Best and worst of each writers' work?

[You_Will_Fail]

So what episodes do you think show the best and worst of each writer's body of work?

I'll give a few

Michael Piller

Best: Its a no brainer really, its gotsta be "Best of Both Worlds"
Worst: "Tattoo", one of the most boring episodes ever.
Conclusion: Many of his episodes are somewhat cheesy, early VOY/DS9 episodes. Not exactly high art but I'm surprised he hasn't done better.

Jeri Taylor

Best: "The Drumhead", the story and teleplay were her own and it was a fantastic episode.
Worst: "The 37s", dumb dumb dumb.
Conclusion: Her Voyager work was very patchy when considering her TNG work, this is perhaps a testament to Michael Piller's supervision?

Ronald D. Moore

Best: "The Die is Cast", Odo's torture scene is still one of the most powerful scenes in trek for me!
Worst: "Journey's End", badly executed story, but then the basic plot was fairly pants as well.
Conclusion: Its amazing how consistently good his episodes were.

Brannon Braga

Best: "Frame of Mind". This is tough to choose as he wrote many great episodes but this is the kind of perfection any writer making a "mind bending" episode should hope to achieve.
Worst: "These are the Voyages", a slap in the face to Enterprise fans. Honorable mention for his story for "Fury", another slap in the face to many fans!

Joe Menosky

Best: "Muse", I could have chosen one of his many 2 parters, but "Muse" being Menosky's idea and teleplay is an excellent example of how great and original a script he could turn out.
Worst: "The Fight", UGH!
Conclusion: This guy has written a lot of crap, he wrote "Masks", "Emergence", "Rivals" but his work on Voyager was generally good.

Bryan Fuller

Best: "Barge of the Dead", it was Moore's story but Fuller really knocked it out of the park with his script.
Worst: I'd be tempted to say "Fury" but it was the story that mostly ruined that. Instead I'll go for "Alice", fairly dire filler crap.
Conclusion: The guy is damned talented, his work outside of Trek is fantastic, his Heroes' episode "Cold Snap" was one of its best.

Ira Steven Behr
Best: "The Magnificent Ferengi", for me this is the best comedy episode bar none in Trek. A strange choice but I just love it.
Worst: "Past Tense", some of the worst preachiest crap in all of Trek.

Phew, that's enough for me for now!

 

[Cepstrum]

Pretty interesting post. I hope more people weigh in.

Probably the only informed contribution I can make is that I wish Jeri Taylor hadn't had as much influence on VOY as she did. She nixed concepts and ideas I think would have been good. Her vision for VOY was pretty much TNG revisited. But that's as a producer. As a writer, I don't know enough. I think she had a pretty good reputation. I thought it was incredible that she wrote such wide-ranging shows, from "Little House on the Prairie" (which I like, really!) to Trek. I get the notion she was an important figure in TNG.

About Braga: what about his admitted distaste for "Threshold"? I think that was weirder than "Fury" or "TATV", though I understand why they drew ire from ENT and Kes fans. But as episodes story-wise go, I thought they were both better than "Threshold".

And then there are Beimler, Coto, Berman, Sussman, Wolf, Fontana, and that two-man team in the later parts of DS9 (Weddle? I can't recall the names). Oh, and Lisa Klink, too. What about Gene Roddenberry? (I know little of TOS, so I'm not sure how many he actually wrote. As with VOY, I know TOS suffered from network execs' meddling. But didn't he write TMP and have a key role in creating TNG?)

Of course there were *many* writers, but I know you're meaning the regulars and/or producers. I'm probably leaving some out.


One more thing: what about movies? Braga and Moore wrote the acclaimed First Contact, right? And didn't Piller write Insurrection (which, contrary to most, I liked better than FC because of its camp and the feel it had as more of an episode: I *much* prefer the shows to the movies, though I liked TMP quite a bit — strange considering I never have really seen much of TOS.)


Again, I hope (more knowledgeable/qualified) people weigh and *without* it degenerating into any bashing. Great thread idea, You Will Fail!

