I enjoy a lot of franchises to be fair, but none of them as much as Doctor Who.
I probably get into video game lore more than anything else (not super deep just surface level interest)
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Yeah - I keep trying and I haven’t got past the one where there’s a murderer from Kirk’s past who’s performing Hamlet on the ship or something.
I loved TNG back in the day but never really got into DS9 or Voyager - although I got further into Voyager than DS9. I do mean to give both of them another go though. My wife is working her way through DS9 now so I catch the occasional episode.
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Best starting point for Star Trek - interesting question.
I do think for “the original feel but interpreted for modern audiences,” The Next Generation is the best starting point (and I would add: maybe even Season 2, not 1).
Chronologically, one would have to start with Enterprise. In my opinion, an often underestimated gem in the franchise.
For something really adapted to modern times but still incorporating important aspects of TOS (Starfleet is military with concepts like discipline 
), I’d say Strange New Worlds.
Discovery, on the other hand, is, in core aspects, just different (I watched the first 3 seasons and actually enjoyed the second one most of the time). It’s more about, hm, believing in people? People believe other people are able to do something and through the power of I don’t know what, they are able to do things they are not trained for. People disobey orders without logical reason, but because they are heroes, in the end, they were right to do so.
Sorry, my view of Discovery is really not the most positive.
What I competly unironically want to say is: If that’s one’s jam, it absolutely is a good entry point into Star Trek. Just marvel with awe and wonder at the not always logical but potentially emotionally fulfilling tapestry presented.
It really is very similar to Doctor Who , where I find there are entry points for everyone, and every recommendation is lacking without knowing the personal preferences of the person one advises.
Just my 2 cents.
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DS9 really changes as soon as Sisko gets bald (← not joking, complete tonal shift of the stories, imho).
Even before that: Season 2 so different to Season 1.
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Star Wars has been big for me, though less so in recent years. I haven’t delved into the EU.
Marvel is huge, mostly on the comics side. DC to a lesser extent.
Harry Potter has always been a big part of my childhood, so it’s a big favourite as well.
I have watched the entirety of Star Trek: TOS and the first two seasons of Discovery, but haven’t found the time or commitment to watching everything else.
This is the same for me as well. Aku Ankka is the biggest comic in Finland, though I subscribed to and read Kalle Anka for a decade.
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Well, you know, if you particularly liked Janeway, Prodigy’s still out there. It isn’t giving away too much to say Janeway’s in it a fair bit.
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I still love Harry Potter and the Wizarding World, despite JK Rowling’s awful views. I wish the franchise could be bought from JK Rowling by Warner Bros.
When it comes to comic books, I prefer Marvel to DC. Marvel, to me, has greater consistency, whereas DC sometimes lacks creative direction.
Disney/Pixar can be fun too, especially films like Aladdin, The Lion King, and Toy Story.
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Star Trek, 100%. But even then I am only into what’s on TV. Apart from BF I very rarely dip into expanded media for any of the big franchises I have been a fan of. Trek is something I loved as a kid & still enjoy, I have a different relationship with Star Wars lol. I am currently watching the old animated series featuring Kirk & Co, first time & its fun. TOS was repeated on tv when I was a kid, its one of those shows that like Dr Who is so ingrained in popular culture. I just love the 60s aesthetic, the trio of Kirk, Spock & McCoy has never really been bettered but I am taking into account the movies as well. Those first 6 Star Trek movies are all fun. TNG was great, DS9 probably my favourite. I couldn’t get into Enterprise. I’ve tried a few times to watch Voyager but always give up. It has such a great premise but doesn’t do anything interesting with it, none of the characters appealed to me & lots of the stories are quite generic.
I think the Star Trek franchise is a great example of how to do it right. There are lots of different shows which seem to cater to different Star Trek audiences & they have few crossovers. I hope Dr Who follows this model. I couldn’t get into Discovery, Picard’s 3rd season was fantastic, I am also enjoying Strange New Worlds even if it is a lot about nostalgia. I hope we get a new live action Star Trek show that moves things forward, set after all the other shows.
