Star Trek recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 1966 · Series

Star Trek: The Original Series recap

In the 2260s, Captain James T. Kirk commands the USS Enterprise on a five-year mission of exploration, with his half-Vulcan science officer Spock and the ship's doctor, Leonard McCoy, along with Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and, from season 2, Chekov. In season 1, the crew meets the Romulans for the first time across the Neutral Zone, fights the Klingons for the planet Organia, revives the 20th-century tyrant Khan Noonien Singh from a sleeper ship and maroons him on Ceti Alpha V, and Kirk, Spock and McCoy go back to 1930s New York, where Kirk has to let the woman he loves, Edith Keeler, die to save history. Spock also hijacks the ship to bring the crippled Captain Pike to Talos IV. In season 2, Spock returns to Vulcan to mate and fights Kirk in a ritual duel, a transporter accident sends Kirk and others into a brutal mirror universe, a planet-killing machine nearly destroys the ship, and a station fills with tribbles. In season 3, the crew faces more alien tests and strange planets, and the Romulans have a cloaking device that Kirk and Spock steal.

How Star Trek: The Original Series ends

There is no finale. The show is cancelled after three seasons, and its last episode is a body-swap story in which Kirk's former lover Janice Lester takes over his body to command the Enterprise until Spock and the crew see through it. The crew's story continues in The Animated Series and then the films, which pick up after the five-year mission ends.

No. 02 · 1973 · Series · optional

Star Trek: The Animated Series recap

An animated continuation of the five-year mission, with most of the original cast voicing their characters across two short seasons, plus two new crew members, the three-armed Lieutenant Arex and the cat-like Lieutenant M'Ress. In season 1, Spock travels back in time to his own childhood on Vulcan to save his younger self, the tribbles return with a Klingon plot, the crew is shrunk to tiny size, and the ship meets a being whose people inspired Earth's legends of the devil. In season 2, a prank-playing computer takes over the ship's recreation room, a reverse universe ages the crew backwards into children, and the Enterprise faces more alien beings and space phenomena.

How Star Trek: The Animated Series ends

It ends without a finale after two seasons, with the mission still under way. The crew next appears in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, set after the five-year mission has ended.

No. 03 · 1979 · Film

Star Trek: The Motion Picture recap

In 2273, a vast energy cloud destroys three Klingon ships and a Federation station on its way to Earth. Admiral James T. Kirk, now stuck behind a desk, takes back command of a refitted Enterprise from its new captain, Will Decker, who stays on as first officer. McCoy is pulled out of retirement, and Spock, who has been trying to purge his emotions on Vulcan, joins the ship after sensing a consciousness in the cloud. Inside, the Enterprise finds a huge vessel. A probe kills the navigator Ilia, whom Decker once loved, and replaces her with a robotic copy that speaks for the entity, V'Ger, which is searching for its creator. Spock mind-melds with it and learns it is pure logic with no meaning beyond its mission.

How Star Trek: The Motion Picture ends

V'Ger is the old NASA probe Voyager 6, which travelled through a machine world and came back as a living machine looking to join with its creator. Decker volunteers to merge with V'Ger and the Ilia probe, and together they become a new life form and vanish. Earth is saved, and Kirk takes the Enterprise back into space.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 04 · 1982 · Film

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan recap

In 2285, Admiral Kirk feels old and is training cadets, including Saavik, on the Enterprise, now commanded by Spock. Chekov and Captain Terrell of the USS Reliant, scouting a dead planet for the Genesis Project, find Khan, marooned 15 years earlier on Ceti Alpha V after a nearby planet exploded and wrecked its environment. Khan puts mind-control eels into their ears, takes the Reliant, and goes after Genesis, a device built by Kirk's old lover Carol Marcus and their son David that can turn a dead world into a living one. Khan cripples the Enterprise in a surprise attack, steals Genesis, and nearly wipes out Carol's team. Kirk tricks Khan with a coded message and leads him into the Mutara Nebula for a final battle.

How Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ends

Kirk outfights Khan in the nebula, and the dying Khan sets off the Genesis device to take the Enterprise with him. The warp drive is down, so Spock enters the radiation-flooded engine room and repairs it, saving the ship and dying in front of Kirk. Spock's body is launched in a torpedo onto the new planet created by the Genesis blast. Before he dies, Spock touches McCoy's face and says "Remember", setting up the next film.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 05 · 1984 · Film

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock recap

The battered Enterprise returns to Earth, where it is to be decommissioned. McCoy acts strangely, and Spock's father Sarek tells Kirk that Spock placed his living spirit, his katra, in McCoy's mind before he died; both Spock's body and his katra must be brought to Vulcan. Starfleet forbids it, so Kirk and his crew steal the Enterprise. On the Genesis planet, David Marcus and Saavik find that Spock has been reborn as a child who is aging rapidly with the unstable planet. A Klingon commander, Kruge, wants the Genesis secret as a weapon and takes them hostage. Kruge's men kill David.

How Star Trek III: The Search for Spock ends

Kirk sets the Enterprise to self-destruct and lures the Klingons aboard, destroying the ship, then defeats Kruge in a fight as the planet tears itself apart and takes his ship. On Vulcan, the high priestess performs a ritual that restores Spock's katra to his body. Spock recognises Kirk, though his memories are still returning.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 06 · 1986 · Film

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home recap

The crew is in exile on Vulcan with the captured Klingon ship, and they decide to fly home and face charges for stealing the Enterprise. A huge probe arrives at Earth sending a signal nobody can answer, knocking out power and boiling the oceans. Spock recognises the call as humpback whale song; whales are extinct, so Kirk takes the Klingon ship back to San Francisco in 1986 to find some. There, the crew gets lost in the city: Chekov is arrested on a Navy carrier, Scotty trades the formula for transparent aluminum for tank material, and Kirk and Spock meet the marine biologist Gillian Taylor, who looks after two humpbacks, George and Gracie, about to be released.

How Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ends

The crew beams up the whales and Gillian, returns to the 23rd century and crash-lands in San Francisco Bay. The whales answer the probe, which leaves. The charges against the crew are dropped except one: Kirk is demoted to captain, and given command of a new ship, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 07 · 1987 · Series

Star Trek: The Next Generation recap

In the 2360s, Captain Jean-Luc Picard commands the USS Enterprise-D with first officer William Riker, the android Data, Klingon officer Worf, counselor Deanna Troi, Dr. Beverly Crusher, her son Wesley and Geordi La Forge. In season 1, the godlike Q puts humanity on trial, and the security chief Tasha Yar is killed. In season 2, Q flings the ship across the galaxy to meet the Borg, and Data wins a hearing proving he is not Starfleet property. In season 3, the Borg return and assimilate Picard as Locutus, ending on a cliffhanger. In season 4, Picard is rescued and recovers, Worf is drawn into Klingon politics and the season ends with a Klingon civil war. In season 5, Spock appears on Romulus working for reunification, Picard lives a whole life in a few minutes through an alien probe, and Data's head is found buried under San Francisco from the 1890s. In season 6, Cardassians capture and torture Picard, Scotty is found alive in a transporter buffer, and Data's evil brother Lore leads rogue Borg. In season 7, Data meets his mother figure and Lore is finished for good, and Wesley leaves Starfleet to explore with the Traveler.

How Star Trek: The Next Generation ends

In the finale, Q tests Picard again, sending him between three times: the first mission, the present and a future where he is old and the crew has scattered. A spatial anomaly that Picard's own actions create would stop life on Earth from ever forming. Picard brings all three Enterprises together to close it, and Q reveals humanity has passed. Picard joins the senior staff's poker game for the first time. The crew continues in the Generations film.

No. 08 · 1989 · Film · optional

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier recap

Kirk, Spock and McCoy are on shore leave at Yosemite when the new Enterprise is sent to Nimbus III, the Planet of Galactic Peace, where a Vulcan renegade named Sybok has taken the Federation, Klingon and Romulan ambassadors hostage. Sybok, who turns out to be Spock's half-brother, uses his power to make people face their deepest pain and win them over. He takes the Enterprise and its crew and heads for the centre of the galaxy, past the Great Barrier, to find Sha Ka Ree, a mythical place where he believes God lives. A Klingon captain, Klaa, chases them to make a name for himself by killing Kirk.

How Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ends

On the planet beyond the barrier, the being that claims to be God asks for the ship and attacks Kirk when he questions it. Sybok realises he was fooled and sacrifices himself to hold the entity off. Spock, aboard Klaa's ship after the Klingon ambassador orders Klaa to stand down, fires on the creature and rescues Kirk, and the crew returns to their shore leave.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 09 · 1991 · Film

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country recap

In 2293, the explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis cripples the Klingon Empire, and its chancellor, Gorkon, offers peace. Spock volunteers Kirk, who hates Klingons after they killed his son, to escort Gorkon to Earth. After a tense dinner aboard the Enterprise, torpedoes appear to fire from the Enterprise and assassins beam onto Gorkon's ship and kill him. Kirk and McCoy are convicted of the murder and sent to the frozen prison planet Rura Penthe. Spock investigates aboard the Enterprise and finds a conspiracy of Starfleet and Klingon officers who want to stop the peace, including his own protegee Valeris. The torpedoes came from a Klingon bird-of-prey that can fire while cloaked, commanded by General Chang.

How Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ends

Spock rescues Kirk and McCoy, and the Enterprise and Sulu's USS Excelsior destroy Chang's ship at the Khitomer peace conference, then stop an assassin from killing the Federation president. The conference goes ahead. The Enterprise is ordered home to be decommissioned, and Kirk takes it out one last time, "second star to the right", as the original crew signs off.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 10 · 1993 · Series

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine recap

Commander Benjamin Sisko, still grieving his wife, who died at the Borg battle of Wolf 359, takes over a station orbiting Bajor after a 50-year Cardassian occupation. With Bajoran officer Kira Nerys, the shapeshifter Odo, the Trill Jadzia Dax, Dr. Julian Bashir, Chief O'Brien and the Ferengi barkeep Quark, he discovers a stable wormhole to the far Gamma Quadrant; its alien inhabitants, the Prophets, are worshipped as gods by the Bajorans, who hail Sisko as their Emissary. In season 2, the rebel Maquis appear and the season ends with the Dominion, a Gamma Quadrant empire, destroying a starship. In season 3, Sisko gets the warship Defiant and Odo learns his people are the Founders who run the Dominion. In season 4, Worf joins and the Klingons attack Cardassia. In season 5, Cardassia joins the Dominion and war breaks out, with the Dominion taking the station. In season 6, the Federation retakes it, Sisko helps bring the Romulans into the war, and Jadzia is killed by the Cardassian leader Gul Dukat. In season 7, Ezri Dax joins, the Breen enter the war and the Cardassians rise against the Dominion.

How Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ends

The allies win the war: Odo cures the Founders of a disease planted by Section 31, and they surrender. Sisko fights Dukat in Bajor's Fire Caves and throws himself and Dukat into the flames, then joins the Prophets in the wormhole, promising to return someday. Odo returns to his people, the crew splits up and Kira takes command of the station.

No. 11 · 1994 · Film

Star Trek Generations recap

In 2293, the retired Kirk attends the launch of the Enterprise-B, which is called to rescue refugees from an energy ribbon. Kirk saves the ship but is apparently killed when the ribbon hits it. In 2371, Picard's Enterprise-D answers an attack on an observatory and rescues the scientist Dr. Tolian Soran, one of the refugees, who wants to return to the Nexus, a realm inside the ribbon where any wish comes true. Picard learns that his brother and nephew have died in a fire. Data installs an emotion chip and struggles with fear and guilt. Soran works with the Klingon Duras sisters and plans to destroy a star in the Veridian system to steer the ribbon onto a planet, killing millions on a nearby world.

How Star Trek Generations ends

The Duras sisters cripple the Enterprise-D, and its saucer crash-lands on Veridian III. Picard enters the Nexus, finds Kirk alive there and persuades him to leave his dream life and help. Back on the planet, they stop Soran, and Kirk dies under a collapsed bridge, telling Picard it was fun. Picard buries him and the crew is rescued.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 12 · 1995 · Series

Star Trek: Voyager recap

In 2371, Captain Kathryn Janeway's USS Voyager is pulled 70,000 light-years away to the Delta Quadrant along with a Maquis rebel ship. Janeway destroys the device that brought them to protect a local species, stranding both crews, which merge, with the Maquis leader Chakotay as first officer and B'Elanna Torres as chief engineer, plus Tuvok, Tom Paris, Harry Kim, the holographic Doctor, the Talaxian Neelix and the Ocampa Kes. In season 1, they set out on a 75-year journey home. In season 2, the Kazon and the traitor Seska take Voyager. In season 3, the crew retakes the ship and meets the Borg at war with Species 8472. In season 4, Janeway allies with the Borg, frees Seven of Nine from the Collective, and Kes leaves. In season 5, Voyager meets the Federation ship Equinox, whose crew has been killing aliens for fuel. In season 6, Seven raises Borg children, and Voyager helps a Borg resistance in Unimatrix Zero. In season 7, Paris and Torres marry and Neelix leaves to live with Talaxian settlers.

