Star Trek: Enterprise

Skippable, and this is the page where the chronological order on this site is at its most misleading. Enterprise sits first in the in-universe timeline, a century before everything else, and it is close to the worst place anybody could begin. It was made fourth, it is the weakest of the Berman-era series, and almost every idea in it lands as a reference rather than as an introduction.

The premise was sound. Humanity's first warp-capable ship, a crew with no protocol, no translator that works reliably and no Federation to call, supervised by Vulcans who think the whole enterprise is premature. A show about the clumsy beginning of everything is a good idea.

What got made was mostly the familiar format in older uniforms, with two further problems. A time-travel arc was imposed across the early seasons and never resolved coherently, and the third season was given over to a serialised war storyline written in the immediate aftermath of September 2001 that sits awkwardly with the franchise's politics. The theme song, a soft-rock ballad with lyrics, remains the most complained-about four minutes in Star Trek.

The fourth season is genuinely good, run by a different showrunner, built as short arcs that connect the prequel to the series it precedes, and it arrived after cancellation had been decided. Watch that season if you watch any of it, and do not start here.