Favorite Star Trek episodes and fan films ranked by Author, Cartoonist, Dragged Across Concrete & Bone Tomahawk writer/director S. Craig Zahler
I've seen every episode in the original Star Trek series, the 1973 animated show, The Next Generation, Enterprise, Picard, and Deep Space Nine and am currently working my way through Strange New Worlds, Voyager, Prodigy, some fan films, and will eventually get to Lower Decks and Discovery so this list will be modified in the coming years. I've seen 600+ episodes at this point and favor ones with interesting scientific concepts, creatively imagined alien cultures, and complex moral issues: My very favorite episode ever in this entire franchise (Dear Doctor) explores all three extraordinarily well. (This is the kind of science fiction I tried to create with my own sci-fi graphic novel, Organisms from an Ancient Cosmos.) Occasionally, a well-plotted space adventure with a likable cast can fully satisfy, and a few on my list are comedies and military dramas.
I really like how Star Trek: Enterprise is a bit lower tech than the other series, especially how the writers minimize the use of magic wand-like transporters, which often kill dramatic tension with easy ways out of peril and make no scientific sense: dispersing humans into subatomic particles, flinging them through solids and across space, and then reassembling across vast distances---even The Fly (1958) required a unit to receive and reassemble (resurrect) the atomized (murdered) subjects. The cast of Enterprise is quite strong: Trip (Connor Trinneer) and Phlox (John Billingsley) are especially great, Hoshi (Linda Park) is very good, and Archer (Scott Bakula) is quite likable. Also, the alien prosthetic designs and applications in this series by Michael Westmore and his team are absolute pinnacles of the art form. The reptilian Xindi are incredible to behold.
I wish time travel, mirror universes, and omnipotent, godlike beings weren't a part of this franchise, but occasionally these overused tropes lead to interesting episodes like Q Who, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and Children of Time, an especially thoughtful and moving story. The animated series from 1973 I find very fun and often quite imaginatively plotted for a Saturday morning cartoon (Larry Niven even wrote an episode), and I believe it's far more consistent than its very important predecessor, the third season of which has far more failures than successes. The Next Generation seasons 3, 4, 5, and 6 and all four seasons of Enterprise are my favorites, though Strange New Worlds is impressive and quite fun thus far, and La'an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong) is especially excellent, a character/performer I'd rank with Kirk, Spock, Data, Deanna Troi, Gul Dukat, Quark, B'Elanna Torres, Phlox, and Trip as the best I've seen in the franchise.
(I articulate more of my thoughts on this franchise in the review I posted on Goodreads of the excellent Prime Directive book by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens.)
I really like how Star Trek: Enterprise is a bit lower tech than the other series, especially how the writers minimize the use of magic wand-like transporters, which often kill dramatic tension with easy ways out of peril and make no scientific sense: dispersing humans into subatomic particles, flinging them through solids and across space, and then reassembling across vast distances---even The Fly (1958) required a unit to receive and reassemble (resurrect) the atomized (murdered) subjects. The cast of Enterprise is quite strong: Trip (Connor Trinneer) and Phlox (John Billingsley) are especially great, Hoshi (Linda Park) is very good, and Archer (Scott Bakula) is quite likable. Also, the alien prosthetic designs and applications in this series by Michael Westmore and his team are absolute pinnacles of the art form. The reptilian Xindi are incredible to behold.
I wish time travel, mirror universes, and omnipotent, godlike beings weren't a part of this franchise, but occasionally these overused tropes lead to interesting episodes like Q Who, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and Children of Time, an especially thoughtful and moving story. The animated series from 1973 I find very fun and often quite imaginatively plotted for a Saturday morning cartoon (Larry Niven even wrote an episode), and I believe it's far more consistent than its very important predecessor, the third season of which has far more failures than successes. The Next Generation seasons 3, 4, 5, and 6 and all four seasons of Enterprise are my favorites, though Strange New Worlds is impressive and quite fun thus far, and La'an Noonien Singh (Christina Chong) is especially excellent, a character/performer I'd rank with Kirk, Spock, Data, Deanna Troi, Gul Dukat, Quark, B'Elanna Torres, Phlox, and Trip as the best I've seen in the franchise.
(I articulate more of my thoughts on this franchise in the review I posted on Goodreads of the excellent Prime Directive book by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens.)
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- DirectorJames A. ContnerStarsScott BakulaJohn BillingsleyJolene BlalockPhlox is asked to save the Valakians from annihilation by disease. However, he discovers something unusual about the Menk, another humanoid race on the planet.
- DirectorLeVar BurtonStarsScott BakulaJohn BillingsleyJolene BlalockArcher decides to make a fast-growing clone of Trip to help save his life while Enterprise is stranded in a dangerous field with nucleonic particles.
- DirectorJames L. ConwayStarsAvery BrooksRene AuberjonoisAlexander SiddigA Cardassian suffering from Kalla-Nohra, a disease that indicates he served in a labor camp, visits DS9. Kira is determined to convict him as a war criminal.
