I managed to pick five, but only barely. Brother, New Eden, and Project Daedalus were shoo-ins. I thoroughly enjoyed all three, and of the season, they're the ones I'd gladly watch again. If Memory Serves and Sound of Thunder I didn't love, but they didn't leave me annoyed when the hour was over. Which is something. Looking over the list, though, I don't think I could expand my selection beyond those. The season was a compendium of crummy stories, in retrospect. I really hope they can improve their episode-by-episode storytelling next season, and maybe decouple them from being to so closely tied to a season arc, because seasons 1 and 2 overall? Woof.
I voted: 1. If Memory Serves (instant fucking classic...maybe top 5 franchise for me) 2. New Eden (loved this one ...had that old TOS Trek feel) 3. Project Daedalus (expertly crafted...good feels) 4. Sound of Thunder (awesome atmosphere throughout) 5. Sweet Sorrow, part deux (flawed, but also beautiful and totally epic) Honorable Mentions: Obol For Charon Valley of Shadows Brother All the stuff that focused on the Red Angel capture and identity missed the mark for me. Not horrible at all...just disappointing especially after the brilliance of Memory Serves and Project Daedalus. I liked Saints of Imperfection...but it was waaay too frigging crammed.
Brother. An opening is great. Pike's first appearance is awesome. A crew members have a chance to introduce themselves first time. Reno looks perfectly. Can watch 2x01 over and over again. New Eden. A real Trek, my love. An expedition, an investigation, an ethical dilemma, a risk and a salvation. Works good on me. Bridge team and landing team both do their work well. Light and Shadows. Don't like almost whole Burnham's line except of fight with Georgiou. Enjoy every moment with Pike and Tyler, dialogues, facial expressions, mutual mistrust, mutual assistance and the beginning of friendship. Stamets looks better when he saves someone who is not love of his life. If Memory Serves. Agree with common opinion, it's a great work. Nice to see that Spock's personality is actually NOT a product of Burnham's influence, whatever he says later. Through the Valley of Shadows. The episode is most plentiful by symbols and references. I remembered Sheridan on Z'ha'dum, Luke on Dagobah, Téraï Laprade in Les monts de destin... who else? Good company for Star Trek captain. Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2. Big E, No 1, little brave queen, Klingons' and Kelpiens' reinforcement - great! Pike is awesome in every moment as usual. Burnham's conversations seem to be redundant and paid with a lot of redshirts' lives. Final scene on Enterprise looks so promising... Six? Sorry, I don't vote for If Memory Serves. It is out of competition.
If we're going that route, then I'll add in "Through the Valley of Shadows" as my sixth choice. I have to add, I like "New Eden" but it's in my middle range. It's a little too traditional Trek. But I love Pike beaming in on Jacob at the end. That scene was an Instant Classic.
Did we do a poll like this for the first season? Because I seem to recall the Mudd episode polled best. If so, with If Memory Serves polling so well, we're seeing the most callback-y episodes being hits. So it makes perfect sense that the show is completely abandoning the 23rd Century.
“If Memory Serves” “The Sound of Thunder” “Brother” “Through the Valley of Shadows” “New Eden” I must say, I'm kinda surprised “The Sound of Thunder” isn't getting more love. I felt it was one of the strongest episodes of the show, positively epic in scale and a very Trekkian story at its core. Thinking back I thought it got pretty enthusiastic reviews from most here as well, so it's a little strange to see it only in the middle of the list.
It's definitely in the top half of the season, but it had some issues. Treats evolution like Pokemon rather than a product of natural selection Full of tons of technobabble Plot doesn't make much sense and resolves itself way too quickly (should really have been a two-parter).
I was a little underwhelmed by the reveal of the Ba'ul. Previous episodes left me with the impression that there was some sort of more direct farming/hunting going on. I liked what it was saying about "oppressing somebody we fear," but how it got there was less polished than I would have liked.
But now they have even more options. Borg, Cardassians, Dominion and so on. They've essentially opened up the entire grab bag of the Trek universe.
In addition to all those issues, I'll add now that that season is over: Ruins the Red Angel I was worried at the time about the sudden reveal that the Angel was a mech suit from the future, along with the implausible way that information was conveyed (there's no way even Saru could determine everything he did though a visual ID), but I was willing to cut them some slack because we didn't know how it would play out. Well, looking back, I now know I was right to be concerned. The slipshod nature of how the Angel was handled wasn't a one-off hiccup from the showrunners changing but a harbinger of how inept the arc would become from then on out. To answer Michael's question – for my tastes at least, I didn't love the episode to begin with, but it's really slipped because the rest of the season retroactively wrecked it.
Which, quite honestly, I think is a mistake. The TOS call-backs were great...a little fanwanky, but I like being wanked from time to time. If they have access to (and choose to pull the trigger on) all this other stuff...it will get overwhelming. The TOS stuff, at least most of it, added to and enhanced the original stuff it was tying-in to. I fear if they have a grand plan to do that with the Cardassians, Breen, Pakleds, Deltans, Uridians, etc...it will just be a big wank-a-thon. And not a very good one.
While I don't feel nearly as harshly about S2 as you perhaps do, I do agree that this episode was the turning point for the Red Angel arc. Up until this point, it was precisely what I wanted: a wondrous and perhaps not-fully-understandable unsolved mystery. After this episode, it became about a person in a special suit. That was a total let-down... I still enjoyed the season, but it had the potential to be something truly imaginative and special, and ended up going a different route.
True, they should just not have called it “evolution”. It was more like the transformation between immature and mature stages of the Kelpiens, which was held back by the Ba'ul. I'd have to rewatch it, but the technobabble sure didn't bother me in this like it did in other episodes. It did feature the constantly, dizzingly moving camera they are so fond of using, though. I dunno, looking back at my initial reaction to the episode, I was just positively surprised that the Ba'ul weren't just another form of Kelpiens, as many back then seemed to theorize. As @seigezunt is saying, it didn't really fit with what Saru had told about his people back in season one, but the payoff we did get was genuinely surprising to me, and even though it certainly wasn't a perfect episode, at this point it was the best the show had ever put out (save for “Calypso”, which I liked more). I agree, now the story is complete, the Red Angel portion of the episode retroactively doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense anymore. It's a good thing, that the Red Angel is a relatively minor part of the story. Sure, it's the deux ex machina that resolves the story at the end, but other than that the story would have worked pretty well even if you take out that aspect.
I expect to see this stuff in the Picard Series or whatever spins off from it. If they show it in Discovery, I'm going to have to give it a hard pass.
Top 5: Point of Light If Memory Serves Perpetual Infinity Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 1 Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2 Honorable mentions: Project Daedalus The Red Angel Saints of Imperfection Brother
I actually like that they now can bring them in. Would be great to see them brought up under different circumstances like e.g. the cardies, the klingons and maybe even the Dominion as federation members. Or what about a positive relationship between the now greatly changed and maybe benevolent Borg collective and the Federation? There could be new enemies out there, perhaps even ones we only knew as friends or members of the Federation, like the Vulcans, Andorians or Bajorans. A lot can happen in almost thousand years...
I think Kelpians are a good candidate as enemies since Discovery helped them become the dominant species on their planet. Even more interesting if Saru is the Captain.
Am I the only one who didn't particularly like "If Memory Serves?" It is based on the whole idea that Spock is having such a conflict that he decides the Talosians, where the Enterprise crew barely escaped seemingly not that long ago, is going to fix his problems. It is a good Pike story, but the fact that it is most Burnham and Spock dealing with the Talosians. Nitpicky I know, but I would've felt better about if it had been a Pike story and they had gotten there another way.