Short Treks is a companion series fleshing out characters or events from other series - mostly Discovery, but also The Original Series and Picard. Settings, casts, and runtimes vary between episodes but each is under twenty minutes.

This format allows for telling stories that wouldn’t work as full episodes of a main series: ones that are small in scope, focus exclusively on side characters, or take place in different eras. The second season also experiments with different genres and formats.

As of this writing, there have been two seasons of Short Treks and there are no public plans for further seasons.

Episodic or serial?

Fully episodic to the point where most episodes have completely disparate casts and can take place years apart from each other. However, they lean extensively on characters and situations introduced in other series (mostly Discovery).

Idealistic or cynical?

Mostly idealistic, though there’s some inconsistency here given the varied nature of the stories and episodes. (In particular, season two episode “The Trouble With Edward” is, for some reason, a dark/cringe comedy that is decidedly non-idealistic.)

Worth watching?

Yes, if you enjoy Discovery. It adds some nice development to the world and characters and is a very small time commitment.

Anything else that should be watched first?

Watch the first season of Discovery before watching the first season of Short Treks.

Watch the second season of Discovery before watching the second season of Short Treks.

What should be watched after this?

Keep going with Discovery and also go check out Picard and Strange New Worlds.