek, each season of Discovery tells one long story, so the series is more serialized than most, and it has divided fans. But it has also produced some of the franchise's boldest ideas, its most emotional character moments and its biggest swings. For newcomers, the episodes below are good starting points because each of them delivers a complete story on its own.
Crew advisory: The ship runs on mushroom-powered travel. Please do not ask Mr. Stamets to explain it while he is eating.
1. Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad
Harry Mudd, the roguish con man from the Original Series, returns, played with delightful menace by Rainn Wilson, and traps the Discovery in a time loop while he tries to steal the ship. Each time the clock resets, only Stamets remembers, and he has to convince Burnham all over again. It is a witty, fast-moving time-loop comedy that also carries real stakes, and it is widely loved even by fans who struggle with other parts of the series. It ranks first because it is the best single hour to show what Discovery's tone can be.
2. Forget Me Not
The crew of the Discovery is exhausted by the shock of arriving in a strange future, and so while Burnham and a young Trill named Adira travel to the Trill homeworld to unlock the memories of the symbiont inside Adira, the rest of the ship tries to process what has happened to them. There, Adira unlocks the symbiont's memories and reconnects with Gray, the partner they lost, and the story becomes a tender look at grief, memory and what we owe the people we have lost. It makes the list because it is the best example of Discovery's emotional strengths, and it introduces some of the show's finest characters.
3. Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2
The Discovery crew gathers for a final stand against Control, a rogue artificial intelligence that has chosen to wipe out all life. To save the galaxy, the ship has to make a one-way trip into the distant future, and Burnham has to say goodbye to everything she knows. It is a spectacular, high-stakes finale with characters from the Original Series era, including Spock and Captain Pike, at the center of the story. It earns its place because it resolves the season's big mystery and sets up the series' whole second act.
4. Face the Strange
The Discovery is sabotaged by a mysterious weapon, and Burnham, Commander Rayner and Stamets are the only three people who can save the ship as time lurches around them. They bounce through the show's own history, and Burnham comes face to face with earlier versions of herself and with old friends, including Airiam. The title comes from a David Bowie song about change, and the episode is a warm, funny tribute to how far the show and its characters have come. It makes the list because it is a perfect example of Star Trek using time travel to tell a story about personal growth.
5. Unification III
The title is a sequel to The Next Generation's two-part "Unification," in which Spock worked to reunite the Vulcans and Romulans, and this episode shows what became of that dream more than eight hundred years later. Vulcan is now called Ni'Var, and the Vulcans and Romulans live as one people. Burnham, whose Vulcan upbringing runs deep, has to stand before the government of Ni'Var in an episode that plays like a courtroom drama. It is a thoughtful, classic-feeling Trek story that rewards fans of the older series, and it is on the list for exactly that reason.
More of the beginner’s guide: The Original Series • The Animated Series • The Next Generation • Deep Space Nine • Voyager • Enterprise • Picard • Lower Decks • Prodigy • Strange New Worlds • Short Treks • Starfleet Academy.
Not sure what order to watch in? Try our chronological watch order or the Star Trek timeline. Want people to talk Trek with? Enlist and join the crew at one of our Star Trek events around Atlanta.
