Ben's top ten:
10. Space Seed (KHHHHAAAANNNNN!!!!!)
9. All Our Yesterdays (a great final episode, which sadly, wasn’t the final episode)
8. The Doomsday Machine (best psychoanalytic combination of nuclear weapons and phalluses)
7. Amok Time (Spock, you are one sexy horny bastard)
6. The Devil in the Dark (Beowulf helps counsel Grendel into a labor contract)
5. A Taste of Armageddon (probably the episode that has aged most beautifully)
4. City on the Edge of Forever (Kirk will do anything for love, but fortunately he won't do that)
3. Balance of Terror (I can watch the top three over and over)
2. The Trouble with Tribbles (So much fun)
1. Mirror, Mirror (Spock + Beard = Gold)
And here are mine:
10. The Naked Time (The crew gets smashed and accidentally discovers time travel)
9. The Enemy Within (Good Kirk versus Bad Kirk, with Freud)
8. Balance of Terror (Terrific space battle with the coolest bad guys in the Trek universe)
7. The Enterprise Incident (Espionage. Sex. Ears.)
6. Requiem for Methuselah (Ah, those unhappy immortals and their need for love)
5. Amok Time (Spock fights to the death so he can have sex. Enough said)
4. The Trouble with Tribbles (Why the Enterprise has a "no pets" policy)
3. Mirror, Mirror (Best alternate universe episode ever)
2. The City on the Edge of Forever (Best romantic time travel episode ever)
1. The Doomsday Machine (The ultimate space battle with a planet killer, what's not to love)
Of course, any top ten list is incomplete without the least faves.
Ben's worst five:
5. The Omega Glory (the "Yellow Peril" in space)
4. The Mark of Gideon (DID NOT MAKE ANY SENSE)
3. The Way to Eden (Space Hippies Herbert!)
2. And the Children Shall Lead (the villain dresses in xmas lights and a shower curtain, and that's the high point)
1. Turnabout Intruder (just execrable, betrayed every good impulse and sentiment of a great series, massive fail)
And my worst five:
5. And the Children Shall Lead (A lawyer in a sparkling muumuu as an alien monster)
4. The Omega Glory (The American Revolution on another planet, because that would happen)
3. Turnabout Intruder (A highly uncomfortable hour of sexism)
2. The Way to Eden (Bad hippies, bad story, bad costumes, bad music)
1. Plato's Stepchildren (So painful to watch that I almost couldn't)
There are two famous stinkers not on my list, or Ben's: Spock's Brain and The Apple. But they're so bad in a camp sense that they're actually fun to watch, and I for one very much enjoyed reviewing them.
So what's your favorite episode or episodes? What's your least fave? Lines are open! And thanks so much for revisiting the original series with us.
11 comments:
Lots of fun reading this. Lots of memories coming back too.
My faves :
Season 1
The Cage : a classic within the classics. Too cerebral you say ? No wonder why your sons will postpone Community in 45 years !
The man trap : hum, JUST for the creature when she/it puts her/its hand on her/its (I'm complicating my writing here, arggh) victims' faces. Cool !
What are little girls made of? This one left a profound impression on my impressionable self when I was 10. And the turntable scene ? Mega cool ! (and I really love those sounds effects)
Balance of Terror, yes within my top five of the series.
Arena : now, just for the laugh at that poor actor who had to wear that rubber...in those cool LA rock formations !
The devil in the dark : top five of the series.
The city on the edge of forever : classic time travel paradoxes.
Season 2
Amok time. While you guys go for the sex (once every 7 years, eeesh), I go for the awesome musical score. That music STILL gives me shivers today. (and when "they" put it in an episode of warehouse 13, I still immensely LOL every time and I have to rewind the scene 5 times) Oh, and the enhanced effects. Wow.
The doomsday machine : the very top FIRST of the series. As already commented, brilliant acting from the guest star and also the enhanced effects.
I, Mudd : just for all those gorgeous androids. And Mudd's well deserved punishment at the end. Classic.
Oops. Almost everybody love the tribbles. Well, I don't. I am an animal person and yet, didn't like it. On the other hand, what they did with that episode on ST DS9, paradoxically, was brilliant and I love it immensely. Do not try to understand me; I'm a living paradox.
Patterns of Force : just to see Kirk, Spock and McCoy in Nazi outfits.
Bread and Circuses : hum, interesting reflection.
Oooh fun!
(Bearing in mind I haven't seen much of season 3)
10. The Tholian Web
9. Patterns of Force
8. Miri
7. Return of the Archons
6. The Enemy Within
5. Bread and Circuses
4. The Trouble with Tribbles
3. Balance of Power
2. Mirror, Mirror
1. City on the Edge of Forever
And the worst two: Plato's Stepchildren and Turnabout Intruder.
