With close to 900 episodes – and a sure thing we’ll hit 1,000 in the current era – we all have our favourite episodes of Star Trek across all the Generations. Whether thats seeing Sisko wrestle with morality in DS9’s In The Pale Moonlight; watching the tense drama or Kirk versus the Romulans in Balance of Terror or TNG’s turning point in Best of Both Worlds, the debates raged on for decades.
Similarly fans have debated for years on the worst episodes, whether it’s about the way to Eden, surpassing the warp threshold or moving along home.
But underneath the best and worse episodes, there’s ones that just exist in their own little bubble. Some are brilliant and overlooked by other parts of a series or even a singular moment. Some at the time seemed awful or boring, but on a second glance offered a lot more than memory would have you believe.
Schism’s | The Next Generation Season 6
In spite of having some weird continuity over a table that irrationally annoys me, Schisms is a nice little departure from the usual Next Generation theme. Using the old sci fi trope of alien abduction, a rift opens up in one of the cargo bays letting a species from another dimension kidnap and experiment on random crew in their sleep. It’s not quite a Frame of Mind performance from Jonathon Frakes, but brings a very creepy vibe throughout.
Carbon Creek | Enterprise Season 2
Another complete departure see’s T’Pol give some family history lessons to Archer and Trip. Mainly that Zephram Cochrane’s famed Vulcan encounter was really just the first public meeting between their species. In reality her great grandmother was the first Vulcan to meet a human when her scout ship crashed on Earth in 1957. The story doesn’t really connect to anything aside from giving the smallest insight into T’Pol and a rare self contained, and oddly enjoyable, watch.
Into The Forest I Go | Discovery Season 1
For all the outcry of Discovery’s direction, it’s first season knew how to do excitement and cliffhangers; and with this episode ending the Kol-arc of the season, it delivered on nearly every level a finale should have without being he finale. Lorca’s darker tones made him become the Captain of the hour with his crew on side, Burnham and Tyler have an away mission, Kol and his stolen ship meet their end and we have some awesome work highlighting the wonders of the Spore drive, even if it nearly kills Stamets.
It’s the point where everything in Discovery clicks. Even Stamets and Lorca are on the same page for once (not that it lasts) and we get some thrilling heroics before the next arc, making it one of the seasons most satisfying.
Disaster | The Next Generation Season 5
Everyone loves a bottle episode and this one was a nice and simple story putting everyone out of place. Often overshadowed with it’s introducing Captain Picard Day as a one of joke that still lives on, it’s a nice episode for throwing people out of their element. While Picards stuck in a turbolift as the ships locked down, Worf’s the only person in the locked down Ten Forward to deliver a baby, Riker tries to take control of the ship using Data’s detached head and of course, as the senior officer on the bridge despite having zero command experience, Troi’s got to figure out what to do as she battles between Chief O’Briens experience and Ro Laren being a complete nutter. There’s a lot going on in the episode, but Troi’s dilemma held the story together nicely while Worf delivered the laughs alongside Keiko’s baby.
In the Cards | Deep Space Nine Season 5
As Deep Space Nine progressed, the role of Jake Sisko lessened with not much for a young writer to do as tensions with the Dominion were rising. But as morale on Deep Space Nine sank to a new low, he suddenly found himself leading an episode trying to bring a smile to his fathers face as he completed a series of tasks to trade for a vintage baseball card. DS9 loved it’s cool down episodes, and this was the cool down before the Dominion and Cardassians got a huge victory by capturing the station and not-occupying-Bajor.
As the arcs and stories were becoming more serious, having a silly episode before the big climax that was just a good spirited laugh was more than welcome. And Jake-Rom pair ups were rarely a disappointment; especially seeing them get involved with characters like Weyounn and the dreaded Kai Wynn. And the B story of Wynn negotiating with the Dominion would become a kkey point in DS9 history….
All Seasons of Star Trek, aside from Star Trek Prodigy, are available to watch on Paramount+ which can be subscribed to individually through their website or app, or in partnership with other streaming services including Amazon.
