Best single disc for a ST newbie

[omnirad]

Guisseppe, an older Italian-American gentleman at our UU church's coffee hour this morning commented on the Star Fleet pin on my jacket. I proceeded to give him a crash course on the history and meaning of Star Trek. I told him how Treks humanistic liberal philosophy mirrored our Unitarian Universalist covenant.
He has seen fleeting snipets of probably TOS only. I would like to introduce him to Star Trek with a single disc of episodes, which feature social issues like equality, justice, and understanding.
I have all of the series seasons, but for half of VOY. I think TOS is the logical place to start. All of the first seasons 4 episode discs have good offerings. So before I look too high and low, any suggestions?

 

[Red Ranger]

Omnirad:

I'll take a stab at it. I don't own the DVDs, so I don't know which four eps are on individual disks, but I'd say any disk that has "Amok Time," "Journey to Babel," "The Corbomite Maneuver," or "Court Martial" would be good places to start.

Red Ranger

 

[TheLonelySquire]

Balance of Terror and Conscience of the King are on the Season 1 disc. Roll with that and he'll be hooked.

 

[egonbeeblebrox]

Balance of Terror and Conscience of the King are on the Season 1 disc. Roll with that and he'll be hooked.

Yeah, that disc also includes "The Galileo Seven" and "Shore Leave," so that's a nice place to start. All four are very different, and very strong.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

I would go with Disc #14 which contains "Errand of Mercy" and "The City on The Edge of Forever." I don't think you could get any better than these two on the two-per disc selections released in the late 90s/early 00s.

Sir Rhosis

EDIT: On careful re-reading, I see that you're talking about season set discs.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Balance of Terror and Conscience of the King are on the Season 1 disc. Roll with that and he'll be hooked.

Yeah, that disc also includes "The Galileo Seven" and "Shore Leave," so that's a nice place to start. All four are very different, and very strong.

Definetely agree on The Conscience Of The King - a very good discussion of vengence, justice, survival etc. It also has great performances and shows the crew of the Enterprise as community.

Balance of Terror is also a great episode, dealing with bigotry and shows the enemy is more than just "bad guys".

 

[Esteban]

Charlie X/Balance of Terror

Bread and Circuses/Journey to Babel

Who Mourns for Adonais/AmokTime

Mirror, Mirror/The Deadly Years

 

[Garth Rockett]

Season One Disc Seven would be great if it had anything but The Alternative Factor in the three slot, because the rest are all classics (The Devil in the Dark, Errand of Mercy and City on the Edge of Forever). You could give him that one and tell him to skip TAF. Otherwise, I'd recommend Season Two Disc One, with Amok Time, The Changeling, Who Mourns For Adonais? and Mirror, Mirror.

 

[Mr. Fergy]

Those are all good choices, IMHO. Just don't show him the disc with the episode "Spock's Brain", like ever!

 

[Red Ranger]

Those are all good choices, IMHO. Just don't show him the disc with the episode "Spock's Brain", like ever!

Exactly! -- RR

 

[Smiley]

Those are all good choices, IMHO. Just don't show him the disc with the episode "Spock's Brain", like ever!

That disc has "The Enterprise Incident" on it, so it's not all that bad.

Also, after somebody has seen good Trek, they should see the bad stuff at least once to make them appreciate the better episodes that much more.

I agree with the people who say that the disc with "The Conscience of the King" and "Balance of Terror" is a great intro disc.