Let’s face the facts. Lists of the best episodes of television, movies, novels, Broadway musicals, burgers and fries- you name it- are completely subjective and irrelevant. Favorites, especially pop-culture favorites, are in constant states of fluctuation. Depending on the time of day or the mood one is in, a list of favorites may alter entirely. However, lists are fun and they do, at least for that particular moment, allow you to really decide, once and for…well, the time it takes you to create the list, what your favorites really are.
For those immune to Star Trek’s charms (and I understand that mindset, believe me), the original series must seem irredeemably hokey, hammily acted, and egregiously self-righteous. Centered around a crew of ethnically diverse space explorers (with one humanoid alien for good measure) and their attempts to explore the galaxy and…”boldly go” and all that, the series may seem hard to tolerate to the outside observer. Fans of the series, who treat it as some sort of sacred text and discuss it as though it’s Shakespeare or Chekhov (I know there’s a character named Chekhov on the show. That’s not who I’m talking about. Stick with me here), can stimulate resentment towards the series through no fault of its own. Sometimes, there’s nothing worse than sci-fi fans, and I say this as a sci-fi fan myself. We can be obnoxious and hideously socially inept.
However, that doesn’t mean the original Stark Trek series isn’t an incredibly smart, strong, if short-lived (it ran for three seasons, from 1966-1969), science fiction program. There are individuals who take it as a source of pride they have no familiarity with the Star Trek, which is unfortunate. The series is incredibly charming and remains incredibly well done for the time in which it was filmed.
If you have no interest in trying out a few episodes of Star Trek, there’s probably very little I can do to persuade you otherwise. However, with Star Trek: Into Darkness already out in the UK and opening in the US this week now’s as good a time as any to check out the original series. I have compiled a list of ten episodes, ordered from my least favorite to “drop whatever it is you’re doing and see it now”, which are as good a place as any to start. You may as well watch it and see what has inspired so much obnoxiously obsessive devotion.
(Minimal spoilers present, though major spoilers are kept under wraps. Read at your own risk.)
10) All Our Yesterdays (Season 3)
There are those who would tell you to avoid the series’ problematic third season like a brutal, deadly plague that kills you slowly (and probably with boils and blinding torment), and there are very few episodes I can cite to contradict that viewpoint. However, the series penultimate episode emerges as one bright spot in a flawed, flawed, oh so flawed season.
Basically, the episode revolves around the Enterprise’s most popular trio, Captain Kirk, Vulcan science officer Spock, and ship doctor Leonard McCoy arriving on a planet, stepping through a portal, and being thrust back in time. Kirk’s medieval adventure is pretty subpar, but Spock’s and McCoy’s plot, which finds them in prehistoric times and Spock in love with Zarabeth, a young woman trapped there (who, despite the harsh snow, is scantily clad, for reasons I don’t fully understand), works beautifully. Because they are in prehistoric times, Spock’s emotional reserve begins to break down and he finds himself more prone to anger and romantically drawn to the Zarabeth.
The episode is not perfect. As I said, the plot line involving Captain Kirk and one of the worst female actors the show ever cast is pretty dull, but the plot with Spock and McCoy is pretty great. Of course, all three Enterprise crew members reunite and leave the planet before a supernova wipes it out and, of course, Spock reverts to his more familiar, emotionless, default setting, but an emotional Spock is always an interesting Spock. It’s nice to know that even as the series was uttering its final death rattles, it was still capable of producing thoughtful and lovely television moments.
Check out a trailer below:
9) Trouble with Tribbles (Season 2)
Humor is a notoriously mixed bag in the Star Trek universe. You may stumble across episodes featuring Harry Mudd as you peruse the original series’ back catalogue, for instance. I advise you to ignore these and move on quickly. However, feel free to stop and give “The Trouble with Tribbles” a shot. There is nothing even remotely high stakes going on in the episode. It mainly involves small, furry, purring balls of simulated fur animals that take the whole ”be fruitful and multiply” thing waaay too seriously (yeah, there’s a plot involving poisoning a food supply and a Klingon secret agent, but that feels so perfunctory it barely warrants mentioning). It’s a pretty light episode, but the cast is more than game and acquaint themselves well with the comic material. I’ve probably watched this episode more than any other episode in the series. It’s a delightful hour of television.
