Beam me up: A beginner’s guide to the Star Trek franchise
Here's a pretty good intro to Star Trek for newbies, though I wouldn't preface it by saying ST is "particularly intimidating for the uninitiated" -- that's all in the mind. Watch a few shows and its charm will guide you in. My own recommendation would be to start with TNG (except perhaps season 1, it's fairly ropey) and then move on to DS9, my personal favourite for the sub-sub-plot deep connections between its characters that underpin the whole experience but often only reveal themselves as so important on repeat viewing. Voyager is unfairly maligned (I've been rewatching and enjoying it lately) though the AV Club writer neglects to remark on the show's biggest failing: concentrating on the Janeway-Seven-Doctor trio at the expense of everyone else in the cast. Enterprise is what it is: ill-conceived but not flat-out terrible. (I can't watch TOS myself, I can't get over the period cheesiness, but I'm not going to deny the good that it did.) #link