For those who don’t have Paramount Plus, the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is available on YouTube for free and is embedded below.
While Captain Pike, Spock and Number One along with the Enterprise were introduced in the second season of Discovery, you don’t need to have watched those episode to enjoy this episode. Would it help? Sure. Second season of Discovery is when they started rightening the ship so to speak. And there’s an episode or two in there that covers Pike’s accident that was mentioned in the original series episode, The Cage.
The first two episodes I’ve seen has got the Star Trek: TOS-vibe down (minus the sexism from the 1960’s Television Standards & Practices) and is family friendly so if you were turned off by Discovery, you’ll find the tone of SNW to your liking.