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Rating episodes and what appeals to you....

Warped9

Admiral
Admiral
Motivated by a couple of posts in another thread I though to revisit something that's done around here every once in a while. I've also included some stuff beyond TOS for those who get hung up un my signature.

Rating episodes isn’t an exact science. An overall excellent episode can still be criticized on some level while a fair to poor episode can still possess something commendable.

TOS – Good to Excellent (63%)
The Cage
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Corbomite Maneuver*
The Enemy Within*
The Naked Time*
Balance Of Terror*
What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Dagger Of The Mind
The Conscience Of The King
The Galileo Seven*
Court Martial*
The Menagerie (Part 1 & 2)*
Shore Leave*
The Squire Of Gothos
Arena*
Tomorrow Is Yesterday*
A Taste Of Armageddon*
Space Seed*
This Side Of Paradise
The Devil In The Dark*
Errand Of Mercy*
The City On The Edge Of Forever*
Operation—Annihilate!
Catspaw
Metamorphosis*
Who Mourns For Adonis?
Amok Time*
The Doomsday Machine*
The Changeling
Mirror, Mirror*
The Deadly Years
The Trouble With Tribbles
Bread And Circuses
Journey To Babel*
A Private Little War
The Gamesters Of Triskelion
A Piece Of The Action
By Any Other Name
Return To Tomorrow*
The Ultimate Computer*
The Omega Glory
Spectre Of The Gun
Elaan Of Troyius
The Enterprise Incident*
Is There In Truth No Beauty?
The Tholian Web*
Day Of The Dove*
Plato’s Stepchildren
That Which Survives
Requiem For Methuselah

TOS – Average (24%)
Mudd’d Women
The Man Trap
Charlie X
Miri
The Alternative Factor
The Return Of The Archons
Friday’s Child
Wolf In The Fold
The Apple
I, Mudd
Patterns Of Force
Assignment: Earth
Spock’s Brain
The Empath
For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky
The Cloud Minders
The Way To Eden
The Savage Curtain
All Our Yesterdays

TOS – Fair to Poor (13%)
The Paradise Syndrome
And The Children Shall Lead
Wink Of An Eye
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
Whom Gods Destroy
The Mark Of Gideon
The Lights Of Zetar
Turnabout Intruder

TAS – Good to Excellent (54%)
Yesteryear*
One Of Our Planets Is Missing
The Survivor
The Infinite Vulcan
Mudd’s Passion
Time Trap
Slaver Weapon*
Beyond The Farthest Star*
Jihad*
The Pirates Of Orion*
Albatross*

TAS – Average (27%)
The Lorelei Signal
The Magicks Of Megas-Tu
Once Upon A Planet
The Ambergris Element
The Eye Of The Beholder
The Counter-Clock Incident

TAS – Fair to Poor (19%)
More Tribbles, More Troubles
The Terratin Incident
BEM
Practical Joker
How Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth

TNG – Good to Excellent (23%)
Where No One Has Gone Before
The Last Outpost
Lonely Among Us
11001001
Heart Of Glory
Conspiracy
Where Silence Has Lease
Elementary, Dear Data
The Schizoid Man
A Matter Of Honor
The Measure Of A Man*
Contagion
Pen Pals
Q, Who?*
Up The Long Ladder
The Emissary
The Ensigns Of Command
The Survivors
Who Watches The Watchers
The Enemy
The Vengeance Factor
The Defector
The High Ground
Yesterday’s Enterprise*
The Offspring
Sins Of The Father
Captain’s Holiday
Tin Man
Sarek
The Best Of Both Worlds (Part 1 & 2)*
Future Imperfect
The Wounded
Devil’s Due
The Drumhead
Darmok
Ethics
The First Duty
Tapestry
Rightful Heir
Lower Decks
 
I'm just gonna go with what I rate Awesome. There won't be that many.

TOS
The Cage
The Corbomite Maneuver
Shore Leave
Balance of Terror
The Savage Curtain
The Doomsday Machine


TNG
The Ensigns Of Command
Chain of Command
Genesis


DS9
Far Beyond the Stars

Voy
Dreadnought
The Omega Directive


ENT
Catwalk
Silent Enemy
Dead Stop
Twilight


Movies
2
4
6
First Contact
 
I think the first season is (mostly) perfect Star Trek. Season two is average with a few excellent episodes and the less said about season three the better.
 
