Best Star Trek Episodes
PostPosted:Sun May 10, 2009 5:12 pm
In honor of the film, I think it would be sweet go over some of the best Star Trek episodes of all time from the past, because there are some damned good ones.
I, sadly, am only qualified to comment on Next Generation episodes. But here are my choices, not necessarily in ranking or order:
1. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounter_ ... >Encounter at Farpoint</a>
The series premiere where Q puts the humanity on trial for a "savage child-race" and appoints the Enterprise crew as representatives of the human race. It was awesome and established all the characters very well. More or less anything with Q was awesome, in addition Q's character being one of the consistent influences of some of the crucial plots in the series.
2. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Good_Things...">All Good Things</a>
The finale, where Q takes Picard back through the past to explain the paradox of life on Earth. It really brought everything full circle. It remains, to this day, the only time that the ending to a series or TV show has left me with a genuine and genuinely satisfying sense of completion, where I actually went, "Yeah. That's what it was, it all comes together. And nothing is left wanting." I think this is the only TV episode that I ever actually recorded on tape, back in those heady days of VHS.
3.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_o ... tion)">The Best Of Both Worlds</a>
Oh, my lord. How could this ever be off anyone's list? The meat of the Borg storyline, whose powerful, nearly indestructible, completely annihilating ships are only outmatched in terror by the attitudes of the Borg themselves, a race with such a nihilistic detachment towards every other species that it attempts to remove all individuality in the universe through a fanatical dedication to order so intense as to completely strip the subjugated species of meaning. And the source for the classic line, "I am Locutus of Borg. You will be assimilated." Whoever came up with that eye laser Picard was wearing can rest knowing his or her legacy in the continuum of science fiction is assured. The Borg were, without question, my favorite enemy of all time from science fiction until that movie with the Borg Queen came along and completely fucked everything up.
I think it's awesome that an episode in season 2, which almost made the cut here - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Who%3F">Q Who?</a> - actually established the Borg (via Q's interference) a whole year before they actually showed up. Star Trek TNG had some of the most consistent writing, planning, and foreshadowing that I think any TV series has ever had.
4. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_in_a_ ... ion)">Ship In A Bottle</a>
The best of the Moriarty episodes. Early on in the series, Geordi accidentally triggers the holodeck to create a reconstruction of Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes novels who ends up achieving sentience and trying to take over the Enterprise - in this later episode Moriarty makes contact with the crew and explains his desire and what he feels is his right as a self-aware entity to live outside of the holodeck. Eventually he is able to leave, or thinks he is - but in reality he's been "beamed" into a self-sustaining "reality" in a holodeck memory cube that maintains Moriarity as an entity of consciousness inside a perpetually running simulation. Good stuff.
5. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_ ... tion)">The Inner Light</a>
This is the one that always, always ends up on everyone's list, the episode where Picard is transported into an alien device from a dead world and ends up living twenty-five years as a member of another culture, marrying, having a child, learning to play the flute and eventually "dying" to wake up back on the bridge of the Enterprise with the knowledge of a dead race. And they kept the flute through the rest of the continuity. Apparently it sold for more than forty grand at some auction.
6. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Imperfect">Future Imperfect</a>
Riker ends up in "the future" with no memories with a son he doesn't know, only it turns out he's really been kidnapped into a Romulan simulation designed to trick him into revealing key Federation information, which itself turns out to be a fictional creation of Riker's "son" who turns out to be the sole survivor of an attacked and destroyed race. I love the episodes where all of a sudden reality isn't. I wish they'd do a movie where they fuck with reality like that...
7. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Sile ... ase">Where Silence Has Lease</a>
Last one, another "fuck with reality" episode. This is the one where the ship falls into an unknown black void, and all of a sudden nothing makes sense. The ship gets attacked by a Romulan cruiser that vaporizes as soon as it's counterattacked. Then the crew finds a derelict Federation ship where they pass through a doorway and find that the room they left behind isn't the one they left from (one of the coolest scenes I've ever seen in sci-fi). Eventually it's discovered that the crew is being treated as cosmic "lab rats" by an eternal alien consciousness that doesn't understand mortality or death.
Man, it was hard to even keep it to seven. Soooo much of that show was just so well-done and entertaining.. I thought it was the best of the various incarnations of Star Trek.
