Considering Star Trek touts 751 episodes spanning 53 years and 33 seasons you could easily do a top 12 or more for each series except for Discovery and The Animated Series. For this pointless exercise I wanted to include at least one episode from each show that highlights what’s best about either that series or Star Trek as a whole. I’ve excluded Discovery because I think it’s too early to fully judge it against the others as it’s only half way through season 2. Instead of personal preference I’ve put them generally in order of when each series ran, but not in air-date order. I’ve counted two part episodes as one since it’s my website, and the rules don’t matter. With that said, here are the 12 episodes I would recommend.
1. “Amok Time”, Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 2 Episode 1
The episode that introduces the people to horny Spock. Every 7 years Vulcans experience pon farr where they must mate or die. An increasingly irrational Spock returns to Vulcan where he is to wed his betrothed, T’Pring, in an arranged marriage. Looking at T’Pring it’s easy to see why Spock was so eager to lock that down, but wow she’s a terror. Through various Vulcan machinations, Kirk not understanding alien culture (per usual), and T’Pring being awfully catty for not having emotions, Kirk is forced to fight Spock to the death. This is the only appearance of Vulcan in the original series, and one of the only true looks at Spock’s life in the series as well. Plus, the fight scene has now become iconic. Spock lets out a surprise yell of joy at the end when it turns out Kirk is alive, and is also proof that even Vulcans are suckers for a pretty face.
2. “Mirror Mirror”, Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 2 Episode 4
A transporter malfunction sends Kirk, Uhura, Bones, and Scotty to an alternate universe where instead of the Federation we have the Terran Empire. Earth is an oppressive regime that’s destroyed the Klingons, and treats other aliens as life to be conquered. Kirk and crew must try to figure out how to swap back to their timeline without getting discovered or killed. The mirror universe advocates torture, slavery, and uses assassination as a means to get promoted. It’s probably most recognizable for “Evil” Spock sporting a goatee, the most diabolical of facial hair. Besides being a good episode on its own, the mirror universe finds its way into Enterprise, DS9, and Discovery. So, one of the most tapped into concepts across the franchise.
3. “Yesteryear”, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Season 1 Episode 2
Perhaps a controversial opinion, but this is one of my favorite Star Trek episodes among any. The crew returns to the Guardian of Forever from the Original Series episode “The City on the Edge of Forever.” They are using the time traveling powers to observe the past, but a mistake causes a rift in the timeline where Spock exists, but only Kirk knows who he is. He was actually killed as a 7 year old in the new timeline. (That part is a stretch. Bear with me.) Spock goes back in time to when he was a child in order to fix the timeline. Here, we see young Spock was bullied by other Vulcans for being half-human, and has difficulty maintaining his emotions. His father, Sarek, also is quite hard on him, and is frustrated by Spock’s human emotions. Young Spock is about to embark on the kahs-wan, a maturity ritual, and is followed by his pet, an aging bear like creature named I-Chaya. While crossing the desert, Young Spock is attacked by a large creature called le-matya, but his faithful pet defends him. Older Spock, who was tailing them, is then able to nerve pinch the animal to subdue it. Unfortunately, the le-matya has poisoned I-Chaya and he’s dying. Young Spock races to the healer instead of finishing the kahs-wan, and Older Spock notes I-Chaya did not die originally. Young Spock returns with a healer, but not in time, and makes the decision to euthanize his pet without emotion instead of letting I-Chaya suffer. Thus, he chooses the Vulcan way of life, and fixes the timeline. Even through the weak Filmation animation, there’s a wonderful subtlety on Spock’s return to his present time. He tells Kirk that the timeline had no other alterations except for a pet dying. When Kirk notes that wouldn’t be important to the course of time, Spock looks away betraying his control of emotions for a split second saying, “It might to some.” Pretty heavy stuff for a Saturday morning cartoon!
4. “The Best of Both Worlds” pt 1 and 2. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 3 episode 26, Season 4 episode 1.
My first inclination was to not include any Borg episodes, as it’s almost too easy; however, they are perhaps the most iconic villain next to the Klingons (besides the Klingons have been allies longer than enemies during the course of the franchise, but I digress), and this was the first of many high points for The Next Generation. The first season was so abysmal Patrick Stewart lived out of his suitcase because he felt the series was doomed, but things started turning around the less Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was involved towards the end of his life. Roddenberry’s rigid view of Star Fleet’s morality made compelling storytelling difficult. The Borg, seen initially in the season 2 episode “Q Who” in what must have been the Delta quadrant, have raced to the Alpha quadrant, and want to assimilate Captain Picard. They want him to not only be their spokesman, but use his knowledge of Star Fleet to assimilate Earth. The Enterprise brings on board an ambitious, fast-tracked Lt. Commander named Shelby who is constantly stepping on my main man Riker’s toes, and trying to get his job. Riker spends a lot of time making the slit eyes at her, and speaking through clenched teeth. Despite her regularly ignoring the chain of command, with Shelby’s help they think they’ve developed new weapons to stop the Borg. The Borg easily adapt, and are able to abduct Picard anyway. Rescue attempts ultimately fail, and Riker is given the field promotion to Captain on the assumption that Picard is figuratively dead, and season 3 ends with Picard assimilated.
In a blink of an eye Riker starts respecting Shelby in the second half, promoting her to Commander, and the rest of the episode plays out as a desperate race against time with the Borg barreling towards Earth, and impacting a heavy toll on Star Fleet (easily the largest body count until we get to Deep Space 9). Riker modifies a plan of Shelby’s involving detaching the saucer section of the ship to rescue Picard. (You know things are serious when they detach the saucer.) Picard recovers from his wounds physically, but mentally isn’t the same after. Perhaps the high water mark of the series.
