Your top 10 favorite episodes

[Poltargyst]

The statements are self-explanatory.

First, yeah, my favorite episode of trek ever is The Cage. Period. End of discussion. it has my favorite characters and favorite story. I can't state it any more plainly. What, is it confusing because I'm not bowing at the altar of "City On The Edge Of Forever" or something? Sorry, I don't do that.

Second, look up the word "derivative." Everything in Trek's DNA, all the stuff that distinguishes trek from the other space franchises, the transporters, the warping, the "one ship, one crew," the "guy with the ears," - the source for all of it is The Cage, which makes The Cage the original work and everything else derivative of that original work.

Of course, The Cage is derivative of Forbiidden Planet, which in turn is just the sci-fi version of The Tempest, but its place in the Lineage of Trek is always "First," and I'm down with that.

It just surprised me because I certainly think there are other episodes that are better than the Cage, and if you polled the fanbase on what everyone's favorite episode was, I bet The Cage wouldn't win. You, of course, are allowed to have any episode as your favorite. It's an unusual choice. I think I'm allowed to be surprised by an unusual choice. For the record, COTEOF isn't my favorite either.

In my mind, The Cage, along with every other episode of TOS is all part of the same unit. It's all the same series, so it seems odd to me to say some episodes of a series are "derivative" of another episode in the same series. So are all the episodes of a series "derivative" of their pilot? Is the pilot of any series your favorite because it was The First?

It's like you're saying The Cage is its own separate entity separate from the series. Doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Admiral2]

It just surprised me because I certainly think there are other episodes that are better than the Cage, and if you polled the fanbase on what everyone's favorite episode was, I bet The Cage wouldn't win. You, of course, are allowed to have any episode as your favorite. It's an unusual choice. I think I'm allowed to be surprised by an unusual choice. For the record, COTEOF isn't my favorite either.

In my mind, The Cage, along with every other episode of TOS is all part of the same unit. It's all the same series, so it seems odd to me to say some episodes of a series are "derivative" of another episode in the same series. So are all the episodes of a series "derivative" of their pilot? Is the pilot of any series your favorite because it was The First?

It's like you're saying The Cage is its own separate entity separate from the series. Doesn't make sense to me.

It is a seperate entity. It's the rejected pilot. It is literally the one episode of trek that wasn't intended to be part of canon, because the people who were paying for canon wanted it changed. It was. The new pilot, WNMHGB, became canon by being the third episode aired. Only pieces of The Cage were canonized by being inserted into The Menagerie.

Are all episodes of a series derivative of their pilot? Um, yeah...that's kind of the point of a pilot: to let everybody know what's in store if it goes to series. And my opinion of Cage isn't just because it's the first. I just consider that a plus. Again, it has my favorite characters and my favorite story. The fact that it's an unusual choice is no big deal to me. I'm used to my preferences being in the minority. To paraphrase the Talosians, I have my favorite and you have yours. May you find your choice as pleasant.

 

[Vger23]

I could do my top 75 episodes. Would that be in the spirit of the exercise?

Let's see...

1. The Doomsday Machine
2. Where No Man Has Gone Before
3. The Corbomite Maneuver
4. The Managerie
5. Journey to Babel
6. Day of the Dove
7. Trouble With Tribbles
8. Arena
9. The Tholian Web
10. Balance of Terror

 

[Admiral2]

I could do my top 75 episodes.

Okay, which four did you hate?

 

[Vger23]

Okay, which four did you hate?

Hate is such a strong word...

 

[Sareesataka]

1. Balance of Terror
2. Arena
3. Mirror, Mirror
4. The Doomsday Machine
5. The City on the Edge of Forever
6. Space Seed
7. The Trouble With Tribbles
8. A Piece of the Action
9. Amok Time
10. Corbomite Maneuver

 

[tomalak301]

Devil in the Dark
A Piece of the Action
The Immunity Syndrome
Doomsday Machine
Enterprise Incident
City on the Edge of Forever
Taste of Armageddon
The Tholian Web
Amok Time
Mirror, Mirror

 

[gottacook]

I love the episode for the world is Hollow and I have touched the sky! The best music of season 3!

