The best episodes of Star Trek
Ranked by viewer rating, highs first. Lit marks on the season rail place this list across the run. Vote on a placement to back it or contest it.
- 01
Under the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty, Sherman's Planet will become a colony of whoever can best develop it. To that end, the Federation intends to ship a large quantity of quadrotriticale to that planet, and Federation Undersecretary Nilz Baris is determined that the grain will arrive, so he orders the manager of Space Station K-9 to issue a distress call! Enterprise responds to discover no emergency; Baris just wants guards for his grain. And then a Klingon ship arrives, seeking shore leave. And Cyrano Jones, an itinerant trader, also arrives, with some odd animals he calls tribbles. Some very hungry, odd animals...
- 02
The City on the Edge of Forever
Ripples in time have provoked the curiosity of the Enterprise crew. One such ripple shakes the ship and gravely injures Sulu. McCoy brings him back from the brink with a powerful drug, but another ripple results in a tragic overdose, afflicting McCoy with dangerous paranoia! He beams down to the planet - the transporter was locked onto the source of the time disturbances. On the surface, he evades the landing party long enough to flee - into the past, where his psychosis results in him somehow erasing the Federation, and the Enterprise, save only the landing party. Their one chance is to use the same artifact - the self-styled Guardian of Forever - to arrive before McCoy and prevent him from changing their history.
- 03
A large diplomatic conference will take place on Babel, to discuss the contentious issue of whether to admit Corridan to the Federation. Delegates are divided, and some of their motives are less than pure. Among these delegates is Sarek of Vulcan - Spock's estranged father. Add a mysterious challenging spacecraft and a murderer aboard the Enterprise, and Kirk has his hands full. Then Kirk himself is stabbed, leaving him seriously injured at the very moment when Spock is due to donate blood so that McCoy can operate on Vulcan ambassador Sarek's damaged heart. The key to solving this puzzle will require deducing which of the many factions is willing to go to violent lengths to sabotage this conference.
- 04
The Halkans are a people deeply committed to peace. Kirk is trying to negotiate with them for dilithium, the rare mineral that's needed for warp power systems. But if there is even a chance their crystals will be used for violence, they cannot agree. Kirk beams back to his ship as a magnetic storm approaches - but the ship where he materializes is vastly different, run by savage opportunists, sadists, and killers. This ship, part of an Empire, will wipe the Halkans from their world and seize their crystals. Kirk must find a way to prevent that, and to return himself and his landing party home.
- 05
Enterprise discovers the wreck of Constellation, a sister ship. The only survivor is Matt Decker, the Captain. He reports beaming his crew down to the fourth planet - except that there is no fourth planet! He investigated an odd occurrence: a planet apparently disintegrating, and discovered an immense space vessel cutting the planet apart with an antiproton beam, and digesting the pieces! This machine came from outside the galaxy, a relic of a devastating war fought long ago and far away. It will carve a path of destroyed solar systems through the most populous part of the Milky Way unless Kirk and his crew can stop it.
- 06
The Enterprise has used the "light speed breakaway" technique to travel to Earth in the year 1968, to study how humans survived the desperate problems of that era. Then, they intercept a man beaming back to Earth from at least a thousand light years away, a technical feat beyond even Federation science! Who is Gary Seven, how did he get access to such advanced technology, and why has he come to Earth? He has a story, but Kirk has trouble believing it. Worse, he has trouble knowing whether he should allow Seven to pursue his agenda, or try to stop him. One of those choices is certain to destroy the future... but which?
- 07
Captain Kirk acts strangely and ends up taking the ship into the Romulan neutral zone where they are surrounded by Romulans, the Romulan commander then takes a interest in Mr. Spock.
- 08
The Enterprise chances across a DY-100 class ship, launched from Earth "in the 1990s". It carries around seventy people, who have been hibernating since their launch. The ship's systems revive the leader, whom Kirk soon learns is Khan Noonien Singh, the leader of a group of genetically enhanced "supermen" who nearly took control of Earth during the Eugenics Wars. They have essentially fled to the future, and with their capabilities, Khan plans to revive his campaign to place "superior" men in positions of leadership.
- 09
Approaching the planet Deneva, the Enterprise encounters a private spacecraft whose pilot is flying desperately into the sun, the apparent act of a lunatic. Spock reveals disturbing news: a pattern of mass insanity that has spread across the galaxy in a nearly straight line, the current end of which is Deneva. The landing party discovers the horrifying truth - and one of them becomes its victim. Now the crew must devise a cure before Spock dies, or is driven hopelessly insane.
- 10
Spock is becoming increasing irrational, even threatening to break McCoy's neck! He can't or won't explain this behavior to Kirk, only asking to return to Vulcan. It's a request Kirk cannot grant, given the Enterprise's other business. Until McCoy tells him if Spock continues to deteriorate, he will die in days! Kirk makes the decision to take his friend back to his home world, where he learns that Spock's problem has to do with marriage...
- 11
Enterprise responds to odd readings, which lead the crew to a planet similar to Earth, except that it is much older, and a cataclysm stripped its atmosphere away a half million years ago; it has been dead ever since. But from somewhere on that world comes a voice. Something has evidently endured 500,000 years - the last survivors of the civilization that flourished here. And all they want are the bodies of a few humans...
- 12
Miners on the mineral rich world of Janus II have begun to die horribly, burned to a crisp by the effects of a powerful corrosive. The Federation depends on these mines to supply minerals to many other worlds, so it sends Kirk and the Enterprise to investigate. But a starship, as one miner acerbically comments, cannot enter the mining tunnels. Kirk and Spock will have to use their wits to solve this problem. And they'll have to do it quickly, since the same agency has sabotaged the antique pergium reactor that maintains life support.