Check out a trailer below:
8) Immunity Syndrome (Season 2)
This is an episode I rarely hear anyone discuss when best of Star Trek comes up in conversation. That’s a shame, because it’s awesome. Any episode that features the trio that is Spock, Kirk, and McCoy is already halfway on its way to being great. Trios are difficult to pull off, and the original series created a likable, interesting character dynamic between these three characters. McCoy, who for a doctor seemed really unable to emotionally detach and really prone to angry outbursts, Spock, who was almost always emotionally detached and rarely prone to angry outbursts, and Kirk, the captain at the lead trying to establish a balance between the two. Conflicts frequently rose between the three that felt natural and interesting, but through their interactions it became obvious why Kirk would rely on them and need their friendships. They were the emotional extremes he needed to balance. McCoy was all emotion, Spock was all logic. Kirk’s job was to find a balance between the two, because somewhere between their two extremes existed the most successful leadership approach. The three of them complemented each other beautifully. This episode places a fair amount of its focus on their interactions and relationship, as well as the way in which they really do function as friends, regardless how often McCoy looks as though he really just wants to murder Spock on the spot.
Add in an energy-devouring alien amoeba presence and the scale tips into pure “fantastic” territory. It’s an exciting, cleverly constructed episode, complete with some nice character moments between the three central characters.
Check out a trailer below:
7) Doomsday Machine (Season 2)
This is another fantastically tense episode. A crazed commander, who has lost his entire crew to a planet-devouring alien and appears to be suffering severe emotional trauma as a result, takes control of the Enterprise and sends it plunging headlong towards a seemingly unkillable, alien, planet-eating machine (Don’t you hate it when that happens?).
The interesting aspect of the episode is the manner in which it goes out of its way to present Commander Matt Dekker as someone who has clearly taken leave of his senses (or they have taken leave of him. Either way), but not a villain. He’s traumatized and distraught, because his entire crew has been wiped out, but as an audience, we understand his trauma and feel a mixture of sympathy for his loss (after all, it’s hard to imagine Kirk taking the loss of his crew any better) and frustration because he cannot see the potential consequences of the cat-and-mouse game in which he engages. In the end, he loses his life to the creature, but he manages to give Kirk and the Enterprise the necessary knowledge to stop it. It’s a nice idea that the episode allows to, unintentionally, die a heroic death. It’s a smart, tense episode with terrific pacing.
Check out a trailer below:
6) Balance of Terror (Season 1)
Basically functioning as a WW II submarine movie in space, “Balance of Terror” introduced us to the Romulans (think of Vulcans, only with emotions), one of the series most interesting villains. It also deals with the paranoid, destructive nature of prejudice, as it is discovered that Romulans look astonishingly like Vulcans. Enterprise crew member begins to feel Spock may be concealing knowledge from the rest of the ship. Yet, it’s also pretty optimistic about the nature of prejudice in the future, since he seems to be the only crew member who suspects Spock of such a thing (an interesting assumption for a series set in an era of civil rights demonstrations and violent race riots). It also gives us a tense battle of wills between between Kirk and the Romulan commander, who rightfully points out that under different circumstances, he could have been Kirk’s ally. The episode creates an interesting dynamic between two individuals, forced to engage in a battle when they would just as soon avoid conflict. It’s a smart, tense episode, with a villain far more complicated than one would expect from a 1960s sci-fi television series.
Check out a trailer below:
5) Devil in the Dark (Season 1)
Another episode in which all is not as it seems. An alien is wiping out workers on a mining colony, and the Enterprise crew is called in to destroy it, but who’s the real villain on the colony? Is it the alien or the out for vengeance miners?
One of the major themes of Star Trek was the theme of seeing new places and encountering new life forms (even if, as it does here, the new life form looks like an ugly carpet), and this episode conveys both the wonder of finding/understanding new life forms, as well as the potential for terror that can accompany such a discovery. There are some moments that border on the ridiculous (Spock’s mindmeld with what is clearly a shoddily produced stuffed animal, while shouting “PAIN” is pretty unintentionally hilarious, but full credit to Leonard Nimoy for really working hard to sell it.), but the episode’s twist on the nature of monsters in the dark, as well as the optimistic ending makes it a lovely episode.
Check out a trailer below:
4) Amok Time (Season 2)
For all the talk about Spock being an alien, the series provided very little proof of what made him so different. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I know he’s got the pointed ears, the unflappable demeanor, the Vulcan mind meld, and the nerve pinch, but he seems, at least mostly, human. “Amok Time” reminds the viewer that there is more to Spock’s alien nature than meet the eye, and that lack of knowledge can make him both unpredictable and frightening. When he begins to unleash flashes of anger and aggressively demanding to be dropped off on his home planet, Vulcan, it’s cool and exciting, because it’s such a shift from the more familiar, typical Spock. What’s going on with Spock is tipped pretty quickly, but I went into the episode ignorant and that may be the best way to view it, so I’ll leave set specifics aside during this list. I’ll simply state that this episode gives one of the few glimpses into the workings of planet Vulcan, as well as a moment between Kirk and Spock at the episode’s conclusion that never fails to make me smile.
