Star Trek will always be my perfect comfort TV show. Defined as TV that one turns to in hard times for comfort or simply for joy, a comfort show means different things to different people. For me, a comfort show is about how watching an episode feels like coming home. When I watch one of the Star Trek TV shows, stress and anxiety dissipate for a while. Falling into the sci-fi fantasy of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of utopia is my perfect way to relax, and Star Trek always has plenty to offer.
With 11 shows plus a series of short episodes to choose from, the Star Trek timeline has no shortage of material. Fans of any genre – sci-fi, action, romance, drama, fantasy – can find something in the Star Trek universe to interest them. You can trace the Star Trek universe from the 1960s to 2024 in real-life order, or start with a prequel show like Star Trek: Enterprise and watch the universe unfold in canonically chronological order. Whether I watch Star Trek: Voyager or board a version of the Starship Enterprise, I always find myself coming back to Star Trek for comfort.
Star Trek’s Tight-Knit Crews Are Why It’ll Always Be My Comfort Show
Returning To A Crew I Love To Spend Time With Makes Rewatches Relaxing
Over the decades, Star Trek has perfected – and perhaps even helped pioneer – the ensemble cast. Ever since Star Trek: The Original Series’ cast and characters boarded the very first Starship Enterprise, Star Trek has been known to have large, diverse casts whose complex relationships add to each show’s appeal. Every time I turn on Star Trek: The Next Generation, I don’t feel like I have to relearn the characters and relationships because the on-screen chemistry does the job for me. The intricacies of the narratives interwoven through each episode and season make Star Trek shows feel like coming home.
The individual characters in Star Trek are lovable and, perhaps more importantly, relatable. The crews of Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine may be big ones, but both shows still portray each character with struggles and victories of their own. With plenty of Star Trek characters fans see themselves in, it’s no wonder the crew seems so familiar and comforting. Even if it’s been years since I watched, coming back to a crew I feel like I know and love makes every Star Trek show easy to watch, rewatch, and come back to time and time again.
Star Trek’s Crews Have A Sitcom-Like Appeal, But With Aliens, Danger & Moral Dilemmas
The Mixture Of Genres In Star Trek Makes It More Diverse And Interesting
Comfort shows are often sitcoms, comedies, or other shows that act as a surface-level break from reality. These kinds of shows offer twenty or so minutes of lighthearted entertainment, and that’s perfect for a comfort show. However, Star Trek does all of that but also gives me more, for the same reasons that Star Trek: The Original Series still works all these years later. Complex characters like those in the ongoing series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds go through challenging moral dilemmas, aliens threaten the understanding of life as they know it, and danger adds an exciting and emotional edge.
I always return to Star Trek shows because they give me diverse watching experiences.
Returning to any Star Trek series feels like coming home, but it also offers something more than many other comfort shows: a challenging look at our past, present, and future. Star Trek offers comedy, but it counterbalances it with drama. Where there’s a hero, there’s most definitely a major Star Trek villain waiting around the corner to challenge and redefine an aspect of the crew’s existence. I always return to Star Trek shows because they give me diverse watching experiences, and they’re relaxing without becoming background noise. Simply put, Star Trek is the best of both worlds.