- 13
Spock senses the crew of Intrepid, a starship crewed solely by Vulcans, die. Enterprise investigates, and discovers a zone of darkness which conceals the hazard: an immense yet single-celled organism which drains energy from anything it encounters, as it did the Intrepid and her crew. And unless they can discover how to destroy it, Enterprise will be next. Worse, there are signs the organism has accumulated sufficient energy to reproduce...
- 14
The Enterprise surveys the planet Excalbia. As its surface is the temperature of molten rock, no landing party is possible, so when the orbital survey concludes, Kirk orders the ship to leave. And then... Abraham Lincoln appears, and at the same time a region forms on the planet suitable for human life. Kirk and Spock beam down and discover Yarnek. It seems the Excalbians are struggling to understand the concepts of good and evil; the help themselves they have constructed an experiment: four examplars of good, including Kirk and Spock, will battle four exemplars of evil, notorious figures from history. And if good loses, the Enterprise will be destroyed...
- 15
Kirk and Spock transport to the planet Organia, a pastoral realm of very low technology, which has the misfortune of being strategically important to the Klingons, who plan to use Organia as a forward base when they war on the Federation. Despite Kirk's best efforts, he cannot seem to impress upon the Organians that they are in dire peril and should ally with the Federation. Then the Klingons arrive, and being imposing martial law, and taking and executing hostages. Kirk works behind the scenes to interfere, but when the Organians betray him to the Klingons, he starts to wonder if they are worth protecting.
- 16
A space probe of immense power and sophisticated technology has apparently annihilated the entire Malurian civilization, and now threatens Enterprise. But when Kirk hails it, the attacks cease and it allows itself to come aboard. Soon enough, the reason for its forebearance is revealed: it mistakening believes Kirk is its creator, Jackson Roykirk. This probe is Nomad, launched from Earth long ago. But its technology is far beyond what was understood then; beyond even what the modern Federation is capable of. What happened to Nomad, and why does it destroy whole civilizations?
- 17
The dying Scalosians, invisible to humans, need the Enterprise crew to help repopulate their decimated planet.
- 18
The Enterprise tries to intercept a Romulan warship that is testing the Federation's defenses along the Neutral Zone separating the two.
- 19
A "black star" slingshots Enterprise back in time, to the 1960s, in Earth orbit. She appears almost directly above a military base, which draws all sorts of unwelcome attention. The base dispatches Major John Christopher to look. Enterprise attempts to keep him at bay with the tractor beam, but his aircraft is too fragile to withstand the beam and disintegrates, forcing Enterprise to beam Christopher aboard. Now they have disrupted history. Christopher himself is not historically significant, but his son is. He must be returned, but how?
- 20
Historian and sociologist John Gill has stopped responding to transmissions. He is embedded in the Ekosian population to study it. Investigating, Kirk and Spock discover that Ekos has developed nuclear weapons - an achievement well ahead of where they should be scientifically, based on past probes. And they have modeled their society on Nazi Germany, right down to oppression of their sister planet, Zeon. It seems apparent Gill has contaminated this society, but why? And why Nazi Germany?
- 21
Kirk is trapped on a disintegrating star ship and drifts between dimensions while the Tholian's create a energy web around the Enterprise to prevent them from escaping.
- 22
Mapping star systems, Enterprise encounters an odd cube. Apparently solid, it senses the ship, moves to block it - and when Enterprise attempts to disengage, pursues while emitting dangerous radiation. Kirk is forced to order its destruction. He probes farther, to find the builders of the device. And he does, when the Fesarius appears. The immense flag ship of the First Federation and her captain, the enigmatic Balok, regard the destruction of the cube as an aggressive act, and determine that the crew will be imprisoned and the ship destroyed.
- 23
Spock diverts the Enterprise to Starbase 11, where Kirk discovers that Spock's former commander, Christopher Pike, has been seriously injured and disabled by exposure to delta rays, experienced while saving a class of cadets. Pike is now confined to an elaborate life support apparatus. Spock abducts Pike and locks the Enterprise on a course for Talos IV, the only planet subject to General Order 7: visiting the world is a capital crime. Spock refuses to explain his actions, but demands a court martial, during which he presents evidence of an earlier visit. War, thousands of centuries ago, devastated the planet, and it was only now becoming able to support life again. Its inhabitants, forced underground, had developed enormous mental powers, including the ability to place illusions within the minds of others. Their plan was to breed a race of slaves to help them reclaim their world, as they were fragile and their civilization degenerate: illusions had proved a kind of narcotic. To this end, they kidnapped Captain Pike years ago...
- 24
Enterprise encounters an ion storm, which requires an observer in the ion pod. Top of the duty roster is Commander Ben Finney, who is tragically lost when Kirk must eject the pod as part of the Red Alert protocol. At the starbase, Commodore Stone discovers that the computer records tell a different story: that Kirk ejected the ion pod during Yellow Alert, and that if he had waited properly, Finney might still be alive. He offers Kirk a chance to resign his commission "for the good of the service", but Kirk refuses - and so draws a general court martial. His advocate? The quirky Samuel Cogley, who eschews his computer in favor of books.
- 25
Kirk and the Enterprise have been sent to establish diplomatic relations with the planet Eminiar VII, a planet that decidedly does not wish such relations! But Ambassador Fox insists they make the attempt. Planetside, they learn Eminiar has been fighting a war with Vendikar, another planet in the same system, for five hundred years - a war fought entirely by computers, with casualties required to report to disintegration machines for tidy disposal. And the Enterprise has been declared a casualty of a "tricobalt satellite explosion"; her crew must likewise report for disintegration so their deaths may be recorded and reported to Vendikar.
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The closest matches on shared genres, ranked by match strength and popularity.
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