About the author
No One Expects The Starfleet Inquisition! Retro Review: Inquisition, DS9 S6E18
Stopped from heading to a quiet medical conference, Doctor Bashir is locked down with the crew of Deep Space Nine when internal investigations officer Sloan arrives. Apparently Deep Space Nine has a security breach. Information's being leaked to the enemy and all leads point to one person: Julian Bashir. It's a nice rarity when this era of Star Trek plays out it's story of the week without a B-Plot and Inquisition does it all quiet nicely. Especially as everything's played out from the perspective of Bashir as he's separated from his colleagues which enhances the tense paranoia of whats happening as Sloan probes through evidence that points to the doctor betraying the Federation. Thematically it's a story told many times before, even previously told in Star Trek, but with DS9's tone becoming a little darker by this stage, it worked […]
[Ships of the Line] The Steamrunner Class
One of Starfleet's most durable designs used in the later half of the 24th century, the Steamrunner is a tough little ship designed for defensive operations against the Borg and has since stood the test of time to still be used and in production decades after it's initial purpose. A relatively small and efficient design for the era, the Steamrunner may seem a unique design in Starfleet but pulls from several common elements that tie it to predecessors ranging from the Oberth to the Miranda class configurations. Spanning just 370 meters from bow to stern, covering eleven standard decks, the Steamrunner is a forward heavy ship with nearly all of it's core systems placed in the ships blocky near oval primary hull. Similar to the 23rd century Magee Class Starship, the nacelles of the ship were embedded in the primary […]
Inside Trek: Brannon Braga
Just as many new stars have been created by joining the world of Star Trek on screen from respected actors becoming international sensations to young new talents having their moment to shine, there have been just as many stars have also been made behind the scenes. For every story told and new star made in the Star Trek Universe it takes an army of talent behind the scenes to make sure that universe comes to life. From production designers to lighting technicians and the artists behind every ship, creature and corner of a set, there are many who have helped shape the Star Trek Universe, and more than a few who's careers have started thanks to it's existence. Between 1987 and 2005 Star Trek properly became a franchise of connected universes and stories with the launch of the Next Generation […]
A Fistful of 2024: What Trek Left Behind
As a new year begins we can't help but look back at whats been a strangely filled year for Star Trek. 2024 was a bittersweet year with a stunning amount of Star Trek on our screens, all of which was coming to an end in their final and news from behind the curtain about the next steps into the final frontier. Looking back at the highlights, even with saying goodbye to three separate shows in the wider universe, it's still been a tremendously good year in the final frontier! LONE GUARDIAN One of Star Trek's biggest surprises in recent years was the animated show built for a teenage audience as a gateway to the franchise and it's second season was a massive highlight for Star Trek in 2024. Now protege's of Admiral Janeway, the outlaw crew became entwined in the […]
Admin Office Closed For Annual Leave
Attention all hands - and potential hands! The Admin office for SFCQ2 will be closed temporarily between the 7th-18th November due to an impromptu Admirals holiday! Following the major site upgrade recently, Admin will be taking a short break from regular duties to attend to urgent personal matters. From mid-day January 6th the Admin office will be wrapping up ahead of departure on the 7th. As all incoming membership applications are handled director by the Director of Fleet Administration, we will be accepting applications but please be aware that processing will be paused until return on the weekend of January 18th. At present this is an estimate date and may be extended. For current active members, there'll be no change in operations and no effect on any individual Fleet or Unit Operations. Any outstanding Administrative or Operations actions will be […]
New Year, New Site!
After months of planning and a few mentions here and there, we're as surprised as anyone that after planning a newly refreshed site for 2025, we made it in time without anything going wrong! Reviewing 2024 we've been plotting, planning and organising in the background ahead of a huge push for 2025 to revive some administrative energy and while a new site may seem like it's last on (very long) a list of priories, a new look to match the energy we wanted to go into 2025 with was a big task to get the ball running. On the front end, we've kept things roughly the same with only a few minor tweaks. Posts will still be split between two main sections. On Screen will be host to ongoing production news reviews, including the ongoing Retro Review feature and […]
Related
A Fistful of 2024: What Trek Left Behind
As a new year begins we can't help but look back at whats been a strangely filled year for Star Trek. 2024 was a bittersweet year with a stunning amount of Star Trek on our screens, all of which was coming to an end in their final and news from behind the curtain about the next steps into the final frontier. Looking back at the highlights, even with saying goodbye to three separate shows in the wider universe, it's still been a tremendously good year in the final frontier! LONE GUARDIAN One of Star Trek's biggest surprises in recent years was the animated show built for a teenage audience as a gateway to the franchise and it's second season was a massive highlight for Star Trek in 2024. Now protege's of Admiral Janeway, the outlaw crew became entwined in the […]
A Fistful Of Bad Romance
As Lower Decks returns for it's final season, it answered one of the unresolved questions from it promised recent history as Jennifer made a return after vanishing from the unresolved conflict with Mariner at the end of the third season. And it went exactly as we'd expect for a Lower Decks romance storyline.
A Fistful of Connections
Connected universe on screen have been a bigger deal now more than ever before now that one of the most popular, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has embraced Marvel's diverse history before it was it's own singular media empire. Shared universes have always been a bit of a cool thing to see on screen whether it was a subtle one such as Michael Keaton reprising his Jackie Brown role as Ray Nicollet in Out of Sight, to spin offs such as Frasier bringing in the old Cheers gang, there's a novelty to seeing the fictional worlds interconnect with each other from time to time.. For Star Trek's divergence to telling a story about another crew, the shared universe began with unsubtle hints that this was the same universe as Kirk's adventures with DeForest Kelly in aged make up as retired Admiral […]
A Fistful of Time Travel Adventures
Time Travel has always been a core sci fi trope for the Star Trek Universe. Whether it's going back to the 1980's to save the whales, or jumping ahead to see the Enterprise-J to avert a time war, it seems the heroes of Starfleet can't fly into space without wandering into a temporal investigations nightmare.
A Fistful Of Undeveloped Missions
It's only been seven years since the streaming era of Star Trek begun and already we've been given a full three ring circus treatment of the franchise. Kicking off with Discovery's story of darkness into light, we've had a standard planet of the week with Strangew New Worlds to character exploration in Picard right down to straight up off the wall comedy in Lower Decks. Considering the previous era which often tried to replicate The Next Generation was branded as having fatigue, it's safe to say Star Treks future is in finding variety of the stories they can tell...
A Fistul Of Loose Ends…
Picking up a loose thread from the Next Generation, Discovery turned a one off story about a quickly forgotten galactic revelation into a full season of expanding the lore and mystery of the Progenitors. It's not for the first time either. Spock's plan for unifying Romulus and Vulcan started in the 24th century and had been realised by the time Burnham landed in the 32nd. It's not just Discovery pulling at the tapestry. Picard showed us what happened to the disconnected Borg Hugh, Lower Decks revealed Academy dropout Nick Locarno as a season baddie. Even Prodigy picked up on Janeway's career following her cameo as an Admiral on the big screen. The trend continued in recent years with Picard mining the Next Generations past, answering questions fans had long pondered from the fate of Ro Laren to what happened to […]