Interesting how you rate "That Which Survives" as Good To Excellent while "All Our Yesterdays" gets an Average. Care to elaborate on that? Cause I totally disagree. All Our Yesterdays may very well be in my Top 10, while That Which Survives must be one of the weakest ten episodes for me.
 
...and the less said about season three the better.

I agree that season 3 wasnt as solid as the first 2 seasons, but I'll never understand all the hate.

Some of my favorite episodes came out of Season 3:

Spectre of the Gun

Ellaan of Troyius

Enterprise Incident

The Empath

Tholian Web

Day of the Dove

Cloudminders

Requiem for Methuselah

The Savage Curtain

All our Yesterdays
 
I agree that season 3 wasnt as solid as the first 2 seasons, but I'll never understand all the hate.
Oh, I'm absolutely with you on this one! Granted, some of the restrictions of the third season are glaring, but it also managed to produce some of my all-time favorite Trek episodes. Like The Enterprise Incident, For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky, The Empath, The Way to Eden and All Our Yesterdays. :techman:
 
I agree that season 3 wasnt as solid as the first 2 seasons, but I'll never understand all the hate.
Oh, I'm absolutely with you on this one! Granted, some of the restrictions of the third season are glaring, but it also managed to produce some of my all-time favorite Trek episodes. Like The Enterprise Incident, For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky, The Empath, The Way to Eden and All Our Yesterdays. :techman:

Yes, some love for The Empath! I always felt that one was magnificent, but, as with many other Season 3 shows, terribly underrated. People like to toss out that season in its entirety without looking for the good ones, I guess. How All Our Yesterdays, for example, doesn't regularly make people's Top 10 lists is beyond me.
 
My appreciation of certain episodes has changed over the years. When I was younger certain nuances may have eluded me. Now I tend to look at things more broadly.

Take "Spock's Brain." It's silly to an extent as done. And yet I like it still because I still see some drama in it. And I can see the good story idea in it. On a higher note I also like "That Which Survives," a story that really just needed more money to properly show off and support the story.

It's somewhat in similar vein that I like certain TAS and 1st and 2nd season TNG stories, because I can see something of value beyond the surface. If the clones in TAS' "The Infinite Vulcan" had been normal sized I think it would rank with one of the best of TAS. TIV is good "final frontier," "strange new world" story right up until you hit the oversized Keniclius and Spock clones.

I know a lot of folks are uncomfortable with how the heroes are treated in "Plato's Stepchildren." But for me it works because it serves the ultimate point of the story, that no one is immune when the powerful can act out their capricious whims. We already dislike Parmen and company, so now we've got justification to really hate and resent them.
 
I can't in all good conscience slate Spock's Brain the way I used to five or ten years ago.

One of my favourite anime series now is Ghost In The Shell, a sci fi story about a future society where cybernetics and prosthetics have advanced enough that people can have wholly cybernetic bodies, and just swap them when the old one is damaged, or if they just have a change of mood. The actual human brain is now contained in a cybernetic lifesupport unit, not much larger than the brain itself.

If I can accept that as a concept, then I can't fault Spock's Brain for its story any more. Maybe the execution yes, but certainly not the intentions of the filmmakers.
 
Why do you consider Corbomite Maneuver and Mudd'd Women above average, Warped?
Right out of the gate "The Corbomite Maneuver" is pure "final frontier" and "seeking new life" stuff. And it's well told. I love the friction between the characters even though in the crunch they're all on the same page. This is the kind of character interplay energy TMP and much of TNG needed.

"Mudd's Women" isn't superb, just good. And much of that is because so much gelled in the first season. The story itself is so-so, but the actors are all in form and watching them chew the scenery is good stuff. I like Scotty's portrayal during first season because he wasn't as "excitable" as he would be in parts of seasons two and three.
 
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Personally, I found Mudd's Women to have some very generic themes which was an off-put. Not treating women as property, loving someone beyond their appearance, the ideas have been explored so many times it's practically cliché now. I found the criminal guy with the moustache redeeming though, in that I liked how jovial he was despite being a blatant criminal.
 
A hurdle TOS faces is a lot has been done story wise that's very similar to the point that many things can seem generic. But many of those things may not have been generic when they were done on TOS.

Age is also a factor. I'm just old enough to remember what many things were like in the 1960s and '70s and many things were not like today. And the fact is that many younger viewers may come from a country where women may not be treated well and so "Mudd's Women" could still resonate with them.