I happen to have seen "For the World Is Hollow..." tonight and it's an amazing piece of work by the music editor, with some very subtle segues from one preexisting cue to another; as far as I know, it's the only season 3 episode to include music that was originally written for both seasons 1 and 2. Although it largely drew from George Duning's original score for "The Empath" (which hadn't even aired yet!) as well as his earlier season 3 scores ("Is There in Truth..." and "And the Children..."), it also included at least one season 1 theme as well as a few seconds of Gerald Fried's "Catspaw" music and, near the end, a longer segment from Sol Kaplan's "The Doomsday Machine." Offhand I'm not aware that any other season 3 episode used any season 2 music besides this one.

 

[Delta Vega]

Amok Time
Balance Of Terror
The Menagerie
The Corbomite Maneuver
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Tholian Web
The Doomsday Machine
All Our Yesterdays
The Enemy Within
Charlie X

Just off the top of my head

 

[johnnybear]

I'm not sure you can have just ten favourites to be honest! Maybe six from each series would be a better option?
JB

 

[Delta Vega]

I'm not sure you can have just ten favourites to be honest! Maybe six from each series would be a better option?
JB

Agree
Just revised my list and realised I've missed out some obvious favourites

 

[johnnybear]

That's what happened to me last time I did one of the ten best shows polls! I realised I'd missed out quite a few gems!
JB

 

[Delta Vega]

I think everyone's Top 10 changes by the week

 

[Phaser Two]

There are some good lists above. I prefer S2, S3, then S1 in that order so I never include Corbomite on my rotating ten-best-of list, but I really should. The bridge action is fantastic, rivaling TDD, TUC, BOT and OBS (as well as Arena).

I think mine stayed the same this week:

TDD, S2
WOE, S3
WIF, S2
MM, S2
TTW, S3
DITD, S1
FC, S2
ROA, S1
BOT, S1
OBS, S2

Day of the Dove is another superlative episode that I could rank in there as well. Next time. As usual, The Ultimate Computer hangs just outside of range.

And since JB mentioned it, just as an aside my favorite eps from the other series are "The High Ground" from TNG (big fan of "Inner Light," "Relics," and "Starship Mine" as well, all from S6 I believe), "The Homecoming/The Circle/ The Siege" (collected as one ep) from DS9, VOY is almost impossible for me but I'll pick "Distant Origin," and "In a Mirror, Darkly" (both parts collected as one ep) from VOY. The best DISC episode was the Mudd episode, "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad."

 

[Doctor Sevrin]

The Naked Time
Balance of Terror
Space Seed
The City on the Edge of Tomorrow
Operation: Annihilate!
Amok Time
Mirror, Mirror
The Doomsday Machine
Return to Tomorrow
The Enterprise Incident

 

[Herbert]

Actually difficult to pick ten because I was going for the top of the top episodes that I will stop and watch whenever they are on.

Squire of Gothos
Arena
The Return of the Archons
The Devil in the Dark
The Doomsday Machine
I, Mudd
A Piece of the Action
The Immunity Syndrome
Patterns of Force
Spectre of the Gun

 

[Phaser Two]

Actually difficult to pick ten because I was going for the top of the top episodes that I will stop and watch whenever they are on.

Squire of Gothos
Arena
The Return of the Archons
The Devil in the Dark
The Doomsday Machine
I, Mudd
A Piece of the Action
The Immunity Syndrome
Patterns of Force
Spectre of the Gun

That is a really interesting list. I'm glad to see someone else include ROA in their personal Top Ten; it's firmly entrenched there for me. I don't think I've ever seen POF - an episode I like - in a Top Ten list before. What do you like the most about it?

 

[Herbert]

That is a really interesting list. I'm glad to see someone else include ROA in their personal Top Ten; it's firmly entrenched there for me. I don't think I've ever seen POF - an episode I like - in a Top Ten list before. What do you like the most about it?

Return of the Archons is an all time favorite. (I once tried to convert it into a dungeons & dragons adventure, with mixed results. Maybe i'll revisit that someday) Its got such an odd surreal vibe. I seem to enjoy those types of episodes. Spectre of the Gun is in that vein for me too.

