Best and Worst of Trek

[Boffo97]

Late last year, I did a series of articles talking about the best and worst of each season or movie run of Star Trek. I thought it'd be fun to summarize the results here. If anyone is interested in reading the actual articles, I can post them.

Anyway

Star Trek: The Original Series:

Season 1 Best: Space Seed (the one where they find Khan and put him on Ceti Alpha V to set up Star Trek II)

Season 1 Worst: Miri (Children live for centuries, then get a disease and die when they finally hit puberty. Not bad so much as not as good as the rest of the season)

Season 2 Best: The Trouble With Tribbles (Everyone knows this one)

Season 2 Worst: Catspaw (The "Halloween" episode as the Enterprise finds a pair of witches.)

Season 3 Best: The Enterprise Incident (The Enterprise is captured by Romulans after Kirk orders it into the Neutral Zone)

Season 3 Worst: Spock's Brain (Alien's steal Spock's brain.)

Star Trek: The Animated Series:

Best: Yesteryear (Spock has to fulfill a stable time loop by traveling back in time and rescuing his 7 year old self.)

Worst: Bem (Enterprise is saddled with a very annoying alien "exchange officer")

Star Trek TOS Movies (I-VI):

Best: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Enterprise re-encounters the genetic superman from the 20th century as Kirk struggles with getting old.)

Worst: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Enterprise hijacked by Spock's half brother, who wants to find God in the center of the universe. What does God need with a starship?)

Star Trek: The Next Generation:

Season 1 Best: Conspiracy (Enterprise returns to Earth as parasites have taken over Starfleet's Admirals.)

Season 1 Worst: Code of Honor (Incredibly racist BS that has Enterprise trying to trade for badly needed medicine from African space tribesmen.)

Season 2 Best: Measure of a Man (A Starfleet hearing on whether or not Data is property of Starfleet)

Season 2 Worst: Shades of Grey (Riker is forced to relive old stock footage in Trek's only clip show episode.)

Season 3 Best: The Best of Both Worlds (Picard is kidnapped by the Borg to help assimilate Earth)

Season 3 Worst: The Ensigns of Command (An alien race is coming to obliterate a colony, so the Enterprise tries to slow them down and Data tries to convince the colony to evacuate. Has nothing to do with Ensigns or command.)

Season 4 Best: The Drumhead (An explosion on the Enterprise causes an Admiral to arrive who sees conspiracy everywhere and doesn't believe in rights of the accused.)

Season 4 Worst: The Loss (Troi loses her empathic abilities and becomes whiny and useless. Moreso than usual.)

Season 5 Best: The Inner Light (A probe causes Picard to relive the life of a man on an alien planet.)

Season 5 Worst: The Outcast (Riker falls in love with a genderless person to try to preach about homosexuality without ever mentioning homosexuality.)

Season 6 Best: Relics (Scotty shows up in TNG time, having been preserved via transporter.)

Season 6 Worst: Man of the People (Alien dude is a great diplomat because he can transfer all his negative emotions into other people, which makes them old and dead.)

Season 7 Best: All Good Things (Finale episode, Picard is time traveling back to the series beginning and 20 years into the future)

Season 7 Worst: Genesis (A disease causes the Enterprise crew to "de-evolve", ignoring that evolution doesn't work like that.)

TNG Best: The Best of Both Worlds, The Inner Light (7 season shows get 2)
TNG Worst: Code of Honor, The Outcast

TNG Movies (7-10):

Best: First Contact (The Borg travel back in time to assimilate Earth. Picard follows them.)

Worst: Insurrection (The natural radiation of a planet could cure millions. But it's wrong to make the non-native populace of 50 or so move away from it because... reasons.)

I'll stop here and if there's interest, carry on with DS9, Voyager and Enterprise.

 

[Mackeyser]

There's interest!

Agree on Insurrection, btw...

 

[Ram Quixote]

Actually, I think Nemesis was the worst of 7-10. They killed off Data and left us with his inferior brother.

 

[brokeu91]

Late last year, I did a series of articles talking about the best and worst of each season or movie run of Star Trek. I thought it'd be fun to summarize the results here. If anyone is interested in reading the actual articles, I can post them.

Anyway

Star Trek: The Original Series:

Season 1 Best: Space Seed (the one where they find Khan and put him on Ceti Alpha V to set up Star Trek II)

Season 1 Worst: Miri (Children live for centuries, then get a disease and die when they finally hit puberty. Not bad so much as not as good as the rest of the season)

Season 2 Best: The Trouble With Tribbles (Everyone knows this one)

Season 2 Worst: Catspaw (The "Halloween" episode as the Enterprise finds a pair of witches.)

Season 3 Best: The Enterprise Incident (The Enterprise is captured by Romulans after Kirk orders it into the Neutral Zone)

Season 3 Worst: Spock's Brain (Alien's steal Spock's brain.)

Star Trek: The Animated Series:

Best: Yesteryear (Spock has to fulfill a stable time loop by traveling back in time and rescuing his 7 year old self.)

Worst: Bem (Enterprise is saddled with a very annoying alien "exchange officer")

Star Trek TOS Movies (I-VI):

Best: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Enterprise re-encounters the genetic superman from the 20th century as Kirk struggles with getting old.)

Worst: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Enterprise hijacked by Spock's half brother, who wants to find God in the center of the universe. What does God need with a starship?)

Star Trek: The Next Generation:

Season 1 Best: Conspiracy (Enterprise returns to Earth as parasites have taken over Starfleet's Admirals.)

Season 1 Worst: Code of Honor (Incredibly racist BS that has Enterprise trying to trade for badly needed medicine from African space tribesmen.)

Season 2 Best: Measure of a Man (A Starfleet hearing on whether or not Data is property of Starfleet)

Season 2 Worst: Shades of Grey (Riker is forced to relive old stock footage in Trek's only clip show episode.)

