Star Trek all series appreciation thread

[sendô]

The old man used to watch the original series non stop when I was a kid. I doubt there's an episode I haven't seen fewer than half a dozen times. Therefore it has a lot of nostalgic value to me, but ultimately it was a crap, cheesy, easy viewing programme, with the longstanding joke being that the bloke you've never seen before wearing the red top will be the one to die, and why the f*** did the Captain, First office and Doctor always have to be the ones to beam down onto the hazardous planet, and not a squad of purpose trained marines?

[Bend it like Repka]

Watched first 2 episodes of Picard.

Promising stuff, Romulans, Borg. What more can a Trekkie wish for?

[DasNutNock2]

Watched first 2 episodes of Picard.

Promising stuff, Romulans, Borg. What more can a Trekkie wish for?

Marina Sirtis’s high-end shirt potatoes?

[Kludgehammer]

Well, Jeri Ryan's are coming up in the series at some point, so you should be OK

[last.caress]

Well it took me from January to the end of July but, this year, I watched TNG (plus the four TNG movies), DS9, VOY, ENT, TAS, DIS and PIC in their entirety. I then spent August and a wee bit of September re-watching those episodes of all series (including TOS, which I saw a few years ago) which I could recall as being good'uns, alongside those episodes considered among the very best by various sites around t'internet, just so's I could compile lists of my favourite episodes from each series and, subsequently, a list of my favourite 50 episodes from all series. Would you like to see? You would? You'd be thrilled? And endlessly fascinated? Alright then. Calm down.

1. S4E02 The Visitor (DS9)
-Jake Sisko (played here by Candyman's Tony Todd) spends decades of his life trying to rescue his dad Ben from a temporal rift, losing his wife and squandering both his career as a successful writer and any opportunity to have kids of his own in the process. A genuine tearjerker.
2. S6E19 In the Pale Moonlight (DS9)
-In a considerable leap from the usual form for Starfleet captains, Ben Sisko lies, cheats and assists in murder in order to illegally drag the Romulans into the war against The Dominion.
3. S3E15 Yesterday's Enterprise (TNG)
-The Enterprise D runs into the Enterprise C, a starship known to have been destroyed long ago. As it does so, everything in the timeline changes, with Enterprise D becoming a warship leading a losing war against the Klingons. Only Guinan can tell that reality has been altered; Can she convince Picard that nobody is who - or where - they should be?
4. S1E18 Duet (DS9)
-A Cardassian war criminal has been arrested aboard Deep Space Nine. He's claiming mistaken identity and Kira is keen to question him, but this isn't as clear-cut as it looks.
5. S3E26/S4E01 Scorpion pt1&2 (VOY)
-The Starship Voyager, tiptoeing through Borg space, encounters a species which is routinely ripping the Borg to pieces. If they help the Borg, will the Borg grant them passage through their territory? The Borg send a drone - Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One - to negotiate terms.
6. S4E07 Little Green Men (DS9)