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Same in Denmark with the comics. “Anders And” is still going strong 
If you get the time for a bit of Star Wars again I will strongly recommend “Andor”. It is recogniseably Star Wars but still very much it’s own thing.
Harry Potter is massive with my nieces and nephews ages 4-11. And I have very fond memories borrowing a folding bike at a camp in Australia and riding about 10 km to get to a bookshop to buy HP 7 on the release day
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The fun thing is, I started watching Andor and watched two or three episodes before giving up because I found it a bit dull. But I’ve heard great things about it, so I might give it a go again. The Mandalorian is great, too!
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The first couple of episodes are a bit dull, but also the pace of the series is a bit slower overall compared to other Star Wars stuff. Plus Varada Sethu is great in it and she appears in episode 5 if I recall correctly
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So longer answer:
I’ve been a Disney fan since a teenager and bought all the VHSes and then DVDs. When my wife - also a huge Disney fan - and I got together, we combined our collections and we have a complete Disney DVD collection up to about the time DIsney Plus started and we haven’t actually bought any of the recent films.
Disney Plus was a no-brainer for our house when it launched and generally thats now where we watch new releases.
I’ve also been watching the entire canon - animated and live (and blogging my reviews here Home – Who Loves Disney ) but have slowed down around the interminable Western period in the late 50s.
We are both big Marvel fans as well and watch all the films and TV series (although we’re behind on them only just having watched Quantumania (which was much better than people had lead me to believe). I’ve also been reading the comics from the beginning but it’s slow going and I’m only as far as something like 1965. I use this excellent site to track and rate them: https://cmro.travis-starnes.com/
Star Wars is something I’ve always followed film wise - and TV wise with Disney Plus. My wife and eldest are more into it than me and have done the animations but I still remember seeing Return of the Jedi in the cinema on holiday and it would have been one of the first films I saw on the big screen. I also didn’t hate either the prequels or modern sequels as much as apparently you are supposed to (I roll my eyes at all fandoms, not just Doctor Who).
And as I say Star Trek has been on and off for me, with probably more off than on as I haven’t seen any of the newer series like Discovery or Strange New Worlds. We did, however, watch Picard which was absolutely superb!
I loved Harry Potter when the books first came out and, actually, I was at the forefront of the craze as I read the first book to my Y5 class long before the franchise exploded. It was even the ‘adult’ version of the book with the ‘non-kiddie’ cover which they brought out because its popularity was moving away from just kids.
I enjoyed the films for what they were but felt the books got ever more disappointing especially as Rowling is rubbish at writing deaths. I remember being thorougly unmoved by Cedric or any of the many casualties in the final book.
Watched the first Fantastic Beasts film but have never bothered with the follow ups and as a whole world, I’ve kind of lost interest in Harry Potter.
Others of my favourite franchises include:
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Blakes 7 (the BF audios are excellent and there’s a lot of them now)
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Quantum Leap (the original and the excellent ‘reboot’ (sadly now cancelled) and a bunch of books and comics some of which I have read.
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The Jim Henson universe - The Muppets, Sesame Street, Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, Farscape and much much more. I always dreamed of being a Henson puppeteer.
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Do 80s movies count? The Goonies, Ghostbusters (and the growing franchise coming from them), Back to the Future, The Lost Boys, Gremlins .
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Scream - not a horror fan really but I love the Scream franchise including the legacy sequels and the rarely talked about TV series.
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Damn, didn’t know the reboot had been cancelled. I enoyed it. A nice continuation of the story.
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We’re waiting for Season 2 to drop on Paramount+ which will watch before our year’s subscription is up (bought for my Mum’s birthday present to she could watch the Frasier reboot and ‘used’ by us to watch Quantum Leap 
)
It did such good things to make it it’s own series whilst also properly honouring the original. Really liked the fact it spends an equal amount of time on the leap and at the project because that’s something the original could have benefitted from.
