Just got finished watching the TNG episode “Sarek,” where Picard mindmelds with Sarek and must deal with the onslaught of Sarek’s loss of control of his emotions.
Just… wow.
Patrick Stewart is a remarkable actor, and that scene, I think, is the best TNG has to offer. When he chokes on the word “tenderness” and struggles with saying he loves his wife, tears falling down his face… just moving. Always brings me to tears.
I was also reminded of the scene in the Voyager episode “Deadlock” where two identical Voyagers are created and one must be sacrificed to save the other. When the autodestruct is engaged and the Vidiians arrive on the Bridge, only to find everyone standing calmly at their stations, Janeway delivers one of the best lines of the show.
“Hello, I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway. Welcome to the bridge.”
Picard’s snapping and destroying the Ready Room in First Contact was awesome. “It ends here!”
Anything involving Chang in The Undiscovered Country. There’s just something great about a Shakespeare spouting badass.
The Klingon Ambassador telling the Federation Council that “There will be no peace between our governments so long as James Kirk lives!” in The Voyage Home.
Also from The Voyage Home:
Taylor: Do you like Italian?
Kirk: Yes.
Spock: No.
Kirk: Yes.
Spock: No.
Kirk: Yes, I love Italian and so do you.
Spock: Yes.
Well, I’ll be back tomorrow when I’m less tired and more able to think, but I do have to add, Esprix, that the scene at the end of Sarek is, IMO, one of the best in Star Trek history.
Aesiron, I also did, but man, I felt so guilty doing it. After such a relatively poor movie, the only reason I did was due to my knowledge of Data from the series, not that movie. I felt so manipulated, tearing up at the end of that film.
It is my opinion that the only decent death scene in all of Trekdom was Spock in Wrath of Khan. The death of Kirk, Data, Yar, and Dax just can’t compare. I admit I teared up when Spock bit the big one.
If I’m remembering it right, you didn’t miss much.
In case the other Trekkies are unaware:
[spoiler]She was killed by a possessed Dukat. I think he telekinetically lifted her and threw her across the room or shot her with an energy beam or somethin’… it’s been a few years.
Either way, it was anti-climatic in the extreme.
That’s about the only thing that always bothered me about DS9 was it mixing in pure fantasy (shut up, SPOOFE :p) with sci-fi.[/spoiler]
I just watched the “Sarek” episode earlier too and thought it was absolutely beautiful. Patrick Stewart is an amazing actor.
I have found that the episodes I enjoy the most are Data-centric ones. So Aesiron, I also teared up at the end of Nemesis, but only because my favorite character was dying, not because of the movie itself.
First Contact was a very powerful movie overall, IMO. I knew everything would work out in the end, but I was still glued to the TV when I rented it a couple weeks ago.
I’m a little ashamed to admit that I only recently started watching ST:TNG. For no apparent reason, I didn’t watch it before when it was actually in production. My SO introduced me to the series a few months ago, and I’m completely hooked. I watch every episode I can on TNN now
Old-school I may be, but I have to vote for Kirk’s calm assuredness in Wrath of Khan. After they are marooned on the Genesis planetoid, with a crippled Enterprise above that won’t be ready to leave for two days, Savvik discovers that Kirk beat the no-win scenario.
Kirk tells her crisply, “I don’t believe in no-win situations,” and then lifts his communicator. “Mr. Spock, it’s been two hours. Are you ready?” As Spock affirms that he and the Enterprise are ready, Kirk gets that predatory look and gives Savvik one last comment… the simple, “I don’t like to lose.”
Vintage Kirk. Classic. Shatner is often criticized for his abilities as an actor in general, but there’s no denying he took James T. Kirk and made him his own. What a great scene.
This is more for the camp factor, but there’s this scene in The Search for Spock (I think) in which Kirk finds out his son his dead. As a result, he stumbles backwards in disbelief and lets himself fall into his chair. Horrendously acted by the Shatner himself: priceless. Then of course there’s: “What would God want with a spaceship?”
Then there’s the first time I saw the Borg (in First Contact). Very impressive.
I was having visions of a flaming Data head whizzing past the hull breach as the Enterprise crew stared at the wreckage…I guess I’m not suitably reverent.
There’s not enough DS9 in this thread, btw. Some good bits:
Sisko’s closing monologue from “In the Pale Moonlight”: “Because I can live with it. …I can live with it. …Computer, erase that entire personal log.” fade to black
Bashir talks O’Brien out of suicide, “Hard Time”
Dukat and Weyoun talk about the best way to handle one’s enemies, “Sacrifice of Angels”: “A true victory is to make your enemies admit they were wrong to oppose you in the first place – to force them to acknowledge your greatness.” “Then you kill them?”
