It’s probably not something the community will agree, but I think “Strange New Worlds” is the best place to start. It has the soul and the essense of star trek, great episodes and acting and it’s modern, so you wont get bored from a 90’s series astettics. Afterwards you might want to go the usual path of TNG, VOY, DS9 and Enterprise, these are the essentials.

Lower Decks is fun series with Huge amounts of references, you might want to have a look.

Discovery and Picard are good serieses on their own, and they are integral part of the canon, they just don’t have the same storytelling style as the star trek. Last season of Picard I cryed my guts, but that’s just because I saw TNG, VOY etc… before.

Sorry for skippimg the original series, it’s just really hard to watch with 60’s astettics.

If you like classics, I say start all the way back with the original! It’s fun, very 1960s, and largely episodic (because it was uncommon for people to watch it in order back then). It was meant to draw in a wide audience and introduce them to Trek ideas, so it’s entertaining to see where it all started.

I’m changing my vote to Voyager.

The Next Generation season 3 is the classic start position.

It’s difficult to recommend without knowing your preferences. If you want to see everything and aren’t picky, I’d watch the shows in release order. Be aware that the original series hasn’t aged perfectly, in my opinion.

If you’d like a show that has a bit of everything in decent quality, (action, drama, comedy, science, philosophy, etc.) I’d recommend The Next Generation. In my opinion, the first season is awful, but the show gets exponentially better starting in the second season.

If you are more interested in characters and drama, then you might like to start with Deep Space Nine. This is one of the only Trek shows that has a strong first season. My only warning would be that it’s a bit of a long show that might drag for some people by the end, though it has a solid conclusion.

It’s been a long road…

I have long held that Season 5, Episode 2 of The Next Generation is the best episode to “test” if you’ll like Star Trek or not. It is a generally well-liked and well-reviewed episode, but more than that, I feel that from both a story and a character standpoint it is representative of what your average Star Trek episode is generally about.

The first ones are the best imo.

I’m at the exact point as you too and have decided to see it all!

I’m currently half way through the original series and although much of it has not aged well, it’s still fascinating. A few episodes are almost impossible to watch but many of them are classics. I do look forward to the next generation but I will have to watch the animated series first.

From what i understand, star trek is very mixed when it comes to episode quality.

TNG Season 1 if you plan on giving it a solid season and a half.

Season 2 or 3 if you don’t.

It’s hard to know from so little to go on.

Part of it will have to do with your tolerance for what the 60s or the 80s or the 90s or even the 00s thought the future would be. Because if you don’t have tolerance for any of that, it’s best to start with one of the new shows like Discovery or Strange New Worlds.

If that isn’t an issue, I’d suggest going to this website and seeing which show’s summary appeals to you most and then dive in. It’s true that Star Trek shows (generally) start weak in their first season, but there are first season episodes we could also all recommend.

https://www.optus.com.au/connected/entertainment/star-trek-beginners-guide

I grew up with TOS, so I will always go with TOS before the others, but I also recognize it can be pretty hard to get into a 1960s idea of the far future.

Based on what I remember of the “classic” Star Trek series:

• TOS: can be watched in any order; very episodic; IMO has generally aged poorly and is not a good place to start
• STNG: has a few plots lines through the series, but these only appear in some episodes; mostly episodic. If you’re worried about getting bored I think you can just watch the first two episodes, then skip to season 3 or 4. Once you feel like you’re enjoying the series go back and watch the episodes you skipped.
• DS9: has a number of plot lines through the series, somewhat episodic, but best watched in order. The first season is ROUGH. My favorite of the classic series, but oh wow does it take a while to get good. Watch after STNG to understand properly.
• VOY: pretty episodic after the first few episodes, with the exception of seasons 3-4 which have a fairly substantial continuing plot. The series makes a little more sense if you’ve seen season one of DS9.
• ENT: has a decent amount of continuing plot lines, but still generally episodic. A prequel so it can be understood without watching any other series, but it has a lot of callbacks to previous shows that make it best watched last IMO. Also it’s probably the worst of the classic shows (excluding TOS which gets a pass for cultural relevance reasons), so I definitely wouldn’t start with it. I don’t think any one season is especially better/worse, and it’s fairly short so there’s not much point in jumping around.

In conclusion, I’d recommend either starting with one of the newer series, or watch the first two episodes of STNG, skip to S3 or S4, then once you’re enjoying it go back and watch STNG in order starting from S1E3.