Season 3
LOL Spock's brain. Loved it THEN as a kid. I guess I can safely assume that I was impressed with tough, decided, serious, mean looking, sexy ladies holding phasers at everyone. Of course, the Magic was destroyed at the end when they....ok, ok, no need to go there.....
The Paradise Syndrome. Campy and rolling my eyes today, but, pattern here, I was impressed with that cool monolithic thingy that could repel asteroids. We should have on or 2 on THIS planet, just in case.
Spectre of the Gun : just for the final scene. Whoah, mind blowing for a ten year old.
Parenthesis here : loved what they did on Enterprise with "their" version of the Tholian Web.
Wink of an Eye : that one fascinated me. Living in the same space but not at the same speed.
That Which survives : JUST for the cool effects when Lee Meriwether disappeared.
All Our Yesterdays : as previously commented. Oh GOD !!!! I want a Library just like that !!!!
Plato's Stepchildren
LMAO
Or how can something so bad on TV gives you a POWERFUL urge to hang yourself.
Or shoot yourself.
Or bang your head on the wall until you stop breathing.
(ya, ya, sure THE KISS, bla, bla blah, but seriously ????)
typo up there
one or 2
OK !!! That's it !! Going to get my Warehouse 13 DVD and going to watch several times in a row that famous scene !!!
Of course "The City on the Edge of Forever" is going to top lists (as it does mine)... but I've always had a fondness for "Dagger of the Mind"... and in particular "A Piece of the Action"... and rounding out my faves would be, "The Corbomite Maneuver", "The Conscience of the King" and "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
This is in no real order because I hate ranking things.
The Enemy Within
The City on the Edge of Forever
The Enterprise Incident
The Devil in the Dark
Amok Time
The Naked Time
Mirror, Mirror
The Doomsday Machine
A Piece of the Action
Balance of Terror
And just for a bit of fun here are my top ten episodes of the other Trek series (with the exception of the Animated Series which I have never seen and Enterprise which I just don't like).
TNG
Best of Both Worlds
Yesterdays Enterprise
All Good Things
Family
The Inner Light
Tapestry
Chain of Command
The Drumhead
Darmok
Starship Mine
DS9
Far Beyond the Stars
The Visitor
In the Pale Moonlight
Trials and Tribble-ations
Duet
Necessary Evil
Improbable Cause/The Die is Cast
Rocks and Shoals
The Siege of AR-558
Nor the Battle to the Strong
VOY
Timeless
Living Witness
Future's End
Scorpion
Caretaker
Year of Hell
Message in a Bottle
Tuvix
Death Wish
Projections
Darmok is an amazing episode.
Ohhhhhh Mark
You had to open a "Pandora Box" with the other incarnations. I'll have to return after a recheck.
I'll just say this for tonight:
The Inner Light.
I was annoyed the first time I saw it; but now, I recognize how deep and powerful that episode is. Po-wer-ful. That much.
The hard part about making a "best of" list is that one is tempted to put one's favorites on the list, even when they're not really top-ten worthy.
In my case, episodes like "Immunity Syndrome", "Piece of the Action" and "Spectre of the Gun".
Anyway, here are what I would rate as STTOS' best episodes - I'll stick to just five though:
5. Amok Time. Another iconic episode and very daring for its day. There is a fascinating theory about T'Pring's costume (cut short in the front) that explains all the privacy and etc. that was going on - had the ceremony gone on as intended, the couple consummates the marriage right there in front of T'Pau and everybody. No wonder Spock was embarrassed.
4. Journey to Babel. Love this episode and love seeing Lenard and Nimoy working together. Love listening to them even more - have you ever noticed, when people try to do Spock-imitations, how they always essay a dry, flat delivery and call it "Vulcan"? Even the Vulcans on many of the later episodes are guilty of this. But both Nimoy and Lenard have such melliflous voices, almost a musical tone that is almost impossible to imitate and is such a joy to experience.
3. Trouble With Tribbles. Even non-Trekkies know this episode. Best thing about TWT, though, is that despite all the comedy there is an actual threat in the episode that could cost millions of lives and Kirk his command.
2. City on the Edge of Forever. While it's usually rated the best episode ever, I bring it down a point because of what it could have been - pick up a copy of Ellison's book which reprints the original script and you'll see.
1. The Doomsday Machine. Iconic music, great acting (and overacting), and the ability to make a windsock dipped in cement into a credible galactic threat.
As for least favorites/worst episodes: My least favorite has to be "And the Childen Shall Lead" but the worst overall is probably "Omega Glory" - far too hammy, far too contrived - and to think, it was one of three possibilities for the *second pilot* episode! (thank goodness NBC chose "Where No Man" instead).
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