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TV: The All - Encompassing Star Trek Thread. Debate Long + Prosper

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The "10 best Episodes to watch if you never watched Star Trek Before" TOS Edition.

This one is hard because TOS isnt't my favourite. I never really got into it (My mom did). like i have my few favourite episodes but that's about it. so i'll be curious to read other people's lists.

1: Where no Man Has Gone Before. because: God Like Powers
2: The Naked Time - because. crazy fun.
3: the Menagerie because - Captain Pike and Flashbacks!
4: Space Seed - ties into the Augment arc in Enterprise and you know. KHAN! (part 1)
5:Errand of Mercy: Organians (again). Kor the Klingon (which ties into DS9)
6: City on the Edge of Forever because. Time Travel!
7: Amok Time: Hello. Spock in P'on Faar.
8: Journey to Babel because Sarek, Spock + Klingons. And Amanda.
9: All our Yesterdays. I don't know, I've always liked that one.
10: Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock + Undiscovered Country. This one is a BIG cop-out. I know.but i think these 3 movies (specifically) set into motion a crap-tonne of stuff in TNG DS9 and Voyager. i also think it's a great send off TO TOS. You already know about Khan (from Space Seed), SoS is a direct sequel, and while 4 is a nice romp you don't need it, we can all agree you don't need 5, but 6 is the nice slingshot right into TNG.

it's hard for me to HM anything. I did like the episode where Kirk marries an Aboriginal Woman. but it's not necessary.

i'll think about TNG/DS9 tomorrow.
 
Blender said:
The prime directive on Voyager was always flexible based on the Janeway mood scale anyways.
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I loved that Kate Mulgrew once speculated that Janeway had bipolar disorder and that's why she wildly vacillated between moral idealist Prime Directive harpy and depressive "**** it, I do what I want. Who cares" borderline sociopath.
 
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Blender said:
The prime directive on Voyager was always flexible based on the Janeway mood scale anyways.
Click to expand...


:laugh:
right? it's actually kinda odd no one flung that in Janeway's face. the whole reason why they were trapped in the Delta Q to begin with was because Janeway broke the prime directive.

then the next episode, Janway is flat out telling Tom not to save an entire planet from exploding because "prime directive"
 
Daisy Jane said:
The "10 best Episodes to watch if you never watched Star Trek Before" TOS Edition.

This one is hard because TOS isnt't my favourite. I never really got into it (My mom did). like i have my few favourite episodes but that's about it. so i'll be curious to read other people's lists.

1: Where no Man Has Gone Before. because: God Like Powers
2: The Naked Time - because. crazy fun.
3: the Menagerie because - Captain Pike and Flashbacks!
4: Space Seed - ties into the Augment arc in Enterprise and you know. KHAN! (part 1)
5:Errand of Mercy: Organians (again). Kor the Klingon (which ties into DS9)
6: City on the Edge of Forever because. Time Travel!
7: Amok Time: Hello. Spock in P'on Faar.
8: Journey to Babel because Sarek, Spock + Klingons. And Amanda.
9: All our Yesterdays. I don't know, I've always liked that one.
10: Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock + Undiscovered Country. This one is a BIG cop-out. I know.but i think these 3 movies (specifically) set into motion a crap-tonne of stuff in TNG DS9 and Voyager. i also think it's a great send off TO TOS. You already know about Khan (from Space Seed), SoS is a direct sequel, and while 4 is a nice romp you don't need it, we can all agree you don't need 5, but 6 is the nice slingshot right into TNG.

it's hard for me to HM anything. I did like the episode where Kirk marries an Aboriginal Woman. but it's not necessary.

i'll think about TNG/DS9 tomorrow.
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I have a soft spot for The Paradise Syndrome, if only because it became a joke on Futurama where Fry referenced it to Leonard Nimoy (it makes sense in context) as "that episode where you got high on spores and smacked Kirk around"
 
Another Voyager episode I liked (though it never made it onto my top 10, which I'll post shortly) was Living Witness. aka the one where the far future society reactivates the Doctor and he discovers that Voyager is portrayed in their history as a violent, warmongering ship where Janeway is a monstrous cartoon supervillain complete with gestapo-esque slicked back hairdo and eeeeeeevil black gloves.

Knowing how Janeway behaved in parts of the series with regard to the Prime Directive, it's easy to see how some society that screwed over by her cavalier attitude would, with time and historical drift, remember her like she's basically Space Hitler.
 
My Voyager list. I'm not super married to this one like the ones before it because I simply haven't rewatched Voyager as much as the other series and a lot of episodes blend together for me in my memory.