How Star Trek: Voyager ends

In the finale, an older Admiral Janeway travels back from a future where the trip took 23 years and cost many lives, including Seven's and Chakotay's. She gives her younger self future technology and sacrifices herself to infect the Borg Queen, and Voyager flies through a Borg transwarp hub and reaches Earth. Torres gives birth to her daughter on the way home.

No. 13 · 1996 · Film

Star Trek: First Contact recap

In 2373, a Borg cube attacks Earth. Picard, ordered to stay away because of his past as Locutus, joins the battle anyway with the new Enterprise-E and helps destroy it, but a sphere escapes back in time to 2063. The Enterprise follows to find the Borg have attacked the site of Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight, the event that leads to first contact with the Vulcans. Riker and La Forge help a drunk and reluctant Cochrane rebuild his ship, the Phoenix, while Borg drones take over the Enterprise's decks. The Borg Queen captures Data and tempts him with human skin. Picard, obsessed with revenge, refuses to destroy the ship until Cochrane's assistant, Lily Sloane, makes him see what he is doing.

How Star Trek: First Contact ends

Picard orders the crew to evacuate and goes back for Data, who refuses the Queen's offer and ruptures a coolant tank that melts her and the drones. Cochrane makes his warp flight, and a Vulcan ship lands in Montana for first contact. The Enterprise returns to the 24th century.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 14 · 1998 · Film

Star Trek: Insurrection recap

Data malfunctions while observing the Ba'ku, a peaceful people on a planet in the Briar Patch, and exposes a hidden Federation team. Picard arrives and finds that the planet's rings give off radiation that keeps the Ba'ku young; they are 300 years old. Admiral Dougherty and the Son'a, a dying race led by Ru'afo, plan to move the 600 Ba'ku off the planet and collect the radiation, which will make the planet uninhabitable. Picard, who falls for the Ba'ku woman Anij, resigns rather than take part and leads the villagers into the hills, while Riker takes the Enterprise to warn the Federation.

How Star Trek: Insurrection ends

Picard learns that the Son'a are exiled Ba'ku children who tried to take over the village. Ru'afo kills Dougherty and launches the collector himself, and Picard stops it from the inside. Ru'afo dies, the Son'a reunite with their families, and Picard says goodbye to Anij.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 15 · 2001 · Series

Star Trek: Enterprise recap

In 2151, ninety years after first contact, Captain Jonathan Archer takes Earth's first warp 5 ship, the Enterprise NX-01, into space with Vulcan sub-commander T'Pol, engineer Trip Tucker and the crew. In season 1, the crew makes first contacts and is drawn into a Temporal Cold War fought by factions from the future, with the Suliban as their agents. In season 2, the missions continue, and the season ends with a Xindi probe killing seven million people on Earth. In season 3, the Enterprise goes into the dangerous Delphic Expanse to stop the Xindi from building a weapon to destroy Earth, learning that the Xindi have been manipulated by the Sphere Builders. In season 4, Archer helps reform Vulcan's leadership, faces genetically engineered Augments, and helps Earth, Vulcan, Andoria and Tellar build an alliance despite a human isolationist group, Terra Prime.

How Star Trek: Enterprise ends

The finale is set years later and is watched by Riker as a holodeck simulation during The Next Generation. Trip dies saving Archer from pirates, and Archer gives a speech at the signing that founds the United Federation of Planets in 2161.

No. 16 · 2002 · Film

Star Trek: Nemesis recap

At Riker and Troi's wedding, the Enterprise-E finds the parts of an earlier Data prototype, B-4, on a planet near Romulan space. The Romulan senate has been killed in a coup by Shinzon, a young human from the Reman mining colonies, who asks for peace talks. Picard learns that Shinzon is his own clone, made by the Romulans to replace him and abandoned to the Reman mines. Shinzon is dying from his cloning and needs Picard's blood. His warship, the Scimitar, carries a radiation weapon that can wipe out a planet's population, and he plans to use it on Earth. B-4 turns out to be a trap that lets Shinzon spy on the Enterprise.