For Patterns of Force, I'm a huge WW II buff and have been since I was a kid. It also has the interesting, if highly naive, concept of the idea of trying to implement a fascist state but in a humane way. Seems like quite a plot stretch that an intelligent, highly learned historian like John Gill could believe such a thing would be possible, and it wasn't.

 

[Qonundrum]

Numbers 1-9 but not necessarily 6 are not in any defined order, probably:

1. Day of the Dove
2. The Tholian Web (fantastic sci-fi escapism)
3. The Enterprise Incident (first rate action piece inspired by a real life event)
4. The Immunity Syndrome (very creative, Kirk's dilemma is solid, could also only be done in the 1960s)
5. Mudd's Women (is anti sex-trade, promotes self-confidence over drug addiction 20 years early, promotes as much equality as 1960s mores could via Eve)
6. Space Seed (ignore the temporal inconsistency, the discussion of human nature and Khan more than make up for it)
7. Friday's Child (shows an alien culture with a level of astuteness over differences and where failing can be lethal - and keeping the audience in feeling for the heroes throughout, something TNG onward never got right. Seriously, there's no justice...)
8. All Our Yesterdays (clever means to go back in time to avoid the supernova. I suspect processing also involves psychological alteration as well, allowing one to know of where they came from but rendering them unable to change history, though Zarabeth's explanation of the device originally being a weapon is suitable chilling (no pun intended).)
9. Dagger of the Mind (TOS's earliest stab at psychological horror is eminently effective)
10. Gamesters of Triskeleon (watch it for the plot, not the hokey outfits and Kirks' explanation of luuuurve (which also suggests Kirk didn't love Shahna at the end ) though I have few quibbles with those aspects, to the point this one edges out onto the list - Margaret Armen puts in a thoughtful exploration of slavery in a novel way, as well as horrific (the treatment of Uhura is downright frightening, being assaulted by Lars). It's also nice to see other than Spock and McCoy as a landing party as well.)

Honorable mentions:

• A Taste of Armageddon (high concept but chilling way to have a war without destroying the planet in the process - sufficiently allegorical to let viewers decide all sorts of parallels if they were bored enough)
  
• The Changeling (probe sent into space in 20th century, became damaged by another entity, entity repairs the probe and gives it impressive weaponry, repairs the probe but also has to reprogram, doesn't quite figure out either the programming language or the species that made it to begin with but lets the modified probe wander the universe destroying anything that is not perfect for a cheap thrill (erm, can we deduce that the dingalings that repaired NOMAD were the first to be merrily wiped out?! Or was the thing the original NOMAD collided with a computer mechanism, being anti-AI 50 years early)
• The Ultimate Computer (oversimplified and heavyhanded, but shows future humans plagiarizing, a child genius with scars, fears of automation (the oversimplified aspect)
• Tomorrow is Yesterday (TOS' best time travel episode, wish it was kept as a part two of "Naked Time")
• Omega Glory - It ends up being least effective Earth Parallel plot but the scenes involving being dehydrated to crystal form made for some horrific sci-fi that Trek could have delved into more often as alien planets are bound to be potentially toxic or deadly. Wish the Earth parallel subplot was accorded an otherwise lesser parallel world script.
• That Which Survives - novel bottle episode with tragedy-themed ending
• Wink of an Eye - good high concept story involving time differential. Not perfect, but VOY would use the story to innovate on (very effectively) and even influenced later sci-fi, like 'Tron' and 'Tron Legacy' (the former getting it right, but the latter also making the mistake of "Wink" in that the two timestreams' running at different rates and not finding a way to sync up the two believably.)
  
• Is There in Truth No Beauty? The plot is thin (complete with reuse of galactic boundary as plot device) but within this story are the characters and their handling, which more than carry the 50 minutes through with ease.
• The Trouble with Tribbles (it's comic relief week, and allegory for the need to spay and neuter kitties while managing to avoid the trope of "crazy cat person")
  

 

[Unicorn]

So difficult to pick!! Some of my favorites have always been:

City on the edge of forever (1)
Errand Of Mercy (1)
Devil in the Dark
Trouble with tribbles (2)
A piece of the action (2) (yes really)
Return of the Archons (1)
Doomsday Machine (2)
Ultimate Computer (2)
Taste of Armageddon (1)
Cage/Menagerie (1)