Sixty years ago, on the 8th of September 1966, “The Man Trap,” the first episode of Star Trek, was broadcast on NBC. The stories of Captain James Kirk, Commander Spock, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy and the crew of the USS Enterprise, on a five-year mission of exploration that became a sixty-year legend. The series only ran for three seasons before being cancelled, but was popular enough in the long run to spur a vast fandom and a franchise consisting of eleven spin-off TV series (twelve if you count Short Treks), thirteen feature films, a TV movie, a kids’ YouTube cartoon series, a podcast radio series, and a metric buttload of books, comics, games, audio dramas and fan productions.
But never mind that lot. Let’s look back at that first iteration. Star Trek: The Original Series, once upon a time simply called Star Trek. I am, obsessive fool that I am, going to rank every episode of the series in order, from worst to best, like we do on the internet these days. This ranking is purely my own preference, although I doubt many people will argue too much with the bottom few episodes at least.
79) The Omega Glory
To think that Roddenberry seriously considered using this script for the pilot episode. This is one of many episodes that feature a planet that is astonishingly like Earth, in this case Omega IV, where the Cold War went hot and reduced the civilisation to barbarism. The dastardly Commies have become the Kohms, somewhat civilised but brutal Asians, while the brave Americans have become the savage but noble Yangs. This might just about have worked as an episode of another series, one set in the future of the Earth itself, but even then, it’s excruciatingly pro-USA. The absolute nadir is having Kirk read the United States Constitution to the Yangs and then seemingly has a religious moment by the Stars and Stripes. It must have been agonising for the Canadian William Shatner. Just embarrassing.
78) And the Children Shall Lead
Season three has a reputation for featuring rubbish episodes, and while that’s not entirely fair, it does have more than its fair share of clunkers. Like this one, a tremendously dull episode in which a bunch of ugly kids worship a glowy green alien played by a lawyer who was apparently famous at the time.
77) The Way to Eden
Another season three catastrophe, “The Way to Eden” is possibly the most Sixties episode of all, and not in a good way. A bunch of space hippies try to take over the Enterprise and take it to a planet they believe is Eden. While calling Kirk “Herbert,” over and over again. D.C. Fontana, one of the best writers the series had, originally wrote a story that revolved around Dr. McCoy’s daughter Joanna, and her falling for Kirk. It was rewritten into a load of old tosh and Joanna removed, making it all rather pointless. Fontana had her name taken off, and I don’t blame her.
76) Plato’s Stepchildren
A story about evil aliens who have psychokinetic powers and are obsessed with Plato and Ancient Greece, this would be a poor-to-middling episode if it weren’t for the now legendary kiss between Kirks and Uhura. That kiss drags it down to the bottom rungs, because people still bang on about how groundbreaking it was. A horrible forced kiss between two characters played by actors of different races is nothing to be proud of, especially when it was very, very far from the “first interracial kiss on television.” It was just the first one on American TV. All the fanfare does is prove how backward American society was.
75) Turnabout Intruder
The last episode of the original Star Trek, “Turnabout Intruder” would be a passable bit of bodyswap fun if not for the impetus behind it. Dr Lester switches bodies with Kirk because she wants to captain a starship, and women aren’t allowed to do that. Sandra Smith does everything she can to sell the role of Lester and Kirk-as-Lester, but she’s fighting against an awful script full of sexist stripe. At least Shatner seems to be having fun camping it up as Lester-in-Kirk’s body.
74) The Alternative Factor
The worst episode of the otherwise strong first season, “The Alternative Factor” feels more like a lost episode of “The Outer Limits,” and not a good one. There’s some cool stuff in here about matter and antimatter universes locked in opposition, but it’s pretty much nonsense throughout.
73) The Apple
An episode where Kirk combines his two hobbies of bucking the Prime Directive and blowing up supercomputers to save the orange-skinned People of Vaal, introducing their society to the concepts of sex and death for good measure. Archetypal Star Trek, but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s any good.
72) Assignment: Earth
The last episode of the second season, this was originally a script for a different series that Roddenberry was trying to sell, reworked into a Star Trek episode when no one would pick it up. It was hoped that the adventures of Robert Lansing as space/time agent Gary Seven and Terri Garr as his companion Roberta would spin-off into their own series after all, but nobody bit. “Assignment: Earth” isn’t bad, but it makes for a poor episode of Star Trek.
