STAR TREK - The Absolute Best and Worst

To celebrate 900 episodes of Trek, I thought I'd put forth this little question. Or two, really.
1. What is your #1 out of 900? The best, the most awesome, the creme de la creme. And TELL US WHY!
2. What is your #900 out of 900, or 901, or 902, I know it keeps increasing. The one where if you could obliterate one episode from canon, this would be it.

My #1: "The Visitor". It tells a story of a father and a son, of grief and trying to move on and failing, of open wounds and sound advice. And Avery Brooks, Cirroc Lofton, and Tony Todd... they all sell it. And you would think it would be kind of odd that 40-something Sisko calls 80-something Jake "my sweet boy"... but I cry pretty much every time he does it.

My #900+: "Half a Life". The Not-Z holocaust began with the killing of people deemed useless to society, and that is what this culture runs on. It's like, "Hey, Daddy, I want you to come back home and kill yourself so that your -ING CORPSE CAN ROT NEXT TO MOMMY'S, SO COULD YOU DO IT PRETTY PLEASE?!!" Michelle, you were amazing as Ensign Ro, but your previous appearance...

Anything that treats genocide with even a particle of sympathy, deserves the bottom of the barrel here. "Threshold" may be ludicrous, "Code of Honor" may be distasteful, and "Profit and Lace" may be bad in just about every way imaginable. But I still choose this one without hesitation.

What are your thoughts? A best and a worst, and don't forget to have fun praising your favorite and pasting your least. And a reminder, we're not going to agree, but let's be civil to each other.

 

You're right on the money with The Visitor. That would be my #1 as well. This story is so emotional to me, in fact just recently I was reading the second draft script version of it (had the good fortune to acquire some of those) - I cried even reading it. A profound story about coping with grief, wrapped in an exciting alternate future story. Couldn't be better.

As for the dead last position, I never read Half A Life the way you did AT ALL. But to each his own. For me, the worst must've been Stormy Weather on DSC. An absolutely ludicrous episode that takes the single worst quality of that show (its sappy, insincere emotionalism) and turns it into inadvertent self-parody.

Those two in tandem show a great lesson, really. The Visitor had the goods emotionally because it was built on existing and believable relationships (It may not have worked if it had been a season 1 episode), while DSC so often tries to trick the audience into believing that there's history between the characters where there really isn't for the sake of cheap, unearned emotional payoffs.

 

“The Visitor” is probably top for me too, although I rarely watch it; it simply hits too hard and I end up ugly-crying.

I actually think “Half a Life” is a decent episode but I agree with you about Timicin’s daughter—what an absolutely loathsome little psychopath! “If you LOVED me, father, you’d kill yourself!! Do it for me!!”

Not actually sure what my least favourite Trek would be. Threshold? Sub Rosa? Code of Honor? Actually, the worst in recent memory was the Peanut Hamper episode from the previous season of LD; that was maybe the first episode of Trek I ever felt I had to force myself to keep watching.

 

Best: difficult decision, I have a few favourites without a single standing tall above the others. But if forced to pick one, I think I'll go with DS9: In the Pale Moonlight. Don't know what to say about it really, it's just terrific.

Worst: not a difficult decision: VOY: Retrospect. A "don't tell, you just imagined it" violation episode. Some episodes are just bad, some are downright offensive, some leave me with a sick stomach for other reasons, but this is the only one that I consider actively harmful. Truly disgusting.

 

Exactly. I look forward to seeing many least favorite episodes, and the reasons why they are so detested. And a diverse selection of favorites as well.

 

Just as well KITUMBA and TRESSAUREAN INTERSECTION are equally invalid to include here. My personal guilty pleasure for TREK ever is still BY ANY OTHER NAME, as it thrusts Kirky into a near-impossible-to-resolve dilemma for the first three quarters......while giving us extra-inventive special effects with the paralyzer doohickey.

It's tempting to choose CAUSE AND EFFECT for the worst, but I remembered TNG's infamous clip show earlier in their run.....SHADES OF GREY, wasn't it? Riker's waking up, Riker's going back to sleep, over and over.....must I continue?