1) Caretaker (S1, E1/2)
2) Jetrel (S1, E15)
3) Basics (S2, E26/S3, E1)
4) Scorpion (S3, E26/S4, E1)
5) Year of Hell (S4, E8/9)
6) Nothing Human (S5, E8)
6) Latent Image (S5, E11)
7) Dark Frontier (S5, E15/16)
8) Equinox (S5, E26/S6, E1)
9) Body and Soul (S7, E7)
10) Endgame (S7, E25/26)

HM: Meld (S2, E16) The Killing Game (S4, E18/19), Child's Play (S6, E19), Imperfection (S7, E2), Author Author (S7, E20)

Comments: You can see how heavily I weighted towards the back half of the series. Caretaker is important because it's the pilot, Jetrel is the rare great Neelix episode (I almost liken it to Duet in DS9 as an episode that's a vehicle for a character to examine his beliefs and his hatred and realize that it can be hard to hate a remorseful person as much as a cardboard cutout ideal of a villain). Basics is more or less my concession to watching the end of everything that was set up through seasons 1 and 2 with the Kazon and all that stuff. It's the latter part of season 3 where things kick into high gear and you get the best Borg episode, the great alt-history/what-if story in Year of Hell, and then a bunch of great Doctor and Seven episodes because they're the two best characters in the cast. I've likened elements of Equinox to almost a proto-Discovery as you can see some of that series' "we do what we have to do" spirit from its first couple episodes in the actions of the episode's namesake ship. Endgame is important because it pays off the series, but it's not a super great episode in and of itself. The HM list continues the Doctor/Seven focus, but also includes a fantastic Tuvok episode in Meld (Tuvok is my 3rd favorite character on Voyager after The Doctor and Seven. Tim Russ did the best job playing a Vulcan outside of Leonard Nimoy. Unlike a lot of other actors, he really got how to make Tuvok seem stern and logically driven without seeming like an arrogant jackass with stick up his butt), and the best of the Hirogen in "The Killing Game" because the Hirogen are probably the best unique Voyager-specific villain species.
 
My attempt at some lists. This is more my favourite episodes than any kind of 'must watch because of impact' list. I'll get to DS9 tomorrow because that's probably the toughest one for me to make a list.

TOS

1. The Doomsday Machine
2. Balance of Terror
3. The Corbomite Maneuver
4. Mirror, Mirror
5. The Trouble With Tribbles
6. The City on the Edge of Forever
7. Space Seed
8. Journey to Babel
9. The Devil in the Dark
10. Where No Man Has Gone Before

HM: The Enemy Within, The Menagerie, Amok Time, Arena, A Taste of Armageddon

TNG

1. The Best of Both Worlds
2. Yesterday's Enterprise
3. Chain of Command
4. Darmok
5. The Wounded
6. Redemption
7. Time's Arrow
8. Unification
9. The Inner Light
10. Tapestry

HM: The Measure of a Man, Tapestry, The Defector, Relics, Parallels, Who Watchers the Watchers, too many others to name...

Voyager

1. Year of Hell
2. Blink of an Eye
3. Scorpion
4. Living Witness
5. Equinox
6. Future's End
7. Latent Image
8. Scientific Method
9. Workforce
10. Distant Origin

HM: Message in a Bottle, Drone, Endgame, The Killing Game, Basics, The Gift, Hope and Fear, Jetrel.
 
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Star Trek
Balance of Terror
Errand of Mercy
Space Seed
The City on the Edge of Forever
Arena
Mirror, Mirror
The Trouble With Tribbles
The Squire of Gothos
Amok Time
A Piece of the Action

Star Trek The Animated Series
Yesteryear
The Time Trap
More Tribbles, More Troubles
Albatross
The Counter-Clock Incident

Star Trek The Next Generation
Yesterday's Enterprise
The Inner Light
The Best of Both Worlds
The Defector
Tapestry
Chain of Command
Q Who
Relics
Unification
All Good Things...

Star Trek Deep Space Nine
The Visitor
The Way Of The Warrior
Trials and Tribble-ations
Little Green Men
Blood Oath
The Search
Far Beyond the Stars
Once More unto the Breach
In the Pale Moonlight
What You Leave Behind

Star Trek Voyager
Scorpion
Equinox
Flashback
Future's End
Death Wish
One Small Step
Year of Hell
Living Witness
Dark Frontier
Endgame

Star Trek Enterprise
Carbon Creek
Future Tense
Cogenitor
First Flight
Similitude
Regeneration
The Andorian Incident
Shadows of P'Jem
Observer Effect
In a Mirror, Darkly

Those are some of the episodes from previous Star Trek series that are among best/favorite.
 