71) Mudd’s Women
Another baffling suggestion for the pilot episode. “Mudd’s Women” did go out very early on in the series’ run, and it introduced Roger C. Carmel as the roguish but charming criminal Harry Mudd, but it’s hard to like. A story about women whose only ambition is to be wives for some grubby miners on a remote colony is archaic, and the twist - that the beauty pills Mudd is peddling are just placebos - is cute but naff. Maybe this played better in the Sixties.
70) The Savage Curtain
The image of Abe Lincoln flying through space might be the campiest thing in the whole of Star Trek, and if the episode carried on being as daft as that it would be pretty fun. Unfortunately, this tale of historical (and alien) figures in a battle of good vs. evil is somehow really quite boring. However, the design of Yarnek, the rock-like alien behind it all, is amazing.
69) Spock’s Brain
“Brain and brain! What is the brain?” Most lists put this one right at the bottom, and yes, it is utter crap, but it’s a lot of fun in a so-bad-it’s-good kind of way. Watch it with friends and knock back a drink every time someone says, “Spock’s brain.”
68) Catspaw
One of three scripts by the great horror writer Robert Bloch, who liked to rework his short stories into Star Trek episodes. “Catspaw” went out as a sort of Hallowe’en special, and it’s as silly as you’d expect from that. Hokey horror story tropes and a witch and wizard who turn out to be tiny, fluffy aliens make this a fun but throwaway episode.
67) Who Mourns for Adonais?
Of course the Greek gods were aliens from the Pollux system, what else would they be? Michael Forest gives a strong performance as Apollo, but Leslie Parrish largely carries the episode as Lt. Palomas. This episode is more like a play than the usual cinematic style of Star Trek, full of suggestive imagery. Interesting, but it loses me as we’re supposed to feel sorry for the rapey Apollo.
66) The Cloud Minders
The concept of a two-tiered society, where the elite literally look down upon the labour class from a cloud-top city, is interesting, but the story is told in a very unremarkable way. Not bad, just mediocre.
65) Whom Gods Destroy
An episode that was so scary and sexy it was banned in the UK for nearly thirty years! In reality, a very silly, over-the-top episode where Steve Ihnat dials it up to ten as the craziest madman in the insane asylum, then Shatner as his shapeshifted disguise. Yvonne Craig is amazing as the Orion, Marta.
64) Elaan of Troyius
The title suggests this is going to be a space version of the Helen of Troy myth, but is actually based on The Taming of the Shrew, then becomes a political conspiracy with space battles, revolving around a princess with magic tears that make men fall in love with her. Kind of bad, but in a fun way. I really like Jay Robinson as the beleaguered turquoise ambassador from Troyius.
63) Miri
A first season episode that could have been great, but ends up being deeply uncomfortable. The post-apocalyptic society of centuries-old children is genuinely creepy, but having Kirk manage the affections of the eponymous Miri makes it creepy in another way. Kim Darby was twenty, playing a twelve-year-old who was actually 300. The episode’s biggest sin, though, is presenting us with a perfect duplicate of the Earth, then forgetting the mystery of this and never bothering with any kind of exploration of its origins.
62) That Which Survives
This is the episode in which Lee Meriwether plays a sort of computer-generated ghost, killing men with her deadly touch… one at a time, very slowly. I mention this here because I genuinely couldn’t remember which episode it was before rewatching it. Not bad, simply forgettable.
61) Shore Leave
A silly episode set on a silly planet where silly things happen. It’s fine as a bit of fluff. The weirdest part is learning Kirk was bullied at the Academy by a comedy Irishman.
60) Metamorphosis
An episode that sets up a major part of Star Trek’s future history by introducing Zefram Cochrane, inventor of warp drive. The main thing holding the episode back is Glenn Corbett’s incredibly wooden performance in the role. Maybe they could remake it with James Cromwell. It’s strange that some fans can accept a glowing cloud of gas can identify as intrinsically female, but can’t cope with the idea of trans women doing so.
