Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Favourite 'Star Trek' episodes ??

Don't know how to edit my posts here yet, but by "this year," I meant 2004...way to late in '03 to release them now

Pex... bless you for delivering this most happy of news. Were I a sensual male genie, I would grant thee 3 boons.

"City on the Edge of Forever" for Drama.

"The Trouble With Tribbles" for Comedy.

As a ST fan since Sept'66, I've seen some of the old episodes MANY times. Quite a few, especially from the first 2 seasons, really can be watched OVER and OVER and OVER without getting old. That's just not something I've been able to say about 99-9/10% of what's out there! Trying to narrow down favorites is tough… but I'll give it a whirl. In no particular order…

THE CAGE (1965 pilot, now part of the regular syndication package!)

WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE (2nd pilot; 1st Kirk story!)

THE CORBOMITE MANEUVER (3rd episode filmed; 1st McCoy story!)

BALANCE OF POWER (1st Romulan story; based on the movie “THE ENEMY BELOW” with Curt Jurgens as the German u-boat commander)

SHORE LEAVE (Alice & the white rabbit)

ARENA (Kirk vs The Gorn commander)

A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON (war with computers; w/ David Opatoshu & Barbara Babcock)

THE DEVIL IN THE DARK (scary—then, surprisingly—heartwarming—no pun intended)

ERRAND OF MERCY (the 1st Klingon story; John Colicos as Kor!)

AMOK TIME (Spock returns to Vulcan)

MIRROR, MIRROR (Spock with a beard! SOUTH PARK did a great tribute to this)

JOURNEY TO BABEL (1st app. of Spock's parent)

THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES (comedy on ST!!! w/ William Campbell as Koloth)

I, MUDD (Roger C. Carmel's 2nd appearance as Harry Mudd; MORE comedy!)

A PIECE OF THE ACTION (ST meets The Untouchables; comedy # 3!!!)

DAY OF THE DOVE (Michael Ansara as Kang; swordfights on the Enterprise!)

…and, from the cartoon…

THE SLAVER WEAPON (the only episode to feature ONLY Spock, Suliu and Uhura—and NO Enterprise!)

Gene Roddenberry was WRONG to dismiss the 22 cartoons. Most were better-written than most of the 3rd season, and shared something with the original show that NONE of the revival shows have had—being written by established science-fiction writers !!! (As opposed to grown-up TV-show fanboys.)

Are the cartoons generally not considered "canon" by ST followers?

I wonder if Tribbles are related to rodents?

If so, I support their cause!

My favorite would have to be the Menagerie from TOS, with Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike. It was a glimpse of what the show could have been.

“Are the cartoons generally not considered "canon" by ST followers?”

I don't know about the fans… but Gene Roddenberry went on record as preffering to ignore them!

But really, you try watching the 3rd season (where there were more bad episodes than good ones) and compare it to the 22 cartoons. As a teenager, I loved the job Filmation did. They had most of the original cast doing voices. James Doohan got to do several voices and make use of his talent for accents. Writers included D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold, Howard Weinstein (who went on to write a healthy run of the DC STAR TREK comic many years later). They did sequels with The Tribbles, Harry Mudd, and the Orion pirates. Because of the limitations of the animation, STORY and science-fiction IDEAS were stressed over action. There were several alien races introduced, who I find MORE interesting (and cooler-looking) that 90% of the “humans with face-bums” of TNG, DS9, etc. And the “Holodeck” made its debut. I could never figure why they only did 22!

Talk of the animated TREK reminds me of the paperback prose adaptations written by Alan Dean Foster.

I enjoyed those much more than the adaptations of the 'regular' TREK episodes.

In particular, there was a sequence featuring Lt. M'Ress set on her homeworld that I thought was wonderful. I believe it was created whole-cloth-- having no animated basis. I always wanted this character and her leonine people/culture to pop up in one of the new Star Trek series.

I agree that many aliens featured in the animated series were much more intriguing than the very similar aliens we've been seeing for years now.

I particularly remember one episode set in a graveyard of spaceships that I liked.

Are the animated episodes out on DVD?

TN

I have those novelizations, but never got around to reading them! I imagine a LOT could be done “fleshing out” little 23-minute episodes. Filmation was the company that did the ARCHIE cartoons, as well as THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, AQUAMAN and BATMAN in the late 60's. STAR TREK was a big step up for them, in both writing and animation. Of course, the most “animated” thing on the show was The Enterprise, which was apparently done using rotoscoping. Filmation didn't get around to doing rotoscoped people until their later TARZAN, BATMAN and FLASH GORDON cartoons. (Ever see their 1979 FLASH GORDON cartoon feature? It's the single best thing they ever did, with very few shots used more than once.)

We never did get to see M'Ress' homeworld, although the 2nd episode, “Yesteryear”, did get to show off a LOT more of Vulcan than has ever been seen before of since in live-action. It also contained an unfortunate time-loop-paradox that to this day STILL bugs me. Some people who try to write time-travel stories really don't think things through! (By comparison, the single BEST –if very complex—time-travel-paradox I've ever seen was in the LOST IN SPACE movie. I had to really think that thing out for some time before realizing, YES, the whole thing made complete sense! A real rarity among those kind of stories.)

