Star Trek: Original Series Best Episode

All fans of Star Trek: Original Series have one particular show they consider the series' Best Episode. What's yours?

Opinion

Please note that I am labelling this article an 'opinion'. That is, it represents the opinion of the author and no one else's. You may or may not agree with it; if you disagree, feel free to append your own opinion to the bottom of this one. Do not overwrite existing opinions; if you do, the article will be restored to an earlier version and your own contribution will vanish.

City on the Edge of Forever

This episode is widely considered the best of Star Trek's original three seasons, and it's easy to see why. It is at once the most 'science-fictiony', and the most dramatic.

Due to a series of accidents, Dr. McCoy is temporarily out of his mind, and roaming on a planet which shows signs of having once hosted an ancient and advanced civilization. Trying to locate and recover him, the landing party discovers the Guardian at the Gate of Forever, an artifact that can show them images of the past. As they watch a display of Earth's past, a crazed McCoy leaps through the Guardian, and into our past; the Guardian is a gateway.

Soon it becomes clear that McCoy has somehow altered the past, and Kirk and Spock must go through the Guardian at some point prior to McCoy's entry, locate him and prevent him from doing whatever it is that changes history.

They emerges in 1930s America, and meet Edith Keeler, a social worker. While trying to fit in with the ancient culture and locate McCoy, Kirk falls in love with Edith.

Of course, as luck would have it, she is the locus of the change that they have come back to repair - in normal time, she is killed in a traffic accident. McCoy saves her life, which leads to her being able to launch a pacifist movement and keep the United States from entering World War II in time to stop the Nazis, who take over the world.

To restore time, Kirk must prevent McCoy from saving her life, and he does. While this episode has its hoky moments - Kirk's ability to fall in love in under half an hour being one of them, as well as Spock's ability to devise advanced computer technology out of radio tubes - it is enlivened by the presence of Joan Collins as Angel of the Slums Edith Keeler.

The script was originally by famed sci-fi curmudgeon Harlan Ellison and re-written by D. C. Fontana.

Honorable Mention: The Trouble with Tribbles

This is the episode most non-trek fanatics remember the best, and it is certainly one of the most playful. Star Trek: Original Series' most well-remembered episode is also a good candidate for best episode.

Written by David Gerrold, it introduces the impossibly cute, yet annoyingly voracious Tribbles, balls of fluff that purr, eat and reproduce. They instinctively dislike Klingons, a handy trait when trying to ID Klingons in your midst, and are death to grain. The visual of Kirk opening the bin supposedly holding the supply of special seed grain they are transporting to a colony and being pelted with stuffed tribbles has entered the cultural iconography.

Your Favorites?

Have an episode you love beyond all others? Click on the 'edit' link to the right of this paragraph and add your own under this text.

My Favorite Episodes

Although City on the Edge of Forever is one of my personal favorites, a couple other episodes come to mind- For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky and All of Our Yesterdays.

For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

In this episode, the Enterprise encounters what they think is a large asteroid on a crash course to a populated planet. It turns out to be a ship filled with people who have been traveling on it for centuries, and are unaware that they live in a hollow ball. Kirk, Spock and McCoy investigate and discover that the people's thoughts are monitored by an unknown source and cause them pain if they think of any forbidden subjects.

I have watched this episode countless times, and I'm still not sick of it. This is one of the few episodes where McCoy (and not Kirk) has a love interest.

Another point of interest is that it makes you think about what would happen if our world lived in a similar situation, with no change in culture, technology or growth of any kind.

All Our Yesterdays

In this episode, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are accidently transported into a dying planet's past. Kirk ends up in a time similar to when we had the Salem Witch trials. Spock and McCoy end up in an ice age, where they find an isolated woman living alone.

I like any of the Star Trek episodes where they travel through time, and this one is no exception. Kirk is arrested for "talking to spirits", and Spock falls in love with a woman and is reluctant to find a way to escape from the cold desolation. It is one of those rare times where you see Spock with actual emotion (the other one was "This Side of Paradise").

Visitor Contributions

Doomsday Machine

Aforementioned in this article are "The City on the Edge of Forever" and "The Trouble With Tribbles". While these are undeniably great episodes, I think "The Doomsday Machine" needs to be added to the list. This was an outstanding episode that fans relished every second of for many reasons.

To start out with, it had a lot of intrigue; the scarred Constellation and the question: "What caused this damage?"

It also had a lot of emotion, especially when Commodore Decker revealed that he had beamed all his crew down to a planet that was later destroyed, and he was responsible for all their deaths.

Next, it had a lot of tension in it. There were some scenes where you wanted to lean in to the T.V. set with your fists clenched, begging for the Doomsday Machine to be destroyed.

Finally, this episode also had some superb and new music: when the ships entered the Doomsday Machine.

• Star Trek Women
• Heroes TV Show Characters
• Cast for Smallville
• WB Smallville
• Harry Potter Personality Quiz

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Free Fairies Fantasy Wallpaper
• Lt Uhura
• Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres
• Captain James T. Kirk

• Star Trek Ships
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Star Trek: Enterprise
• Star Trek: the Original Series