59) Requiem for Methuselah
Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to a remote planet to find a cure for a disease ravaging the Enterprise, and are blocked by the planet’s owner: an immortal man who was once Leonardo da Vinci. And Brahms. And Merlin. And… Meanwhile, Kirk falls madly in love with his android daughter/lover/tennis partner Rayna. Solidly done, but rather undone by Kirk’s bafflingly out of character behaviour. At the end of it all, Spock mind melds with him and makes him forget Rayna. We have a headcanon that he does that to all Kirk’s weekly love interests.
58) The Deadly Years
Weird radiation causes Kirk, Spock and McCoy to age rapidly, quickly making them unfit for command. Kirk still has the experience to outfit the Romulans - but only when he has his youth returned to him. Odd to get such a strong anti-ageing message from a series that’s supposed to be about acceptance… but then you look at the American government today, and realise that maybe they have a point. It’s a shame that the ideas run out before the end, so they reuse the ploy from “The Corbomite Maneuver.”
57) Wink of an Eye
Another often-overlooked episode from season three, where a woman from a society that has been hyper-accelerated takes over the Enterprise so she can bang Kirk. A deeply silly story that doesn’t make any sense as soon as you think about it for even a second, it gets by on some effective atmosphere and some surreal scenes.
56) Spectre of the Gun
Another weird one from season three, this is the obligatory western episode. Due to having no budget left, rather than creating a realistic frontier town, the production team mocked up a strange, surreal backdrop for the alien-fabricated realm. The design of the Melkot, the alien intelligence that’s testing the crew, is wonderful.
55) All Our Yesterdays
Another weird… oh, I just said that. This episode had an intriguing premise, as the people of a planet about to be destroyed by their star going nova flee not into space, but into time. Kirk finds himself several centuries in the past and accused of being a witch, while Spock and McCoy arrive thousands of years earlier where they meet Mariette Hartley playing a woman so tough, she can wear an animal-skin bikini in the ice age. Not bad, and worth it for A.C. Crispin’s sequel novel Yesterday’s Son alone.
54) Day of the Dove
We’re getting into the comfortable middle of the rankings now. There’s a decent concept to this episode, as a formless being that feeds on violent emotions spurs a conflict between the Enterprise crew and some Klingons. The execution is a bit flat, but it’s boosted by Michael Ansara’s performance as Kang, one of the three legendary Klingon commanders.
53) Friday’s Child
A great script from Fontana, depicting a power struggle between tribal nations on the planet Capella IV, with the Federation and the Klingons acting on either side. Julie Newmar gives a great performance as the mother of a child who could turn the tide of the struggle… but who doesn’t want to have the child at all.
52) The Gamesters of Triskelion
Kirk and co. find themselves captured by disembodied alien brains and forced to fight various alien gladiators. Kirk is paired with a woman who looks like Lady GaGa with green hair, and converts her to his side using a combination of kissing and violence. One of those episodes that walks the tightrope between good and bloody ridiculous, with the implication of some very nasty stuff happening off-screen and a strong final message, amongst all the silliness.
51) Patterns of Force
One of those episodes on a remarkably Earthlike planet, this time because some idiot from Starfleet has decided he’s going to use it as his own personal social experiment. Oh, and he’s decided to model it on Nazi Germany. What could go wrong? The rulers of Ekos commit to wiping out the people of their neighbouring planet, and just to hammer the point home, it’s called Zeon. They should do a follow-up where the Zeons invade a third, completely uninvolved planet and try to wipe them out.
50) The Mark of Gideon
The story of a world cursed by overpopulation and their attempt to curb this by getting Kirk to give them space meningitis (really) doesn’t really hold up, but the imagery of this episode, with crowds of haunting faces staring at his plight through the windows of a fake Enterprise give it an unforgettably surreal and creepy atmosphere.
49) The Paradise Syndrome
Another very Earthlike world, this time populated by Native Americans who have been transplanted by the mysterious “Preservers,” beings who fandom later became mildly obsessed with. Really, though, this is a well done romance story, with Kirk falling in love with Miramanee, played by Sabrina Scharf. One of only two times where Kirk’s romance is actually entirely believable, it’s nicely played and quite heartbreaking at the end.
48) Operation - Annihilate!
The last episode of the first season, this is a passable adventure that sees a plague of blobby alien parasites driving worlds to madness and death, until Spock finds a desperate gambit to stop them. The best part is the brief appearance of Sam Kirk, the captain’s brother - played by Shatner in a false moustache. (He gets a rather more significant role in Strange New Worlds.)
