Best Episode of Deep Space Nine, Round One

[cultcross]

^ That's the plan, Claudia - the hope is to whittle it down to an eventual face-off between the top three.
(though, colour me surprised if In the Pale Moonlight doesn't make that poll)

ETA: by the way, currently Change of Heart is the only episode without a single vote. Just got left out of a season with so many gems, or candidate for worst. episode. ever?

 

[Jonz]

I don't think that "Change of Heart" is the worst episode ever. But surprisingly even "Let he who is without sin..." got 2 votes. I'd never expected that.

 

[BigFoot]

There are definitely quite a few episodes that are worse the Change of Heart.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Jonz said:
I don't think that "Change of Heart" is the worst episode ever. But surprisingly even "Let he who is without sin..." got 2 votes. I'd never expected that.

That episode is pretty much universally disliked around here.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

*dusts off and puts on mod hat*

You know, the problem with this poll is that the methodology used is not correct for use in the DS9 forum. The way this poll is set up, we will likely not end up with the absolute top 70 or whatever episodes you are trying to get to.

In DS9, with the exception of Duet, most of the episodes that end up on posters top 10 lists are weighted toward the end of the series. It is difficult to find 10 really great episodes in season 1, for example. But I had to eliminate episodes that were MUCH better than the season one episodes I voted for, simply because they had the 'misfortune' of being aired during seasons 5 or 6, when there were alot of good episodes.

In other words, you are penalizing episodes for being part of a great season. Which doesn't make sense in the slightest. And further, will NOT accomplish your stated objective.

Personally, I think the better and more fair way to do it in *this* forum would be to give us the whole list and let us vote for which ones we really WANTED to vote for for our top 70. Not force us to pick based on some arbitrary cut-off points like seasons. The entire complexion of DS9 changed after season 2...and I don't like being forced to pick episodes that I don't really think are the best ones.

I mean, if your objective is to get the top 70 episodes of DS9, you are NOT gonna get it this way. Not with this poll.

Just wanted to point that out.

And before you say something like "Well...this is just for fun..." I would like to remind you of what happened the LAST time we had a 'best of Trek' cross-forum poll on this board.

Well, I was mod of this forum back then...and I can tell you is was a disaster. And anyone who was a mod of any Trek forum back then will surely agree with me.

 

[Rosalind]

voted. but it was so hard for the last two seasons, basically more than half of the season were really good episodes.

 

[Spider]

There are two sides to this. Ultimately what we want is to get the best 20 episodes, voted on by the fans, to go into the contest in GTD. I guess my question would be do you think that by the time we got down to the final 20 episodes that will make it into the contest in GTD, would only selecting ten episodes a season (on the first poll) affect that, or do you think you would have more than 10 episodes in a season likely to make the final 20. In TNG, we didn’t have a heavily weighted season like that. Not being familiar with DS9 like the fans here are, I can’t say if that’s true for DS9 or not.

If we decide to go the route of putting all the episodes together, that would mean we would have to start the polls over in DS9 and ENT. I kind of hate to ask the guys who put in the effort to do these polls to start over, at the same time, I want this to be fair. And in fact, if this holds true, I would, to be fair, have to ask the TNG fans if they wanted to start over and do it again starting with a large poll.

In TOS, with only three seasons, it didn’t take long to do a poll with all three seasons in one poll. It is obvious from the voting so far, that season three episodes won’t be well represented in the top 40 polling.

I’m not sure what to say at this point, other than the TNG fans didn’t seem to mind. But also, when I did that, at that time I didn’t know we would actually expand this into a board wide contest (even though it was in the back of my mind at the time).

 

[Jonz]

Given that the object is to compare the different polls, i think it's much more important that the polls are done in exactly the same way for the different series.

The format chosen here doesn't bother me much, because when we get down to the last 5-10 episodes i don't think it matters that much.

Just my two cents

 

[PKTrekGirl]

^ Yes. And you've been here how long?

Spider, I don't think you were a mod back when we did this before - but correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not even sure you were here on this board yet...or trust me - you'd remember it - you'd remember it quite vividly.

But I can tell you (and you are welcome to verify this with Stolen Thunder if you like, as I am certain he was a GTD mod at that time or Lord Garth, because he was a TOS mod at that time, I believe) that the individual forum polls were okay...but once the 'finals' started in GTD, all bloody hell broke loose.

What started out as harmless 'fun', turned into something that was so far from fun it was unreal. You had people lobbying (and borderline trolling other fan groups) in all the different forums, division between fans (like we need any more of THAT!) and all sorts of not nice things. You had strategic voting as opposed to voting for real favorites. You had guys going from forum to forum trying to form alliances between two fan groups to go after another fan group's picks first (and yes - this forum's picks were a main target, as we are supposedly this group of arrogant snobs who other forums decided to gang up against and 'teach a lesson' - and yes, they openly posted about this strategy to 'get the Niners right out in the open in other fourms - this is not my imagination or anything). You name it, it was done during that contest. And it was very UN-FUN. The worst of the fall-out occurred in the DS9, VOY and TOS forums, where all the lobbying and 'strategizing' was done - not so much in GTD, were the nastiness was confined mainly to the poll threads themselves.