Season 3 Best: The Best of Both Worlds (Picard is kidnapped by the Borg to help assimilate Earth)

Season 3 Worst: The Ensigns of Command (An alien race is coming to obliterate a colony, so the Enterprise tries to slow them down and Data tries to convince the colony to evacuate. Has nothing to do with Ensigns or command.)

Season 4 Best: The Drumhead (An explosion on the Enterprise causes an Admiral to arrive who sees conspiracy everywhere and doesn't believe in rights of the accused.)

Season 4 Worst: The Loss (Troi loses her empathic abilities and becomes whiny and useless. Moreso than usual.)

Season 5 Best: The Inner Light (A probe causes Picard to relive the life of a man on an alien planet.)

Season 5 Worst: The Outcast (Riker falls in love with a genderless person to try to preach about homosexuality without ever mentioning homosexuality.)

Season 6 Best: Relics (Scotty shows up in TNG time, having been preserved via transporter.)

Season 6 Worst: Man of the People (Alien dude is a great diplomat because he can transfer all his negative emotions into other people, which makes them old and dead.)

Season 7 Best: All Good Things (Finale episode, Picard is time traveling back to the series beginning and 20 years into the future)

Season 7 Worst: Genesis (A disease causes the Enterprise crew to "de-evolve", ignoring that evolution doesn't work like that.)

TNG Best: The Best of Both Worlds, The Inner Light (7 season shows get 2)
TNG Worst: Code of Honor, The Outcast

TNG Movies (7-10):

Best: First Contact (The Borg travel back in time to assimilate Earth. Picard follows them.)

Worst: Insurrection (The natural radiation of a planet could cure millions. But it's wrong to make the non-native populace of 50 or so move away from it because... reasons.)

I'll stop here and if there's interest, carry on with DS9, Voyager and Enterprise.

There's definitely interest.

I'm a big Star Trek NG and Voyager fan.

Some of my favorite Next Generation episodes that you didn't include: season 4: Data's Day; season 7: Parallels; Season 3: Yesterday's Enterprise; Season 3: Deja Q; Season 5: Cause and Effect; Season 4: Clues; Season 6: Chain of Command; Season 7: Thine Own Self
-These are just amongst my favorites that you didn't include. I totally agree in that I loved your best episodes and pretty much hated your worst episodes. Looking back, Season 1 was just not good at all. Season 2 was OK. It was really Season 3 that it got good.

I'm curious to see what you put in for best and worst in Voyager

 

[Dieter the Brock]

This qualifies for both Best and Worst

 

[Boffo97]

Actually, I think Nemesis was the worst of 7-10. They killed off Data and left us with his inferior brother.

I would have voted Nemesis until fairly recently, but it was actually online comic reviewer Linkara in a crossover review of Insurrection who made several good points as to the movie being full of HUGE plotholes.

Would you guys want the rest of the summary or my full articles?

 

[Ram Quixote]

There's definitely interest.

I'm a big Star Trek NG and Voyager fan.

Some of my favorite Next Generation episodes that you didn't include: season 4: Data's Day; season 7: Parallels; Season 3: Yesterday's Enterprise; Season 3: Deja Q; Season 5: Cause and Effect; Season 4: Clues; Season 6: Chain of Command; Season 7: Thine Own Self
-These are just amongst my favorites that you didn't include. I totally agree in that I loved your best episodes and pretty much hated your worst episodes. Looking back, Season 1 was just not good at all. Season 2 was OK. It was really Season 3 that it got good.

I'm curious to see what you put in for best and worst in Voyager

Out of all the Star Trek TV series, Voyager is my favorite. I have the full DVD collection.

 

[Zombie Slayer]

I love all of the Star Trek series. Even Enterprise started to get pretty good. It got canceled after its best season which was a disappointment. Over the last year or so I've been rewatching all of the series. I've noticed that each series really started to take off when it established a main villain race(s) that would be there throughout the series we wanted to see. Of course each series has really bad episodes but overall I think all of the series are pretty good and I liked to see how each series was different and had different enemies to fight. Has anyone heard anything at all about if they're going to be bringing back star trek on tv?

TNG - Borg, Q, Lore
DSN - Cardassians and the Dominion
Voyager - Borg, Species 8472, Hirogen
Enterprise - Xindi

 

[Boffo97]

I'll go ahead and post the complete articles. I'll do one a day so there's no overwhelming, although it will mean no surprises for the first couple of days...

In this first article, I will discuss the best and worst episodes for each of the three seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series, the two seasons of the Animated Series, and the classic movies (I-VI). For the three 7 season episodes, I will divide each of those into two entries, and then finally cover the 4 seasons of Enterprise.The movies from Generations to Nemesis will be covered in part 2 of the entries on The Next Generation. For two part episodes, they will be counted as one episode, and if they're season ending cliffhangers, I will count them under the season part 1 happened in.

So, off we go:

STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES:


Series overview: The original and best. Originally marketed to networks as "Wagon Train to the stars", Star Trek was really ahead of its time, featuring a mutli-ethnic crew and exploring a lot of then current social issues. Unlike later Treks, which were more ensemble shows, TOS usually focused on the characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Though it lasted only 3 seasons, it was never forgotten.

Season 1 (1966-1967)



Quick overview: The show was still finding its legs, but it had a lot of good episodes.


Best: Space Seed. This is the orignal episode to feature the villain Khan Noonien Singh, and has had more follow-up than any other single episode. In this initial appearance, the Enterprise crew finds Khan's ship containing him and his fellow "supermen" in suspended animation. Khan attempts to take over the ship due to his megalomania and Kirk stops him. Unlike Star Trek II, Khan isn't personally opposed to Kirk, as the things that caused his titular Wrath were the result of this episode. As a sidenote: Even though Khan recognizes Chekov early in Star Trek II, Chekov does not appear in this episode, as he debuted in Season 2. Honorable mention: The Enemy Within, Balance of Terror, Shore Leave, The City on the Edge of Forever.