Oh, I should've put "Whom Gods Destroy" in my honorable mentions for TOS not because it was a good episode (it was an over melodramatic mess as was somewhat par for the course with season 3) but because it featured the late, great Yvonne Craig as a sexy Orion girl in the intergalactic loony bin and between reruns of that episode and her being Batgirl on the Adam West series, she was one of my first celebrity crushes
 
Before I spam the hell out of this thread oto much, I'm just going to leave this here.



Best scene in trek history.

It also makes me think that maybe after we hash out episodes and series that we should do lists of favorite characters. I know my DS9 list will probably be like 25 people long :laugh:
 
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Surprised "Blink of an Eye" from Voyager isn't getting more love. Easily one of the best in the series in my opinion, and usually gets ranked right near the top in a lot of lists.

The Nemesis said:
Before I spam the hell out of this thread oto much, I'm just going to leave this here.



Best scene in trek history.

It also makes me think that maybe after we hash out episodes and series that we should do lists of favorite characters. I know my DS9 list will probably be like 25 people long :laugh:
Click to expand...

Best scene from the best character.
 
Blender said:
Surprised "Blink of an Eye" from Voyager isn't getting more love. Easily one of the best in the series in my opinion, and usually gets ranked right near the top in a lot of lists.


Best scene from the best character.
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Sisko's whole monologue afterwards his great too. His stumbling "The most damning thing of all: I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would.... I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it." is completely perfect.

Ds9 is filled with pitch-perfect characters. Garak, Dukat, Martok, Sisko, O'Brien, Kira, Quark, Rom, Weyoun, Sloan. Hell, even Damar got some really solid work done.
 
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The Nemesis said:
Before I spam the hell out of this thread oto much, I'm just going to leave this here.



Best scene in trek history.

It also makes me think that maybe after we hash out episodes and series that we should do lists of favorite characters. I know my DS9 list will probably be like 25 people long :laugh:
Click to expand...


I instantly fell in love with Garak. Easily my favourite character in DS9, with Quark and Odo close runner ups . He is the Varys/Littlefinger of Star Trek. The best characters for me are the ones whose motivations and intentions you aren't 100% sure of. Garak almost always hid his intentions. "The truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination" What a great character.
 
The Nemesis said:
Sisko's whole monologue afterwards his great too. His stumbling "The most damning thing of all: I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again, I would.... I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it." is completely perfect.

Ds9 is filled with pitch-perfect characters. Garak, Dukat, Martok, Sisko, O'Brien, Kira, Quark, Rom, Weyoun, Sloan. Hell, even Damar got some really solid work done.
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that's the beauty of DS9. basically if you were on the show more than once, you were so interetically developed. it was facinating. Which is why it was so weird they dropped the ball with Q. (but DS9 wouldn't have worked w/Q. it was dumb when they kept forcing D'Lancie into Voyager).

I think one of my favourite scenes is with Quark + Garak shooting the breeze during the Occupation during the Call to Arms arc. Garak asks for Kanar and Quark is lamenting how he didn't listen to cousin Gaila because at the end of it - he's a people person. Garak cracks that of course, that wouldn't work in war, and Quark is like nope. and Gaila owns a moon, and Quark has 80 boxes of Kanar he can't unload.

he then offers Garak a glass of root beer and Garak goes um, I don't think so. Quark pushes, and Garak says it's vile! Quark goes, I know. It's so happy, and bubbly, and Garak gets this knowing look on his face and goes "Just like the Federation." and then Quark goes, but the interesting thing is. you grow to like it. you get used to it. and Garak drawls. "It's insidious." and Quark goes. "Just like the federation."

it mirrors other little scenes (mostly Eddington's and Odo's and even Sisko's during the Maquis arcs) that Starfleet/Federation - no matter how you want to slice it - is a more polite, and potentially scarier enemy than say the Borg or the Dominion. They flat out tell you they are coming after you, and will force you into their will. The Federation will bend over backwards to make you think the Federation is a sunshine paradise, but if you ever crossed the line, they were very much on you to conform right away.
 
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the root beer conversation was spectacular.

Quark really was a great character because he was a mirror to be held up to the human characters and the federation much like Garak was. While Garak was the reminder that sunshine and handholding wasn't going to solve all their problems, Quark was the reminder that as far as the federation had come, there were still skeletons in our closets that we'd rather not look at.

I remember he had that discussion with (I think) Sisko where he was like "You like to look down on us because we remind you of your past: greedy, acquisitive, concerned with profit. We're a lot like what you used to be. But look at all the terrible things in your history: war, slavery, genocide. We've never had that in Ferangi history. The truth is that you don't dislike us because we're like you. You dislike us because we're better."
 