How Star Trek: Nemesis ends

The Enterprise fights the Scimitar, and Picard rams it. Data jumps across with a transporter, sends Picard back and destroys the weapon and the ship, dying in the blast. Riker leaves to captain the USS Titan, and Picard finds B-4 starting to sing a song Data had learned, hinting that some of Data survives.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 17 · 2009 · Film

Star Trek recap

In 2233, a Romulan mining ship from the future, the Narada, attacks the USS Kelvin; its acting captain, George Kirk, dies to save the crew as his son James is born. This creates a new timeline. Twenty-five years later, the reckless James Kirk joins Starfleet at Captain Pike's urging and clashes with Spock at the Academy. When Vulcan calls for help, Kirk sneaks onto the new Enterprise. The Narada's captain, Nero, wants revenge for the destruction of Romulus in his own future, which he blames on Spock. Nero captures Pike and destroys Vulcan, killing Spock's mother. Spock maroons Kirk on an ice planet, where he meets the elder Spock from the original timeline, who came through the same black hole as Nero.

How Star Trek ends

Kirk returns to the Enterprise and goads the younger Spock into giving up command. They board the Narada to rescue Pike and stop it from drilling into Earth, and the Enterprise destroys the Narada with its own red matter. Kirk is made captain of the Enterprise, and the elder Spock helps the surviving Vulcans find a new world.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 18 · 2013 · Film

Star Trek Into Darkness recap

Kirk loses command after breaking the Prime Directive to save Spock on a primitive planet. A Starfleet agent, John Harrison, bombs a Starfleet archive in London and attacks a meeting of commanders, killing Pike. Admiral Marcus sends Kirk to kill Harrison on the Klingon homeworld with 72 new long-range torpedoes. Kirk captures him instead, and Harrison reveals that he is Khan, a 300-year-old genetically engineered man revived by Marcus to design weapons, and that his frozen crew is inside the torpedoes. Marcus arrives in a giant warship, the Vengeance, to destroy the Enterprise and cover it up. Kirk and Khan team up to take the Vengeance, and Khan turns on them.

How Star Trek Into Darkness ends

Khan crashes the Vengeance into San Francisco. The Enterprise's warp core is misaligned, and Kirk climbs into the radiation and fixes it, dying behind glass in front of Spock. Spock chases Khan and beats him, and McCoy uses Khan's blood to revive Kirk. Khan is refrozen with his crew, and a year later the Enterprise leaves on a five-year mission.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 19 · 2016 · Film

Star Trek Beyond recap

Three years into the five-year mission, Kirk considers taking a desk job, and Spock, learning that the elder Spock has died, considers leaving to help New Vulcan. At the starbase Yorktown, an alien asks for help rescuing her crew in a nebula. It is a trap: a swarm of small ships commanded by Krall tears the Enterprise apart, and the crew is captured or stranded on a planet. Krall wants an ancient bioweapon piece that Kirk carries. Scotty meets Jaylah, a scavenger who lives in a wrecked Starfleet ship, the USS Franklin, and they use it to free the crew. Krall turns out to be Balthazar Edison, the Franklin's lost captain, who has used alien technology to extend his life and turned against the Federation.

How Star Trek Beyond ends

The crew uses the Franklin's radio to broadcast loud music that breaks up Krall's swarm, and Kirk stops Krall from releasing the bioweapon in Yorktown. Spock decides to stay in Starfleet, Kirk turns down his promotion, and Jaylah joins Starfleet Academy. A new Enterprise, NCC-1701-A, is built and the crew sets out again.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 20 · 2017 · Series

Star Trek: Discovery recap

In season 1, set in 2256, first officer Michael Burnham, a human raised on Vulcan by Sarek, mutinies in a failed attempt to stop a war with the Klingons, and her captain, Philippa Georgiou, is killed. Burnham is sentenced, then recruited onto the USS Discovery by Captain Lorca, whose ship uses an experimental spore drive navigated by Paul Stamets. The ship ends up in the Mirror Universe, Lorca turns out to be from there, and Burnham brings the Mirror Georgiou home. In season 2, Captain Pike takes command, and the crew follows signals from the Red Angel, who turns out to be Burnham's mother, while the Section 31 AI Control tries to take the galaxy's data. Discovery jumps to the year 3188 to keep it safe. In season 3, they find a Federation shattered by the Burn, a disaster that destroyed most dilithium, and Burnham becomes captain after stopping the Emerald Chain. In season 4, a dark matter anomaly destroys Book's homeworld and the crew makes first contact with its makers, Species 10-C. In season 5, Burnham races the outlaws Moll and L'ak to find the Progenitors' technology, which can create life.