What I want to see is some of your picks on the original series, DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise (if anyone watched it) since I don't know much about those series. Any or all of the movies are within bounds too.
I, sadly, am only qualified to comment on Next Generation episodes. But here are my choices, not necessarily in ranking or order:
1. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounter_ ... >Encounter at Farpoint</a>
The series premiere where Q puts the humanity on trial for a "savage child-race" and appoints the Enterprise crew as representatives of the human race. It was awesome and established all the characters very well. More or less anything with Q was awesome, in addition Q's character being one of the consistent influences of some of the crucial plots in the series.
2. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Good_Things...">All Good Things</a>
The finale, where Q takes Picard back through the past to explain the paradox of life on Earth. It really brought everything full circle. It remains, to this day, the only time that the ending to a series or TV show has left me with a genuine and genuinely satisfying sense of completion, where I actually went, "Yeah. That's what it was, it all comes together. And nothing is left wanting." I think this is the only TV episode that I ever actually recorded on tape, back in those heady days of VHS.
3.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_o ... tion)">The Best Of Both Worlds</a>
Oh, my lord. How could this ever be off anyone's list? The meat of the Borg storyline, whose powerful, nearly indestructible, completely annihilating ships are only outmatched in terror by the attitudes of the Borg themselves, a race with such a nihilistic detachment towards every other species that it attempts to remove all individuality in the universe through a fanatical dedication to order so intense as to completely strip the subjugated species of meaning. And the source for the classic line, "I am Locutus of Borg. You will be assimilated." Whoever came up with that eye laser Picard was wearing can rest knowing his or her legacy in the continuum of science fiction is assured. The Borg were, without question, my favorite enemy of all time from science fiction until that movie with the Borg Queen came along and completely fucked everything up.
I think it's awesome that an episode in season 2, which almost made the cut here - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Who%3F">Q Who?</a> - actually established the Borg (via Q's interference) a whole year before they actually showed up. Star Trek TNG had some of the most consistent writing, planning, and foreshadowing that I think any TV series has ever had.
4. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_in_a_ ... ion)">Ship In A Bottle</a>
The best of the Moriarty episodes. Early on in the series, Geordi accidentally triggers the holodeck to create a reconstruction of Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes novels who ends up achieving sentience and trying to take over the Enterprise - in this later episode Moriarty makes contact with the crew and explains his desire and what he feels is his right as a self-aware entity to live outside of the holodeck. Eventually he is able to leave, or thinks he is - but in reality he's been "beamed" into a self-sustaining "reality" in a holodeck memory cube that maintains Moriarity as an entity of consciousness inside a perpetually running simulation. Good stuff.
5. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_ ... tion)">The Inner Light</a>
This is the one that always, always ends up on everyone's list, the episode where Picard is transported into an alien device from a dead world and ends up living twenty-five years as a member of another culture, marrying, having a child, learning to play the flute and eventually "dying" to wake up back on the bridge of the Enterprise with the knowledge of a dead race. And they kept the flute through the rest of the continuity. Apparently it sold for more than forty grand at some auction.
6. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Imperfect">Future Imperfect</a>
Riker ends up in "the future" with no memories with a son he doesn't know, only it turns out he's really been kidnapped into a Romulan simulation designed to trick him into revealing key Federation information, which itself turns out to be a fictional creation of Riker's "son" who turns out to be the sole survivor of an attacked and destroyed race. I love the episodes where all of a sudden reality isn't. I wish they'd do a movie where they fuck with reality like that...
7. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Sile ... ase">Where Silence Has Lease</a>
Last one, another "fuck with reality" episode. This is the one where the ship falls into an unknown black void, and all of a sudden nothing makes sense. The ship gets attacked by a Romulan cruiser that vaporizes as soon as it's counterattacked. Then the crew finds a derelict Federation ship where they pass through a doorway and find that the room they left behind isn't the one they left from (one of the coolest scenes I've ever seen in sci-fi). Eventually it's discovered that the crew is being treated as cosmic "lab rats" by an eternal alien consciousness that doesn't understand mortality or death.
Man, it was hard to even keep it to seven. Soooo much of that show was just so well-done and entertaining.. I thought it was the best of the various incarnations of Star Trek.
What I want to see is some of your picks on the original series, DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise (if anyone watched it) since I don't know much about those series. Any or all of the movies are within bounds too.