 

[DevilEyes]

Gene Roddenberry
Best: The Cage/The Menagerie
Worst: Mudd's Women (story), The Savage Curtain, The Omega Glory

D. C. Fontana
Best: This Side of Paradise, The Enterprise Incident, Journey to Babel
Worst: The Naked Now, Lonely Among Us

Gene Coon
Best: The Devil in the Dark
Worst: Spock's Brain

Michael Piller
Best: The Best of Both Worlds, Meld
Worst: Tattoo, If Wishes Were Horses

Brannon Braga:
Best: All Good Things, Scorpion, Year of Hell
Worst: Threshold, Genesis, These Are The Voyages, Endgame

Ira Steven Behr
Best: Call to Arms, Favor the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels, The Siege of AR-558, In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light, Yesterday's Enterprise
Worst: The Emperor's New Cloak, Profit and Lace, Ferengi Love Songs, Family Business, Fascination (story)

Hans Beimler
Best: Favor the Bold/Sacrifice of Angels, The Siege of AR-558, Return to Grace, Yesterday's Enterprise
Worst: same as for ISB

Ronald D. Moore
Best: Tapestry, The Defector, Sins of the Father, Rocks and Shoals, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, Trials and Tribble-ations
Worst: I can't think of any bad ones... maybe Aquiel, that one was average?

Jeri Taylor
Best: The Wounded
Worst: Nothing Human

Joe Menosky
Best: Scorpion, Living Witness, Year of Hell, Blink of An Eye
Worst: Masks, False Profits

Michael Taylor
Best: In the Pale Moonlight, The Visitor
Worst: Resurrection, Alice

Rene Echevarria
Best: Chimera, Nor the Battle to the Strong, Trials and Tribble-ations
Worst: The Muse (DS9)

Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Best: Second Skin, Ties of Blood and Water, Call to Arms, In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light
Worst: Q-less, Family Business

Peter Allan Fields
Best: Duet, Necessary Evil, The Inner Light
Worst? I guess I'll have to go with Cost of Living, although it's not that bad really

Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
Best: Treachery, Faith and the Great River
Worst: Prodigal Daughter (just average and dull, but it's not like much else could have been done with the story)

Mike Sussman
Best: Twilight, In the Mirror, Darkly
Worst: Bounty

Phyllis Strong
Best: Damage
Worst: Bounty

 

[Cepstrum]

^^^

Cool. Thanks DevilEyes. I'm hoping more people do as you.

It'd be interesting to later turn it into a poll for each writer, especially for those such as I who am not familiar enough to put out a comprehensive list. Plus, MA is having terrible problems right now (as are all Wikia-hosted wikis. I've lost access to the mobile skin, which essentially locks me out.)

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I can't give a definitive answer but I'll list my favourites and least favourites out the the episodes I've seen by various writers (probably skewed towards DS9, since that's the show I know best):

René Echevarria
Best: Chimera
Worst: The Muse

Brannon Braga
Best: Parallels
Worst: Cathexis

Ronald D Moore
Best: The Die is Cast
Worst: Take Me Out to the Holosuite

Mike Sussman
Best: Twilight
Worst: Strange New World (?)

Michael Taylor
Best: The Visitor
Worst: Resurrection

Bradley Thompson & David Weddle
Best: Treachery, Faith and the Great River
Worst: Prodigal Daughter

Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Best: Call to Arms
Worst: Let He Who is Without Sin...

Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler
Best: The Siege of AR-558
Worst: Profit and Lace

Robert Hewitt Wolfe (without ISB)
Best: Second Skin
Worst: Q-Less

Melinda Snodgrass:
Best: The Measure of a Man
Worst: Up the Long Ladder

 

[Cepstrum]

Cool. Keep them coming.

We should have a tournament-like face-off in polls to see which writers' episodes are most popular.

Or am I the only one who thinks this is great fun?

 

[Eddie Roth]

No, Cepstrum, I do too. It's just hard, even for a hardcore fan such as me, to tell apart which writer wrote what. Why don't you make a new post, start with one writer, say Roddenberry, make two polls that list all of his writing credits and then we'll vote about best and worst and discuss.

Concerning Roddenberry, I dare say right now that The Menagerie was probably his big stroke of genius.

 

[Cepstrum]

No, Cepstrum, I do too. It's just hard, even for a hardcore fan such as me, to tell apart which writer wrote what. Why don't you make a new post, start with one writer, say Roddenberry, make two polls that list all of his writing credits and then we'll vote about best and worst and discuss.

Concerning Roddenberry, I dare say right now that The Menagerie was probably his big stroke of genius.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who is liking this. But I don't feel qualified to make a list of a writer's work, and I can't reay access MA now — Wikia has lost its mobile skin. Without that, using an iPod to look up stuff on MA is really, really, hard.

I hope someone does , though! (ie, create a poll).

 

[DevilEyes]

Melinda Snodgrass:
Best: The Measure of a Man
Worst: Up the Long Ladder

Yeah, that's obvious. I didn't include her since she only wrote 5 episodes, but it's amazing that within such a small number of eps she managed to write one of the best Trek episodes as well as one of the worst ever.