Star Trek original series - favorite episdoe

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dans0622 said:
Well, on the other hand, you’ve got those beings in “Catspaw” but seeing their true form was really a let-down. What were those things, anyway? It was embarrassing. Then the aliens from the Andromeda galaxy in By Any Other Name, with their multiple tentacles…but we never see their real form. There is the guy in the box in Is There In Truth No Beauty, who is basically a madness inducing light show. The rock creature in The Savage Curtain is different and don’t forget the Horta in Devil in the Dark.

Dan
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Thanks for mentioning the Horta. That was one of my favorite episodes when I was a kid. Once you learn the Horta is protecting its eggs, it turns a monster movie into an eco-drama.

I never understood how the Medusan with its strange existence could be or would even want to be part of the Federation; i.e. how could a being or beings like that that live in a box even begin to relate to corporeal folks like us and the Vulcans, etc.? Also, how can ugliness drive you mad? I think it makes more sense if we assume they meant the alien gives off a light show that drives you mad, which is what the special effects conveyed anyway.
 
tomarin said:
Nice screen shot.

Is there a particular reason why this is your favorite, as opposed to say “Mirror, Mirror” or “Balance of Terror” or “Amok Time”? (all of which I can imagine being wildly popular, although we’ll see as more responses come in).

Added: it’s the Organians themselves, isn’t it? It’s satisfying the way they turn out not to be the hapless victims that everyone takes them for (i.e. Belgians).
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Yes, the underestimated Organians. Such power and such restraint, holy men. Highly evolved beings of light living in physical form.
 
well a couple of my favorites have been mentioned already - Devil in the Dark (with the Horta) and Arena (with the Gorn).

Here are a couple of others that I remember liking - Specter of the Gun (where they are forced to recreate an illusionary shootout at the OK Corral), A Wolf in the Fold (where they encounter an alien that long ago on Earth was Jack the Ripper), and Who Mourns for Adonis (where they meet Apollo!) Mind you I was a teenager when I saw all of these, and I haven’t seen TOS in years, so I may find these ones cheesy now.
 
Agreed. I always thought of Riker as a bit of a putz. Especially in the episode where it turns out he got transporter-cloned umpteen years earlier, and his duplicate was trapped on a planet. The fact that said clone survived and managed to have a livable existence in total isolation using what tech he could scrounge, and still maintained his love for Deanna, actually was a point of scorn for the “real” Riker, who instead decided after such a close call, “Gee! Life is short! Time to toss out the girlfriend and focus on my career!” :rolleyes:

In reality, “real” Riker did not face the challenges that “new” Riker did, and really had NO cause to diss any of the choices he had to make – since as a perfect clone, HE (“real” Riker) would have done the same.

In actual fact, the “new” Riker was not a clone, but an “alternate-timeline” Riker who just happened to be caught in “our” timeline.

Eeep. :whacky: ← This is what alternate universes and time travel do to my brain.
 
tomarin said:
I never understood how the Medusan with its strange existence could be or would even want to be part of the Federation; i.e. how could a being or beings like that that live in a box even begin to relate to corporeal folks like us and the Vulcans, etc.? Also, how can ugliness drive you mad? I think it makes more sense if we assume they meant the alien gives off a light show that drives you mad, which is what the special effects conveyed anyway.
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Here’s my hypothesis:

Medusans are pure energy and thought. Their “light” overloads the optic nerves and affects the human brain the way strobes can affect people with epilepsy; coupled with the fact that they are powerful minds who maybe normally communicate telepathically, that combination completely overloads the human mind with psionic energy.

Unlike the more powerful Organians or the Q, they cannot assume physical form. They may have been targets of fear or hatred from “solids” (think the Dominion), but rather than taking the hostile tack of the Dominion (either through altruism or enlightened self-interest) they decide to make nice with ugly-bags-of-mostly-water, who help the Medusans construct an analog of a Vorlon containment suit so that they can interact with them. They destroy their enemies by making friends with them.
 
You think that’s bad? You should see what pecan pie does to a warp core.
 
I will also put in an honorable mention for I, Mudd, only because of the opening scene with Spock and Bones. Spock says “I find your argument strewn with gaping defects in logic.” and Bones admits “Maybe… But…” And then Spock says a person might be refusing to see the doctor because he is terrified of Bones’ “beads and rattles.”

youtube.com/watch?v=C-qQ3zslrgE
 
Oh yes, good old Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Loved him too. Loved his wife Stella. If I were married to someone like that I’d be spurred to go “farther and farther out into the galaxy,” too.

Loved Stella’s nasally voice and full on nag: “Ummmmm Haaarrrrcourt Fenton Mudd! What have you been up to? No good, I’m sure! You good-for-nothing worthless…” “Shut up! Stella!” “Thing, thing, thing, thiiiiinnggg.” :rotfl:
 
Charlie X was a classic. Yet, the humor in the episodes; “The Trouble with Tribbles,” “Mudd’s Women” and “I, Mudd” make them my favs.

.
 
tomarin said:
We certainly saw any number of mysterious alien beings who were in reality made of ‘pure energy’ but chose to take on the appearance of human form. That and planets that looked a lot like the Garden of Eden but were anything but (cue shot of redshirts being exterminated without warning).
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While someone is chanting ‘red shirt, red shirt, you gona die’. 😃
 
John_Lazarus said:
It does, especially given the episode “The Immunity Syndrome”, where the Vulcan-crewed USS *Intrepid *gets eaten by a space amoeba. When all the Vulcans die, Spock gets an “Obi-Wan” headache.

If it’s true, though, it could cause some problems if Spock ever went too far back, like to the Vulcan Pliocene, and started swinging from trees and trying to groom McCoy.
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:rotfl::rotfl: Or McCoy trying to groom Spock!!! :D:D
 
Della said:
Favorite “The Trouble with Trimbles.” Loved it, loved it, loved it. So funny with a lighter, less pompous touch than many other episodes.
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Probably my favorite, too. I’ve been told that the Tribbles made a brief comeback in an episode of one of the newer series, the one with Capt. Picard, I think. I haven’t seen it yet, though. 😃
 
Thanks, that sounds like a really fun episode. Wish I could have seen it.
 
Denise1957 said:
Thanks, that sounds like a really fun episode. Wish I could have seen it.
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Yes, the crew of Deep Space Nine has to make sure events go as they went before. It involves the Tribbles and a shipment of wheat on a space station, if you recall that episode from the original show. It’s quite fun.
 
Deep Space Nine, eh? Can’t say I found that interesting at all.

The Original series (and all the movies) and the Next Generation series where the one’s I found enjoyable. The others not interesting at all. Not sure if anyone else found that to be true for them as well?
 
Historically American commercial tv shied away from dark and morally ambiguous. Now of course it would be refreshing to see something that’s not dark and morally ambiguous on television. I do want to see Blake’s 7 one of these days, I first heard about it from you in fact.
 
Amok Time.

Spock said something that I have carried with me ever since I heard it as a child. And it is so, so true.

“I think you’ll find having not so fine a thing as wanting.”

True wisdom. Thanks Gene.
 
Deltadeliquent said:
Amok Time.

Spock said something that I have carried with me ever since I heard it as a child. And it is so, so true.

“I think you’ll find having not so fine a thing as wanting.”

True wisdom. Thanks Gene.
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I also like Spock’s statement: “It is not logical, but it is often true.”
 
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