Is there any crossover between Star Trek TV shows after the broadcast of Enterprise?

Question

To clear up confusion:

There seems to be some confusion in this question as shown in some of the answers. Other than TOS, I've been watching all the series TNG, DS9, VOY & ENT in that order. This question is explicitly about the newer series, premiering no earlier than 2017, more than a decade after ENT went off the air, and if there are any crossovers/references/etc. between those episodes.

And now back to your regularly scheduled question:

There are several questions here about viewing order for Star Trek and all of them seem to end with Enterprise as the last TV series (some include movies after that, but not the TV shows).

I expanded my search and found this list of TV series which includes Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, Strange New Worlds and even a mention of Starfleet Academy which may be in production this year. (Original air dates start in the order listed here.)

Several of these post-Enterprise series have overlapping broadcast dates.

Is there any continuity/reference at all between any of these shows where watching episodes by individual broadcast date would be required/recommended to know what's going on, or is it reasonable to watch the series in order of S01E01 first air date (i.e., the order listed above)? If there is overlap, what is a recommended watching order?

I'll be wrapping up my viewing of Enterprise soon, and am looking to move into the other series and want to know if I'll be missing something by (for example) watching all of Discovery (still in production, it says) before jumping into Picard.

Answer 1

Yes, several. Most details are minor (for example, a minor character in Picard season 1 is of a species introduced in Discovery). There are a few big points of crossover, so I'll describe those without attempting to be exhaustive of every minor detail.

• Strange New Worlds is in many ways a spinoff of Discovery. Captain Pike and his Enterprise feature heavily in Discovery season 2 and SNW is essentially them getting their own show after proving popular. It's certainly possible to watch it standalone, but it's written to continue directly from the preceding seasons of Discovery, and refers back to events and character beats from them several times.
• Discovery season 3 includes a number of elements drawn from Picard season one. Some are background setting elements, such as groups that "existed all along" but were first referenced in Picard:

the Romulan Qowat Milat.

One is an outright spoiler for the ending of Picard's first season:

Picard's golem body.

• An episode of Strange New Worlds season 2 is an outright crossover with Lower Decks, featuring both casts. I actually watched this with friends who were only following Lower Decks and they enjoyed it as a Lower Decks episode. I'm not sure how well it would hold up for a SNW-only viewer.
• The Starfleet Academy show will, as far as I'm aware, be a spinoff of Discovery set after its fourth season.

If you expect to watch all the shows, my recommendation is to watch the first two seasons of Discovery, then the first season of Picard, then the rest without needing to worry too much about their relative continuity. You should at least watch Discovery S1-2 before Strange New Worlds, and Picard S1 before Discovery S3.

Answer 2

A number of episodes of various series and movies feature time travel back into the past, earlier than the earliest Star Trek series, Star Trek: Enterprise. One goes back to the first life on Earth billions of years ago. And I think one goes back to the Big Bang and the beginning of the known universe over 13 billion years ago.

The first main era of star Trekis that of Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT).

Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT) begins about a century before Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) and has the earliest fictional date of any Star Trek series.

Then comes the group of series and movies roughly in the TOS era.

Discovery begins about 10 years before the beginning of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) and then after the second season jumps hundreds of years into the future. As far as I remember none of the episodes in the first and second seasons seemed to be sequels of ENT episodes.

And the second season episodes of Discovery with Captain Pike have connections to the first TOS Pilot "The cage" and the TOS episode "The Menagerie". Episodes in the later seasons might possibly be sequels to various episodes in any of the earlier series but I haven't watched them so I don't know if there are any examples.

From what I have heard Strange New Worlds is a spinoff from Discovery and happens in the period between Discovery and TOS. Thus some episodes might be sequels to Discovery episodes and prequels to episodes in TOS and later series.

Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) comes next chronologically. It is usually considered that Star Trek: The Animated Series (TAS) immediately continues TOS.

Then come the TOS movies from I to VI, from TMP to TUC.