How Star Trek: Discovery ends

Burnham reaches the Progenitors' technology, decides no one should hold that power, and sends it into a black hole, while Discovery strands the Breen dreadnought at the edge of the galaxy. Kovich reveals he is the time agent Daniels. In an epilogue years later, Admiral Burnham, married to Book with a son who is now a captain, flies Discovery to a set location where its AI, Zora, will wait for a long secret mission. Its 32nd century continues in Starfleet Academy.

No. 21 · 2020 · Series

Star Trek: Picard recap

In season 1, set in 2399, the retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard lives on his vineyard, having left Starfleet after it abandoned the Romulan evacuation and after synthetic beings attacked Mars. Dahj, a young woman who turns out to be one of Data's synthetic daughters, finds him and is killed; he searches for her twin Soji with a new crew, including Raffi, Cristobal Rios, Dr. Agnes Jurati and Seven of Nine, and uncovers a Romulan cult, the Zhat Vash, that wants to wipe out synthetic life. In season 2, Q sends the crew to an alternate fascist Federation, and they travel to Los Angeles in 2024 with the Borg Queen to fix history; Jurati merges with the Queen. In season 3, Picard's old Next Generation crew reunites when Beverly Crusher calls for help from the USS Titan, captained by Liam Shaw. Picard learns he has a son, Jack, and the changeling Vadic and her allies are after him. The Borg are revealed behind the plot, with Jack as their target.

How Star Trek: Picard ends

The Borg use altered transporter code to take over Starfleet's young officers and the fleet on Frontier Day. The old crew flies the restored Enterprise-D into the last Borg cube, Picard reaches Jack and frees him from the Queen, and Data and Riker destroy the cube. A year later, Seven captains the renamed Enterprise-G with Jack as an ensign, and the old crew plays poker together.

No. 22 · 2020 · Series · optional

Star Trek: Lower Decks recap

An animated comedy aboard the USS Cerritos, a Starfleet ship that handles second contacts, following four junior ensigns: the rule-breaking Beckett Mariner, the anxious Brad Boimler, the cheerful Orion medic D'Vana Tendi and the cyborg engineer Sam Rutherford. In season 1, it emerges that Mariner is the daughter of the ship's captain, Carol Freeman, and the season ends with a Pakled attack that kills the security chief Shaxs and with Boimler joining Riker's Titan. In season 2, Boimler returns to the Cerritos, Shaxs comes back, and the season ends with Freeman arrested for the destruction of the Pakled homeworld. In season 3, the crew proves Freeman was framed and the Cerritos faces being replaced by automated ships. In season 4, the ensigns are promoted to lieutenant junior grade, mystery ships keep attacking vessels across the galaxy and Mariner's former Academy friend Nick Locarno turns out to be behind them. In season 5, rifts to parallel universes keep opening, and alternate versions of the crew turn up.

How Star Trek: Lower Decks ends

The rifts become a huge field of possibility that threatens every universe, and Mariner builds a dam that contains it but leaves it open forever. Starfleet starts a mission to explore the multiverse, overseen by Freeman, Ransom becomes captain of the Cerritos, and Mariner and Boimler become first officers, with the crew set out for more adventures.

No. 23 · 2021 · Series · optional

Star Trek: Prodigy recap

In season 1, a group of young aliens enslaved at the Tars Lamora mining prison find an abandoned Starfleet ship, the USS Protostar, and escape on it: the scrappy Dal, Gwyn, daughter of the colony's ruler the Diviner, the gentle Rok-Tahk, the Tellarite Jankom Pog, the Medusan Zero and the blob Murf. A hologram of Captain Janeway trains them. They learn the Diviner comes from a future world ruined by contact with Starfleet and has hidden a weapon on the Protostar to destroy the fleet. To stop it, they blow up the Protostar, and are sent into the future, where the real Admiral Janeway speaks for them. In season 2, they serve as warrant officers on the USS Voyager-A and try to rescue Chakotay, lost in time, accidentally breaking the timeline and drawing time-eating creatures called the Loom. The crew rebuilds the Protostar, and Asencia, a soldier of the Diviner's people, seizes power on Gwyn's homeworld, Solum, with time technology taken from Wesley Crusher.