47) The Lights of Zetar
It’s Scotty’s turn to fall in love for a week, and while he’s busy being patronising, Jan Shutan gives a strong guest performance as Lt. Mira Romaine. This is fairly by-the-numbers Star Trek, as another incorporeal force possesses Romaine after burning through various incompatible victims. The visual and audio effects of the Zetar’s possession are genuinely unsettling. An often overlooked episode, although the central planet, Memory Alpha, did lend its name to the Star Trek wiki.
46) This Side of Paradise
Spock’s chance at a one-episode love affair, as alien spores protect and heal anyone on the planet Omicron, while unlocking their emotional inhibitions. The beautiful Jill Ireland is the object of his affections, Leila Kalomi, while Kirk does his best to snap his friend out of it. It’s genuinely heart-wrenching when Spock explains it was the only time in his life he has been happy.
45) The Empath
An oft-forgotten but intense third season episode, which sees Kirk, Spock and McCoy subjected to brutal tortures so that big-headed aliens can judge how another alien, a mute girl played by Kathryn Hays, responds to their treatment, to see if her species deserves saving. It’s another stagey episode, and another one that feels like an episode of The Outer Limits (not surprisingly, as the associate producer and director had worked on that series together). This time, though, it feels like a good episode, with some powerful moments and great performances from the main cast.
44) The Changeling
A mostly very strong episode in which an Earth probe, Nomad, returns having been modified by a collision with an alien machine and is now determined to sterilise the galaxy of life, and only Kirk stands a chance of reasoning with it. It’s classic stuff, and ended up being virtually remade as the first Star Trek film. It drops down a good few places due to some bizarre scripting decisions, most prominently Uhura having her entire memory wiped, and then being somehow reeducated so that she’s fit enough to go back to work next week.
43) Bread and Circuses
Yet another planet that is remarkably like the Earth with little or no explanation, and this time, it’s a world where the Roman Empire never fell. Hoary old nonsense, especially as everything is still running just like it did in Roman times, except that they have television and explicitly speak English, for some reason. But this honestly works pretty well, and is certainly entertaining. Solidly middle Star Trek.
42) A Piece of the Action
This episode’s remarkably Earthlike planet is stuck in 1920’s America mode, complete with gangsters and speakeasies, all because someone from an Earth ship left a book there. As ludicrous as this idea is, this is a very fun episode. Shatner in particular seems to be having a great time. Quentin Tarantino wanted to basically remake this as a new Star Trek film, and it might actually have worked.
41) Errand of Mercy
This episode has the first appearance of the Klingons, cementing its place in history. The story is pretty much Star Trek by numbers - Starfleet and the Klingons arrive to claim the same planet, with the peaceful agrarian natives caught in the middle. We’ll see this a few times over the years. It’s John Colicos’s performance as Kor, the Klingon commander, and his antagonistic chemistry with Kirk, that makes this stand out. That, and the twist about the native Organians’ nature, which must’ve really been a surprise at the time.
40) A Private Little War
A year after “Errand of Mercy” and soon after “Friday’s Child,” “A Private Little War” continued the story of the Federation and Klingons vying for control over various planets by manipulating the less technologically advanced native peoples. This episode is a clear allegory for the Viet Nam War, with both sides supplying factions on the planet with weapons as a proxy war. It’s disappointing that Kirk can’t think of a more peaceful solution. What it’s really remembered for, though, is the Mugato, one of Star Trek’s best monsters.
39) Return to Tomorrow
A chance for Shatner and Nimoy to play different characters for a change, as Kirk and Spock unwisely give their bodies up to disembodied alien intelligences from a long-dead civilisation. Nimoy in particular gives an incredible performance as the sinister Henoch. It also features a great guest turn by Diana Muldaur, in the first of three roles she’ll play in the franchise.
38) Is There in Truth No Beauty?
Oh, look, it’s Diana Muldaur again! Twenty years after this she’d play Dr. Pulaski on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but here she’s playing Dr. Miranda Jones, a fascinating character, who is blind and telepathic. She’s the only human who can interact with the Medusans, beings so alien that their appearance can drive humanoids mad. It’s a strong episode in itself, and it has a great legacy, too - without this, we wouldn’t have the wonderful Zero on Star Trek: Prodigy.
