# Which Original Star Trek Eps are 'must watch'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 22, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052 "2013-05-22T18:52:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/61 "2013-05-23T16:10:45Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Err… how so? Other than it’s people on a spaceship I see zero analogy. Many of the plotlines were derived (that is to say, blatantly stolen) from ST episodes (for instance, the episode where Quark ages rapidly). The set designs, costumes and Quark’s relentless chasing after skirts are contributing factors as well. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/62 "2013-05-23T16:12:07Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Oh, and be sure to see _Galaxy Quest_ if you haven’t already. J. J. Abrams says it’s the best Star Trek story ever made. Which is proof enough that he should not have been allowed to have anything to do with _Star Trek_ ever. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/63 "2013-05-23T16:20:29Z")
> [@Draelin](#): > > Yeah, totally my bad. I always somehow manage to combine the two in my memory into one incredibly awesome episode. I always combine the Angel Melvin Belli one and the “Bonk bonk, bad kid!” one in my mind into one really laughable episode. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky_the_Wonder_Spirit)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/64 "2013-05-23T16:27:02Z")
I’ve seen, and loved, _Galaxy Quest_. Like I said, I’ve watched a bunch of the newer Trek shows, just not the Original Recipe. Last night I watched _The Enterprise Incident_ (AKA Spock gets his freak on with a Romulan while Kirk puts on the most ridiculous disguise EVER). It was fun , a little goofy, and not nearly as sexist as I thought it might be. I started watching _The Tholian Web_, but I got a case of the giggles when I saw [these spacesuits](http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/tholian-web.jpg?w=463&h=331), so I decided to take a break. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/65 "2013-05-23T16:32:24Z")
> [@Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](#): > > Last night I watched _The Enterprise Incident_ (AKA Spock gets his freak on with a Romulan while Kirk puts on the most ridiculous disguise EVER). It was fun , a little goofy, and not nearly as sexist as I thought it might be. Just as a random aside, two of the most controversial Star Trek novels ever (_The Price of the Phoenix_ and _The Fate of the Phoenix_) are based off this episode. The Romulan Commander is a main character, Kirk is cloned (and one of them stays a Romulan), and all sorts of kinky fun is had by all (depending on your definition of “fun”). I love the books, but a lot of people hate them. They’re definitely on the “adult” end of the Star Trek fiction spectrum (though tame by today’s standards, they were pretty racy when they first came out in the late '70s.) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/66 "2013-05-23T16:34:50Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Oh, and be sure to see _Galaxy Quest_ if you haven’t already. J. J. Abrams says it’s the best Star Trek story ever made. And George Takei called it “a chilling realistic documentary.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Doom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Dr\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Doom)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/67 "2013-05-23T17:00:15Z")
> [@Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](#): > > [these spacesuits](http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/tholian-web.jpg?w=463&h=331) [M.O.D.O.K.](https://www.google.ca/search?q=modok&rlz=1C1LENP_enCA479CA502&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=zkqeUcXgF4eBrgfw5IDQCA&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=1196&bih=875)!!! ---
**Author:** ![kcor1953](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kcor1953/32/3221_2.png) [@kcor1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kcor1953)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/68 "2013-05-23T17:09:54Z")
> [@Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](#): > > I started watching _The Tholian Web_, but I got a case of the giggles when I saw [these spacesuits](http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/tholian-web.jpg?w=463&h=331), so I decided to take a break. As I said, “The effects in these, on the TV budget, worked well.” re: effects optical: I’m not too crazy about the spotting of Kirk by onboard personnel while he was out in one of those suits (trying not to 'spoil" anything) but accept it, but about the suits: My memory is they were original to the series, maybe only used for this and one suit one other time (my memory is not alpha-level), and with a $50k per ep budget (1965 dollars) I was impressed by their not being recycled from Destination Moon or I Dream of Genie, and looking sorta functional/NASA-like. Plus, after an season and a half of “Beam 'em down” it was heartening to see the question of spacesuits tackled head-on. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/69 "2013-05-23T17:13:42Z")
> [@Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](#): > > WAIT I HAVE ANOTHER IMPORTANT QUESTION. > > Which is the episode with the planet of people with half-black, half-white faces? (I assume it’s in the less-well-regarded 3rd season?) [Let that be your last battlefield](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Let_That_Be_Your_Last_Battlefield_%28episode%29) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/70 "2013-05-23T17:23:37Z")