Worst: Miri. This was a hard choice as Season One is pretty high quality and this is still a very watchable episode. On an alien planet that for some reason looks exactly like Earth (never followed up on, outside of the novels), a weird plague has killed all the adults, but made the children age very very slowly until they become adults and then die at about age 300.

Season 2 (1967-1968):



Quick overview: Largely considered to be the best season of the show. Walter Koenig rounded out the regular series as Pavel Chekov after Gene Roddenberry decided that he wanted to show a Russian character cooperating with the rest of the crew.



Best: The Trouble with Tribbles. As this season is considered TOS' apex, it's really hard to make a choice here, but I have a real soft spot for this episode. The genre of the series shifts to comedy with everyone still staying absolutely in character. It was revisited in DS9, and that episode will probably get mentioned in this series too. Honorable mention: Amok Time, Mirror, Mirror, I, Mudd, Journey to Babel

Worst: Catspaw: An episode specifically written for Halloween. The Enterprise is lured to a planet with two magic using beings. It just really doesn't fit into the sci fi of the rest of the show for me. It's still pretty watchable.

Season 3 (1968-1969):



Quick overview: For various reasons covered in depth elsewhere, the show went into a heavy decline with scripts being made that were actually rejected in earlier seasons.



Best: The Enterprise Incident: Kirk seemingly goes crazy and orders the Enterprise to deliberately go into the Romulan Neutral Zone, then Spock supposedly kills him. Just as you're wondering what's going on, the truth dawns: This is all a plot for the Enterprise to steal a Romulan cloaking device. Although this would be very useful in future episodes, Gene Roddenberry decided that invisible ships are boring and we wouldn't see the Federation regularly cloak until DS9. Honorable Mention: For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky, The Tholian Web, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, Day of the Dove

Worst: Spock's Brain: An alien woman shows up on the Enterprise, knocks out the crew, and removes Spock's brain from his body to serve as the computer of their planet. This episode is basically a benchmark of bad sci-fi. Dishonorable Mention: Plato's Stepchildren (historically important because it's arguably the first interracial kiss in television history, but a BAD episode overall.)

TOS Best: The Trouble with Tribbles
TOS Worst: Spock's Brain

STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES (1973-1974) (note: Season 2 of TAS was 6 episodes, so I will combine the two seasons below)



Quick overview: The first response to the demand for new Trek. Most of the main cast was brought back, with Majel Barrett (Nurse Christine Chapel and other roles) and James Doohan (Montgomery Scott) also providing many other voices. Walter Koenig was not hired for the project, but did direct an episode. Episodes generally weren't of the same quality as the live action ones, but there were some good ones.



Best: Yesteryear: Gene Roddenberry once stated that only live action television episodes or movies counted as canon, but this episode he liked. When Spock and Kirk return from time traveling through the Guardian of Forever, no one remembers who Spock is except for Kirk, and there's an Andorian as first officer. Spock realizes that the "relative" that he remembers as saving his life when he was 7 was in fact him from the future, so he has to travel back in time to complete the cycle. Honorable Mention: Practical Joker, One of Our Planets is Missing, The Time-Trap, The Slaver Weapon

Worst: Bem: The Enterprise has an alien exchange officer who insists on being included in a landing party and basically causes all sorts of trouble to "learn about humanity". The episode is named after the alien in question, who is in turn named for a common sci-fi acronym: Bug Eyed Monster. Dishonorable Mention: The Magicks of Megas-Tu

CLASSIC MOVIES (1979, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1991):



Overview: Originally, the demand for Trek's return was going to result in a new series: "Star Trek: Phase II". After the success of Star Wars showed that people liked sci-fi movies, the pilot episode for the series was poorly adapted into Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was not very good. However, Star Trek II was a much better movie, leading into II, III and IV composing a trilogy, with V set soon after. Star Trek VI ended up being the final performance of Nichelle Nichols as Uhura and George Takei as Sulu. Kirk, Scotty and Chekov appeared in Star Trek: Generations and McCoy, Scotty and Spock appeared in TNG, with Leonard Nimoy's Spock actually surviving into the reboot films.

Best: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Even though some of the effects have not aged well at all (a common problem with TOS Trek), this movie is classic. Had they known that there'd be another four after it, they likely would have saved it for last, as it's a perfect send off. Khan, now obsessed with revenge on Kirk to Ahab-esque proportions (a paradigm they flipped for First Contact) is just the perfect villain, and for the first time, Kirk has to deal with a loss he can't wriggle out of. It is too bad that Kirstie Alley wanted too much money, because I would have loved to see her continue as Saavik. It is a bit ironic that Leonard Nimoy wanted to be written out as Spock, and 30 years later, he's still playing the character, who survived through TNG/DS9/Voyager time and even into the reboot universe (which we won't cover here as it's only two movies at this point). Honorable Mention: Star Trek IV.

Worst: Star Trek V. This movie suffered from a lot of issues, including a writer's strike, cuts that hurt the flow of the story, bad effects (note the scene where Spock uses his rocket boots to help McCoy and Kirk escape Sybok's men. Not only does the Enterprise have way too many decks, but they pass the same one twice.) The story is just weird too... Spock's heretofore unknown half-brother wants to find God at the center of the galaxy, which turns out instead to be some demon thing. Dishonorable Mention: Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Next time, we'll hit the first four seasons of TNG.

 

[Boffo97]

Today, we’ll be covering the best and worst episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation: Seasons 1-4.

General Overview: The last episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, “Turnabout Intruder” (which probably should have gotten mention last time due to its ridiculous premise that silly women could never command a starship, and only a particularly silly woman would think otherwise) aired on June 3rd, 1969. By September of 1987, there had not been any new live action made for television Star Trek made, although there had been 4 movies. So it wasn’t guaranteed that new adventures with a new crew would make for interesting television.