[The first part of Star Trek: Generations happens after TUC, but the second and longer half happens after TNG.]

Next comes the TNG era of series and movies.

Then comes the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). The last seasons of TNG overlap with the first seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9). Later seasons of DS9 overlap with earlier seasons of Star Trek: Voyager (VOY). There are a number of crossovers between the various shows and movies in this era.

The TNG movies begin after TNG ends and mostly overlap with DS9 and/or VOY, but I think the last, Star Trek: Nemesis (NEM) happens after the end of VOY.

[The first TNG movie Star Trek: Generations (GEN) features a few characters from TOS, so it could be watched after TUC and before TNG, or after TNG, or preferably both, or maybe watch the first part after TUC and the second part after TNG.]

From what I have read Lower Decks happens shortly after TNG, possibly during or after DS9 and VOY.

The J.J. Abrams movies happen in an alternate universe and timeline, but events in the Prime timeline are mentioned in Star Trek (2009).

Prodigy happens sometime after TNG, DS9, and VOY, since a hologram of Captain Janeway from VOY is a character.

The animated series Short Treks has episodes in many eras of Star Trek.

"The Girl Who Made the Stars" is a myth or fairy tale told to Michael Burnham when she is a little girl, and so after ENT and before Discovery.

"Ephraim and Dot" happens during TOS and the TOS movies, and puts several TOS episodes in a different order than any Star Trek chronologist ever put them before.

"Children of Mars" happens after TNG and the TNG Movies and before Picard.

"Calypso" happens after even the seasons of Discovery that are set in the future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Short_Treks

Picard has the latest fictional date of any series set in era of TNG. It happens after TNG and the TNG movies including NEM, and after the Prime timeline events mentioned in the J.J. Abrams movie Star Trek (2009), and after "Children of Mars".

Then comes the era of the later seasons of Discovery.

The third and later seasons of Discovery happen hundreds of years after the first two seasons of Discovery, and thus after all the TOS era series and movies, and even longer after ENT, and a shorter period, but still centuries after the TNG era series and movies from TNG to Picard.

And the Short Treks episode "Calypso" happens long after the latest season of Discovery.

And possibly there is some time travel in some episodes to an era after the latest season of Discovery, or even the episode "Calypso".

And I hope I have remembered to include all the main chronological points in this brief discussion.

Answer 3

Picard picks up from TNG and the TNG-cast movies (especially the last one), but it also brings in one major character from Voyager. Its third season introduces a character whose personal arc is defined significantly by the battle of Wolf 359 (as was Sisko of DS9).

Discovery largely stands by itself, depending only on TOS for some basic context.

Strange New Worlds similarly builds on the TOS universe, except that an event occurring in Discovery has a major impact on Pike, which does get referenced in Strange New Worlds, more than once.

Based on just a couple of episodes of Prodigy, I'd say that it only depends on a superficial knowledge of the Trek-verse, drawing mostly from Voyager for a who's-who but not actual character arcs or plot points.

Lower Decks is set in the post-Voyager timeline, and makes joke references (along with planet/species) across pretty much all of Trek, but character continuity ties in mostly with TNG i.e. cameos have come mostly (though by no means exclusively) from TNG so far.

Answer 4

Strange New Worlds is set immediately after, and includes at least two characters from, the second season of Discovery.

Answer 5

For Picard yes, you'd need to understand events that have happened in Voyager, DS9 and TNG (as well as Nemesis I think?) to get a better grip on things that have happened, and the various characters.

Even in Picard season 1, while not a 100% crossover, an event mentioned in Star Trek (2009) is a major plot point

In the various other shows they do refer to other things. Lower Decks is chock full of references to other shows, including the animated series!

and there is a crossover between Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds

The only one I'd say would be a direct continuation similar to the 90s series would be Discovery -> Strange new worlds, as Discovery references to events in the pilot of TOS. But it's kind of like how the pilots for the other series interacted with previous shows.