37) The Squire of Gothos
In retrospect, it’s surprising that it took so long for Trelane, the powerful but childlike alien that captures the crew, to come back. While I like Rhys Derby’s take on Strange New Worlds, William Campbell is untouchable. A Q episode before the Q were created (officially, now), this is another story that’s happy to be plain entertaining.
36) Wolf in the Fold
Another Robert Bloch episode, this time the second TV version of his short story, “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper.” A decent horror episode, and a good episode for James Doohan as Scotty, who’s accused of murder after being possessed by an alien being who’s actually… well you know. It’s a pretty sexist script and there are some utterly absurd inclusions (like the “psycho-tricorder,” a mind-reading machine never used before or since), but on the whole, it really works.
35) The Tholian Web
A decent episode that combines various out-there sci-fi ideas to good effect. There’s a region of space where universes overlap; Kirk being pulled out of phase with his reality; the Tholian web itself, a vast net of beams used to entrap starships. The Tholian commander, realised through a model and some saturated video effect, is another of the great Star Trek aliens, all the more so for being so little seen and mysterious.
34) By Any Other Name
Alien invaders from the Andromeda Galaxy take over the Enterprise and make their way to intergalactic space to begin a 300-year-long voyage home. The Kelvans’ natural form are Lovecraftian monstrosities with a hundred tentacles, so they’ve taken on human form t, so naturally Kirk seduces The Girl One, while Scotty gets one of the men smashed on green space booze. It’s classic Star Trek stuff, but it’s what we don’t see that intrigues. They should bring the Kelvans back in all their glory.
33) For the World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky
Blimey, how’s that for a title? A classic sci-fi concept - a hollow world, whose inhabitants have no idea they’re on a millennia-long journey through space - gets an evocative telling. On the way, we get a treatise on the importance of knowledge and understanding over blind obedience, and McCoy gets his chance to fall in love. If there’s a problem, it’s that there are too many similarities to “The Paradise Syndrome,” which came out only a few weeks earlier, but on its own merits, this is a solid episode.
32) The Immunity Syndrome
Is there a more archetypal Star Trek image than a shuttlecraft flying into the body of a giant space amoeba? No, no there isn’t. There are some lovely ideas in this one, particularly the suggestion that spacefaring cultures are the galaxy’s immune response to monstrous space creatures.
31) Court Martial
A first season episode that’s notable for finally nailing down who Kirk and his crew work for. Yes, Starfleet gets its name here. The least sci-fi of all the Star Trek episodes, this is a pretty decent legal drama, as Kirk fights to clear his name in a criminal negligence case that led to a crewman’s death. OK, the legal stuff is drivel, but everything is performed well, and Elisha Cook Jr. is amazing as the eccentric lawyer, Samuel T. Cogley, Esq.
30) The Naked Time
They liked this episode so much, they did it again for The Next Generation. A daffy episode for the most part, as the crew fall victim to an infection that makes them all act like drunk, emotional loonies, with Sulu indulging in swordplay and Nurse Chapel confessing her devotion to Spock. Two things make the episode work: Nimoy’s powerful performance as Spock struggles to maintain his emotional control, and this spectacular exchange between Sulu and Uhura:
“I’ll save you, fair maiden!”
“Sorry, neither!”
29) Tomorrow is Yesterday
“The Naked Time” ended with a random bit of time travel, which was originally meant to lead directly into this, Star Trek’s first proper time travel episode. Later episodes did more with the concept, but the Enterprise’s accidental trip to the 1960s and its encounter with a pioneering astronaut (a great performance for Roger Perry, who had been in the ASAF before acting) is a strong story in itself.
28) Dagger of the Mind
An underrated episode, seeing the crew investigate a mental hospital with a disturbing new form of treatment. Morgan Woodward gives an astonishingly intense performance as the mentally damaged Dr. van Gelder, while the stunning Marianna Hill gives a memorable turn as Kirk’s old flame, Dr. Noel. We even get Spock performing the series’ first mind meld in this episode (although prequels would have it that he’s been doing it every other week for years). A powerful episode, albeit one that leaves me very concerned about the state of mental healthcare in the 23rd century.