-During what should've been a routine trip to Earth, Ferengi family Quark, Rom and Nog find themselves hurtled back through time to 1947 as they crash-land in Roswell, New Mexico.
7. S4E23 Living Witness (VOY)
-The Doctor awakens hundreds of years into the future, as an artefact in a museum on a planet ravaged centuries previously by a war believed to have been instigated by the evil scumbags aboard the warship Voyager; himself included. If he can't convince the curator that his entire species have their history wrong, the doctor could face trial for war crimes.
8. S6E13 Far Beyond the Stars (DS9)
-Ben Sisko collapses, and awakens to find that he's not a Starship captain at all, but a short-story writer working for a science fiction magazine in 1950s New York. He has a great idea for a story about a black captain of a space station far beyond the stars, but his editor won't let him print anything with a black hero. Indeed, Ben isn't even allowed to let his readers know that he himself is black.
9. S1E14 Balance of Terror (TOS)
-The USS Enterprise has stumbled upon a cloaked Romulan warbird destroying space stations along the Federation/Romulan demilitarised zone. Nobody has even seen a Romulan for centuries, and Kirk's crew are surprised - and in some cases, enraged - to discover that they're obviously related in some way to the Vulcans, one of whom is first officer aboard the Enterprise. It's now a game of cat-and-mouse to catch and destroy that warbird without getting caught inside the DMZ and precipitating all-out war.
10. S3E26/S4E01 The Best of Both Worlds pt1&2 (TNG)
-The Borg have reached the alpha quadrant and have decided to assimilate Earth. Humans can be a bit of a buggar though so they decide to first assimilate one human to act as a mouthpiece, to smooth the transition. Goodbye, Captain Jean-Luc Picard; Hello, Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile.
11. S5E06 Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9)
12. S5E25 The Inner Light (TNG)
13. S6E10/11 Chain of Command pt1&2 (TNG)
14. S4E18/19 In a Mirror, Darkly pt1&2 (ENT)
15. S2E06 The Doomsday Machine (TOS)
16. S2E16 Q Who (TNG)
17. S5E23 I, Borg (TNG)
18. S6E12 Blink of an Eye (VOY)
19. S4E08/09 Year of Hell pt1&2 (VOY)
20. S1E07 The Andorian Incident (ENT)
21. S5E18 Cause and Effect (TNG)
22. S7E08 The Siege of AR-558 (DS9)
23. S7E15 Lower Decks (TNG)
24. S1E07 Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad (DIS)
25. S1E11/12 The Menagerie pt1&2 (TOS)
26. S1E03 Context is For Kings (DIS)
27. S3E10 Similitude (ENT)
28. S6E18 Starship Mine (TNG)
29. S3E16 Doctor's Orders (ENT)
30. S2E16 Meld (VOY)
31. S5E12 Bride of Chaotica! (VOY)
32. S5E02 The Ship (DS9)
33. S4E01 The Way of the Warrior (DS9)
34. S5E09 The Ascent (DS9)
35. S1E28 The City on the Edge of Forever (TOS)
36. S3E08/09 Future's End pt1&2 (VOY)
37. S6E10 The Magnificent Ferengi (DS9)
38. S1E13 Dear Doctor (ENT)
39. S6E15 Tapestry (TNG)
40. S1E05 Stardust City Rag (PIC)
41. S1E11 The Wolf Inside (DIS)
42. S5E01 Apocalypse Rising (DS9)
43. S4E18 Hard Time (DS9)
44. S2E04 Mirror, Mirror (TOS)
45. S7E25 All Good Things... (TNG)
46. S3E11/12 Past Tense pt1&2 (DS9)
47. S3E11 Carpenter Street (ENT)
48. S5E21 Empok Nor (DS9)
49. S2E02 Carbon Creek (ENT)
50. S6E04 Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy (VOY)