My favourites

Overall

1.City on the Edge of Forever (TOS)
2.Best of Both Worlds (TNG)
3. In the Pale Moon Light (DS9)
4.Trouble with Tribbles (TOS)
5.Balance of Terror (TOS)
6.Yesterday's Enterprise (TNG)
7.Space Seed (TOS)
8.Far Beyond the Stars (DS9)
9.Family (TNG)
10.Miror Miror (TOS)

Series

TOS

1.City on the Edge of Forever
2.Trouble with Tribbles
3.Balance of Terror
4.Space Seed
5.Miror Miror
6.Arena
7.The Naked Time
8.Let that be your Battle Field
9.A Taste of Armageddon
10.Arena

TNG

1.Best of Both Worlds
2.Yesterday's Enterprise
3.Family
4.The Inner Light
5.Tapestry
6.All Good Things
7.Unification
8.Chain of Command
9.The Measure of a Man
10.The Drumhead

TNG

1.In the Pale Moon Light
2.Far Beyond the Stars
3.The Visitor
4.Call to Arms
5.Trials and Tribble-ations
6.Duet
7.Past Tense
8.Sacrifice of Angles
9.Little Green Men
10.The Magnificent Ferengi

VOY

1.Year of Hell
2.Equinox
3.Timeless
4.Scorpion

-That's about it for me lol

Enterprise

1.The Andorion Incident
2.Tera Prime

-Again that's about it for me
 
This is a very entertaining thread, brings back lots of memories. I need to re watch DS9 soon. This thread needs a poll for all time favorites from each series or just overall, like a Top 25 ranking. My vote would go to The City on the Edge of Forever.
 
peate said:
This is a very entertaining thread, brings back lots of memories. I need to re watch DS9 soon. This thread needs a poll for all time favorites from each series or just overall, like a Top 25 ranking. My vote would go to The City on the Edge of Forever.
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Maybe we do a best of Trek poll/countdown/tournament thingy once we get past people sharing personal episode lists and whatnot. Any kind of ranked setup probably needs some seeding, and we can get that by at least establishing the pool of potential episodes to draw from.
 
NyQuil said:
I see your Jeffrey Combs and raise you David Warner.

-Ambassador St. John Talbot (Star Trek V)
-Chancellor Gorkon (Star Trek VI)
-Gul Madred (TNG: Chain of Command)
Click to expand...

David Warner the better actor but the characters that Jeffrey Combs played I can definitely see people liking more.
 
I too have been enjoying this thread, but I just got back from work, so I've mainly been skimming. In terms of my top tens for the series:

Star Trek

Devil in the Dark
A Piece of the Action
The Enemy Within
Balance of Terror
The Immunity Syndrome
City on the Edge of Forever
The Tholian Web
Menagerie
Journey to Babel
The Enterprise Incident

HM: Patterns of Force, Day of the Dove, Conscience of the King

The Next Generation

The Defector
The Enemy
Best of Both Worlds
Family
Chain of Command II
Measure of a Man
The Drumhead
All Good Things...
Preemptive Strike
Ensign Ro

HM: Conspiracy, 11001001, Clues, Relics, The Inner Light

Deep Space Nine

The Visitor
Far Beyond the Stars
Tacking into the Wind
Improbable Cause/Die is Cast
In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light
The Circle Trilogy
Tribunal
Duet
In The Pale Moonlight
Way of the Warrior

HM: Trials and Tribble-Ations, Rocks and Shoals, Cardassians, In the Hands of the Prophets

Voyager

Before and After
Scorpion
Someone to Watch Over Me
Latent Image
Warlord
Caretaker
Blink of an Eye
Living Witness
Memorial
Homestead

HM: Time and Again, Eye of the Needle, Dark Frontier, Pray, Hunters

Enterprise

Pretty much all the episodes from Azati Prime to Zero Hour. That was the best Enterprise ever got
Vulcan Trilogy
Strange New World
First Flight
Dead Stop
Fight or Flight
Broken Bow
Anomaly

HM: Minefield, Two Days, Two Nights, Detained, Cease Fire, Demons/Terra Prime

These always change, but these are some great episodes of each series.
 
In terms of Garak and DS9, if TNG is my favorite because it was the most nostalgic, DS9 was probably the best written, and Garak was the best character in Star Trek. Loved some of the dialog in the series, like Garak criticizing the Boy who Cried Wolf, the Rootbeer scene, the stuff at the end of In the Pale Moonlight. The 90s really was a special time to be a trek fan.
 
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