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Where No One Has Gone Before
I hope that my fellow Richochetti are Trekkies, too. I know that @jameslileks certainly is. I’d like to talk about something–anything–other than politics. I was excited to see that, yet again, we have landed a rover on Mars. I can’t get over how cool it is that we can put such an advanced piece of equipment on another planet. It got me thinking about space. So, let’s talk about something that no one has strong opinions about . . . Star Trek.
What I want to know is this: what is your favorite Star Trek episode and why?
I saw this question posed on Twitter, and it got me thinking about my favorite Star Trek episodes. You see, I love Star Trek. I have since I was in elementary school. I went as Captain Kirk for Halloween in 4th grade (I even made a communicator out of Legos–you really cannot imagine how cool I was). I still remember seeing Star Trek VI at our downtown movie theater (remember those?).
So, what is your favorite Trek episode? I don’t care which series. I also don’t want to know the “best” either. I want to know which episode you just enjoy watching.
I’ll go first. I only really know the Original Series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine. I’ve watched Voyager, but never got really into it. My favorite episode of TOS is probably Space Seed. Who doesn’t love Khan? But my favorite episodes of all time are Q-Who on TNG and In the Pale Moonlight on DS9.
I love Q-Who because it’s the introduction of the Borg. The Borg are the ultimate villain. Yet the reason I love it is a brief scene at the beginning of the episode between Q and Guinan. Q and Picard appear in Ten Forward and there is a brief, but very tense exchange between Q and Guinan. They have obviously encountered each other before. Q warns Picard that Guinan is “an imp, and where she goes trouble always follows.” The exchange is short. An utterly forgettable moment. But in that brief exchange, Guinan’s backstory is limitless. Her “powers” are unknown. It is a great jumping-off point for an underrated character. I’ve always wished that the show ran with that. But, alas, they forgot it. Anyway, I love that episode and happily rewatch it.
As for In the Pale Moonlight, it is–hands down–my favorite Star Trek episode. I love the entire Dominion War story arc in DS9. I think that the concept of a multiple-season plot was new for that time period, and DS9 did it well. What stands out is that DS9 was grittier and more realistic than other Trek series. What I like about In the Pale Moonlight is that it is told simply, and without regret by Captain Sisko. Avery Brooks gives what I think is his best performance. Through the plot device of a personal log, Sisko walks through a series of events that leads him down a path from which he cannot turn back. Sisko knows that it is a dangerous path, but he also knows that the risk of not acting is too great. In the end, his monologue is perfect. I don’t know why. It just . . . is.
Star Trek is the ultimate escape for me. I think it’s a great franchise with a number of great episodes. I can’t wait to hear what others think–and I can’t wait to watch the episodes you all recommend.
Published in Entertainment
I thought by Beyond and not before the three leads really got their characters down. Nothing else about those movies felt remotely like Star Trek.
I’ll admit I might owe The Motion Picture a rewatch.
So James…. are you going to select this post to be Post of the Week? You know just to torque Rob off.
You really missed out by not getting into the Dominion War, and especially episodes like “In The Pale Moonlight.”
I’m caught between two. (I’m a TOS fan, so they’re both from that series).
Balance of Terror is excellent (who doesn’t love Spock’s dad, the Romulan commander?). It shines on a variety of levels, particularly because for once Shatner is reigning in the over acting, but especially seeing how different cultural values shape life and death decisions. The commander is similar to Kirk in many ways (devoted to his crew, skilled in combat, well read, etc.) and deeply tired of war, but ultimately choses to destroy himself because he can see no honorable alternative. For me, one of the most well written and wrenching moments in the entire series is when the Romulan commander sends the centurion’s body out with other debris in a last ditch effort to defeat The Enterprise. It’s clear just from the little we see of them that the centurion is dear to him, much in the way McCoy and Spock are to Kirk, as an advisor and a friend (particularly special because of how common backstabbing and power moves are in the Romulan military and politics), and he does everything he can even after he is hurt to protect and sooth him, but ends up shooting him into space like so much trash, with clear pain. It’s not a big or verbose moment, but I love what a depth of emotion and history so few words and only a handful of actions can convey.
The Empath is the other. It’s set quite near the end of the series, and with it we really get to see the progress of the triumvirate’s relationship, which is the heart of the show. McCoy, Kirk, and Spock work together to so well in that episode, and in each of their actions (their attempts to sacrifice themselves for the other two), the love and respect that they hold for each other shines through. I’m particularly fond of it because it gives Bones a bit more centre stage than he normally has, and his character feels fully fleshed out. He gets to be the hero for once, and it’s being the hero in the way that’s truest to who he is. It’s also touching to see how his relationship with Spock has progressed, from grudging respect and hostility to playfulness and underlying love (and annoyance).
