All 755 live-action episodes ranked
- Thread starter BoTWoT
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Pausing the video at the 54-second mark. You admit this is crazy, and you own it. Respect for that.
So let's unpause and see how the rest of this goes...
So let's unpause and see how the rest of this goes...
755. "Shades of Gray" (TNG) --> Agreed.
754. "And the Children Shall Lead" (TOS) --> Agreed.
753. "Catspaw" (TOS) --> Not a great episode, but I kind of like this one.
752. "Plato's Stepchildren" (TOS) --> I'm of two minds about this one. It's painful to watch, but the whole point is that it's painful to watch. Though I can't fault anyone for listing it way down there.
754. "And the Children Shall Lead" (TOS) --> Agreed.
753. "Catspaw" (TOS) --> Not a great episode, but I kind of like this one.
752. "Plato's Stepchildren" (TOS) --> I'm of two minds about this one. It's painful to watch, but the whole point is that it's painful to watch. Though I can't fault anyone for listing it way down there.
Plato could have been a good premise, but then they decided to go WAY beyond over the top. Glad you enjoyed. Episode 2 is also posted. In classic Trek fashion, start with a 2-parter!
When you take it in context, "Shades of Gray" was essentially the cast and crew making the best of an impossible situation (a 3-day time limit, as opposed to the usual 6 or 7). So while it might be a bad episode when judged against all others simply because it's a Clip Show, it's still reasonably entertaining. And I did like the exchange at the end between Picard, Riker, and Data.
Something has to be the worst though! In the grand scheme of things, a clip show is the bottom of the barrel for me. Sparks good discussion like this though! If you enjoyed the content, episode 2 and 3 and available now.
Someone at the ratings board messed up if they missed that haha.
Interesting piece of trivia. I knew some episodes were more taboo in different countries, but I didn't realize claymation meat-splosions were one of them!
Conspiracy isn't too many episodes further up the list. I'm writing the narration this week. Might add some of this trivia. Thanks!The oddest change is that in the German version, the signal Remmick sent is not a beacon for an invasion, but a warning about humankind - kinda like in Alien
I unabashedly love "Catspaw." It's the one-and-only Star Trek Halloween Special, written by Robert Bloch no less.
Lord knows it's more fun than any number of forgettable episodes from the latter-day shows like TNG and VOYAGER and the like. (Says this shameless TOS partisan.)
I like paper and pencil role playing games too, but the low fps bird puppets just lose what little credibility the episode had. It adds nothing to the franchise. It is a funny episode for 1 day out of the year though!
Believe it or not, those puppets were quite effective when I first watched the ep back in the 1960s. And, honestly, not all that different from the effects we were used to back then, on THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE OUTER LIMITS, "Nightmare Theater," etc. You can't judge 1960s SFX by modern-day standards, and the basic idea -- that Korob and Sylvia were actually these fragile little inhuman creatures, dissolving away once their "magic" is gone -- is still an effective one in my book. I still remember my jaw dropping the first time I saw the ep back in October 1967. It was a very chilling TWILIGHT ZONE type ending -- and I mean that in a good way.
Beyond that, of course, the ep combines two of my favorite things -- Star Trek and Halloween -- in one episode. It's like Reese Piece's: two great tastes that go great together.
YMMV.
I love The Twilight Zone A LOT more than I like TOS, as a whole, even though I'm a bigger fan of the Trek franchise than TWZ. Don't get me wrong, TWZ has some "What were they thinking moments" and TOS has a couple cream of the crop episodes in Trek. I can't think of an effect in TWZ as bad as the bird puppets though. The only effect I can think in all of Trek of worse than the bird puppets is the entire VFX run of "The Alternative Factor". Tell me what the episode added to the Trek franchise?Believe it or not, those puppets were quite effective when I first watched the ep back in the 1960s. And, honestly, not all that different from the effects we were used to back then, on THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE OUTER LIMITS, "Nightmare Theater," etc. You can't judge 1960s SFX by modern-day standards, and the basic idea -- that Korob and Sylvia were actually these fragile little inhuman creatures, dissolving away once their "magic" is gone -- is still an effective one in my book. I still remember my jaw dropping the first time I saw the ep back in October 1967. It was a very chilling TWILIGHT ZONE type ending -- and I mean that in a good way.
Beyond that, of course, the ep combines two of my favorite things -- Star Trek and Halloween -- in one episode. It's like Reese Piece's: two great tastes that go great together.
YMMV.
Beyond that, of course, the ep combines two of my favorite things -- Star Trek and Halloween -- in one episode. It's like Reese Piece's: two great tastes that go great together.
Catspaw was terrible, IMHO. It looked cheap and silly to me even as a kid.
For Star Trek Halloween, my kids and I would always watch The Haunting of Deck Twelve, and The Thaw.
You know it won't be far up on the list... Keep watching. To me it can't be THE worst episode, because it does have a start to finish plot without a ton of extra filler... It's just not a GOOD plot. Most of what's on THE bottom is missing something...The 'something' is different from episode to episode, but it's there. I'll also be honest in my own misrankings, 'Manhunt' should have been in the first 3 episodes of BotWot, and I realized too late.
"Catspaw" is Trek's version of cult horror cinema of the 1960s, so an expression of the pop-cultural milieu of the time. For that reason alone I consider it essential viewing. And I always found those little creatures quite creepy and disturbing.
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/thumbnails.php?album=59&page=47
...one of the things that the "remastered" version thankfully did not change.
Kor
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/thumbnails.php?album=59&page=47
...one of the things that the "remastered" version thankfully did not change.
Kor
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