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I’m a big Trekkie. I watched every show (though I still haven’t gotten around to Discovery S5 and Prodigy S2) and have quite a collection of novels, as well as vintage fanzines. I have some controversial opinions, most notably that TNG is my least favourite show (excluding Picard, which I think is leagues worse and quite possibly the worst show I have ever watched in full. The second season was passable, but if you skip any Trek show, let it be this one. Absolutely not worth it).
For those looking to get into Star Trek for the first time, I really do recommend TOS, especially if you plan on being a completionist. Don’t watch The Cage; you’ll get the gist of it in The Menagerie, and it’s not worth watching on its own. You can watch TOS in one of three orders: chronological by release (the usual option), chronological by filming (which handles character growth a lot better), and chronological by Stardate (which is closer to filming order and is just plain fun). It doesn’t really matter, because TOS is extremely episodic and things generally get reset at the end of every episode, but there are a few references and character moments that come off better if you watch in one of these orders. This also means you can skip episodes whenever you want. I can make a skip list if people are interested, but I have pretty unique taste (as is usual for a Doctor Who fan).
As for TNG, a lot of it is also quite skippable, until around S4 when things become a little more serialised. Then at S6 DS9 starts being released in between, and there are a few crossover episodes. The same happens with Voyager a few years later. You don’t have to watch them together, but I recommend it. It makes it a lot easier to understand certain plots, and if you find TNG boring like me it makes it easier to get through.
The modern shows are a bit different. SNW is the closest to the classic shows in tone. Discovery is, I feel, somewhat of Trek’s Torchwood. It’s a lot darker than the other shows, with adult themes and sex. It’s not for everyone. S2 is my favourite, I found the rest to be a bit of a mess.
Sorry, this turned into quite a post. I didn’t realise I still had all this knowledge in me.
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Literally couldn’t disagree more. I’m no Trekkie but I thought it was absolutely brilliant - I’d be fascinated to know what you thought was wrong with it.
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It’s been quite a while since I saw the show so I don’t remember all the issues I had with it, just the horrible feeling it left behind. I could probably find my liveblogging from the time and try to build an explanation, though.
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Good to hear that it’s still popular among kids. It’s a great franchise, just a shame it has been tarnished by JK Rowling’s backward beliefs.
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Probably somewhere in the middle between yours and @deltaandthebannermen’s opinion:
I loved Picard Season 1 until the last two episodes, which I thought were rubbish.
I should have loved (probably not surprisingly I am a sucker for time travel stories) and really tried to like Season 2. But at some point, there were so many situations where I just did not get why people were doing things (probably because they had to follow the script) that I just could not watch any more episodes. Really disliked this season (as far as I watched it).
Season 3 I liked very much again. And just like with Season 1, I enjoyed it until the last 2 episodes, which in my opinion had horrible pacing and, by revealing the “true” adversary borg again, overcomplicated a perfectly well-crafted story.
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It’s interesting to hear people’s opinions on Star Trek.
I also thought Picard was a mess - just nonsensical story, annoying characters, way too much nostalgia instead of plot. Only series 3 was any good, the rest I really disliked (I kept watching because I wanted to love it).
Whereas I think Discovery is probably the best Star Trek show they’ve ever done, or maybe a close second to Voyager. It’s interesting that those two are quite reviled in fandom, but also they are the ones with strong female lead characters, and in case of Discovery, more diversity than I’ve ever seen in any show ever. They have trans, non-binary, gay characters, and the entire bridge crew are so diverse that for 90% of the show there isn’t a single straight, white male to be seen. I have a strong feeling this is why the show is disliked by many (not accusing anyone here of that, of course!)
Harry Potter I loved when the books came out, read them all as soon as they were released, I cried when Dumbledore died. The movies were quite good but seemed to get worse and worse, and I’ve not even seen the last 2 Fantastic Beasts movies, combination of “ew, JK Rowling” and they didn’t seem to get very good reviews, plus the I thought the first one was pretty dull.
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