Submit your entries for List of Crap #113: Top 50 Star Trek Episodes

[Pastor of Muppets]

STAR TREK

Gene Rodenberry's timeless science fiction classic about a bunch of astronauts on a big trek through the stars.  Originally, I am told, he envisioned the show as "Wagon Train to the Stars".  I guess Wagon Train was some TV show about explorers on the American frontier.  Thusly, the tagline of the show included the phrase "Space: The Final Frontier".

The overall Star Trek franchise has existed on and off in many different forms throughout the years since 1966.  In order, the TV series have been named:

• Star Trek (often referred to as "The Original Series" or "TOS" for short).
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Star Trek: Voyager
• Star Trek: Enterprise
• Star Trek: Discovery

Today we embark on a bold 5 week mission.  To compile a top 50 list of the greatest Star Trek episodes of all time.  So here are the rules.  Pay attention!

THE GENERAL RULES

• Submit a list of your top 25 favorite Star Trek episodes, with 1 being your very favorite and 25 being your least favorite among that subset of 25.
• Entries will be scored by the basic forumla: SCORE = 26 - position
• Submit this list to me via Rifftrax Forum private message.
• Submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Monday, November 5th.  Except I'll probably be asleep at that time so you'll have a couple hours time after that.  But I'm an early bird so you probably won't have beyond like 6 AM on the 6th

THE LIST SPECIFIC RULES

• Two or three part episodes with the same title count as one.  So you could lump together the Voyager episodes "Dark Frontier Part One and Part Two" as one entry
• With the serialized nature of some series, continuing stories that have different names are different episodes.  DS9 and Enterprise had a ton of this, so you can't just submit, like, the entire 7th season as a single entry
• TV Show episodes only.  No movies!
• You can choose any episode from any of the various series in the franchise.
• Include the specific series each choice belongs to.  I'll need to know this when publishing the results.  Plus there's probably episode names that are reused.

Go to it!  Lists due by 11:59 PM Eastern on November 9th.

[CJones]

If I may make a suggestion, it would probably be a good idea to specify which series and which episode of that series for each entry, not just the title. I know that if I were the one compiling the lists, this is what I would hope people do.

[RVR II]

Just for clarification I have at least 4 DS9 episodes that are 2 parters but with different titles that I considered as one episode..
Is this OK

[Pastor of Muppets]

If I may make a suggestion, it would probably be a good idea to specify which series and which episode of that series for each entry, not just the title. I know that if I were the one compiling the lists, this is what I would hope people do.

Oh yeah.  I meant to put that in but forgot.

[Pastor of Muppets]

Just for clarification I have at least 4 DS9 episodes that are 2 parters but with different titles that I considered as one episode..
Is this OK

Yeah I guess that's okay.  I'm just thinking of thing like how Netflix counts like the last 8 episodes of DS9 as a single episode (it puts things like Part 1, Part 2... etc.)  Just don't go nuts with it trying to cram like 10 episodes into one entry.

[stethacantus]

My list is going to be TOS only. Every series that followed had too much padding during episodes. The first season of TNG was the worst. You would get 45 minutes of character development, then the adventure part in the final 10 minutes.  Even the later seasons had long unnecessary scenes of Picard and the doctor having a long chat while drinking herbal tea, or someone complaining to Whoopi Goldberg about something for ten minutes. ( Interestingly, it was the only series with a psychiatrist, but you rarely ever saw any of the characters talking to Troi about their problems ).  With TOS that weeks conflict began during the pre credit bumper, and didn't let up until the final scene. And there was rarely any character development padding. So yes, TOS was superior story telling to all the series that followed. And I can think of at least 48 TOS episodes that deserves to be on my top 25.

BTW, does the cartoon series count?

[Pastor of Muppets]

BTW, does the cartoon series count?

Sure.  It might not get many votes, but people can include that if they want.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Enterprise was the worst at making multipart episodes with different names, I've got one on my big list of 70 but I'm pretty sure it's not going to make my top 25 so won't have to worry about it. 

Also have one TAS episode on my big list, but that probably won't make the top 25 either.

I forget the name for the type of sorting where you compare 2 and move on to the next 2, but I'm just going through my big list doing that until there are no more changes.

Edit: "Bubble sort" is the name.

[RVR II]

Just for clarification I have at least 4 DS9 episodes that are 2 parters but with different titles that I considered as one episode..
Is this OK

Yeah I guess that's okay.  I'm just thinking of thing like how Netflix counts like the last 8 episodes of DS9 as a single episode (it puts things like Part 1, Part 2... etc.)  Just don't go nuts with it trying to cram like 10 episodes into one entry.

Oh yeah I didn't  go anymore than 2 parters on my list.
Thanks for this

[Russoguru]

List sent. Thank you in advance Pastor for hosting the list.
I mentioned this in another thread, but my list was pretty much a cinch to write up. I went through some episode guides for the only three Trek series I cared about and... you better believe just with those series it's still easy to come up with a list of 50 or more.

[Pastor of Muppets]

Remember that episode of Voyager where Janeway and Tom Paris mutated into large toad things, which Tuvok claimed were "the endpoint of human evolution"? 

That is now required to be on everybody's list.  kthxbye.

[RVR II]

List sent..
Man this stressed me out deciding what to cut and what not to cut..
My list basically consists entirely of TNG & DS9 and the 2 shows were almost a 50/50 split of episodes 

[George-2.0]

I found my old rankings, which included thoughts for each ep... so I was able to refresh my memory and make up a list pretty easily.

There's several I had to cut, so I'm going to think about it for a spell before I send it in.

[RVR II]

[Russoguru]

Remember that episode of Voyager where Janeway and Tom Paris mutated into large toad things, which Tuvok claimed were "the endpoint of human evolution"? 

That is now required to be on everybody's list.  kthxbye.

I remember the name of that episode... wasn't it called "Amok Time"(TOS)? Good, now everyone knows.