I agree, there are a few elements that are horrible, but on the whole, the story is quite good. I'll also say that I have no problem with Move Along Home. The Alamaraine song and dance is silly, but I like the story; it's a fun episode.
Is The Royale hated? I love that episode, I remember finding it pretty creepy as a kid I'd probably say A Night In Sickbay, I found the way people went mental about it pretty laughable. I could hardly even remember it from the first run of the show, and I caught it again a couple of years ago on a rerun and was like "so what?"
I love The Royale. It's one of my favorite early TNG episodes. The scenes with Data shooting dice are hilarious. The Way to Eden often seems to catch a lot of flak, but I really like, mainly because of the music. Granted, it's rather cheesy, but it's also pretty catchy and fun to sing along with. I also like seeing Spock jam with the space hippies.
Really? I always liked that one. Silly, but entertaining to watch the pissing matches between Quark and that El Aurian and O'Brien and Bahsir.
Both Data and Questor are in a casino, the house gives them trick dice, they're deliberately out of shape and balance so the players can't win their point. Both androids squeeze the dice in their fists to correct the dice, rendering them properly shaped. Both win their point.
You know I'm not really a TNG fan but the one ep I remember very fondly is The Royale. So it surprises me it gets canned.
If you like "Samaritan Snare," dare I suggest you check out my story, "Work is Hard," which is sort of a sequel to that episode? It can be found in the Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins anthology. The Pakleds are "Sloth," no surprise.
I'll second "Sacred Ground"; I've always thought that that episode gave us a really nice look into Janeway's spirituality and her own internal conflict between her spiritual beliefs and her scientific beliefs. Though "Threshold" is bad, I do agree that it is funny, in an insane, ridiculous way. The scene with Tuvok and Chakotay on the planet is downright hilarious! I'll probably get some guff for this one, but I feel like "The Fight" is one to mention. Don't get me wrong, it's not a stellar episode, but it gives us a brief glimpse into Chakotay's character beyond the plank on the bridge (for once). Oh, and someone mentioned the TNG episode "Genesis" a little ways back. Great episode in terms of the creepy factor, but definitely not one to be watched at two in the morning...
I'll second the endorsement of your story (though NOT "Samaritan Snare," because I think the episode was very badly done). I have a somewhat different idea to "explain" the Pakled, but this story is really good. Snolli was someone I found myself really rooting for!
Yeah it shows up all the time on worst episode lists and I really can't understand why, I mean other notoriously bad episodes like "Turnabout Intruder", "Genesis", "Move Along Home" and "A Night in Sickbay" I understand the hate even though I like them but "Rivals" I just don't get.
Easily "The Royale," which while just plain cheap, scifi cheese, is still fun to watch two decades later.
I get why people don't like it; but I always have appreciated the portrait of Archer as a man who did love his dog. And seeing how and why he got Porthos made it [the episode] passable for me.
Can't say I'm a fan of Rivals but it doesn't stand out to me as a particularly bad episode. Not when season seven has about six "Everybody is obsessed with a 1960s crooner holodeck recreation" episodes and a baseball episode. Neither does Genesis. It's one of those 'Pure scifi' episodes that I think Star Trek does better than most other scifi shows even if they are interchangeable. Also Fury. Yeah, it doesn't make sense time-travel-wise, but what time travel episode does?
Take away the diplomatic crisis and trouble to the ship as a result and the episode is a great character piece for Archer. By making the dog's illness be circumscribed by a mission threat Archer looks more a fool than anything else. It's a shame they didn't just have it be in the wake of a routine away mission, so Archer didn't seem a fool.
is it really a major character revelation for Archer that he loved his dog? That hardly seems worth an entire episode to me that otherwise is an exercise in character assassination. IMHO, of course. YMMV. ROTFL. LOL. TTFN. MMXII.
^I love that episode, it's hilarious! "gonna clap my hands and jump for joy, got a clean bill of health from Dr. McCoy" (Oh and it's The Way to Eden )
These Are the Voyages... I actually enjoy it - albeit in light of the revelations of 'The Good That Men Do'.