27) Arena
The first episode by co-showrunner Gene L. Coon, who, more than anyone, was responsible for creating the first season of Star Trek. Yes, that includes Roddeberry. The fact that he “accidentally” copied Fredric Brown’s 1944 short story of the same name, and that The Outer Limits had already done a similar episode three years earlier, doesn’t mean that this isn’t classic stuff. The Gorn is arguably the single best “monster”-type alien in the franchise.
26) Charlie X
A rare attempt at straight horror from the series, with a great turn by Robert Walker as the creepy teenager Charlie Evans. Charlie’s vicious lashing out with his psychokinetic powers leads to some genuinely unsettling moments, not least making a crewwoman’s face disappear.
25) Amok Time
It was incredibly ballsy to open season two with an episode in which Spock has to have sex or die. After learning dribs and drabs of Spock’s Vulcan culture and biology over the first season, we get inundated here, with a trip to Vulcan itself for his violent mating ritual. The legendary high priestess T’Pau and Spock’s betrothed, T’Pring, are both iconic characters who got more exploration years later in the prequels, but the real focus here is on the Spock-Kirk bond.
24) The Man Trap
The first episode ever broadcast - although that wasn’t the original intention - “The Man Trap” is classic Star Trek. The crew, and McCoy in particular, are manipulated by an alien creature who can alter their perceptions, and is in reality a gruesome, shaggy beast with an insatiable appetite for salt. Yet the monster is a sympathetic creature, thanks to its desperation, its status as last of its kind, and the sorrowful design of the mask.
23) I, Mudd
A very silly comedy episode that absolutely gets away with it. This episode succeeds thanks to the interplay between Kirk and Harry Mudd, as they do everything they can to break free of the Andromedan androids keeping them captive in paradise (which is to say, Planet Mudd). The Short Treks episode, “The Escape Artist,” clearly continues on from this one.
22) The Return of the Archons
When I say this is just like The Purge, that’s not hyperbole. The writers of that film explicitly based it off this episode. The big difference, though, is that “The Return of the Archons” is actually good. Plus, the planet it’s set on has a pseudo-19th century style, and both Nimoy and Shatner absolutely rock that look.
21) The Menagerie
Yes, I’m counting this as one episode, although it’s the series’ only two-parter. Faced with an expensive pilot episode that wasn’t going to be used, the production team reused the footage from “The Cage” as a flashback, positioning Captain Pike as the previous commander of the Enterprise, and showing Spock dealing with his loyalty to his former captain. It works pretty well, all considered, even if Spock’s actions are very illogical. You’ve also got to wonder about the state of disability care in this century, given the way that Pike is left after his accident. Ultimately, though, the framing material detracts from the pilot footage.
20) Journey to Babel
An absolute feast of Star Trek lore, introducing Mark Lenard and Jane Wyatt as Spock’s parents, Sarek and Amanda, who didn’t appear again in the main series but would be hugely important in the ongoing franchise. Plus, we get the first real look at the Federation as an interplanetary organisation, with a host of aliens including the pig-faced Tellarites, the blue-skinned Andorians, and those funny little gold-coloured dwarfs who sadly don’t show up again. The story’s pretty good too.
19) The Galileo Seven
A standout episode for Nimoy, as Spock is forced to take command of an unruly crew when their shuttle crashes on a hostile planet. There’s some great material between Spock and Bones here, but the emphasis is one Spock learning how to be a different kind of officer to the purely logical scientist he sees himself as. Plus, some top quality Kirk vs. Meddling Bureaucrat material.
18) The Ultimate Computer
An episode with an anti-AI message that’s more relevant today than it was at the time. William “Blacula” Marshall gives a great performance as the brilliant but bull-headed Dr. Richard Daystrom, who believes his new computer can replace a human crew altogether. Needless to say, it has unintended consequences. It’s a strong episode for the main trio, with DeForest Kelley giving an especially impassioned performance as McCoy.
17) Space Seed
An episode with a huge legacy, introducing the villainous Khan to the franchise, and the concept of the Eugenics Wars, the dark background to Earth’s idyllic future history. Aside from this, though, this is an excellent episode, with Ricardo Montalban giving a magnetic performance as Khan, to the point where you can understand why people would follow him. (If only real life dictators were so charming and intelligent.) It has some issues, notably how Madlyn Rhue’s character, Marla McGivers, loses her brains once confronted with a big, mean, manly man who puts her in her place, but on the whole this is very good stuff.
16) Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
“When did Star Trek get so woke?” cry the idiots, apparently having missed the most heavy-handed anti-racist message in TV history. The story of two ancient and powerful aliens, one bent on destroying the other because his people are black on the wrong side of their face, is as subtle as a brick, but sometimes you don’t need subtlety. Indeed, when this message still needs to be hammered home in the 21st century, it needs shouting from the rooftops. Part of why this episode works so well, though, is that until it’s pointed out, the crew (and audience) don’t even notice the difference between a man who is half-black, half-white, and a man who is half-white, half-black.
15) The Enterprise Incident
My favourite episode of the much-maligned third season. The Romulans didn’t appear that often in the original Star Trek, because their ears were so expensive (the Klingon make-up was cheaper, a situation which was reversed in the later series). They tended to have much more interesting storylines, though. This is a great episode with some much-appreciated intrigue, with Kirk and Spock apparently at odds as part of a greater plan. Nimoy gets to be the one who seduces his way in and out of trouble, sharing great chemistry with Joanne Linville as the Romulan Commander.
14) What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Circuits, just like everyone else in this episode. Bloch’s first episode for the series, and this time it’s wholly original, although he can’t help mentioning some pseudo-Lovecraftian Old Ones in there. While the story of android doubles and machines rebelling against their masters is old hat now, it really works. Shatner gets to have a great episode as both Kirk and his duplicate, and Majel Barrett has a rare chance to shine in a story that focuses on Christine Chapel.
13) Obsession
A look at Kirk’s past and his more flawed side as captain, as he is driven by an all-consuming guilt for not saving his fellow crewmen on the USS Farragut as a lieutenant. Stephen Brooks gives a decent turn as Ensign Garrovick, son of one of the officers lost in the incident. The only real weakness is the creature that killed the Farragut crew. A vampiric monster made from unearthly elements is a great idea, but it’s realised as just another cloud creature.
12) Mirror, Mirror
It’s cliched, it’s hokey, but most of that is because it set the cliches in the first place. Now that parallel worlds and the multiverse are the in thing, this looks less original, but even comicbooks had only just started playing with it in the Sixties. The Star Trek franchise could stand to spend less time in the Mirror Universe these days, but this first excursion is great fun, and the cast are all clearly having a ball playing evil bastards.
11) A Taste of Armageddon
Another great bit of pure sci-fi, as the Enterprise visits a world at war with its neighbour, where all conflict is computerised, and statistically-generated casualties are expected to calmly volunteer for death. It’s the sort of utterly ridiculous concept that is also painfully believable. In the end, Kirk calls on his computer-destroying skills and leads the two sides into a choice between real, messy, bloody war, or negotiating peace. If only that worked in the real world.
10) The Cage
The original pilot episode, not originally shown until the late Eighties, but now easy to watch whenever you like. Without the baggage of “The Menagerie,” this episode really shines. Jeffrey Hunter gives an earnest but vulnerable performance as Captain Pike, Majel Barrett is cool and classy as Number One, and happy young Spock is fun to spend time with, although I do wish he’d stop shouting. It’s incredibly old-fashioned, even for the time, but I do love this tale of big-headed aliens and their human zoo. I just wish we’d got to see Laurel Goodwin as the lovely Yeoman Colt again (especially as Goodwin only died in 2022, so she could easily have appeared in one of the modern series).
9) The Trouble With Tribbles
I wanted to put this one lower down just to be contrary, but it really is a very fun episode. The voracious, ever-multiplying tribbles are an iconic part of Star Trek for a reason. William Campbell is a perfect foil for Kirk as Captain Koloth, the cheekiest of the three great Klingons. Scotty steals the show by starting a punch-up. Still not as good as the reworking/sequel, Deep Space Nine’s “Trials and Tribble-ations,” though.
