The confusing timeline that Star Trek: Discovery caused

Star Trek: Discovery will be starting its fifth and final season in a matter of weeks, and in doing so will close one of the more confusing times in Star Trek history. The show was and remains incredibly divisive and will close with one of the more confusing runs in franchise history. It's a show that has confused the heck out of fans for a variety, least of all the time that it exists in.

While Discovery was the seventh show ever produced, it's actually the second show and the last show in the franchise's timeline. It's a bit confusing so let's start from the beginning. The series served as a proto-prequel for The Original Series. The Original Series is the first show that Star Trek ever produced, starting in 1966, and ending in 1969. That show, however, was not the first show in the franchise's timeline, that would be Star Trek: Enterprise.

Enterprise starts its run in 2151 and ends in 2155. Its ending concludes right before the Romulan War. The series finale, however, happens in parts in 2161, a year after the war concludes. Discovery is set nearly a hundred years later in 2256, starting off during the Federation and Klingon War. This puts the series about a decade before the start of the original series, set in 2266.

Strange New Worlds finds itself in between at 2259, three years after Discovery's first season would take place. This all seems pretty simple, but then it gets complicated.

At the end of season two, Discovery goes missing and ends up in 3188 to start season three. This means that Discovery is both the second-earliest show in the franchise's history and the latest in the franchise's history. The time-jump was seen as a soft-reboot and brought some fans back to the show, and so it remained the staple of the series ever since.