episode titles - the good, the bad, and the ?!

[Kio]

Voting in the best/worst episode polls, I've noticed that I have no recollection of what most of these episode names mean. I have to go back to the episode and watch a minute of it somewhere in the middle to figure out which episode we're talking about. And there are some titles that I'll never figure out, like "The Darkling". How does that one make any kind of sense?

"Parturition", god I hate that title. It's as though the writers want congratulations on owning a thesaurus. There are poetic titles that make a certain amount of sense like "Cold Fire", and others that miss the mark, like "Gravity". "Remember" and "Retrospect" and confusing, so are "One" and "Drone" (since the drone called himself One). I'm torn on titles based on one line within the episode, like "Scorpion" and "Dragon's Teeth". "Tuvix" was a great title, so was "The Haunting of Deck Twelve." The plot comes to mind pretty readily.

So are there any titles you hate or love? Any episodes you'd want to rename?

 

[RoJoHen]

"The Haunting of Deck Twelve" is definitely my favorite title, followed closely by "The Killing Game."

I got really annoyed with the one-word titles that Voyager usually got stuck with. Kind of annoying and usually not very creative.

 

[Geck]

I got really annoyed with the one-word titles that Voyager usually got stuck with. Kind of annoying and usually not very creative.

Agreed. It's the R's that always give me problems:

Resistance, Resolutions, Remember, Revulsion, Retrospect, Relativity, Riddles, Repression, Repentance.

Some of them I can remember (generally the ones where the episode itself was more memorable, like Remember and Relativity), but about half the list I always confuse with the others. It makes it really hard to remember what episodes I've seen and which I haven't.

 

[Lynx]

I'm happy with most of the titles. Many of them looks like names of rock songs. "Time And Again" is a good example "Time and again I sing your song" (Whitesnake). "Coda" is the name of Led Zeppelin's last album. Sometimes I mix up "Real Life" with "Still Life" (an Iron Maiden song).

 

[Pegaritaville]

It's the R's that always give me problems:

Resistance, Resolutions, Remember, Revulsion, Retrospect, Relativity, Riddles, Repression, Repentance.

I'm not big on cutesy titles (I prefer something relatively straightforward), but VOY really overdid it with those "R" titles.

Some of the ones I do like: "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Eye of the Needle", "Distant Origin", "Message in a Bottle" and "State of Flux".

 

[kipron]

"Gravity". "Remember" and "Retrospect" and confusing, so are "One" and "Drone" (since the drone called himself One).

You get confused over Drone too? Glad to know I'm not the only One.

 

[anais]

"The Haunting of Deck Twelve" is definitely my favorite title, followed closely by "The Killing Game."

Ditto. Add The Bride of Chaotica!

Unforgettable is wonderfully ironic. It was a snoozefest.

Emanations is a little too cerebral.

I generally like VOY's succinct titles. I'm under the impression that the longer titled episodes are better though, for some reason.

 

[boognish]

My favourite episode title would have to be Course: Oblivion!

 

[Mrs Paris]

"The Haunting of Deck Twelve" is definitely my favorite title, followed closely by "The Killing Game."

Ditto. Add The Bride of Chaotica!

Unforgettable is wonderfully ironic. It was a snoozefest.

Emanations is a little too cerebral.

I generally like VOY's succinct titles. I'm under the impression that the longer titled episodes are better though, for some reason.

lol, Unforgettable was definately...forgettable

 

[Evil Twin]

Something that's always struck me as odd is how many first season episodes have the letter X in the title.

Parallax
Ex Post Facto
State of Flux
Cathexis

 

[Kio]

It's the R's that always give me problems:

Resistance, Resolutions, Remember, Revulsion, Retrospect, Relativity, Riddles, Repression, Repentance.

I'm not big on cutesy titles (I prefer something relatively straightforward), but VOY really overdid it with those "R" titles.

Some of the ones I do like: "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Eye of the Needle", "Distant Origin", "Message in a Bottle" and "State of Flux".

I hadn't noticed all the Rs, but yeah, there are certainly a lot of them.

Off the top of my head, I have no idea what "Eye of the Needle" and "State of Flux" are about. In fact, if you were to tell me they were DS9 episodes, I'd believe you. I think I have a vague memory of Janeway standing on the bridge and saying, "Oooh, it's like theading the eye of a needle!" but I could be making that up.

"Resolutions" is another one that bugs me. Did they resolve some issues in this episode? Were these resolutions firmer than usual? I would have named this episode "Frustrations" or "Hey, I Thought We'd Left Vidian Space!"

Parallax
Ex Post Facto
State of Flux
Cathexis

And these are yet more episode titles that mean nothing to me.

 

[I am not Spock]

I like long-winded episode titles, myself. Remember the good old days of great titles like 'Is There In Truth No Beauty?' or 'For The World is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky' ?