> [@Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](#): > > I’d also like to know which ones are really, really ridiculous, because I’m sure they are also fun to watch. Definitely fitting into this category: > [@from "Spock's Brain" ep](#): > > Brain and brain! What is brain? “Spock’s Brain” was the Season Three opener, and generally agreed to have made all those 1960s fans wonder why they bothered saving the show with a letter campaign. Still, the camp entertainment value is more than worth the time it takes to watch it. Another favorite S3 episode of mine is “Whom Gods Destroy”. It’s the classic inmates taking over the asylum plot arc, but with a goodish helping of dark humor here and there. I thought Steve Ihnat as Lord Garth of the Universe was great and I’m sorry they didn’t use him more in the series. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/71 "2013-05-23T17:26:31Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > I always combine the Angel Melvin Belli one and the “Bonk bonk, bad kid!” one in my mind into one really laughable episode. They _are_ one really laughable episode! BTW did you also use to watch _Star Trek_ on weekdays, in the TV room at the bottom of Blake Hall? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/72 "2013-05-23T17:33:51Z")
> [@campp](#): > > The double Talos IV episodes “The Cage” is the first pilot, basically the Talos IV story without the framing story of the court-martial. You can see how they hadn’t quite worked out the look-and-feel of the series. For instance in the bridge scenes, there are always two “space cadets”–kids looking like they are about fifteen–standing on either side of the entrance. In the regular episodes they would never had had that. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/73 "2013-05-23T17:35:05Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > BTW did you also use to watch _Star Trek_ on weekdays, in the TV room at the bottom of Blake Hall? Strangely enough, the only thing I can remember from time spent hanging out there is hearing the theme song from _Maverick_ a lot. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/74 "2013-05-23T17:41:49Z")
I always thought the third season episode [“The Empath”](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708462/) as boring. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/75 "2013-05-23T19:03:30Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > [Barbara Babcock](http://static.thecia.com.au/star-trek/original-series/1/11b2.jpg), later well-known for playing Grace, the hot-to-trot girlfriend of Sgt. Esterhaus on _Hill Street Blues_. Yup, she was a babe. 🙂 Barbara Babcock was also in the last episode of season 2, “Assignment: Earth”. With Robert Lansing and a young Teri Garr. > [@](#): > > This was the only episode in which a guest star’s name (in this case, Robert Lansing) was listed after the initial opening credits. > Robert Lansing > Teri Garr, then largely unknown, went on to have a successful movie and television career. > Barbara Babcock, who had parts in several other Star Trek episodes, had a very unusual role here: voicing over Isis the cat’s “meows”. She also provided the voice of Gary Seven’s “Beta 5” computer. > **[Assignment: Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assignment:_Earth)** > > "Assignment: Earth" is the twenty-sixth and final episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Art Wallace (based on a story by Wallace and Gene Roddenberry) and directed by Marc Daniels, it was first broadcast on 29 March 1968. > In the episode, engaged in "historical research", the USS Enterprise travels back through time to 1968 Earth, where they encounter an interstellar agent planning to intervene in 20th-century events. Kirk and Spo... ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/76 "2013-05-23T19:10:44Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > With Robert Lansing and a young Teri Garr. Hubba hubba. (Teri Garr, not Robert Lansing. 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/77 "2013-05-23T19:19:29Z")
> [@kcor1953](#): > > but about the suits: > > My memory is they were original to the series, maybe only used for this and one suit one other time (my memory is not alpha-level), The only other episode I can think of is [“The Naked Time”](http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x04hd/thenakedtimehd0010.jpg), and those were different suits; iirc, not pressurized, only providing protection from cold and possibly oxygen. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/78 "2013-05-23T19:28:06Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Another noteworthy bit about this episode: the script was the first professional writing job for David Gerrold (who was only in his mid 20s when he wrote it). If you read his book about it he comes off as just a fan off the street. I found out later that he had an agent and went the normal route to selling it, even if it was his first sale. And the tribbles are Heinlein’s Martian Flat Cats from The Rolling Stones, but Heinlein was fine with Gerrold borrowing the concept. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/79 "2013-05-23T19:33:49Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Which is proof enough that he should not have been allowed to have anything to do with _Star Trek_ ever. QFT. The sad state of the franchise is no wonder when Paramount puts it in the hands of people who never watched the show and didn’t seem to particularly like it when they did watch. I actually liked Galaxy Quest, but it is the best piece of Trek fan fiction ever, not nearly the best episode ever. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052/80 "2013-05-23T19:39:31Z")
> [@kcor1953](#): > > As I said, “The effects in these, on the TV budget, worked well.” > > re: effects optical: I’m not too crazy about the spotting of Kirk by onboard personnel while he was out in one of those suits (trying not to 'spoil" anything) but accept it, but about the suits: > > My memory is they were original to the series, maybe only used for this and one suit one other time (my memory is not alpha-level), and with a $50k per ep budget (1965 dollars) I was impressed by their not being recycled from Destination Moon or I Dream of Genie, and looking sorta functional/NASA-like. Plus, after an season and a half of “Beam 'em down” it was heartening to see the question of spacesuits tackled head-on. They used some other type of suit in the beginning of The Naked Time when Spock and the landing party are investigating why the lab crew killed themselves and each other. In the very early episodes, when they had money, you’d sometimes see extras walking down the hallway in suits on the way to some duty station or other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-original-star-trek-eps-are-must-watch/659052.md?page=5)