I officially began my journey through all Star Trek on October 9th...

[RAMA]

Since you're covering the whole series, here's my best and worst list, minus Enterprise, which I have not overviewed thoroughly enough to make a list yet.


Best of Star Trek series:

TOS:

1. Balance of Terror
2. The Doomsday Machine
3. Conscience of the King
4. City on the Edge of Forever
5. A Taste of Armageddon
6. Devil in the Dark
7. The Naked Time
8. Mirror, Mirror
9. Journey to Babel
10. Arena

STNG:

1. Best of Both Worlds I and II
2. Yesterday's Enterprise
3. Darmok
4. The Inner Light
5. The Chase
6. The Measure of a Man (Extended)
7. The Survivors
8. The Wounded
9. Q Who
10. Where No One Has Gone Before

DS9:

1. Duet
2. Emissary
3. Captive Pursuit
4. In the Hands of the Prophets
5. The Visitor
6. The Abandoned
7. Rocks and Shoals
8. A Call to Arms
9. The Quickening
10. In the Pale Moonlight

VOYAGER:

1. Distant Origins
2. Blink of an Eye
3. Critical Care
4. Caretaker
5. Scorpion I and II
6. Deathwish
7. Living Witness
8. Child's Play
9. Deadlock
10. Prototype
11. Think Tank
12. Remember
13. Relativity
14. Pathfinder
15. Timeless
16. Equinox I and II
17. Dark Frontier I and II
18. Drone
19. Prey
20. Memorial

ENTERPRISE:

THE WORST:

TOS:

1. Plato's Stepchildren
2. Turnabout Intruder
3. The Mark of Gideon
4. And the Children Shall Lead
5. The Way to Eden
6. Whom Gods Destroy
7. Spectre of the Gun
8. The Lights of Zetar
9. Spock's Brain
10. The Apple

STNG:

1. Shades of Gray-Kind of useless except for budgetary reasons.
2. Emergence-Single most pointless episode of STNG. Nothing redeems it.
3. Man of the People-Almost unwatchable.
4. Manhunt-Needless, less charming retread of Haven.
5. The Loss-The Betazoid pms episode...this was not ST. Even a fairly cool 2D alien couldn't save this episode.
6. The Royale-Had about 15 good minutes in it about Colonel Richie, but ultimately not very good.
7. Samaritan Snare-It wasn't only the Pakleds who were dumb in this episode. Nominated for worst aliens ever in a Trek series.
8. Haven-A few good character moments, not much else.
9. Rascals-Silly
10. Laisons-Non-sensical

Honorable mention: Realm of fear. Horrible ending and technobabble.

DS9:

1. Fascination
2. Profit and Lace
3. Dax
4. If Wishes Were Horses
5. Looking for Parmach..
6. The House of Quark
7. Ferengi Love SOngs
8. Meridian
9. Family Business
10. Our Man Bashir
11. Let He Who is Without Sin


VOYAGER:

1. Threshold
2. Twisted
3. Sacred Ground
4. Favorite Son
5. Coda
6. The Thaw
7. Persistence of Vision
8. Elogium
9. Darkling
10. Scientific Method

ENTERPRISE:

Worst overall: Threshold

RAMA

 

[eyeresist]

Since you're covering the whole series, here's my best and worst list, minus Enterprise, which I have not overviewed thoroughly enough to make a list yet.

I have been working on something like this for ENT, but have stalled near the end of season 2. I'm also writing a brief review of each ep to explain its classification. I will try to have it finished by the time it's relevant to the OP, and will put a link to it in my sig.

 

[Griffeytrek]

Worst overall: Threshold

RAMA

I really hope the OP will be of legal drinking age in their country by the time they hit that episode. Because either way they will need it. Also I recommend putting a reserved sign on the shower. Immediately after viewing Threshold you will feel unclean.

 

[Tracy Trek]

Wasn't it said at one of the conventions (where the whole cast, minus Jennifer Lien was there for the 20th anniversary) where it was said it took a mind altering substance to fully appreciate it.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Any progress on DS9?