Check out a trailer below:
3) Space Seed (Season 1)
Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Star Trek can probably yell, “KHAN” with mocking gusto. To many, it is the embodiment of everything that is so effortlessly mockable about William Shatner’s performance in the Star Trek universe. Well, you won’t find that iconic yell here, but you will meet the infamous Khan for the first time. He’s found, along with several other genetically enhanced individuals, on a drifting ship. Kirk, impressed with Khan’s mental prowess, completely lowers his guard and grants him an extreme amount of access to knowledge about the present and the Enterprise, and Khan uses that knowledge to take over the ship.
It’s nice for the series to introduce an adversary that is more than capable of matching wits with Kirk. There’s a point in which Kirk is only saved because a crew member who finds herself drawn to Khan still feels enough loyalty towards Kirk to help him out of a deadly situation. If not for her, he’s definitely dead. Ricardo Montalban, as the series most famous villain (though that is more connected to Wrath of Khan, far and away the best of the Star Trek movies, than this episode) makes for an appealingly icy, intelligent villain. If you’ve seen Wrath of Khan (and even casual fans usually have), this episode will add an extra layer and provides you with the a sharp, effective backstory.
Check out a trailer below:
2) This Side of Paradise (Season 1)
So, there are spores that keep people young forever and turn them into laid back, emotionally content beings. Well, the Enterprise crew will put a stop to that, won’t they? I’m only kidding. I’m sure there are reasons to justify leaving the immortality-granting pods behind. It’s just…I don’t know exactly what those reasons are.
The real reason I like this episode comes down to the relationship between Kirk and Spock. When Spock becomes infected with the spores, and finally seems peaceful and well-adjusted (for a change), Kirk takes it upon himself to “fix” him making him the frustrated, conflicted, outsider he once was. Spock should probably just say, “don’t do me any favors,” but it’s to the show’s credit that Kirk’s plan to wipe out Spock’s emotional serenity seems as acceptable as it does. Kirk doesn’t approve of anything taking away a person’s choice, and the spores are, at the very least, doing that, even if the lack of choice seems a happier alternative to the free will Kirk offers. It’s an odd, more complicated episode that you would expect, because the episode itself questions whether or not everyone infected is really better off cured, especially Spock, who spends so much of the series as a frustrated outsider. Granted, the spore-shooting flowers look spectacularly fake, but who cares when the character drama is this strong?
Check out a trailer below:
1) City on the Edge of Forever (Season 1)
(There will be spoilers below)
One of the assumptions of Star Trek is that the Enterprise crew will save the day. Granted a few “red shirts” we know nothing about and care for even less may fall during the battle, but everything will eventually be put right, and we as viewers will end the episode feeling comforted that all has been rectified. “City on the Edge of Forever” takes that idea and turns it on its ear.
After McCoy is infected with a powerful drug and runs into the 1930s era United States (There’s a bit more to the “how” of this than I’m giving you here, but it’s complicated and should probably just be seen, rather than explained.), and Spock and Kirk must journey after him. They arrive a few days before he will appear (wibbly wobbly, timey wimey), so must simply bide their time, wait for him to arrive, and try to get him back to the ship. However, while they are there, Kirk meets and falls in love with Edith Keeler (Kirk fell in love a lot on this show. He saw more action that most Studio 54 attendees.), a optimistic young woman, passionate about social causes and giving every down-on-his-luck individual a chance at earning his/her keep.
He then finds out that McCoy, when arrives in the 1930s, will change history, saving Edith when she should have died, and leaving the world is irrevocably altered. The answer is clear: Edith has to die.
Public perception of William Shatner’s acting on Star Trek is frequently based upon hammy line readings and strange, awkward, unnaturally placed pauses. There are certainly episodes in which those tendencies are, if slightly exaggerated for comedic effect in parody form, definitely present. Here, though, he’s fantastic. Playing both the lovesick romantic, and the devastated wounded captain at the episode’s conclusion, he reminds the viewer how compelling he could be when he committed to the material. At the episode’s end, all he can say is, “let’s get the Hell out of here,” a rare moment of profanity in 1960s television. Granted, he’s over her loss by the next episode and never mentioned again, but it’s still a strong, beautiful hour of television.
Check out a trailer below:
Star Trek is available to stream through Netflix and Amazon (free to prime members), and Hulu, as well as to purchase on DVD and Blu-ray.
So, what do you think? Are you fans of these episodes? Are there others you think should be on the list? Did I make any mistakes in my plot synopsis (and if you caught them, what is wrong with you? You should really go outside, see the world, or even read a book.) Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