Season 1: (1987-88)
Overview: The show hit with a lot of fanfare, but still had some growing to do. There would character quirks changed and uniforms changed as the show went on, and one of the big selling points of the new ship (the ability to separate its saucer section to get civilians on the ship out of danger) was only performed one additional time on the show (and once in a movie) after the premiere. Early episodes ripped off old TOS episodes, including one egregious offender (The Naked Now) where they even pointed out that this happened to the original Enterprise (and we’ll get to the prequel series’ issues with that terminology later) but mysteriously, Bones’ old cure didn’t work. But without these first missteps, the show wouldn’t have grown.


Best Episode: Conspiracy. Earlier 1st season episodes had hinted that something was very wrong back at Starfleet Command on Earth, and now it’s up to the crew to fight off an invasion that could destroy humanity. I was really disappointed that they never followed up on this episode. Honorable Mentions: Encounter at Farpoint, Datalore


Worst Episode: Code of Honor. Oh, boy, was this episode horrid. The crew needs some sort of medicine that they can’t replicate to cure a plague on some unseen planet. The planet they go to has this medicine, but the crew has to make arrangements to buy it. The leader of the planet takes a fancy to Lieutenant Yar and basically demands she become part of his harem. The main wife of this leader then challenges Yar to combat for this ruler that Yar doesn’t want anyway. It’s already a huge mess… but all the people on this planet are humans of African descent, making the whole thing a lot worse. The writers said they intended to parallel Africa in the 1940’s but it really didn’t work. Like… at all. Jonathan Frakes later called the episode “a racist piece of (excrement).” Dishonorable Mention: The Naked Now

Season 2: (1988-89)
Overview: Here, the show hit some growing pains. Denise Crosby left her role as Tasha Yar because she felt all her character was doing was opening hailing frequencies, and she didn’t have Dr. Martin Luther King there to tell her to stay with the show anyway, as Nichelle Nichols did. Gates McFadden left her role as Doctor Beverly Crusher to be replaced by Diana Muldaur as Doctor Katherine Pulaski. Pulaski really didn’t work out well, through no fault of Muldaur’s because they tried to make her a female Leonard McCoy, including having her constantly insult Data. I think the main reason it didn’t work was because Spock was more than capable of defending himself in his constant sniping with McCoy, and it was a mutual thing, whereas Data could not defend himself and Pulaski came off as a bit of a bully. Also, Geordi LaForge was moved to being the ship’s Chief Engineer, and Worf to Tactical Officer (which gave him something to do). This is also the season in which Jonathan Frakes (Riker) grew a beard, and although improvement wasn’t immediate, this is the reason why some consider “Growing The Beard” to be the opposite of “Jumping The Shark”.

Best Episode: The Measure of a Man: A Starfleet scientist wants to take apart Data in order to find out how to make more Datas. There’s only one problem: He can’t guarantee he can put Data back together again. So, naturally, Data refuses and tries to leave Starfleet when it is made a direct order. The scientist rules that Data is property and thus cannot resign or refuse the order. Picard is called upon to act as Data’s representative in the hearing that follows. In a goofy bit, Riker is forced to represent the viewpoint that Data is in fact merely a machine, but Patrick Stewart gets to show off his acting chops here and that’s never a bad thing. Honorable Mention: Pen Pals, Manhunt, Q Who

Worst Episode: Shades of Grey. As the budget was running out for the season, the Season 2 Finale went to a low that no Trek episode has stooped to since: A clip show. Riker suffers an accident which is cured by forcing him to relive previous memories of his time on the ship. Dumb, dumb and also dumb. Dishonorable Mention: Unnatural Selection

Season 3: (1989-90)
Overview: Gates McFadden returned as Doctor Beverly Crusher, and episode quality started really improving.

Best Episode: The Best of Both Worlds. This is the first episode in which my rule about season ending cliffhangers counting for the season part 1 was in came into effect. The Season 2 episode Q Who introduced us to The Borg, a cybernetic race from the Delta Quadrant. Now, they’ve come to the Alpha Quadrant and are attempting to assilimate humanity. Unless our heroes can stop them, they are going to destroy pretty much every race we ever met in Star Trek. This is going to be a strong contender for best episode of the series. Honorable Mention: Deja Q, Yesterday’s Enterprise, Sarek, The Most Toys, and quite a few more good episodes.

Worst Episode: The Ensigns of Command. This season is so good that even this worst episode is still watchable. It has nothing to do with Ensigns or Command though. Data must convince a colony’s population to evacuate before a powerful alien force comes and destroys them while Picard attempts to delay said force. Dishonorable Mention: Who Watches the Watchers (mainly for having a vibe of religion being silly superstitions that we’ve outgrown which wasn’t present under other writers.)

Season 4: (1990-91)
Overview: The zenith of the show’s quality came here or in season 5. Some great episodes.

Best Episode: The Drumhead: An unexplained explosion on board the ship brings in an Admiral determined to find the cause. But even after she uncovers the saboteur, she still digs deeper and deeper looking for a conspiracy that isn’t there, trampling all over the rights of the accused. When Picard objects to this, he finds himself under investigation. Then it’s up to him to prove that these hearings are a waste of time and targeting innocent people. Honorable Mentions: Family, Brothers, Remember Me, The Wounded, Future Imperfect.

Worst Episode: The Loss. Troi shows that when she loses her empathic abilities, she becomes useless and whiny about it. There are people who lose their arm who feel less sorry for themselves than Troi did! Ugh. Dishonorable Mention: Suddenly Human, Legacy, Identity Crisis

TNG 1st Half Best Episode: The Best of Both Worlds
TNG 1st Half Worst Episode: Code of Honor

Next time, we’ll cover seasons 5, 6 and 7 of TNG as well as the TNG movies (Generations - Nemesis)

 

[Boffo97]

Let’s jump back into this project with Star Trek: The Next Generation, Seasons 5-7 and the Next Generation movies.

Season 5: (1991-1992)
Overview: The series continued to hit its stride. Wil Wheaton’s Wesley Crusher character had become a semi-regular character, and those statements are only semi-related.

