DISCOVER--the twenty best episodes of Star Trek
If ever there was a series that fell into that old cliched category of "needs no introduction", it's probably this one, although I've always worked on the principle that there's always someone, somewhere, seeing these films and series for the first time. We all have to start somewhere, sometime. In terms of not accidentally starting with a stiff, these listings would be a fine place for newbies to start on the good ones. If in doubt, or doubting me, start at the beginning of the series and proceed in chronological order.
Star Trek first showed up in the 1966-'67 U.S.TV season, an extraordinarily good year for SF TV, as it also gave us The Time Tunnel and The Invaders. Sold as a sort of space-western ("Wagon Train to the stars"), it took the cornball characters and the cliches of the western and the war film and transposed them to outer space, and performed the invaluable service of introducing a mainstream audience to basic standard science-fiction concepts. It was also the first fantasy series featuring recurring characters to match the intelligence and sensitivity of the classic anthology series The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits.
Gradually, those characters--Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty--became so popular that by the second season the cast had become more significant than the concepts. The series' beloved cliches had become more important than the ideas, which were starting to repeat themselves. This was, perhaps, inevitable. Equally surreptitiously, the emphasis had shifted almost immediately from exploration of new worlds (the so-called "five year mission") to policing existing territories of "the Federation".
Given the series' initial accessibility to everyday TV viewers who otherwise regarded sci-fi as silly kids' stuff, it's ironic and unfortunate that it has since become the iconic symbol and lazy go-to reference point to represent the weirdo and nerdy obsessive, while the wacky sci-fi shows of the same period have become the cult pleasures of the mainstream. As camp and dated as Star Trek has become, it deserves to be seen and enjoyed without the baggage it has accumulated, and its legacy understood and appreciated. It is still, first and foremost, great television.
A huge load of rubbish has been written about Star Trek over the years--so much so that it's creator, Gene Roddenberry, even started to believe some of it himself when trying to catch lightning in a bottle a second time for the Next Generation. The two greatest fallacies are that everyone in the future gets on with one another (the original series was built on conflict and the personality clashes of the three leads), and that the series represents an optimistic future. Really?? Militarism, misunderstandings, death and destruction on a grand scale, and all the problems of today still present and being carried into outer space to pollute other cultures. Religion, racism, power-mongering and profiteering all present and correct. The success of Star Trek was in transposing our recognisable world to the future, like all sci-fi. As Roddenberry noted, Star Trek was positive in that it said we actually had a future, at a time when many people genuinely felt humanity didn't.
I don't think my episode choices are too controversial or contentious, and I've tried to justify them. It will probably come as no surprise to those familiar with the show that most of the episodes come from the beginning of the series. Few would argue that the quality declined as it went on. However, it was a tight squeeze, and I was sorry to leave out four or five episodes--the Archons, Armageddon, the Tribbles, all bubbling under. And I've cheated, by counting the two parts of The Menagerie as one, which they're not.
Star Trek first showed up in the 1966-'67 U.S.TV season, an extraordinarily good year for SF TV, as it also gave us The Time Tunnel and The Invaders. Sold as a sort of space-western ("Wagon Train to the stars"), it took the cornball characters and the cliches of the western and the war film and transposed them to outer space, and performed the invaluable service of introducing a mainstream audience to basic standard science-fiction concepts. It was also the first fantasy series featuring recurring characters to match the intelligence and sensitivity of the classic anthology series The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits.
Gradually, those characters--Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty--became so popular that by the second season the cast had become more significant than the concepts. The series' beloved cliches had become more important than the ideas, which were starting to repeat themselves. This was, perhaps, inevitable. Equally surreptitiously, the emphasis had shifted almost immediately from exploration of new worlds (the so-called "five year mission") to policing existing territories of "the Federation".
Given the series' initial accessibility to everyday TV viewers who otherwise regarded sci-fi as silly kids' stuff, it's ironic and unfortunate that it has since become the iconic symbol and lazy go-to reference point to represent the weirdo and nerdy obsessive, while the wacky sci-fi shows of the same period have become the cult pleasures of the mainstream. As camp and dated as Star Trek has become, it deserves to be seen and enjoyed without the baggage it has accumulated, and its legacy understood and appreciated. It is still, first and foremost, great television.
A huge load of rubbish has been written about Star Trek over the years--so much so that it's creator, Gene Roddenberry, even started to believe some of it himself when trying to catch lightning in a bottle a second time for the Next Generation. The two greatest fallacies are that everyone in the future gets on with one another (the original series was built on conflict and the personality clashes of the three leads), and that the series represents an optimistic future. Really?? Militarism, misunderstandings, death and destruction on a grand scale, and all the problems of today still present and being carried into outer space to pollute other cultures. Religion, racism, power-mongering and profiteering all present and correct. The success of Star Trek was in transposing our recognisable world to the future, like all sci-fi. As Roddenberry noted, Star Trek was positive in that it said we actually had a future, at a time when many people genuinely felt humanity didn't.
I don't think my episode choices are too controversial or contentious, and I've tried to justify them. It will probably come as no surprise to those familiar with the show that most of the episodes come from the beginning of the series. Few would argue that the quality declined as it went on. However, it was a tight squeeze, and I was sorry to leave out four or five episodes--the Archons, Armageddon, the Tribbles, all bubbling under. And I've cheated, by counting the two parts of The Menagerie as one, which they're not.
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