No idea of the ST cartoons are available, but I have all 22 on video from a local station about 15 years ago. They're not perfect by any means. In fact, there's a number of them that are just plain DUMB. But at the time, they were the only STAR TREK being made! And because of the sorry state of 1970's TV, they were by a wide margin the BEST thing on Saturday mornings.

Next Generation is easily my favorite of the series and I loved MANY episodes.

Jean Luc Picard is the definitive captain.

The episode that sticks out most is the one where Data created an android daughter. Her emotions caused her positronic brain to malfunction and she died. I have rarely been that emotionally effected by any movie or show. I cried so hard that my chest hurt and I couldn't breathe.

Another few that I particularly enjoyed include...
One where Picard is trapped on the Enterprise with some thieves as the Enterprise goes through a maintenance run...

One where Beverly is trapped in her own little universe and she has to escape back into the real universe before her's ceases to exist...

the one where we got to see Picard's naked butt.

OK, this may be a dumb question, but: did James Doohan really have a Scots accent?

Are we sure it's not a stunt butt? Or a butt double?

No. He's Canadian.

Wasn't a number of the cast Canadian? And Jewish?

I dunno. How credible are Adam Sandler's sources?

Just wanted to state that I am THOROUGHLY enjoying my Star Trek (OS) Season 2 dvd set so far. Only a few eps to go.

Still gotta get 1 & 3.

Well... any episode where Kirk was sporting a ripped shirt was always my fave... oh wait... that was just about all of them wasn't it.

lol... just went back and read the other posts and saw that I wrote nearly word for word what Lash did... scary!

I love all of the series with the exception od DS9, I never took to any of the characters,pity.

And I STILL haven't seen the series finale of Voyager!

As for Enterprise... I've only seen a few episodes, the opening song with vocals was a real turn off. It's really hard to follow now because even though most of the cast is intact, they've changed the storyline so many times that it's hard to tell what the hell is going on (shades of Alias). I can't help but feel that this series will eventually end where they alter their timeline to save humanity and in the process erase themselves out of the history books (shades of thedream sequence from Dallas), otherwise why is so little of them mentioned in any of the other series which their adventure predates.

I loved all the original paperbacks of the Treks and the Best of Trek books were great since they had essays about the tech, timelines and non-fiction by fans and experts. Long before we had the internet to find such things.

As for the animated series, its not been released. At least not yet. But I am 'acquiring' the episodes as we speak.

I see many references to my favorite episodes from TOS, DS9, TNG. Lightning Lad even pointed out the fact that City of the Edge of Forever was based on a Hugo Award winning story. I am totally out-geeked on this site!

As far as a DVD collection of the animated series check this out.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/notification-item-request-done/102-3114183-6084906

The Trouble with Tribbles is the best original series episode. Humor, violence, intrigue, Klingons, etc.

The Menagerie eps

I always liked the completely over the top Day of the Dove episode. A shirtless Sulu!

The Borg episodes where Picard is captured, the landmark battle at Wolf 359 (?)--classic.

The final TNG episodes. A fine ending to a landmark series.

I really thought the premiere episode of DS9 was a classic. The death of Sisko's wife, his concern for his son's welfare, the introduction of the characters, all pointed to how good the series would become.

The techical wizardry of the DS9 Tribble episode might be on my five best ever list.

The retaking of DS9 from the Dominion and Cardassians two parter was excellent.

I've never watched more than one or two episodes of Voyager or Enterprise. Am I missing anything?

i think the DS9 episode where they traveled back to Kirk's era was called Trials and Tribbulations. the only Voyager episode that i like a lot was called "A Year in Hell" it was the one where this race was messing with the timeline to bring their race back to it's former glory but it was affecting everything around it and Voyager got so "F'ed" up and that Janeway had to ram Voyager into the The badguys ship to destroy it. and the kicker was when they did everything that had happened was erased and returned to normal.

I tried to do a DVR search for Voyager and couldn't find it. Is it really not in syndication anywhere?

"James Doohan got to do several voices and make use of his talent for accents."

"OK, this may be a dumb question, but: did James Doohan really have a Scots accent?"

"No. He's Canadian."

"Wasn't a number of the cast Canadian? And Jewish"


Doohan had a Scots accent-- but only on STAR TREK!

I believe one of the voices he did on the ST cartoons was Lt. Arex. I believe Majel Barrett did the voice of Lt. M'Ress.

I've seen Doohan on a 2nd-season OUTER LIMITS episode playing a cop-- probably in his "normal" accent. A number of ST actors had appeared on OL, including William Shatner ("Cold Hands, Warm Heart"), Leonard Nimoy ("I, Robot", written by Eando Binder), Michael Ansara ("Soldier", written by Harlan Ellison).


Ever notice how many great 60's tv heroes are CANADIAN?

William Shatner (STAR TREK)
Robert Vaughn (THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.)
Richard Basehart (VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA)
Patrick Macnee (THE AVENGERS)

Wait a minute, Patrick Macnee, aka John Steed from the Avengers is Canadian and not british? "oh the deception, i feel so violated!!!!!