Best Episode: The Inner Light. This is another strong contender for best episode of the series. An alien probe forces Picard to relive the life of a man named Kamin. Attempts to disconnect Picard from the probe almost kill him. You’re not a Trek fan unless you’ve watched this episode. Honorable mention: Darmok, Unification, The First Duty, I Borg

Worst Episode: The Outcast. Hoo boy. This episode was intended to be a message show, which Trek has done before to great effect. However, it falls flat here. Riker encounters a member of the J’Naii, a genderless race. However, this particular J’Naii experiences female feelings, and it’s all a pretty obvious reference to homosexuals. Despite the fact that this J’Naii looks like a small boy, Riker falls in love with it. But then it is captured by its people and put into a mental asylum to brainwash it into proper androgynous behavior. Yes, because you remember when we did that to homosexuals… and… wait… we never did that. This is stupid. Riker violates the Prime Directive for the stupidest reason ever to go rescue it, but he’s too late, and it is now firmly an it again and has no more feelings for Riker. Riker receives absolutely no punishment for this. This is so stupid in an otherwise good season that even other lacking episodes don’t deserve a dishonorable mention here.

Season 6: (1992-1993)
Overview: Another great season, but quality was starting to slightly decline.

Best Episode: Relics. The Enterprise encounters a Dyson Sphere and a ship crashed into it. Inside that ship, protected by transporter phlebotinum is Montgomery Scott, or Scotty from TOS. Scotty has been lost for nearly 75 years and has a lot of adjusting to do to this future period. Can Scotty still contribute to modern society? Honorable Mention: True Q, Rascals, Starship Mine, The Chase, Timescape, Tapestry

Worst Episode: Man of the People. A visiting diplomat turns out to be so successful because he can transfer his negative emotions into people. For some unexplained reason, this makes them old, and his next target is Counselor Troi. It all just raises too many questions. Dishonorable Mention: Schisms, Aquiel

Season 7: (1993-1994)
Overview: TNG bows out gracefully while still good in its 7th season, establishing the precedent that both DS9 and Voyager would follow.

Best Episode: All Good Things. The show goes out in a bang as Q (who shows up a lot in these favorite episodes) has Picard leaping backward in time to the series premiere and 25 years into the future to stop an anomaly that dooms humanity (don’t they all?) A great sendoff for a great show. Honorable Mention: Liaisons, Gambit, Attached, Parallels, The Pegasus

Worst Episode: Genesis. A disease causes the Enterprise crew to “de-evolve” into various animal forms, which is stupid no matter what your viewpoint on evolution is. Dishonorable Mention: Dark Page, Force of Nature, Homeward, Sub Rosa, Thine Own Self, Masks, Eye of the Beholder

TNG Movies (1994-2002)

Overview: Starting with Generations (which featured three TOS characters and was designed to “pass the torch” to TNG), the rest of the Star Trek movies featured the TNG cast. There was some thought at the time to eventually make DS9 and Voyager movies as well, but Insurrection and Nemesis did not do well enough to justify this.

Best Movie: Star Trek: First Contact. Like my pick for best episode of the 1st half of the series “Best of Both Worlds”, this involves a Borg invasion of Earth. But when the invasion is apparently thwarted, the Borg travel back in time to assimilate humanity just before its first official contact with extraterrestrial life. Picard and company must go back and stop them, and Picard must confront his own rage against the Borg for what they did to him. Honorable Mention: Generations

Worst Movie: Star Trek: Insurrection. If asked a year ago, I would have put Nemesis in this slot, but after reading some negative reviews of Insurrection, I have to agree with the points made. The story has too many holes in it. The Enterprise is asked to come to a planet inhabited by a race called the Sona, because Data has malfunctioned and captured the staff of the Federation observation station there. We discover that the Sona are not the typical primitive people encountered by the Enterprise before, but a space faring society who has given up technology and settled on this planet that just happened to have regenerative qualities, keeping them alive forever. A Starfleet Admiral and a race called the Bak’u want to forcibly relocate the Sona so they planet can be harvested in a way that would open its regenerative properties to everyone, but render the planet uninhabitable. We’re supposed to think this is evil because forced relocation is bad. But the movie clearly establishes that this is NOT the Sona’s home, just where they happened to settle. Plus, the Sona didn’t give up technology, they only gave up technology to a certain level. Plus, the ending contradicts a big point established during the movie. So, yeah, it becomes a big mess. Dishnorable Mention: Nemesis.

Next time, we swing over to Deep Space Nine and take a jump through the wormhole for Seasons 1-4.

 

[Yamahopper]

The original has to be the best.
But you had to be alive and old enough to understand it and to really appreciate how advanced it was. To go watch it now doesn't do it service. It defined state of the art back then. It was groundbreaking.

As for as the movies I prefer the new re- imagined ones. Much more action and effects. More entertaining to sit through.

 

[Ram Quixote]

One nitpick regarding Insurrection. It was the Sona who wanted to relocate the Bak'u.

 

[Boffo97]

One nitpick regarding Insurrection. It was the Sona who wanted to relocate the Bak'u.

You're right. I am nerd shamed.

 

[Boffo97]

Let’s continue this little project by examining the first 4 seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

General Overview: Deep Space Nine (or DS9) for short was a big departure for Star Trek. Not only were adventures not on the Enterprise, they weren’t on a starship at all (until the U.S.S. Defiant came along, and even then, the mission was very different). There were even regular characters who weren’t part of the Federation! There is a bit of controversy over who had the space station idea first between DS9 and Babylon 5, but as someone who never really watched Babylon 5, I’m not an expert to talk about that. These space station adventures were taking place near the planet Bajor, a planet that was until very recently occupied by an alien race known as the Cardassians and is recovering from that. Then a wormhole leading across the galaxy to the Gamma Quadrant is discovered, making the station very important.