- DirectorPeter LauritsonStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonPicard awakes to find himself living in a small village where he is a well-known member of the community who is suffering from a delusion of being a starship captain.
- DirectorJonathan FrakesStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonAfter returning from a cybernetics conference to the Enterprise, Data creates his own "child," much to the chagrin of his captain, and without regards to the ramifications with Starfleet.
- DirectorJoseph PevneyStarsWilliam ShatnerLeonard NimoyDavid OpatoshuKirk and Spock must save their ship's crew when they are all declared killed in action in a bizarre computer simulated war where the actual deaths must nevertheless occur.
- DirectorCliff BoleStarsKate MulgrewRobert BeltranRoxann DawsonTransporter trouble merges Tuvok and Neelix into one, creating Tuvix.
- DirectorMarc DanielsStarsWilliam ShatnerLeonard NimoyDeForest KelleyThe USS Enterprise encounters the wrecked USS Constellation and its distraught commodore who's determined to stop the giant planet-destroying robot ship that killed his crew.
- DirectorLes LandauStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonEffects of passing through a wormhole give the Enterprise crew a sense that they were unconscious for more than the thirty seconds they've been led to believe.
- DirectorDavid LivingstonStarsKate MulgrewRobert BeltranRoxann DawsonA superior race, descended from Earth dinosaurs, discovers Voyager, but living proof of the controversial Distant Origin Theory goes against widespread doctrine.
- DirectorValerie WeissStarsAnson MountEthan PeckJess BushCommander Una Chin-Riley faces court martial, imprisonment and dishonorable discharge from Starfleet.
- DirectorRobert ScheererStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonWhen Data resigns his commission rather than be dismantled for examination by an inadequately skilled scientist, a formal hearing is convened to determine whether Data is considered property without rights or is a sentient being.
- DirectorRobert Duncan McNeillStarsScott BakulaJohn BillingsleyJolene BlalockHis memory crippled, Archer awakens years in the future, after the Xindi have reduced Earth to a cinder and the remnants of humanity have settled on a distant planet. Now, Archer learns that he may be the key to undoing this tragedy.
- DirectorRobert ScheererStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonWhile aiding an androgynous race who lost a couple of members in an unmapped region of space, Riker falls for one of them, which can lead to trouble if detected, since the alien race does not endorse gender specificity.
- DirectorMarc DanielsStarsWilliam ShatnerLeonard NimoyDeForest KelleyA powerful artificially intelligent Earth probe, with a murderously twisted imperative, comes aboard the Enterprise and mistakes Capt. Kirk for its creator.
- DirectorRalph SenenskyStarsWilliam ShatnerLeonard NimoyDeForest KelleyWhile returning to the Enterprise aboard the shuttlecraft, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a seriously ill Federation diplomat find themselves kidnapped by an energized cloud.
- DirectorLes LandauStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonCounselor Troi's mother visits the Enterprise and becomes infatuated with a man whose culture forces him into a suicidal ritual called "The Resolution."
- DirectorJoseph PevneyStarsWilliam ShatnerLeonard NimoyDeForest KelleyTo protect a space station with a vital grain shipment, Kirk and the crew must deal with Federation bureaucrats, a Klingon battle cruiser and a peddler who sells furry, purring, voracious little creatures as pets.
- DirectorMarvin V. RushStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonDr. Crusher falls for someone who's not at all what she expects him to be.
- DirectorCliff BoleStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonDisguised as an alien prior to First Contact, Will's life becomes imperiled when incurred injuries reveal his foreign internal structure to a xenophobic alien population.
- DirectorLes LandauStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonRiker awakens sixteen years after an away mission where he contracted a disease which destroyed his memory back to the point of infection - or so he's told.
- DirectorAllan KroekerStarsAvery BrooksRene AuberjonoisMichael DornThe DS9 crew discovers a small colony on a remote world that was originally populated by them 200 years earlier due to a time-travel accident with the Defiant. The current colonists lives depend on making sure that accident happens again, even though they've now forwarned the crew that it will happen. Each crew member needs to decide if they are willing to give up their lives on DS9 in order to preserve the history of the colony.
- DirectorRobert ScheererStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonWhen a Romulan officer defects to the Federation with a warning of a impending invasion, Capt. Picard struggles to decide if he is to be believed.
- DirectorLeVar BurtonStarsScott BakulaJohn BillingsleyJolene BlalockEnterprise encounters a hyper-giant star. While there, they make first contact with the Vissians, a technologically sophisticated race with three genders. While making quick friends, and eagerly learning about the advanced technology, Trip gets curious about the Vissians third gender, known as the Cogenitor, who is crucial in the Vissian reproductive process. Against the wishes of the Vissians, Trip befriends the Cogenitor and encourages it to defy its cultural boundaries, which the Vissians are made aware of, and are angered by.
- DirectorRobert LedermanStarsPatrick StewartJonathan FrakesLeVar BurtonThe Enterprise finds a lone Borg drone, separated from the collective, and brings him aboard. The drone begins to reassert his individuality, but his presence causes differing levels of fear and sympathy from various crew members.