8) The Conscience of the King
Star Trek has been mildly obsessed with the works of Shakespeare from the beginning, but this is the only episode that can actually claim to be Shakespearean. A story of guilt, madness and trauma, in which we learn of a dark moment in Star Trek’s future history and Kirk’s own past, as witness to a horrific massacre on a colony planet when he was a boy. This has been left bizarrely unexplored in later Kirk-centric stories (on screen, at least), but here it makes for some fantastic melodrama as Kirk tries to prove that actor Anton Karidian (a choice performance by Arnold Moss) is actually the legendary Kodos the Executioner.
7) The City on the Edge of Forever
Another common chart-topper, and it really is a great one. Harlan Ellison may have bitched about the changes made to his script, but the final result of many rewrites is an absolute classic time travel story. There’s no argument here for simply preserving history for the sake of it; instead, an innocent and noble woman’s death is proven, through an ongoing chain of events, to be vital for the Allied victory in WWII, the subsequent development of a peaceful Earth, and humanity’s spread into the galaxy. Of course, before this is known, Kirk falls in love with the woman in question, (the other of his genuinely believable romances). A powerful love story, with a wonderful guest turn by Joan Collins as the doomed Edith Keeler. The living time portal, the Guardian of Forever, has become another iconic Star Trek image.
6) The Corbomite Maneuver
Perhaps the most iconic image, though, is the grim-faced alien puppet that graced the final caption of the end credits for many episodes. That was the supposed face of the alien Balok, who threatened the Enterprise with destruction for entering the space of the First Federation in this episode. At least, until Kirk impressed him by using his brains instead of brawn to trick his way out of the situation. Balok is revealed to have the appearance of a small boy, in the first of many franchise appearances of weird little Clint Howard. Absolutely classic stuff, again only appearing cliched now due to later pastiches.
5) The Enemy Within
A standout performance by Shatner, who takes an early opportunity to ham it up to the max as Captain Kirk is split into two parts thanks to a transporter accident. The idea that Kirk has a dark side isn’t exactly original, but his performance as both the aggressive, uncontrolled version and the compassionate but weak other half make this a compelling episode. There’s a fascinating implication of the kinds of impulses that make Kirk such a successful commander. Plus, it has the horned space dog in it.
4) The Doomsday Machine
One of Star Trek’s many takes on Moby Dick, but in this case the white whale is a vast, seemingly indestructible space machine that is obliterating planets to use as fuel. William Windom steals the show as Commodore Decker, driven to madness by his guilt at his failure to save his crew from the machine, when he thought he had transported them to safety. Yes, there are similarities to “Obsession,” but while that’s a great episode, this really stands above it as one of the very best in the series.
3) Balance of Terror
The first appearance of the Romulans, and what an entrance. This is basically a submarine story, with two commanders on opposite sides matching wits and gaining mutual respect. Mark Lenard gives an excellent performance as the Romulan commander, a year before he appeared as Sarek. Reusing the Vulcan make-up for the Romulans was a clever move, opening up an intriguing backstory for the two races as well as creating tensions between some crew and Spock. Having the Romulans’ appearance be unknown to humans until this moment shows a disturbingly believable transference of bigotry once the link between the races is realised.
2) Where No Man Has Gone Before
The second attempt at a pilot episode, and the one that really should have been the first episode broadcast. Gary Lockwood and the wonderful Sally Kellerman are excellent as Gary Mitchell Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, and presented as regular cast members. It would have been a genuine shock to see them killed off had the powers that be decided to broadcast it as the third episode. (It was broadcast first in the UK though.) It is weird not having Dr. McCoy there, though. There’s a great story here about the corrupting influence of power, as both Mitchell and Dehner are enhanced beyond human understanding. The idea that there’s some kind of barrier surrounding the Milky Way, preventing exploration beyond its borders, is fascinating, as is the idea that interaction with it could either improve or destroy humanity.
1) The Devil in the Dark
This is it, my very favourite episode of the original Star Trek. “The Devil in the Dark” is pure, beautiful science fiction. A monstrous alien creature is murdering miners on a distant colony one-by-one, dissolving them until there’s almost nothing left, but the hunt for the monster reveals its true nature. The Horta is revealed to be a highly intelligent, if utterly alien, silicon-based creature, who is only desperately protecting itself and its young. A brilliant exploration of fear of the unknown and alien giving way to acceptance and cooperation, this is Star Trek at its best. Plus Dr. McCoy coins a new catchphrase when he heals the Horta. All together now:
“I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!”
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