Season 1: (1993-1994)
Overview: Like TNG (and to be fair, like TOS as well), there were a lot of characterization and character traits not quite nailed down. In particular, Kira Nerys was very hostile and vitriolic, and the character of Rom started off credited as the unnamed “Ferengi Pit Boss” who had a very similar disposition to Quark before settling in to later characterizations as a bumbling idiot, then a bumbling idiot savant skilled in Engineering. And boy was it a surprise how the show left him.

Best Episode: Duet. This was a major character development episode for Kira. A Cardassian named Aamin Marritza visits the station and Kira is convinced that he is actually Gul Darhe’el, a war criminal during the Occupation. I won’t spoil the rest. Honorable Mention: A Man Alone,. Q-Less, Dramatis Personae

Worst Episode: Move Along Home. It’s not a bad episode, but it’s the worst of a good season, and it’s not so much bad as pointless. Aliens come through the wormhole and insist on going to Quark’s to play a game. Somehow, this sucks the crew into a virtual reality where they actually are playing this game. Even though Quark loses, there’s no harm done. Dishonorable Mention: Dax

Season 2: (1994-1995)
Overview: Stories continue in the same vein from Season 1, but at the end of Season 2, the main threat of the series, the Dominion, is introduced after being hinted at from about mid-Season 1.

Best Episode: Crossover. Kira and Bashir travel to the same “Mirror Universe” from the TOS episode Mirror, Mirror. In the time since we last saw it, the Terran Empire has been conqured by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance and humans are either slaves or freedom fighters. Unfortunately, after this, the characterizations of the Mirror Universe turned a bit silly for the most part, but still some good episodes came out of this. Honorable Mention: The Alternate, Armageddon Game, Whispers

Worst Episode: Melora. This is another not bad but pointless entry. It’s all about Melora Pazlar, a character from a light gravity world who needs an exoskeleton to move in what we consider standard gravity. Melora was originally conceived as part of the original pitch but rejected from the final plan for the show due to budget reasons, and the episode is really just an excuse to show her off. She never shows up again outside of novels. Dishonorable Mention: Rivals, Paradise

Season 3: (1995-1996)
Overview: It’s on now. Not only is the Dominion introduced, but Sisko has been assigned command of the U.S.S. Defiant, opening the show up for shipboard episodes.

Best Episode: Past Tense. A transporter accident sends Sisko, Bashir and Dax back to Earth’s past where a pivotal event is about to happen. However, due to Sisko and Bashir’s indirect influence, the pivotal figure in these events is killed. Oops. What will Sisko do now? Honorable Mention: The Search, The House of Quark, Through the Looking Glass, Heart of Stone, Defiant

Worst Episode: Life Support. Here we finally cross the line from pointless to stupid. A Bajoran named Vedek Bareil is about to sign an historic peace treaty with the Cardassians, but whoops, he’s been mortally wounded. Bashir can replace more and more of his brain to keep him alive which both Kira and another Bajoran are urging him to do, but keeping someone who’s going to die anyway alive like that is really dumb. They really could have found someone else to finalize the stupid treaty. Dishonorable Mention: Facets, Equilibrium, Meridian.

Season 4: (1995-1996)
Overview: In addition to the growing threat of the Dominion, the Maquis (a group objecting to a really stupid treaty between the Federation and Cardassians that gave Federation occupied worlds to the Cardassians) becomes more and more of a threat.

Best Episode: Our Man Bashir. When a holodeck malfunction episode makes this list, it’s a good one. Sisko, Kira, Dax, Worf and O’Brien are all beamed off an exploding runabout, but for some reason, the only place to store their transporter patterns is Quark’s Holosuite, which makes them into characters in the James Bond-esque adventure that Bashir is playing. And oh yeah, it makes it so no one can leave the holodeck and the safety protocols have been turned off… again. No one is sure what will happen if any of these characters die, so Bashir has to keep them all alive despite the story. The solution is actually pretty brilliant. Honorable Mention: The Way of the Warrior, Little Green Men, Homefront, Accession, Shattered Mirror, For the Cause.

Worst Episode: The Muse. Two silly plots going on at once. First, Lwaxana Troi needs Odo’s help to stop the man who fathered her child from taking the child from her (no offense to Majel Barrett, especially in her last on screen Trek appearance here, but Lwaxana stories are usually automatically silly.) The other plot is an alien woman showing up and making Jake Sisko ultra creative while eating his life force. Watchable, but silly. Dishonorable Mention: Rejoined.

Best Episode of First Half of DS9: Duet, Worst: Life Support

Next time, we hit Seasons 5-7. No movies next time so it will be a little shorter than normal.

 

[Ram Quixote]

You're right. I am nerd shamed.

No, you were just out-geeked.

 

[Mojo Ram]

Good thread Boffo97.
So are these lists from an article or are they yours?

I'll put my own list of BEST's in here maybe this weekend. TOS and the Films. I liked TNG but found everything after that to be largely uninteresting.

Which episode sits atop for me? Hmmm....so many choices. I can say right now it's not Trouble with Tribbles.
A clue possibly?
:snicker:[av]http://trekcore.com/tos/audio/doomsday/10GoodbyeMr.Decker.mp3[/av]

 

[Boffo97]

Good thread Boffo97.
So are these lists from an article or are they yours?

I'll put my own list of BEST's in here maybe this weekend. TOS and the Films. I liked TNG but found everything after that to be largely uninteresting.

Which episode sits atop for me? Hmmm....so many choices. I can say right now it's not Trouble with Tribbles.
A clue possibly?
:snicker:[av]http://trekcore.com/tos/audio/doomsday/10GoodbyeMr.Decker.mp3[/av]

These are articles I wrote for my blog... which right now is just notes on my Facebook page.

 

[Boffo97]

Pushing the project even onward, let’s finish DS9.

Season 5: (1996-1997)
Overview: The Dominion War continues to heat up, and the rest of the Founders have transformed Odo into a human (which wouldn’t last long). This season is very high quality.