 

[RAMA]

I maintained that list for almost 2 decades, but it hasn't been updated in awhile. I can see one change I want to make on it. I'm close to finishing my Enterprise list as well.

RAMA

I have been working on something like this for ENT, but have stalled near the end of season 2. I'm also writing a brief review of each ep to explain its classification. I will try to have it finished by the time it's relevant to the OP, and will put a link to it in my sig.

 

[RAMA]

I maintained that list for almost 2 decades, but it hasn't been updated in awhile. I can see one change I want to make on it. I'm close to finishing my Enterprise list as well.

RAMA

Here's the updated list, and the ENT addition:




Best of ST

TOS:

1. Balance of Terror
2. The Doomsday Machine
3. Conscience of the King
4. City on the Edge of Forever
5. Devil in the Dark
6. Journey to Babel
7. The Naked Time
8. Mirror, Mirror
9. Errand of Mercy
10. Arena

STNG:

1. Best of Both Worlds I and II
2. Yesterday's Enterprise
3. Darmok
4. The Chase
5. The Inner Light
6. The Measure of a Man (Extended)
7. The Survivors
8. The Wounded
9. Q Who
10. Where No One Has Gone Before


DS9:

1. Duet
2. Emissary
3. Captive Pursuit
4. In the Hands of the Prophets
5. The Visitor
6. The Abandoned
7. Rocks and Shoals
8. A Call to Arms
9. The Quickening
10. In the Pale Moonlight

VOYAGER:

1. Distant Origins
2. Blink of an Eye
3. Critical Care
4. Caretaker
5. Scorpion I and II
6. Deathwish
7. Living Witness
8. Child's Play
9. Deadlock
10. Prototype
11. Think Tank
12. Remember
13. Relativity
14. Pathfinder
15. Timeless
16. Equinox I and II
17. Dark Frontier I and II
18. Drone
19. Prey
20. Memorial

ENTERPRISE:

1. Similitude
2. Cogenitor
3. Babel triloly-Babel/United/The Aenar
4. Augment trilogy-Borderland/Cold Station 12 /The Augments
5, Broken Bow
6. Anomoly
7. Vulcan trilogy-The Forge/Awakening/Kir’Shara
8. A Mirror Darkly I and II
9. Azati Prime
10. Future Tense

Lots of honorable mentions for the 10-20 spots) Regeneration, Twilight, Affliction 2-parter, The Expanse, Zero Hour, Dear Doctor, Denons/Terra Prime, et al)

Movies:

1. ST09
2. STID
3. STII
4. STFC
5. STIV
6. STNEM
7. STIII
8. STTMP
9. STVI
10. STINS
11. STGEN
12. STV

________________________________________________________________________________________


THE WORST:

TOS:

1. Plato's Stepchildren
2. Turnabout Intruder
3. The Mark of Gideon
4. And the Children Shall Lead
5. The Way to Eden
6. Whom Gods Destroy
7. Spectre of the Gun
8. The Lights of Zetar
9. Spock's Brain
10. The Apple

STNG:

1. Shades of Gray
2. Emergence
3. Man of the People
4. Manhunt
5. The Loss
6. The Royale
7. Samaritan Snare
8. Haven
9. Rascals
10. Laisons

DS9:

1. Fascination
2. Profit and Lace
3. Dax
4. If Wishes Were Horses
5. Looking for Parmach..
6. The House of Quark
7. Ferengi Love SOngs
8. Meridian
9. Family Business
10. Our Man Bashir
11. Let He Who is Without Sin

VOYAGER:

1. Threshold
2. Twisted
3. Sacred Ground
4. Favorite Son
5. Coda
6. The Thaw
7. Persistence of Vision
8. Elogium
9. Darkling
10. Scientific Method

ENTERPRISE:

1. Two Days and Two Nights
2. North Star
3. Acquisition
4. Fusion
5. Canamar
6. Rajiin
7. Impulse
8. Vox Sola
9. Extinction
10. Oasis

Worst overall: Threshold and STV

RAMA

 

[eyeresist]

RAMA, re ENT, to your list of best episodes I would add:

Breaking The Ice
Shuttlepod One
Cease Fire
Twilight
Observer Effect​

To your list of the worst, I would add:

Strange New World
Vanishing Point
Precious Cargo​

I would not class North Star or Impulse with the worst.

