XPost: rec.arts.startrek.misc, rec.arts.startrek.current
From: null@null.com
I don't know the names of all the episodes that come to my mind, but I
can name some and describe plots for others. My list is about 28
hours of watching, give or take a little -- less really, since if you
rent the episodes, you no longer have to watch commercials. I think
any future person who wants to fully understand late 20th century
American culture should be willing to put that much time into Star
Trek.
TOS
===
The second pilot episode (Where No Man Has Gone Before?)
The City On The Edge Of Forever
Charlie X
The Enemy Within
Squire Of Gothos
The Trouble With Tribbles
The episode where they first encountered the Romulans.
The episode where we first meet Spock's Mom and Dad.
TNG
====
The TNG episode where Tasha Yar gets killed, both because it's a
pretty good episode, and because it sets up....
Yesterday's Enterprise, arguably the best single Star Trek episode
ever.
Also... The ep where Riker falls for the androgynous alien who
secretly feels herself to be female. Yeah, it was a transparent plea
for sexual tolerance, but it was very well done. One of the few times
on TNG that a guest star (other than John DeLancie as Q) carried his
or her weight.
The two-part TNG episode where Piccard is captured and tortured by the
Cardassians, and a new Captain temporarily takes over the Enterprise.
It was both a great exploration of how corrupting it can be to torture
someone (think Abu-Grab), and also gave Riker a chance to dress down
the new Captain for "squeezing the joy out of everything." I've
always loved that phrase.
Believe it or not, three Wesley Crusher episodes:
-- Wesley falls in love with the alien girl who turns out to be a
changeling. The whole episode was worth it for Whoopi Goldberg to
explain, in the end, that each time you fall in love it's different.
-- Wesley, Piccard, and some local yokel get stranded on a planet with
almost no water.
-- The First Duty, wherein we discover that in the 24th century, as in
the 21st century, academy cadets still seem to take personal loyalty
to each other above the loyalty they are supposed to show to their
mission and their morals.
The two episodes of ST:TNG where Geordi meets the woman engineer who
designed the engines -- first to fall in love with her hologram, and
then to discover that real life (and real people) is/are not a
hologram.
Below Decks -- One of the very few great episodes from
post-Roddenberry ST:TNG.
The first episode of ST:TNG, even though it stunk, because it
introduces Q, and thereby sets up....
The ST:TNG episode where Piccard gets sent back, by Q, to "rectify"
his past mistake of getting into a fistfight in a bar as a young man
-- only to have all the threads of his life unwind on him.
And also the first ST:TNG episode with the Borg.
And finally the ST:TNG finale, All Good Things, by far the best finale
of all the later shows.
Voyager
======
Tuvix, wherein Neelix and Tuvok are joined into one new person, and
Janeway must kill the new guy to get the old guys back.
The episode where Tuvok is brain damaged, and becomes childish,
emotional, and friendly to Neelix. Neelix tells Tuvok that he
(Neelix) would not be a good friend to Tuvok, if he did not insist on
Tuvok getting repaired -- even though it will mean Neelix will lose
Tuvok's friendship....
A murderer has his brain repaired, acquiring a conscience in the
process -- but his society still puts him to death.
DS9
====
Nothing. I thought the whole series stunk.
Enterprise
========
Can old videotape be recycled?
You'll notice I've included no Klingon-oriented episodes (if you don't
count Tribbles), and only one Romulan episode. Those plots never did
a whole lot for me. Anyway, I'm sure there are a few more that I'm
not thinking of at the moment -- I'll come back later and add them.
If I really wanted to boil it down to fewer (14) hours:
The second TOS pilot episode (Where No Man Has Gone Before)
The City On The Edge Of Forever
Charlie X
The Enemy Within
The Trouble With Tribbles
The TNG episode where Tasha Yar gets killed (Skin Of Evil?)
Yesterday's Enterprise
The two-part TNG episode where Piccard is captured and tortured by the
Cardassians, and a new Captain temporarily takes over the Enterprise.
The episode where Piccard goes back to "undo" his youthful "mistakes"
The First Duty
Below Decks
The first ST:TNG episode with the Borg.
Tuvix
Steve O.
On Tue, 24 May 2005 14:06:07 +0000 (UTC), Dr Nancy's Sweetie
wrote:
>
>People post "10 best episode" lists every so often, but I am not
>crazy about Top Ten lists, because maybe there are only 9 that are
>really worthwhile, or maybe there are 11 excellent choices and you
>are requiring one to be left out.
>
>So I came up with an alternate paradigm that I thought might be
>interesting:
>
> Suppose you wanted to introduce someone to Star Trek, and you
> have access to a complete library of all episodes (starting with
> "The Cage", and running through "These Are The Voyages"), movies,
> and books.
>
> Since you don't want to waste time watching stuff that stank,
> and the person you're assembling a list for doesn't want to
> watch 200 hours of TV, you're going to be selective.
>
> Also, some of the shows are obviously dependent in time; you
> want to show "Space Seed" before "The Wrath of Khan". You
> may even want to show "Space Seed", and then another dozen or
> so epsiodes of TOS, before TWOK, so that you establish a sense
> of Kirk going on to do other things, and allowing Khan to be
> somewhat forgotten (since that's what Kirk, and essentially
> the entire viewing audience, did).
>
> You may want to include lower-tier stuff in order to fill the
> dependencies for later items. Say, if you want to include _Q
> Squared_, you'd probably want to include "The Squire of Gothos"
> and "Parallels" beforehand as setup, even if you didn't like
> "The Squire of Gothos".
>
>
>Given that setup, what episodes, movies, and books would you recommend,
>and in what order?
>
>
>Darren Provine ! kilroy@elvis.rowan.edu ! http://www.rowan.edu/~kilroy
>"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to
> please everybody." -- Bill Cosby
"Spying On The College Of Your Choice" -- How to pick the college that is the
Best Match for a high school student's needs.
http://www.SpyingOnTheCollegeOfYourChoice.com
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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