Best Episode: Trials and Tribbleations. Using technology from the movie Forrest Gump, the Deep Space Nine actors are digitally inserted into the TOS episode The Trouble with Tribbles. The plot is that the spy from that episode tries to time travel back and assassinate Kirk so our DS9 heroes have to save Kirk without disrupting the timeline. A fun followup to a fun episode. Honorable Mention: Looking for par’Mach in All The Wrong Places, Doctor Bashir I Presume?, Children of Time, Empok Nor, In The Cards

Worst Episode: Let He Who Is Without Sin… Worf and Dax vacation on Risa, a planet dedicated to pleasure. Worf is too Klingon to enjoy relaxing so when fundamentalists decry Risa as weakening the Federation, Worf momentarily sides with them. Dumb, because Worf is smarter than this. No dishonorable mentions as this was a pretty good season.

Season 6: (1997-1998)
Overview: Bajor was just about ready to join the Federation, but Sisko gets a vision to advise Bajor not to because they’ll be destroyed if they do, which turns out to be the case when the Dominion allies with the Cardassians and occupies Bajor.

Best Episode: In the Pale Moonlight. This episode is told in flashback as Sisko is narrating his log entry about events shown in the episode. Sisko is desperately trying to get the Romulans to join the Federation and Klingons in fighting the Dominion, as there is fear they may decide to eventually ally with them. While he knows the Dominion would eventually betray the Romulans, he has no proof of this, and so has proof forged. This leads to Sisko getting farther and farther away from his Federation ideals. Spawned the “It’s a faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake” meme. Honorable Mention: Sacrifice of Angels, Resurrection, The Magnificient Ferengi, His Way, Valiant, Time’s Orphan, The Sound of Her Voice

Worst Episode: Wrongs Darker than Death or Night. Dukat happens to drop a mention to Kira that he slept with Kira’s mother during the Occupation. This bugs Kira so much that she uses the Orb of Time to travel back. When she finds out that it’s true, Kira attempts to murder her mother by bomb, but saves her when she finds out that yes, her mother still loved her father and her, and was sleeping with Dukat to protect them… which Kira should have known anyway. As a side note, the writers of Deep Space 9 once proposed a romance arc between Kira and Dukat, but Kira’s actress Nana Visitor objected on the basis that Kira would find the very idea disgusting. Dishonorable Mention: Statistical Probabilities, Change of Heart.

Season 7: (1998-1999)
Overview: Jadzia Dax has been murdered by Gul Dukat (because her actress wanted to leave the show). Dukat is now serving the Pah Wraiths, the enemies of the Prophets that Bajor worships. The Dominion War wraps up, but at a cost for Sisko. The Sisko will find no rest on Bajor.

Best Episode: Take Me Out to the Holosuite. Some will vociferously disagree with me on this, but I love fun episodes. DS9 is visited by Solok, a Vulcan jerk who has historically rubbed Vulcan superiority in Sisko’s face before, and who now tells Sisko that his crew has formed a baseball team. Baseball is Sisko’s crystal meth, so this will not stand. Sisko organizes the crew of DS9 into a team to take on the Vulcans who are stronger and have more stamina than most other humanoids. Honorable Mention: Image in the Sand, Shadows and Symbols, It’s Only a Paper Moon, The Emperor’s New Cloak, Badda-bing Badda-bang, What You Leave Behind

Worst Episode: Chrysalis. A previous episode saw 4 other genetically enhanced humans visit Deep Space Nine. Unfortunately, they weren’t as lucky as Bashir and their behavior was severely affected, rendering them unable to interact with human society. One of them, Sarina, was unable to interact with the world around her. Bashir performs an operation to fix the issue, and the two start a doomed relationship. Sometimes these worst episodes will be because of stupid premises, other times it’s because a character is acting either stupidly or inappropriately. For this one, it’s the latter. Bashir began a relationship with a patient. That is HIGHLY unethical for the same reasons it would be for me to date a former student even after she turned 18. Essentially, he’s coming in with too much influence over her, and indeed the relationship turned sour because of it. BUT. HE. SHOULD. HAVE. KNOWN. THIS. AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!! I’m okay. Really. Dishonorable Mention: Prodigal Daughter.

Deep Space Nine Part II:
Best Episode: Trials and Tribbleations
Worst Episode: Chrysalis

Now that we’ve escape the wormhole, it’s time for us to get abducted to the Delta Quadrant. Next time, we’re hitting Voyager Seasons 1-4, and there will plenty in there to make me rant even more because you all like it when I suffer.

See you next time.

 

[Boffo97]

Minor programming note: Just to balance out this part and the next part, I will cover Seasons 1-3 of Voyager today and do seasons 4-7 in the next part, as I’m going to write a general overview of Voyager in this part. After, this series will wrap up with an analysis of the entirety of Enterprise and a brief look at the Reboot movies, which belong there for reasons I will get into, before finally putting all these winners and losers up against each other to determine the official best and worst of Star Trek. Because my opinion is fact now. It was inconvenient the other way, so I just had it changed.

Star Trek: Voyager

General Overview: Originally, Voyager was conceived to be a very different show. Hopping back a bit, during TNG and DS9, it was established that the Federation and Cardassian Union signed a treaty that drew an arbitrary line on the spacemap, which gave star systems on one side of the line to the Federation and star systems on the other side of the line to the Cardassians. This is dumb because there were planets on both sides of the line settled by the wrong race. Space is big. A line could have been drawn to put everyone on the right side. But the Federation has a history of signing dumb treaties. See the Treaty of Algeron, which is the on-screen reason that the Federation officially does not use Cloaking Devices. (The offscreen reason is that Gene Roddenberry reasonably concluded that invisible ships made for boring TV.) Because of this decision, a group called the Maquis arose to fight the Cardassians for these planets, and the Federation should they try to enforce this stupid treaty. The Maquis were made of those on the planets, those who sympathized with those on the planets, and people who just wanted to fight.

