We're through 15 episodes on the list and 6 of them are Season 3 TOS! Yeah, Season 3 TOS and Season 1 and 2 of TNG take the lions share of the bottom 50. Everything else you mentioned is also bottom 50. Be patient. The question is, will you think I'm more than 10-15 off in my rankings overall? Hard to judge based on the small sample size thusfar.
Given the vast differences in tone, special effects, and serialization among the Treks, and the sheer number of them, this is quite the undertaking. Whether I agree with you or not, I salute your work.
Season 3 of TOS is far and away the worst of the entire franchise. Day of the Dove and All Our Yesterdays are the only episodes I would call good. I think Spectre of the Gun, The Enterprise Incident, Is There No Truth in Beauty?, the Tholian Web, That Which Survives, and Whom Gods Destroy are...okay. Everything else is unmitigated crap. Season 1 of TNG is the next worst season. However, most of the badness is piled into the first seven episodes. Out of these all of which other than Encounter at Farpoint and Where No One Has Gone Before are embarrassingly terrible. After that, the season is mostly just mediocre, other than the awful Angel One, and the legitimately good The Big Goodbye and 11001001. TNG's second season is underrated, IMHO. Sure, Shades of Grey and Up the Long Ladder are terrible, as you noted. I'd also put the nonsensical Time Squared in the same boat. But there's a fair number of good episodes as well (Elementary Dear Data, The Schizoid Man, A Matter of Honor, The Measure of a Man, Pen Pals, Q Who?, and the Emissary). The rest is unmemorable filler.
It sounds like we're going to agree on more than disagree! I had a lot of self-discovery in this more than yearlong intensive playthrough. I've found high points in episodes I hated, and found new lows in episodes I thought were great. I rate them based on "feeling like Trek", and when you watch them in this order, should feel like each one is a little better than the one behind it. What you said earlier about Profit and Lace. You'll see when we get to it, that I started with the premise that it was the worst episode of DS9, and objectively it's not the worst of DS9, or worse compared to many of the episodes you have otherwise mentioned. Season 2 of TNG is underrated, in the Dianna Muldaur was an incredible add to the cast, and it's a shame we lost her just before Trek hit it's stride. You may disagree now with only 15 episodes showing, but I don't think you'll be disappointed coming up, overall.
I tend to agree. It amazes me what gets tossed in to the bin of "not real Star Trek" and what gets kept. And more often than not the episodes I would rate very low are other people's favorites. Why would I want to take that away?
As far as worst seasons overall go, I have to put TNG season 7 as worse than season 1. At leasy season 1 has the excuse of trying new things, whether a success or not. They took a lot of chances. By season 7, they knew more or less what would work or not, but it felt very uninspired, overall. Just spinning wheels and having a random new family member for everyone...
DS9, like every new Trek except maybe Voyager, was not what many people saw as "real Star Trek". But, the shows were accepted on their own merits, and what is "real Star Trek" slowly expanded as a result. DS9, once the butt of jokes, is now considered by some to by Classic Trek at its best; its protagonist is widely considered to be the most complex and well rounded of his kind ever. I say it's all real Star Trek, even shows that may or may not be canonical, shows that probably shouldn't be canonical, and episodes/shows that aren't to my taste.
I was that kid, that grew up on TNG, and stopped watching DS9 after season 2...yeah, right when it got good. In my adult life though, it's easily my favorite of all the series(though Discovery in classic Trek fashion got good in it's 3rd season and I'm anxious to see it's complete run.) Though just to get everyone ready for the idea, the 5th episode of Best of Trek, Worst of Trek, is entitled "Not Quite Trek". Episodes that I, mostly, consider to be great tv but not quite Star Trek. After that, I don't think my list will stir up too much controversy for a while, but when everyone is defending Catspaw, I have no idea what the next big thing on my list to upset the crowd will be!
I'd also like to stress here that I am seeing a LOT of "this episode doesn't belong here because of this other episode" stuff from other people. I'm obviously not OP, but I would like to stress this is HIS 755 rating. It doesn't matter where anyone else rates something, it's simply what he thinks. And he himself has stated things might get moved around a bit towards the end once he has completed things. Not to mention his videos so far are very well edited and thought out. If someone else wants to post their own list, go for it! IDIC
Any rating system, whether based on the opinion of one or of many, is subjective. And even a "bad Trek" episode might get it's due from this. I now want to watch "Catspaw"
This is self-evidently true. However, pretty much 90% of the possible discussion which can come out of these sort of lists (or reviews in general) is people piping in with their own opinions, which will at times involve disagreement.
So...should we just go, "Hmmm, interesting," and alternate looking thoughtful and bemused at the thread?
It gives us a place to start. It often allows us new insights on the episode. But unless we regard being "sheeple" as a good thing, we should not like or dislike an episode more because of their opinion. If you liked "Profit and Lace", or disliked "The Inner Light", you're as entitled to your opinion as the rest of us.
That's just it. I could have easily copied all the bottom 50 lists on the internet and averaged them out to get a list the "fans would love"(whatever that means after the Catspaw fiasco...), but instead I aggregated all the episodes of other people's bottom lists, and used that as a starting point to watch them(sometimes up to 5 times) to find what "felt" worse than another, and what contains the most "Trek". Which we've all agreed in this thread as a whole are both highly subjective things, but as one person said, Trek isn't one thing, it's a sandbox. This is true, but sandboxes contain "rules" and things that work within them. If George RR Martin dropped an Abrhams tank onto the battlefield in the Battle of the Bastards, it wouldn't "feel" like Game of Thrones. There are moments in Trek like this that I feel brought a lot of bottom of the barrel episodes down objectively. But know that I did start from a HUGE number of other fan lists, ranked, and added a couple of my own as it went along. It's certainly having the effect I intended though. A starting point for well thought out discussion! Just completed production of episode 9. Will be dropping episodes 4 and 5 Monday morning, since I'm turning them out ahead of schedule now.
This is an interesting idea. Some episodes that seem to count off the top of my head (some good, some bad, some meh): TOS - Assignment: Earth TNG - Sub Rosa DS9 - Take Me Out to the Holosuite VOY - 11:59 ENT - First Flight
Finally, someone who feels as I do about "Holosuite". If ever an episode character assassinated Captain Sisko, that was it in spades. Talk about "character having to learn a lesson he should have already known"...
I actually don't think it's that bad of an episode - though as someone who finds sports boring, it's a tedious one for me to get through. It's certainly a real showcase of how the DS9 writers were really in love with the characters though - to the point that any sort of high-minded concept (or really any plot with stakes at all) is pretty much abandoned. There's far worse character assassination against Sisko in DS9. Like the time he unleashes chemical weapons against a civilian population.