That’s pretty close to exactly my point, although you’re looking at it from a different angle so maybe it isn’t visible to you yet.
One way of making my argument might be that “out of sight, out of mind” doesn’t really MEAN anything, on its own, and so direct translation is impossible.
But we’re told that for Darmok and his people, stuff like “out of sight, out of mind” IS ALL THEY HAVE.
We can say “Set course 111 mark 14, warp 6.” All Darmok can say is something like “Mirab, with sails unfurled.” Unless Mirab happened to be going to the Romulan Neutral Zone at warp 6, it’s useless. And whose sails have to be unfurled if they want to go to Vulcan at warp 5?
Allegories and metaphors etc, exist within an “external” language, which has to come first. Darmok and his people appear to have nothing like that, so I find it difficult to accept that they could have achieved space flight, among other things.
As with other issues, such as androids like Data easily being “proven” to be sentient because they are, after all, portrayed by human actors who probably couldn’t ACCURATELY pretend to be androids “to save their lives” (as it were), the language of Darmok is, we are told, “incomprehensible” but by the end of the episode it seems clear that isn’t really true. “Mirab, with sails unfurled” means “go” or “depart” etc. “Shaka, When the Walls Fell” is like “defeat” or “sadness” or something.
I get that feeling from this scene from “Undiscovered Country,” although I haven’t yet found anyone who noticed it as much.
I thought about mentioning this one as my alternative to “the episode where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have the strongest relationship” or however it was put, but too many people seem to think it’s just a bad episode.
For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky is one of my favorite unmentioned TOS eps.
It raised a lot of interesting questions which I’m sure the network censors wouldn’t have allowed if not for the fact that it was deeply coded.
If I recall, the pink Klingon blood had to with the movie rating. If the blood was red, the movie was going to get an R rating.
Three years was enough of a waste. I hear that a lot. They had their chance.
I will agree with many of the above comments. Best ep was DS9 “In a Pale Moonlight”. I am weird that DS9 and ENT were my favorites series. I enjoyed “Tapestry” on TNG where Q gives Picard the chance to relive a pivotal moment of his youth and his later life turns tepid and boring. I loved Enterprise especially the last two seasons. I never got into Voyager that much. I watched it mostly because I am a dutiful Trekkie and watch everything (except I never finished The Animated Series). I am having a hard time liking Discovery. I haven’t even started the new season.
I don’t have a specific favorite Trek Series, though I do find most of the episodes that interest me to be in TOS, TNG, and DS9. That said , I’ve found ( for me anyway) good episodes in all the series. I think what I like about Trek in general is that it is in the business of doing what Q tells Picard near the end of the episode “ All Good Things”: “ Charting the unknown possibilities of existence”. Here’s to many more years of such charting.🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
I figured they had another language entirely for practical issues, and it may have been numerical or non-verbal.
And yet they never seemed to use it, even when dealing with another species where it might have been useful? The Federation first-contact people should have figured that out, even if it meant sending Tam Elbrun. Assuming Deanna or Lwaxana Troi weren’t sufficient.
I am glad you picked In the Pale Moonlight. It’s hands down number one. I definitely think people have strong opinions about Star Trek too. The Picard trek and Discovery are terrible while DS9 and TNG are some of the best shows ever. I’ll argue with anyone who thinks otherwise!
As you and others have noted, yes. It’s a submarine movie, and there are no bad submarine movies.
Interesting how much canon was forged on the fly, no? They have pointy ears! Vulcan connection? A few lines, whatever, figure it out later – and I’m still unclear on the connection. Yes, they were descendants of Vulcans who had rejected Surak’s teachings, but when did they get off the rock, head out into space and found Romulus, and how many were there? It’s ridiculous! This is like a group of pagans bugging out of Rome in the 4th century for America, and 2000 years later there are hundreds of millions of them with a whole new civilization –
Oh, right. Well. Let’s just say the details in the Romulan case have always been blurry. And the “centurion” – again, was that because they were ROME-ulans? (I think someone mentions a Praetor, too.) With a few words and a makeup decision, they locked generations of writers into a cultural paradigm. And it’s also interesting how the Romulans, afaik, never get the “sympathetic” treatment eventually accorded the Klingons and even the Cardassians. “Well, once you get past the outward manifestations of their culture and understand them from the inside, there’s much that’s quite fascinating.” The Klingons stared out as Russians and turned into Vikings, but the Romulans will always be, in a sense, the Red Chinese.