Most of “The Visitor” but especially the ending – “Jake, my sweet boy…” sob
I think my favorite TNG bit of all time is in “Darmok” when Picard finally figures out how to communicate with the aliens that only speak in metaphor. “Sokath, his eyes uncovered!” Love that ep.
Another for TNG is “Chain of Command Part II” where Picard admits to Troi that he was only a hair’s breadth away from telling his Cardassian torturer that there were five lights. Chilling.
Moving on to DS9 since, as Katisha pointed out, it’s not gettin’ much love.
Sisko maniacal obsession over Michael Eddington’s defection to the Maquis. Very human. I love it when Trek characters show strong base emotions like that and Avery Brooks is great at playing the smoldering bit.
The whole “Far Beyond the Stars” episode. Y’know, the one that takes place in 1930s Earth. Poignant.
Almost every scene with Weyoun in it. Instead of being your typical “I will kill you now” Trek villian, he tries to kiss up to you and then plunge the dagger into your back.
Garak for the same reasons, really. Another great character.
The whole Dominion war as a whole. I love me some space battles. I literally got chills every time I saw a screenshot of the Federation Armada and I’m getting them again now just thinking about it. There’s just something in my brain that equates overwhelming displays of power with slack-jawed awe.
By the way… I have never gotten the love for “The Visitor”. Maybe it was how old I was when I first saw it but it was just exceedingly boring to me. I don’t think I’d been a fan for very long at that point either. Maybe that’s a factor as well.
My favourite Star Trek moment is when Kira and Odo embrace at the end of Chimera. After almost leaving the station with another Changeling, Odo returns to face Kira, and admits that he sometimes finds it hard to express his shapeshifting abilities around her. She invites him to show her, and as they embrace, Odo transforms into an ethereal cloud of light that wraps around Kira, lifting her up and around into the air. We fade to black as she closes her eyes and her face breaks into an ecstatic smile. Just beautiful!
Plus another vote for The Visitor - when Jake died in Sisko’s arms, I lost it completely. My sweet boy…
Any scene with Bashir and either O’Brien or Garrek.
In the episode where the Ferengi (Quark, Rom, Nog, the Liquidator, whose name I can’t remember and one or two others I couldn’t even begin to name) are rescuing Moogie from the Dominion, but accidentally kill the hostage they were going to trade for her. Then…they reanimate him. Sort of.
When Weyoun realises that the cloning station where he was ‘born’ has been destroyed, and that he is, therefore, the LAST Weyoun.
Bashir’s reaction to the various Klingon mating. (Worf/Jadzia and Quark/His Klingon Chick). Hell, that whole episode.
The Roswell episode.
And…if I may be allowed to be a desenting voice…
I always thought the Sarek episode was melodramatic, manipulative, and overdone. Mark Leonard was so much better an actor than that, and so is Patric Stewart.
I think the best single camera shot ever was when the Defiant left DS9 right before the Cardassians took over. You see it flying in space, then a pan to the left to see the entire Starfleet Armada. The Defiant turns around.
Some other favorite moments were the episode of Voyager when the Doctor was sent back through a communications net and ended up on a hijacked Federation starship with Andy Dick playing the EMH-II.
At the end of Inner Light, when Dr. Crusher and Picard go to the ready room, and Picard reaches for where the door control would have been. . . . Heck, that whole episode still affects me.
Ro Laren drawing her mom.
Picard and his brother, fighting in a vineyard.
DS9:
Worf and Jadzia’s wedding episode. “I can see the future! I’m going to kill Worf!”
“Now?”
“NOW?”
The end of the episode where Bashir was almost the template for the new holographic doctor. O’Brien: “You stand back here. And if this doesn’t work, BLINDFOLDED!”
“Can I go to your school, mommy?”
I don’t care what anyone else says, I liked the baseball episode.
OT: Jake died? Man, I regret not being able to watch most of DS9. Stoopid rehearsal schedules…
“Darmok” has been mentioned already… Darn. “Darth Nader, slower than Katisha”
How about the DS9 episode “Duet”? No particular moment, just the whole thing. The only one I still have on tape, it meant that much to me.
So Aesiron, I also teared up at the end of Nemesis, but only because my favorite character was dying, not because of the movie itself.