 

[Admiral Shran]

THE WORST:

TOS:

1. Plato's Stepchildren
2. Turnabout Intruder
3. The Mark of Gideon
4. And the Children Shall Lead
5. The Way to Eden
6. Whom Gods Destroy
7. Spectre of the Gun
8. The Lights of Zetar
9. Spock's Brain
10. The Apple

So, does that mean "Plato's Stepchildren" is the worst?

If so, it's nice to see that someone shares my loathing of "The Mark of Gideon" - easily the worst of TOS.

 

[Griffeytrek]

Miles is a "Chief". As in He is a Master Chief Petty Officer. The highest career enlisted rank in the service. There is some confusion in this as in one TNG episode he is mentioned as a Lieutenant. But they finally settle on CPO. It is pretty clearly shown in the TNG episode where we meet Sergei, Worf's adoptive human father. Who was a Chief on the old Intrepid ("Excelsior Class!") that originally found Worf on K'tomir. (or however it is spelled.) Star Trek gets a little weird about ranks in that they rarely if ever show the enlisted crew. They focus almost exclusively on the officers. Ensigns and above. Miles is the only real clear named example of an enlisted man outside of perhaps Rand back in TOS. (Yeoman was her job, not her rank.)

Duet is one of the all time great Trek episodes. It explored some truly deep subjects, in a way that just would not have been possible in any of the other shows. It's also the first real good look at how DS9 inhabits a somewhat darker or rather grayer world than that of the Trek hero ships.

Avery Brooks gets better. It took the writers a little time to get the character dialed in. Sisco is at his best when he is allowed to be badass. Once the hair disappears and the beard arrives badassitude is achieved. he doesn't do warm fuzzy Starfleet explorer Captain staring at the wonderment of the universe well. Once they finally stop doing that things improve. Sisco is in every way possible the polar opposite of Piccard. In fact the series structure is in some ways the opposite of TNG. In TNG the series was originally planned as more of an ensemble piece. With Piccard not so much as the lead, but rather as the center, for the others to play around. Riker was supposed to be the more Kirk'like heroic protagonist character. Piccard his boss. However fans rapidly became transfixed with Patrick Stewart so he more and more became the series "Kirk". Whereas DS9 sort of started trying to do that a bit with Sisco, but eventually found that most of the really interesting stuff was happening on the edges. So Sisco became the strong central character that everything happens around. Not necessarily to. It ended up working well for the series. (Plus it dodged much of the infallible super Captain nonsense that plagued Voyager and Enterprise.) This doesn't mean that Sisco or Avery Brook's role is diminished. Just they structured things a bit differently. Sort of the difference between Captain Kirk on TOS and Captain Adama on the newer Battlestar Galactica.

 

[Forbin]

Avery brooks confused me in that first season - we were used to him being absolutely perfect as Hawk, the badass high-class tough guy in Spenser For Hire. Then we got this laid-back, barely-acting thing he did as Sisco. My wife and I kept saying to each other, WTF is this? we KNOW he can act, we've seen it! Apparently somebody on the staff thought the same thing, because he eventually returned to the "Hawk look" (shaved head and stylish beard) and stepped it up a notch.

 

[RAMA]

No, I listed the worst of each show in my opinion. I concluded at the end the two worst were Voyager's Threshold and Star Trek V from the movies.

So, does that mean "Plato's Stepchildren" is the worst?

If so, it's nice to see that someone shares my loathing of "The Mark of Gideon" - easily the worst of TOS.

It just made no sense to me. The can build the Enterprise but they can't build spaceships? The plot hinges on Kirk falling in love to save the planet? How are they even compatible biologically?