Anyway, the Federation starship U.S.S. Voyager is assigned to find a Maquis ship commanded by a man named Chakotay located in a hazardous region of space known as the Badlands. While both ships are in the Badlands, they are transported to the Delta Quadrant, a region of space 70,000 light years away from the Federation. In the ensuing fight against a hostile race known as the Kazon, Janeway decides that it’s best to destroy the facility which brought them there and the Maquis ship is destroyed, and the Maquis join the Voyager crew. So this mixed crew now has to find a way back home.

Originally, there was supposed to be a lot of tension between the Maquis and Federation, but with only a couple of notable exceptions, the two crews merged pretty seamlessly because UPN was afraid viewers wouldn’t relate to such a drastic departure from established character behavior on a Star Trek show. OK, so the gist is gotten,. Let’s get to it.

Season 1 (1995, Voyager debuted midseason):
Overview: All that stuff I just said happened, and Voyager begins its journey home, hounded by the Kazon (who are technologically lacking and want Voyager’s advanced tech at any cost) and the Vidiians (a race suffering from a devastating plague known as The Phage, and who collect body parts from others to keep themselves alive.)

Best Episode: Eye of the Needle: Harry found a wormhole that leads back to the Alpha Quadrant! Yayyyyyy!!!!! The wormhole is only 30 cm in diameter! What?! Oh noooooooooo! But Voyager manages to contact a Romulan ship and even establishes that beaming through the wormhole is possible. But, in further bad news, it’s determined that the wormhole not only goes through space, but time. In this case, it leads to the Romulan Empire of 20 years ago, so Voyager can’t use it and moves on. Honorable Mention: Ex Post Facto, Prime Factors, Heroes and Demons

Worst Episode: Emanations. It turns out aliens from another dimension send their dead bodies through a dimensional transporter to what they think is Heaven, but is only our dimension. Harry gets sucked into that other dimension when he’s in the same space a body is sent to. Just too goofy to be plausible. Dishonorable Mention: Time and Again, Faces

Season 2 (1995-1996)
Overview: Voyager continues on. It’s worth noting that in my opinion, which as we established above is now legally fact, Robert Picardo’s portrayal of The Doctor is what is keeping the show afloat with his dry humor. This season had a lot of really stupid episodes.

Best Episode: Non Sequitur: Harry (what is it with all the Harry episodes?!) finds himself mysteriously back in San Francisco with his life and his fiancee and all Starfleet records show that he was not part of the Voyager crew. Harry figures out something very strange is going on, and enlists the services of Tom Paris (not really Tom, but the Tom who got kicked off the crew before Voyager was lost in whatever this is) to help him find the truth. Honorable Mention: Projections, Prototype, Dreadnought, Death Wish, Deadlock

Worst Episode: Threshold. Tom (yay, not Harry!) conducts an experiment with a shuttlecraft to reach Warp 10, which in the revised warp scale of the TNG/DS9/Voyager era is literally infinite speed, and he succeeds. Which for some reason causes his… ahem… evolution to accelerate. This is a stupid concept that gets visited a lot on Star Trek, but no matter what your viewpoints on the theory of evolution are, the theory does not work this way. Individuals do not evolve. Species change according to environmental factors by, essentially, favorable “birth defects”. Despite factors not changing for poor Tom (he‘s in Sickbay), he loses his hair, teeth, tongue and other things. Eventually, just because, he kidnaps Janeway, and takes her for a ride in the wacky shuttle. The Voyager crew tracks them to a nearby planet where they discover the two have become Gila Monsters and had babies. The babies escape (which Voyager’s crew shouldn’t have allowed for a number of reasons) but Paris and Janeway are rescued and The Doctor does… something… to make them fully normal again. Paris and Janeway remember nothing from the episode which is probably for the best. The idea that the whole infinite speed idea works and the side effect is able to be completely overcome is forgotten because otherwise, the show is over. To my knowledge, this is the only episode of Trek ever to be directly contradicted by another episode, as Tom states later that Warp 10 isn’t possible. The Dishonorable Mentions here are worse than episodes that made Worse Episode in other seasons/shows. Dishonorable Mention: Twisted, Partuition, Tuvix (in that last case, only the ending landed it here.)

Season 3 (1996-1997)
Overview: Season 3 opens with a lot of residual plots from the early part of the show wrapped up. After the season premiere shows the crew retaking Voyager from the Kazon who hijacked it and Seska (a Cardassian spy among the Maquis who joined the Kazon) being killed, Voyager finally got out of Kazon territory and onto other things.

Best Episode: Scorpion. The season finale cliffhanger introduced Seven of Nine who would essentially replace Kes (who left a couple of episodes later) and be responsible for our current real life President (long story I’ve mentioned before.) and the Borg as a recurring enemy, since, after all, they are from the Delta Quadrant. Also, Species 8472 (known as the Undine in the MMO Star Trek Online) are introduced as a threat here. This is usually acknowledged as the show’s turning point from bad to good. Honorable Mention: The Chute, False Profits, Future’s End, The Q and the Grey, Blood Fever, Worst Case Scenario

Worst Episode: Distant Origin.Chakotay is kidnapped by an alien scientist who wants help to confirm his theory. The said theory: that the aliens actually come from Earth. Yes, it turns out that the aliens are actually hadrosaurs which somehow managed to leave Earth before being killed, came all the way to the Delta Quadrant and eventually evolved into sentience. However, they have strong religious dogma against such an idea and the scientist is forced to admit that he was “mistaken”. This is another attempt at a message show that just falls flat because the metaphor they were going for fails so incredibly badly. Plus the whole hadrosaurs cross the galaxy leaving no evidence of any capability to do this is just silly. Dishonorable Mention: Remember, Fair Trade, Darkling, Favorite Son, Real Life.

Voyager, 1st half:
Best Episode: Scorpion
Worst Episode: Threshold

Next time, we’ll finish out Voyager with Seasons 4-7.