I mean, what would a Star Trek thread be without a nerd doing something nerdy like posting an unnecessary, largely arbitrary list of his favourite episodes?

[vietnammer]

:shock:

Horror Channel have been showing TOS for yonks now. To 'nerd up'; TOS S2 E17 'A piece of the Action' in which Spock blatantly turns and checks out the arse of a passing woman, turns back and says "Fascinating" ( as he is wont to do)

[last.caress]

TOS S2 E17 'A piece of the Action' in which Spock blatantly turns and checks out the arse of a passing woman, turns back and says "Fascinating"

:lol:

Not a bad episode at all, that one. One of the "light" ones. An entire species has based their society on a "Bible" (in fact a reference book about Chicago gangsters of the early 20th century) they'd found aboard a crashed starfleet vessel a hundred years previously. It's my (checks) twelfth-favourite episode of TOS. Jim and Spock cut quite dashing figures in gangster get-up.

[Bend it like Repka]

Congratulations on that list. It is indeed a masterpiece of geekiness.

[last.caress]

Congratulations on that list. It is indeed a masterpiece of geekiness.

So... what you're saying there is that you'd also like to see my top 30 favourite characters? Wow, you're insatiable!

1. James T. Kirk (William Shatner/Chris Pine) (TOS)
2. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) (TNG/PIC)
3. Quark (Armin Shimerman) (DS9)
4. Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) (DS9)
5. Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) (DS9)
6. Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) (VOY/PIC)
7. Spock (Leonard Nimoy/Zachary Quinto/Ethan Peck) (TOS/DIS)
8. William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) (TNG)
9. Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) (DS9)
10. Odo (René Auberjonois) (DS9)
11. Martok (JG Hertzler) (DS9)
12. Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) (VOY)
13. Nog (Aron Eisenberg) (DS9)
14. The Doctor (Robert Picardo) (VOY)
15. Tuvok (Tim Russ) (VOY)
16. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) (DS9)
17. Rom (Max Grodénchik) (DS9)
18. Worf (Michael Dorn) (TNG/DS9)
19. Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) (VOY)
20. Hikaru Sulu (George Takei/John Cho) (TOS)
21. Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) (DS9)
22. Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley) (ENT)
23. Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter/Sean Kenney/Bruce Greenwood/Anson Mount) (TOS/DIS)
24. Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) (ENT)
25. Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) (TNG/DS9)
26. Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) (DIS)
27. Weyoun (Jeffrey Combs) (DS9)
28. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) (DS9)
29. Philippa Georgiou (Prime/Mirror) (Michelle Yeoh) (DIS)
30. Thy'lek Shran (Jeffrey Combs) (ENT)

(didn't include any PIC-exclusive principal characters - Rios or Musiker for example - since they haven't had enough of a run-out to make a fair comparison)

Or how about my ten favourite guest appearances?

1. Harris Yulin (DS9: Duet)
2. Tony Todd (DS9: The Visitor)
3. Brad Dourif (VOY: Meld, Basics)
4. Leland Orser (VOY: Revulsion)
5. Ronny Cox (TNG: Chain of Command)
6. Peter Weller (ENT: Demons, Terra Prime)
7. Raymond Cruz (DS9: The Siege of AR-558)
8. David Warner (TNG: Chain of Command)
9. Rainn Wilson (DIS: Choose Your Pain, Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad)
10. Kurtwood Smith (VOY: Year of Hell)

Robocop well represented there with Ronny Cox, Peter Weller and Kurtwood Smith all on that list.

[DasNutNock2]

Data doesn’t make your top 30?

[last.caress]

Data doesn’t make your top 30?

I don't mind him, s'pose, but I'm not mad keen. TNG episodes feel disproportionately skewed toward being all about Data and his gradual path to becoming more human. I mean I guess I could say the same for VOY and Seven of Nine once she showed up, but Seven of Nine is a genuinely interestingly conflicted character whereas Data just seems to me to be a deus ex machina dressed as a bad Stan Laurel tribute. Brent Spiner strikes me as a bit of a bellend too, which doesn't help.

Has anyone had a look at Star Trek: Lower Decks? I thought I'd wait until there's a fair few of them before scouring Kodi for them. I don't think they're available by legal means in the UK yet..?

[badabing]

The annoying Bashir and O`Brien before the superb Q ? Agree with most of the others , particularly Quark and Rom, a great double act. And I could find several positions for counsellor Troi.

[last.caress]

And I could find several positions for counsellor Troi.

:lol: You'll go blind, you dirty hobbit. Plus you'd have to take your turn after DasNutNok, which is rarely any fun.

I don't like Q at all. I don't like characters like that who are TOO powerful. They're a creative cul-de-sac. When they could do anything at any moment, there's really no dramatic tension. As a consequence, they've ended up playing him for laughs, like a Loki-style trickster. So, he turns up in whatever period costume the wardrobe department could rummage up on the day of shooting, Picard harrumphs and tantrums a bit, then everyone ends up in Robin Hood outfits for no reason.

Bashir is a bit irritating at first and a bit redundant at the end, being revealed as an augment for no apparent reason (and with no discernible consequence), but he's okay in the middle. Also, I've only just watched DS9 for the first time ever this year, so when I see Alexander Siddig as Julian Bashir, I also see Hamri Al-Assad from 24 or Doran Martell from Game of Thrones, so he gets a bit of reflected credit. I didn't like O'Brien in TNG but he was given a lot more to do in DS9 and became a better character for it, imho. I feel the same about Worf (in that I disliked him in TNG but liked him far more in DS9), but that was more of a hairstyle issue. He looked like Christine Hamilton in TNG, but started sporting a much better Kelsey-Grammer-when-he-cameoed-on-TNG hairdo in DS9. Wasn't so upsetting to look at.

