BEST single-episode Star Trek aliens

In response to this thread, I’ll ask the SDMB what the coolest, hippest single-episode-Star-Trek-alien-race-that-we’d-like-to-see-again was.

My pick: Species 8472, whom the Borg were unable to assimilate and was finally a worthy opponent. I’d say more, but the Wikipedia article offers the best explanation. And I didn’t even like Voyager!

Adam

Oh, and Wikipedia offers a very good list of Star Trek aliens here.

Adam

The Gorn.

You have to love a species that looks like Godzilla raided Tarzan’s closet.

What kind of Star Trek alien list leaves off Tribbles?!?!?!

Anyways, Tribbles were going to be my pick, but it seems that the Star Trek writers brought them back in ST:E and DS9 (Neither of which I watched).

  • Peter Wiggen

None of the aliens so far named are single-episode.

Species 8472 had multiple appearances on Voyager, the Gorn were shown again on Enterprise, and the tribbles were seen again in the awesome Trials and Tribble-ations as part of Star Trek’s 30th Anniversary on Deep Space Nine.

Umm… hence this part of my post:

Did you have a suggestion for a single-serving alien or were you just going all knee-jerk Trek Nerd crazy? :wink:

In case it’s not obvious, this is funny since I was the one going all knee-jerk Trek Nerd crazy about a ST alien list with no tribbles.

Elaan of Troyius was pretty cool, played by the incomparable France Nguyen.

The blue chick played by Batgirl was pretty cool too.

I included the tribbles because you had the details of their reappearance wrong and that episode of *DS9 *is a personal favorite.

As for my own inclusion, no, not really. The Swarm from *Voyager *is the only one that comes to mind and that’s more because of what could have been then how they were actually written. Most of the one-episode (and a good portion of the recurring) Trek aliens are best forgotten.

Sigh. Well lets see what I wrote:

As I mentioned, ST writers brought the tribbles back in an episode of Enterprise. According to wikipedia:

Next, I mentioned that ST writers brought the tribbles back in an episode of Deep Space 9 (your personal fav). Again, wikipedia:

In addition, wikipedia notes that they appeared on the animated series and in Star Trek III.

Might I humbly suggest that I did not get their reappearance details wrong so much as not specify exactly which episode of DS9 they reappeared on. In other words when you state . . .

. . . only half of that statement is true (and it’s the part about that episode being your personal favorite).

Thank you, and end hijack.

  • Peter Wiggen

The puppet Balok. I know he’s not real, but he’s still the best alien ever.

[geek-mode]The Gorn on Enterprise were Mirror-Universe, so they still only appeared once in the canon Trek universe![/geek-mode]

The people of Rubicon III were attractive and they sentenced Wesley to death. No contest.

I kind of liked the Horta myself. An alien not represented by a person in latex, and a mommy to boot.

But the Horta was someone in latex. Just…in a rather unconventional position. Janos Prohaska, a quick Google search has informed me…he was also the Mugatu, in whatever episode that was.

[geek]A Private Little War[/geek]

Hmmm. I’d classify him as one o’them “intelligent dinosaur” types, although, like an awful lot of Star Trek aliens, he wasn’t at all convincing as a believable alien.

Besides, he bugged me as being such a radical departure from the alien actually described in Brown’s story. I understand the reason for it – they couldn’t have done the Outsider convincingly before CGI, and it wouldn’t have looked appropriately menacing, in any case.

But when they adapted the story for the Marvel comics Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction, dammit, they made it look ike a cross between Brown’s Outsider and Star Trek’s Gorn.

Any alien that did not look like a human with bumps on their foreheads or noses.

You make a very persuasive argument. :stuck_out_tongue:

Nevertheless, I’m gonna go with the Horta. Having the “devil in the dark” be a mom who was just avenging her murdered children, was sheer genius - and a long-overdue break from the 1950s-era science fiction cliche of “Here’s an alien we don’t understand; better kill it.” (I’ll grant you, ST fell into that trap itself more than once, but the Horta was still a remarkable critter, in a remarkable episode, and ST was the first to take this approach).

I can remember absolutely nothing about them, but I always liked the Ventaxians who appeared in TNG Season 4, ep 13. The reason? They are named after the UK’s leading ventilation company. Great product placement, lads!