DS9 had some doozies, too. In fact, some of their best episodes had great titles, including 'Nor The Battle to the Strong', 'Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges' , and 'In The Pale Moonlight'.

Unfortunately, some awesome titles were wasted upon some of the worst DS9 eps, like 'Looking for Par'Mach in all the Wrong Places' and 'Let He Who Is Without Sin'.

The lame ass, one-word VOY and ENT titles annoyed me sometimes. The most irritating ones were when they used some made-up alien word which told you nothing about the story, like 'Elogium'.

Lynx, you're right, they do look like the names of rock songs. Coda always reminds me of that Zeppelin album, and Real Life always reminds me of Still Life on Maiden's Piece of Mind album. Great minds think alike.

You know what would be a fun game to play? Let's try turning DS9 and TOS titles into one-word VOY titles.
For example, 'Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges' would become simply 'Undercover' or 'Spy'.

 

[Sakrysta]

I've been re-watching Voyager from the beginning for the first time in years over the last couple weeks, and I'd agree that most of the episode titles are horrible. I'd look at the DVD menu and try without success to remember what an episode was about based on the title.

I JUST watched "Parallax" and couldn't begin to tell you what it was about. Some of the one-word titles were pretty good given the subject matter - "Faces" comes to mind - while others like "Cathexis" are worse than meaningless. "Phage," "Jetrel," and "Elogium" all fall into the trap of being context-dependent.

So many of the titles are just so random seeming. I got to "Initiations" and couldn't for the life of me remember what it was about. And "Non Sequitur"? How does that fit Harry waking up back home? I still haven't looked up the word "Parturition" and have no idea what it means.

You look at an episode list, and it seems they MUST have been making a concerted effort to mostly have very concise episode titles. The problem with that is the difficulty of making a short title descriptive enough to do its job. After a while, all the "-tions" become interchangeable in the viewer's mind & memory - "Emanations," "Initiations," "Projections," "Parturition," "Investigations," "Resolutions,"... Fortunately they seemed to recover from that disease after the second season.

 

[CDP]

I got really annoyed with the one-word titles that Voyager usually got stuck with. Kind of annoying and usually not very creative.

Agreed. It's the R's that always give me problems:

Resistance, Resolutions, Remember, Revulsion, Retrospect, Relativity, Riddles, Repression, Repentance.

Some of them I can remember (generally the ones where the episode itself was more memorable, like Remember and Relativity), but about half the list I always confuse with the others. It makes it really hard to remember what episodes I've seen and which I haven't.

You forgot 'Reset'

 

[erastus25]

"The Haunting of Deck Twelve" is definitely my favorite title, followed closely by "The Killing Game."

Ditto. Add The Bride of Chaotica!

Unforgettable is wonderfully ironic. It was a snoozefest.

Emanations is a little too cerebral.

I generally like VOY's succinct titles. I'm under the impression that the longer titled episodes are better though, for some reason.

lol, Unforgettable was definately...forgettable

That's odd, the title worked for me. I thought it was an unforgettably bad episode.

On the whole the Voyager titles drive me nuts because they're so blah I can't remember which episode is which.

 

[Triskelion]

ugh...

Elogium
Cathexis (I mean I just watched this yesterday and forgot which epi it is).
Parturition
Basics (huh?)
Gravity
Halitosis
Supra
Trojans
Kleenex...

Ok so here are my suggestions for some great episodes that never were:

Gonorrhea
The Klingon Jesus
Knocking Up the Ocampa
The God Lizard Babies
Lori Petty Eats Spiders
Neelix Gets a Life
Someone to Wipe My Drool
Klingon Day of the Month
Oh That Holodeck!

 

[kimc]

^ Actually I liked the title "Basics". It was an interesting premise to see crew have to function without their technology and "get back to basis" so to speak.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I wish that some of the titles were more descriptive. Perhaps it's because I've not watched some of the episodes in a long time, but quite often, especially with the middle seasons of VOY, I have to go to Jammer's website to refresh myself on the plot of an episode, when only presented with a title. This happens more often with the one-word titles others have mentioned - by in large, I dislike those titles, even when the episodes themselves are good.

That said, some episode titles that I think are particularly clever or catchy are:

Q2 (I am a sucker for most Q-related episode titles though - even in TNG)
Message in a Bottle (reminds me of The Police song by the same name)
Bride of Chaotica!
Coda
Day of Honor
Learning Curve

 

[freak]

"Partuition" was a crappy name..I could pronounce it correctly! I personally like the titles: Course: Oblivion, One Small Step, Eye of the Needle, Time and Again, Dragon's Teeth..can't think of any others at the top of my head.

 

[patlandness]

"Living Witness" -- a good solid title to Voyager's finest hour.