Frankly, the last thing I would like to see happen, for example, is the animosity between DS9 fans and VOY fans rekindled. It has taken me (and yes, I take some credit for this) YEARS to get some level of trust going between members of these fan groups...and the last thing I want to see happen is the sort of thing that happened last time, were all sorts of old grudges were rekindled.

If you want to do polls in individual forums, that is okay - and if it stays WITHIN the forum and is not used in any cross-forum contest or competition, then I have no objection to any of this - knock yourself out and take all the polls you like, methodologically sound or not.

But if you plan to turn this into a cross forum 'poll', then, whether you realize it or not, you are purposely generating competition BETWEEN the forums and fan groups. And in that case, I suggest that all of the Trek Forum mods, and past Trek forum mods who were here for the last round of the drama-rama have a chat about it in the BR, because this will effect ALL of us, and our forums - NOT just the poll threads you innocently post, and not even just GTD.

I really don't want to go through a big honkin' drama again, with all sorts of bad feelings stirred up between fans. Not when everything around here has been going so well (for the most part) for so long in the Trek Forums.

 

[Spider]

Hummm....I may have to rethink this!

Do you think, since all the series are over and done with now, the same thing would repeat itself? I know how the rivalry can get, but in a much more limited form than what you described. Our Imperious Romulan Leader would kick my ass for starting another war like that.

 

[Sir Psyfi Sexy]

Wow. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be. So many great episodes...

 

[UnknownSample]

Such a lot of work for something that doesn't actually matter! I'll just register that my favorite is "Waltz".

 

[Jonz]

PKTrekGirl said:
^ Yes. And you've been here how long?

Sorry. It's just that I know a little bit about statistics. I guess I've not been around long enough to be part of those discussions here (or had enough posts on the board).

 

[Claudia]

cultcross said:
by the way, currently Change of Heart is the only episode without a single vote.

It's certainly not the worst episode ever, even not the worst of season 6 - but it just doesn't do anything for me. And I kind of despise the fact that Worf (and to a lesser extent) Jadzia are able to just shrug off the death of a spy whose life depended on them. Worf not only has his death on his hands but also that of countless others which could have been prevented had he met that guy. Talk about honor there - but then, Worf is my least favourite Trek-character ever because he's hypocritical, and that's saying something given the bunch of spineless and pale characters we've seen in Trek.

PKTrekGirl said:
You know, the problem with this poll is that the methodology used is not correct for use in the DS9 forum. The way this poll is set up, we will likely not end up with the absolute top 70 or whatever episodes you are trying to get to.

Well, I think we will because the best episodes will prevail, either way. Perhaps some episodes in later seasons which are better than episodes in earlier seasons will be eliminated early on - but then, I'd say they wouldn't have finished up in the Top 20 anyway because there are better episodes in their own (later) seasons.

But then again, *I* had no difficulty choosing my 10 favourite episodes even from the later seasons because even then, it's hard to find 10 episodes that stand out in quality from the rest of the season's bunch.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Spider said:
Hummm....I may have to rethink this!

Do you think, since all the series are over and done with now, the same thing would repeat itself? I know how the rivalry can get, but in a much more limited form than what you described. Our Imperious Romulan Leader would kick my ass for starting another war like that.

Well, when this fiasco occurred, the only series on was ENT, I think - this probably occurred during season 1 of ENT, because I know you've been here for a while, and clearly you don't remember it. And trust me, if you had been here, you would have remembered it.

And oddly enough, the ENT forum folks were not the main shit-stirrers. In fact, they were very much on the sidelines of this particular battle. I think they were too busy arguing among themselves to worry about the genre forums as a whole.

As I said, the bulk of the fallout occurred in TOS, DS9 and VOY. I think there was some in TNG also, but I can't remember the extent of it in there. And at the time, all of those shows had been off the air for some time.

There were arguments in the voting threads themselves in GTD, and the show forum mods got the GTD mods to work at wrapping up the contest quicker, so those guys were involved there...but the individual show forums had it worse because that was where all the 'strategists' did their dirty work. For a more detailed history, you might wanna flip back through the old BR threads until you find the thread about it in there - we really had to work together to get the thing under control, and the whole contest is therefore pretty well documented for your viewing pleasure.