And for similar reasons, I double-dare anybody brave enough to select THE MARK OF GIDEON for all-time best.

 

Nope. But you can if you want. Venting is permitted here.

 

The Trouble with Tribbles: Brilliant combination of comedy and drama (after all, it is a serious situation.)
As for the worst, my choice would be Threshold, with TNG's Genesis a close second. The master negatives of those two episodes need to be utterly destroyed.

 

I'll just say it's funnier during CAUSE AND EFFECT when the Ent-B blows up for the third and forth times. Repeatedly going to commercials made it even funnier.

 

#1: City on the Edge of Forever, TOS.

#last. These Are The Voyages, ENT.

 

You mean the ENT-D? Cause and Effect was probably Brannon Braga’s finest hour and a whole lot of fun…but yeah, I know some casual viewers who were completely befuddled by the whole thing. There is an almost unintentional funniness I guess; all it needed was Leslie Nielsen making an appearance in the cockpit (I mean bridge).

 

As long as Picard doesn't ask Wesley if he's ever seen a grown man naked.

 

I don't think I can pick an absolute best/worst, but an episode that's teetering atop the Best Pillar (nudging a few others off) at the moment is LDS: "The Stars at Night". There are so many Star Trek things to love in this, the final episode of season 3, but Mariner helping to save the day with a California-class fleet is such an emotional, exhilarating rush that I still feel it even after many, many rewatches.
As for the worst, almost certainly an episode of Picard. I haven't seen them all as I just couldn't face subjecting myself to any more self indulgent, miserable tripe (stopped about halfway though S2 and watched three from S3). I'm torn between "Remembrance" which started the whole shambles off, "The Impossible Box" (Hugh! ) or "Monsters" which was the nail in the coffin of S2 for me. Actually, I'm going with "Remembrance" for the 'without it, there wouldn't be any others' reason.

 

Several are the best, but only two are up for the worst: VOY The Fight, and the SHO tribble disaster

 

#1 Far Beyond the Stars
It's the backdoor pilot that should have been. It accomplishes so much beyond simply being a representation of oppression and prejudice in the past: the nature of popular culture, urban life, the power of imagining a better life.

#900 Precious Cargo
You can just feel everyone give up. The plot is a throwaway, probably would have gone unnoticed. However, Padma Lakshmi was a terrible casting decision. The acting was so bad, it doesn't even feel like television. Meridian had a similarly generic plot (A-story, the B-story is decent), and Brett Cullen was another damp rag who could have been Troi's romance of the week. Even so, Terry Farrell appears to work hard to make the episode work. Conner Trinner doesn't. He checked out early.

 

#1 Far Beyond the Stars. A triumph of showing what science fiction is for, imagining a better world in order to help bring it about. (The valentines to the Golden Age of Science Fiction are a bonus.)

# Last Turnabout Intruder. It's 200 years from now and McCoy can"t tell when the captain's been possessed? And Lester's doctor is accomplice to multiple felonies? And they've forgotten all about the "Queen to Queen's Level Three" recognition code, because it was so useful last time? Felt like everyone involved just wanted TOS to be over, collect their pay, such as it was, and remind their agents that they needed work. The ending references to what a limited life a woman should settle for aged badly even by the time the episode aired.

Come to think of it, the best and worst episodes are kind of mirror images of each other: Far Beyond the Stars is a reminder of how hopeless black lives were in the past, while Turnabout Intruder reminds us that many people in the 1960s believed things would never (or should never?) get any better for women.

 

Best - "The City on the Edge of Forever"

Worst - Star Trek: Nemesis

 

I keep hearing people say that (Threshold moreso than Genesis). But why though? Aren't these insane, silly episodes super-entertaining? Me, I'd rather take any of those, also Spock's Brain etc, over an episode that's boring (of which e,g, TNG season 5 had quite a few).

 

I've seen people defending Threshold on the basis of Robert Duncan McNeil's impassioned performance. I don't hate Threshold like others, but I do think the story has problems, feeling like another episode of Giligan mucking up the castaway's zany attempt to get off the island.

 

"Threshold" is a little like "When the Bough Breaks", an episode that wasn't bad throughout, it just had a very badly done ending.