As for the Empath, I dreaded when that one came along in the rerun cycle, because it had that dreary score, and it was just this actress making faces and everyone hanging around an empty set for 45 minutes. But that’s just my opinion,
I’m going to have to make a long post now about how terrible Picard was – not even being nit-picky. There are major issues with that show.
I hate-watched it. I nit-picked it to death, then I sat down and hated for the big ideas even more.
That and stuff like Data being sentient, strike me as BS claptrap nonsense perpetrated in large part by characters like Data being – of necessity – portrayed by human actors. Short of transferring someone’s actual brain into a robot body – which Mudd’s androids said they could do – I don’t believe there could ever be any way to put a person’s “consciousness” into a robot, or “android” for that matter. It’s just wish-fulfillment make-believe. No matter how advanced technology might become. It might SEEM to be “the same person” if you could somehow get all the memories etc (which may already be impossible no matter how advanced technology might become) but as with the transporter, it would just be a copy. The actual original person – and their consciousness – would still be dead.
I think the whole point of Mudd’s androids was at the end when the android of the former human, which looked and acted like a human, couldn’t relate like a human, and was just a marvelously crafted walks-alike and talks-alike android after all.
That was “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” with Ruk, Dr Korby, etc. I’m talking about “I, Mudd.”
Dr Korby CLAIMED that they could put a person’s “consciousness” into an android, but I don’t think it would ever be possible – no matter how advanced the technology gets – and even that episode supports my position.
In “I, Mudd” though, they said they could put a human brain into an android body, which might at least theoretically work. The android body would have to somehow support the living brain, which regular android bodies would not need to do. But that could be solved by technology.
You’re not the only one:
Yes, of course. Talk about a brain Fahrt. I’m confusing a number of episodes in my mind. It’s interesting that so many episodes dealt with minds inhabiting robots. There was I Mudd, What Are Little Girls Made Of?, Return to Tomorrow and perhaps even Requiem for Methuselah.
And in the end it was for nothing:
SULU: Debris scatter ahead, sir. We’ve hit him.
SPOCK: Vessel wreckage. Metal moulds, conduit, plastoform and . . .a body, Captain. However. . .
KIRK: However?
SPOCK: Insufficient mass, sir.
KIRK: What?
SPOCK: Simple debris. Not a vessel, a trick.
You can’t get anything past Spock.
It’s not really about Spock. Anyone – any ship – using sensors would have figured that out. It’s not like an underwater submarine where you might see SOME debris – and/or an oil slick, etc – rise to the surface, but the bulk of the target would go to the bottom. In space, you’d have ALL of the debris from a destroyed ship.
SarekThe Romulan commander should have had no expectation that it would accomplish anything. I suppose coming from the 1960s that might be somewhat forgivable, but really, any half-intelligent audience should have known better too.Meanwhile…
I love the comments! I’m sorry I haven’t been interacting, I’ve had a busy work day. I think that @jameslileks has captured a lot of my thoughts on the various series. However, Mr. Lileks, you missed one: Mirror Uhura, RAWR!
Many of the comments have made me think about other favorite episodes. I also enjoy Yesterday’s Enterprise, Inner Light, The Best of Both Worlds. I also really enjoy Conspiracy. It’s a Season 1 TNG episode that makes zero sense compared to the rest of the series. But it’s incredibly compelling. I don’t know why, but I enjoy watching it. I also enjoy the amnesia episodes like Conundrum and Cause and Effect.
Thinking more about Mr. Lileks’ first comment, I can’t help but mention how Miles O’Brien has to be the best character in Star Trek. Think about it: he was in two series. He has an enigmatic back story–the Hero of Setlik III. First, Colm Meaney is a really good actor. Second, The Wounded is a really good episode. It establishes O’Brien as more than just a transporter chief. It also acknowledges that space and exploration is a messy business. There are other species, other races, that want to attack and kill the federation. It is also a very human look at what war and conflict can cost. It’s a great episode, and Star Trek goes back to O’Brien’s battle experience again and again in DS9. It’s a great story arc and one that I appreciate because it wasn’t necessary. But it added great depth to the character and to the story.
Thank you all for the comments. This is exactly what I hoped for and so much more. I know what I will be watching this weekend!
Operation Petticoat is a classic! Great catch.
Technical correction: We only saw a little bit of actual Mirror Uhura in the security detention room, yelling at “regular” Spock, along with Mirror Kirk etc. It was “regular” Uhura done up in a “mirror” costume that you’re “RAWR”ing at.
Fair. But the point still stands–Commander Uhura was amazing.
I’m a special kind of genius. :-)