I highly recommend watching episodes of AMC's Mad Men that is set in the early '60s. Unlike many shows actually filmed in that era Mad Men doesn't much sanitize what things were like back then and the series has been highly recognized for that. In the day women and minorities may have been recognized under the law, but that recognized didn't always translate into everyday life.
 
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YES:
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Corbomite Maneuver
The Enemy Within
The Naked Time
Balance of Terror
The Conscience of the King
The Galileo Seven
The Menagerie
Shore Leave
Arena
Space Seed
This Side of Paradise
The Devil in the Dark
Errand of Mercy
The City on the Edge of Forever
Amok Time
The Doomsday Machine
Mirror, Mirror
I, Mudd
The Trouble with Tribbles
Journey to Babel
The Enterprise Incident
The Tholian Web
Day of the Dove
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
Requiem for Methuselah
All Our Yesterdays

MAYBE:
Mudd's Women
Charlie X
What are Little Girls Made Of?
Dagger of the Mind
Miri
Court Martial
The Squire of Gothos
Metamorphosis
The Changeling
The Deadly Years
A Private Little War
The Gamesters of Triskelion
Obsession
The Immunity Syndrome
A Piece of the Action
By Any Other Name
The Ultimate Computer
Assignment: Earth
The Paradise Syndrome
The Empath
Whom Gods Destroy
The Mark of Gideon
The Cloud Minders
The Way to Eden

NO:
The Man Trap
The Alternative Factor
Tomorrow is Yesterday
The Return of the Archons
A Taste of Armageddon
Operation: Annihilate!
Catspaw
Friday's Child
Who Mourns for Adonais?
Wolf in the Fold
The Apple
Bread and Circuses
Return to Tomorrow
Patterns of Force
The Omega Glory
Spectre of the Gun
Elaan of Troyius
And the Children Shall Lead
Spock's Brain
Is There in Truth No Beauty?
For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
Plato's Stepchildren
Wink of an Eye
That Which Survives
The Lights of Zetar
The Savage Curtain
Turnabout Intruder

My TNG pics are here.
 
Elaan Of Troyius gets 63%? I don't think so, it was baaaad! BTW isn't The Return Of The Archons one of the best TOS episodes of all time? A society controlled by Landru, a religious god-like figure that tells people how to live in peace and tranquility "for the good of the body." Trouble is Landru turns out to be an ancient supercomputer and enforces its will by the lawgivers not allowing for any freedom in the society. Fortunately Kirk and Spock quickly realize what they must do and destroy the machine in order to save the planet. Who doesn't love that episode?
 
This is so difficult to debate this because it's so subjective. My list is easy to do..you can list every episode as "great" for me except Alt factor and Empath...those two I'd rate as fair. See now...wasnt' that easy LOL...no typing a big list...none of that...done!


I agree that season 3 wasnt as solid as the first 2 seasons, but I'll never understand all the hate.
Oh, I'm absolutely with you on this one! Granted, some of the restrictions of the third season are glaring, but it also managed to produce some of my all-time favorite Trek episodes. Like The Enterprise Incident, For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky, The Empath, The Way to Eden and All Our Yesterdays. :techman:

Me neither...I don't understand the hate either...I'm just glad I'm not harboring hate for season 3 and I'm able to enjoy every episode without being a Star Trek "elitist"....And it still just seems so weird to me to hear TOS fans saying that they only like this ep or that....I naturally assumed (before joining this board) that if you're a TOS fan...you pretty much like all of TOS...I see I'm wrong....first time for everything I suppose. LOL


I'm going to go with Fry in Futurama: " 79 episodes, about 30 good ones."

Really? So you really think the balance of TOS is crap?

Age is also a factor. I'm just old enough to remember what many things were like in the 1960s and '70s and many things were not like today. And the fact is that many younger viewers may come from a country where women may not be treated well and so "Mudd's Women" could still resonate with them.
.

Maybe women are treated better nowadays but we still have a long way to go. And if we need to be reminded of any mistreatment of women...we just need to look to the middle east where women are treated worse then dogs...and not just there of course...but that's the region that would instantly come to mind.
 
Here are a few of my favorites season per season:

season 1

Return of the Archons
Arena
Miri
This Side of Paradise
Return to Tomorrow

season 2

A Piece of the Action
The Doomsday Machine
A Private Little War
The Omega Glory
By Any Other Name

season 3

The Tholian Web
The Paradise Syndrome
All Our Yesterdays
The Enterprise Incident
Wink of an Eye
 
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