 

[RAMA]

RAMA, re ENT, to your list of best episodes I would add:

Breaking The Ice
Shuttlepod One
Cease Fire
Twilight
Observer Effect​

To your list of the worst, I would add:

Strange New World
Vanishing Point
Precious Cargo​

I would not class North Star or Impulse with the worst.

A lot of people dislike Strange New World, I didn't think it was that bad.

I liked all the episodes you mentioned, and Observer Effect was close to making the list!

 

[eyeresist]

A lot of people dislike Strange New World, I didn't think it was that bad.

I liked all the episodes you mentioned, and Observer Effect was close to making the list!

Glad to know we are not totally at loggerheads!
From viewer comments on ENT, I think Strange New World was the point at which many people switched off, or at least decided they hated it. The big problem for me is that gallivanting around the first planet they come across without taking any sort of precaution is a jarring contradiction of the supposedly "more realistic" set-up of the show. That aside, it's still fairly mediocre; a poor choice for the third episode of a new series.

 

[Griffeytrek]

Glad to know we are not totally at loggerheads!
From viewer comments on ENT, I think Strange New World was the point at which many people switched off, or at least decided they hated it. The big problem for me is that gallivanting around the first planet they come across without taking any sort of precaution is a jarring contradiction of the supposedly "more realistic" set-up of the show. That aside, it's still fairly mediocre; a poor choice for the third episode of a new series.

I'm evil. But I view "Strange New World" as proof of my hypothesis regarding the NX-01s crew and staffing. By Kirk's era the Enterprise was a good prestige posting for Starfleet personel. A stepping stone for your career. By Piccard's era it was the goal. The flagship. The pre-eminent posting. Officers would turn down their own commands to stay on that ship. It was the job you worked all your life to retire from. It attracted the absolute best of the best of the best.

Whereas way back at the beginning? When they were looking for "volunteers" to crew this shaky, questionable warp ship on what was likely to be a one way voyage into horrific death in the depths of space. With no possibility of backup and rescue. Yeah volunteers... Let's just say they are not getting the best and brightest with their eyes on long term career advancement. Rather the Enterprise was crewed by individuals not unlike those who have already volunteered to take a one way trip to Mars. Granted we should never discount the role played in human advancement by well meaning morons with a sense of adventure and a limited ability to accurately assess risk. I just find that Enterprise gets much more enjoyable once you reach the mental conclusion that that is in fact what we are looking at.

 

[Forbin]

He was master of the one-liners.

• Sgt Belson is being used as a human shield by the gad guy. Hawk shoots his Colt Python from across an auditorium and hits the guy in the head. Belson yells "I felt that bullet go past my ear! You could have killed me!" Hawk stuffs his gun in his coat and says "I didn't." and exits.

• Spenser is being attacked by a Bad guy in his own home. Hawk is away on leg-breaking business, so Spenser's on his own. At the last possible second Hawk bursts thru the door and blasts the guy. Spenser says "I thought you were in Texas." Hawk says "I came back."

I know Sisco is an entirely different character, but Brooks was just SO understated we wondered if he was on weed the whole time.

 

[Forbin]

Come to think of it, Worf is the Hawk of TNG.

 

[Griffeytrek]

I watched a few scenes of him playing Hawk on YouTube. Very different from Sisko, but WAY cooler

Avery Brooks in his personal life shaves his head and wears the beard. The Star Trek producers insisted he reverse that for DS9. On the reasoning that A. They didn't want to to closely associate him with his prior Hawk character (reasonable) and B. "We can't have two bald Captains in a row!" (Hollywood is Stupid!). The unstated message to actor and directors was to keep Sisco as far away from Hawk as they could. Which felt awkward. That starts to fall away towards the end of Season 2. With Season 3's opening scene being the moment you know the Hawk is back.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Come to think of it, Worf is the Hawk of TNG.

So Hawk gets beat up a lot to prove how tough the bad guys are?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Does his character change throughout the series? I don't mind Sisko, I quite like him actually, but I want that bald-headed goatee-rocking badass!

Just be a little patient.