[badabing]

An excellent overview L.C, you’ve clearly put a lot more consideration into it than me. I would like to find the time to revisit DS9 again especially. Considering how many episodes were made across all the series, there were very few clunkers, generally the episodes where Kirk would fall for a woman, or Troi’s mother would appear I found the most tedious.
I loved Garak, I thought Andrew Robinson was excellent in Dirty Harry and hadnt seen him in anything until he popped up in DS9.
I look forward to more of your reviews

[wolf359]

10. S3E26/S4E01 The Best of Both Worlds pt1&2 (TNG)
-The Borg have reached the alpha quadrant and have decided to assimilate Earth. Humans can be a bit of a buggar though so they decide to first assimilate one human to act as a mouthpiece, to smooth the transition. Goodbye, Captain Jean-Luc Picard; Hello, Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile.

Number 1 for me and where my user name come from (been using Wolf359 and slight variations since the days for Quake 2, Gamespy and Barrysworld.)

[last.caress]

Number 1 for me and where my user name come from

Yeah, having binged them all I never got to experience the full, desired impact of these episodes, with Picard's assimilation serving as a Summer-long cliffhanger. It was probably quite the big deal at the time I'd imagine; like the sixth season cliffhanger for The Walking Dead (Negan is introduced, kills at least one of the main cast but we don't learn who), or the fifth season cliffhanger for Game of Thrones (Jon Snow is stabbed to death by his own men in the Night's Watch). A lot of different sites which have ranked the episodes of Star Trek (or of TNG at least) have this two-parter high up on those lists. Seems to be a big favourite, and for good reason. The Battle of Wolf 359 had consequences which reverberated significantly into DS9 too, of course.

[bobby0303]

Superb stuff. Always good to see DS9 getting a bit of love, as I always felt it was the forgotten sibling of TNG. I wanted to discuss your lists but have found it very difficult to see anything that I disagree with I would have perhaps put All Good Things... higher up the episode list, simply because TV series have always struggled with finales - it was a superb way of wrapping things up and an excellent episode. Shame about Generations...

I was always a big TNG fan growing up, but having also gone on a(nother) Star Trek marathon in the last year or so, I would have to say that DS9 just holds up better in modern day and has now become my favourite Star Trek series of all. The Way of the Warrior really kicked things up a notch and the way they built up the Dominion slowly was brilliant, you really got a feeling of foreboding. Great, memorable characters too. Even though I do think that Avery Brooks was a very flaky actor which kind of let things down for me, he had his moments too. Every Martok scene was a joy.

Have you been watching any of the web chats with the various Star Trek casts? There are a few interesting and funny insights, and I have been surprised to find out just how much the casts of 90s Star Trek are genuine friends (and observing how Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan try their best to keep things 'pleasant' between each other).

Having met the man, I can confirm that Brent Spiner is a total bellend. He was dismissive and fake, and when I saw him being interviewed he only ever seemed to have a passion for how much money would be involved. Jonathan Frakes had all the time in the world and was a perfect gent. He had a good laugh when someone did an impression of his head tilt which took him a while to cotton onto. I later read that he used to do this in order to be able to fit into frame a little easier as he was much taller than everyone else!

[last.caress]

Always good to see DS9 getting a bit of love, as I always felt it was the forgotten sibling of TNG... I would have to say that DS9 just holds up better in modern day and has now become my favourite Star Trek series of all.

Yes, my favourite without a shadow of a doubt. My limited understanding of the reception it received when it first aired was that, whilst many found the change of tack refreshing, many thought it was too far a move away from Gene Roddenberry's vision of a shiny utopian future for humanity. Personally I thought it improved the world-building element of the franchise no end. Gave the show depth, gave shades of grey to the characters instead of just goodies and baddies.

Even though I do think that Avery Brooks was a very flaky actor which kind of let things down for me, he had his moments too.

I love Ben Sisko, but Avery Brooks never made it easy to do so. He's a terrific singer and orator with a rich, booming voice so whenever Sisko had a dramatic scene with plenty of intense monologues or dialogues Avery was really able to give him some punch but, whenever Sisko had any quiet, romantic or light-hearted dialogue his choices for delivery always seemed to be way off. Jarring. Have you ever seen footage of him in interviews or whatever? Just last night I was watching a clip of him from the William Shatner interview documentary The Captains (2011) in which Shatner interviews Patrick Stewart, Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula and Chris Pine, and Avery is... well, he's a bit out there. A jazz maaan, man. Regarde:



Shatner asks him "What happens when we die?" (odd interview approach imo but there we go) and Brooks responds by playing Harry Warren's I Wish I Knew on the piano (something I wouldn't have known if I hadn't read the YouTube comments). A mad kind of genius really, but mad for sure.