I think matters were made much worse because the contest was drawn out into several rounds, and the mean-spirited nastiness had a chance to go on and on. It wouldn't have been so bad if the whole thing could have been wrapped in one vote (maybe by narrowing down the selections coming out of the individual forums to, say, three...and having ONE vote in GTD).

But as the voting went on and on in GTD, the nastiness got worse and worse in the show forums...and alot of old wounds were reopened - especially (from my POV) between the DS9 fans and the VOY fans.

I'm not sure you are aware of it, but there is a long and difficult history on this board between DS9 fans and VOY fans. This goes back to 2001, when there was alot of mutual trolling going on in both forums. There were a couple of DS9 fans who routinely trolled VOY, and there were a couple of VOY fans who routinely trolled DS9. Tensions were very high, and there are STILL people, to this day, who were involved in those forums at the time who harbor alot of bitterness for the 'rival' show - even though all of the participants in the actual trolling are long gone.

Over the years, I have been trying REALLY hard to work at healing those wounds. And I would REALLY hate to have them reopened by a contest such as this one.

I know it sounds like a perfectly harmless idea. It no doubt did to the person who got the idea last time as well! But you know how quickly 'perfectly harmless ideas' can be perverted into something quite different when put into practice around here.

My suggestion is to either:

a. Do the individual forum votes and call it a day.

or

b. Narrow down the selections going into the 'finals' in GTD to three *at most* from each show, and do the whole thing in ONE vote in GTD, with each voter getting only ONE vote (so they pick something they really like, as opposed to something they think will 'beat' another show's best episode). Voting should not go on forever in the individual show forums either, because this also will give people a chance to get 'bright ideas' about how to influence the result in ways other than intended. Do it in two or three rounds TOPS.

Alot of thought has to go into minimizing the potential for hostilities to (re-)develop. And the main thrust of this thought has to be toward how to a) make the contest short, sweet and to-the-point so as to not drag out the battle; and b) structure the thing so that people will be forced to vote for the episode they REALLY like best as opposed to voting in order to carry out some 'strategy' aimed at an 'opposing' fan group.

 

[Lord Garth]

The less time people are given, the better.

In 2002, I did a Season Survivor where I deliberately divided all the seasons into three categories: TOS/TNG (10), DS9 (7), VOY/ENT (8), so it would take time before the series would have to be reintegrated. I paired up shorter running series with seven-season series keep them in the running longer. Didn't help ENT which was voted off in the first round, but TOS managed to stick around. Total, I think it went 10 rounds and the winner was DS9-6.

In 2005, I did an Era Survivor, where I split up the different periods of Star Trek. That also went about 10 rounds.

Then, in 2006, I had two Presidential Survivors. One for Modern Presidents (since 1945) and one for Historical Presidents. With the Historical verison I allowed posters to vote off eight presidents in the first two rounds, four in the third round, and then back one afterwards.

I'd run through rounds very quick. Never more than one or two days, and since these contents never lasted longer than 10 rounds, it would be over within 2-3 weeks.

 

[Smiley]

It amazes me that people will get so riled up about a silly Internet poll. All the poll means is that a small percentage of TrekBBS posters, themselves a small percentage of Trek fans, checked a box for episodes that they liked at one point in time. Sure, if "These are the Voyages" or "Threshold" come out on top, I might question the judgment of the poll voters, but I'll know it doesn't mean anything.

 

[AdmiralGarak]

I remember a character Survivor thread that was going on back when I lurked at TrekBBS. It certainly had all the politicking and strategizing that PKTrekGirl described. The other series' fans were going out of their way to attack Jake because the Niners never voted against any of their own characters. The Niners then strategically attacked the weakest non-DS9 character to save Jake from elimination. I think about half the game went by before the less popular DS9 characters finally started to fall.

 

[cultcross]

hmm, I didn't want to help start a cross-forum war, If you like, PKTrekGirl, I'll do it just as an internal forum thing, or give up on the idea completely - It's a shame to think that we would really get all wound up and personal over which episode of a tv show is best, but I can also see exactly that happening.
Perhaps we could just say the idea is for each forum to pick their series best episode?
And you are right, of course, about the season division in DS9, but at the end of the day, once we get it whittled down to top 2 or 3, any that coasted through on the advantage of being in the early seasons should quickly fall away. And you've got plenty of votes to pick real favourites from the later years. I figure if we did an 'all DS9' best episode poll it might as well be retitled in later rounds "Best Episode of Seasons 5&6 plus Duet"

 

[Spider]

I suggest a compromise. Instead of going into GTD with 20 episodes from each show, we just go in with the top 10 from each series, giving everyone 50 episodes to choose from. We’ll do one poll for the top 25 episodes, insuring that if people select 25 hey have to spread it out between multiple shows (a minimum of three different shows if you used all your 25 selections).

If that poll goes OK without a war, then we can go forth with the elimination polls until we reach the top dog episode of all time.