How Star Trek: Prodigy ends

Gwyn defeats Asencia on Solum and the Protostar is landed at Tars Lamora, fixing the time paradox. The kids get their own training ship, the USS Prodigy, with Gwyn as captain and Dal as first officer, and Chakotay takes command of Voyager when Janeway retires. An attack on Mars brings Janeway back to duty. The show ends after two seasons.

No. 24 · 2022 · Series

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds recap

Set about ten years before Kirk's five-year mission, Captain Christopher Pike commands the Enterprise knowing he is fated to be crippled in an accident, with Spock, first officer Una Chin-Riley (Number One), security chief La'An Noonien-Singh and a young Uhura. In season 1, the crew has mostly standalone adventures, the engineer Hemmer dies after a Gorn attack, and a future Pike shows Pike that avoiding his fate leads to war; Una is arrested for hiding that she is Illyrian. In season 2, Una stands trial, Spock and Nurse Chapel start a romance, Lieutenant Kirk becomes a regular presence, and the crew gets a musical episode and a crossover with Lower Decks; the season ends with the Gorn attacking a colony. In season 3, the crew rescues their captured people from the Gorn homeworld, Pike's partner Marie Batel turns part Gorn, and Batel becomes the guardian of an ancient prison to trap the Vezda, parasite beings. In season 4, Pike turns down a promotion, Chapel commits to the Enterprise and Uhura is promoted.

How Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ends

Season 4 ends with a time anomaly in which Scotty is killed and a future Uhura appears from a year when Pike is an admiral and Kirk commands the Enterprise. The two Uhuras and Spock fix the timeline, and the season points straight at Kirk's era. A short fifth and final season is coming.

No. 25 · 2025 · Film · optional

Star Trek: Section 31 recap

In the Mirror Universe, a young Philippa Georgiou wins the contest for the Terran throne by poisoning her family and enslaves her friend San. Years later in the prime universe, she runs a nightclub on the space station Baraam under another name, until Section 31's agent Alok Sahar recruits her and his team, including Zeph, Melle, Quasi, a young Rachel Garrett and Fuzz, a tiny Vulcan piloting a humanoid body. They try to intercept the Godsend, a weapon from Georgiou's old empire that can wipe out everything, as it is sold at the station. A masked figure takes it and kills Melle. The team is sabotaged from within, Garrett is framed, and Fuzz is exposed as the traitor and flees. The masked figure is San, whom Georgiou thought she had killed.

How Star Trek: Section 31 ends

The team catches San's ship, and the Godsend is activated. San, who wants to rule the prime universe, dies by his own blade in Georgiou's arms. Georgiou and Alok prepare to fly the weapon into the Mirror Universe to sacrifice themselves, and Quasi beams them off in time. Three weeks later, Control, the head of Section 31, keeps the team together and sends them on a new mission.

Post-credits scenes

The sequel tease comes in the closing scene, where Control gives the team its next assignment.

No. 26 · 2026 · Series

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy recap

In the 32nd century, after the Burn, Starfleet reopens its Academy in San Francisco for its first new class in over a century, run by Chancellor Nahla Ake, who also captains the training ship USS Athena. In season 1, Ake recruits Caleb Mir, a loner who grew up on the run after he and his mother were jailed on a colony, by promising to help him find her. The class includes the Klingon Jay-Den Kraag, the hologram SAM, the would-be captain Darem Reymi, the admiral's daughter Genesis Lythe and Tarima Sadal, daughter of Betazed's president. The pirate Nus Braka attacks the Athena, the cadets feud with the rival War College, Jay-Den's people are given a new homeworld, and the Doctor from Voyager rebuilds SAM. A training exercise turns into a hostage crisis that leaves Tarima in a coma. Braka weaponises the Omega molecule and seals the Federation behind a minefield.

How Star Trek: Starfleet Academy ends

The Athena is cut off and appears destroyed, but it is a trick by the Doctor. Braka holds a trial for Ake and Caleb's mother Anisha, and Ake and Caleb expose the truth about his past. SAM disables the mines, the fleet arrives and Braka is arrested. Betazed becomes the new Federation capital, and Caleb plans a summer with his mother before his second year. Season 2, the last, is expected in 2027.