Star Trek has passed 800 stories told over films and episodes

Across all forms of broadcast or theatrical offerings, the franchise of Star Trek has hit 800 stories told across every episode and film ever made.

On Dec 31, 2020, the Twitter account GeekFilter tweeted out that Star Trek as a property has released 800 stories told, over the course of every television series, streaming series, and film series. Rather an impressive achievement. With 2021 now upon us, and a new series set to debut within the next calendar year, the race for 900 is officially on. It’ll take a while, for sure, as streaming series don’t ever hit 20+ episodes for a season. So even with the addition of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to the list of shows, it’ll be some time before they hit 20 episodes, let alone before the franchise hits 900 different stories told.

The loss of those bloated 90’s era series won’t just hurt its race for a new number, but it has left man Star Trek fans sentimental for the older series. Sure, there’s less filler in these newer Star Trek shows, but there are also fewer slice-of-life episodes as well. It’s unimaginable to think of an episode today where the crew of the Discovery takes time out of their mission to solve why “The Burn” (what a terrible name) occurred in the future to play a game of baseball.

That was some of the beauty in the older series, even with the fate of the galaxy teetering on the edge of oblivion, the show always found a way to give you snippets of these characters in a more calm, neutral, and relatable setting. They liked the series because we got to see Harry Kim get shot down by the same odd-number of women on Voyager time and time again. We got to see what Julian Bashir was all about when he’d have ethical debates with Elim Garak. We got to see the joy (or monotone form of enjoyment? ) when Picard played an instrument or told Wesley Crusher to shut up.

These minor moments did more to establish who the character was than any arc did. In fact, those smaller episodes, one could argue, were the most influential in deciding how specific characters would react in a huge crisis.

So congratulations to Star Trek for hitting 800, but the road to 900 is going to be a long one, and if the last five years are any indication, filled with streamlined stories.