Every Martok scene was a joy.

Yeah, I think Martok's terrific. The best klingon.

Have you been watching any of the web chats with the various Star Trek casts? There are a few interesting and funny insights, and I have been surprised to find out just how much the casts of 90s Star Trek are genuine friends (and observing how Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan try their best to keep things 'pleasant' between each other).

No, not seen anything like that. Where will I find those, then? YouTube? I'll have to have a fish around for them. I've actually seen very little in the way of any behind-the-scenes stuff yet, having spent most of the year just becoming acquainted with the shows themselves. I bought the TNG complete series blu-ray set and the TOS/TNG ten-movie blu-ray set too, but I'm yet to trawl through any extras. I've seen most of the extra content on the TOS complete series bluset I bought three or four years back, but that's it really. So far.

Having met the man, I can confirm that Brent Spiner is a total bellend. He was dismissive and fake, and when I saw him being interviewed he only ever seemed to have a passion for how much money would be involved.

Yeah, it's not especially difficult to find similar tales about Spiner around t'internet. He just looks like a walking attitude problem to me. Oddly (or maybe not), I think that works in his favour when he's playing Lore or some "bad" version of Data in TNG, or Arik Soong in ENT. I somehow like him better when he's putting his smarmy, insincere face to smarmy, insincere use.

When did you meet Spiner and Jonathan Frakes? At a Star Trek convention, comic-con or similar? Was it the same one where you met a few cast members at the same event or did you meet them at different events?

[WHU Independent]

I think this episode may have escaped your notice. (Series 6 episode 3 FYI)



BTW This is her recently :



I think she a very funny (haha) woman.

[bobby0303]

Yes, my favourite without a shadow of a doubt...

I am terrible at doing any of the intelligent quoting such as that used so elegantly by yourself above, so let me just respond with a few blocks of text


Agree that the change in tone was jarring at the time with DS9 for me too. In TNG I had the heroes, and I had the dodgy aliens trying to mess things up for our perfect heroes. Simple, normal 80s/90s tv. In DS9 they made dodgy alliances with dodgy aliens and never really did much actual adventuring, with a religious aspect which I couldn't get on with. In fact, I see now that they were just ahead of their time, but I do think the addition of the Defiant was necessary to get the most out of the show.

I had, in fact, seen that interview and never caught what Avery was trying to say by suddenly diving into a song. Interesting but he is definitely 'out there' as you say, a proper character. He seems to have detached himself from Star Trek these days and doesn't get involved in these web chats at all. Shatner drives me up the wall whenever I see him.

As for the web chats, they are on Youtube though you may find that several of them seem to be randomly locked out for UK viewing, and can be seen on StarTrek.com instead. They did a series of them recently for 'Star Trek Day' (whatever that is) which covered all of the series, some better attended than others. Since Covid there have been a few others popping up though. Oh and take the DVD extras with a pinch of salt. I had the DVDs of TNG and remember seeing an interview extra with Patrick Stewart telling us how he was such a huge ST fan growing up, how he used to scurry home after school to watch it. In a recent interview for Picard he admitted he was just trying to seem enthusiastic in his first year on TV and it was all a lie :lol:

Funnily I met Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes separately. I've not been to a convention before but I did get a tour of Paramount Studios and Brent Spiner was hanging around, got caught by the overly enthusiastic tour guide and enveloped by fans which may not have helped. He wasn't outright rude to anyone, but it was quite clear he didn't want to make time for anyone, despite seemingly having nothing else to do. Excused himself with a quick "OK enough". You're quite right, in real life he is definitely a smarmy Lore character which was a huge disappointment. I'd always liked the Data character.

I met Jonathan Frakes in London of all places, years before, at a small Star Trek exhibition. It seemed like he popped out to surprise the fans as I was standing next to a huge model of the Enterprise, back to the wall, and he just breezed right past me from a hidden door. I got his signature which my mum threw away a few days later thinking that I had been practicing my signature on the guide book and my dad took a photo of me with him, which, when developed later, showed me and part of Frakes' arm. The rest of the photo was my dads thumb. Frakes was still there when I left.

What are your thoughts on Discovery and Picard?