Star Trek Franchise Retrospective

After seven and a half years of halting progression, I have recently finished watching every existing piece of Star Trek media produced for television and film: 743 live-action episodes, 32 animated episodes, 13 movies, and 10 shorts, totaling roughly 603 hours of content. I am recording my findings here for posterity.

 

 

Star Trek (1966–1969)

 

Best characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy

 

Best seasons: 1–2

 

Best episodes: 01x04 “The Naked Time,” 01x24 “This Side of Paradise,” 01x28 “The City on the Edge of Forever,” 02x01 “Amok Time,” 02x15 “The Trouble with Tribbles”

 

Most embarrassing episode: 03x24 “Turnabout Intruder,” aka The One Where Kirk Becomes a Woman

 

 

Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973–1974)

 

Best seasons: Season 2 is only six episodes long so whatever

 

Best episodes: 01x02 “Yesteryear,” 01x05 “More Tribbles, More Troubles,” 01x08 “The Magicks of Megas-tu,” 01x14 “The Slaver Weapon,” 02x05 “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth”

 

Most embarrassing episode: With that animation budget they’re all equally embarrassing

 

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994)

 

Best characters: Picard, Data

 

Best seasons: 3–6

 

Best episodes: 03x16 “The Offspring,” 05x02 “Darmok,” 05x18 “Cause and Effect,” 05x25 “The Inner Light,” 06x15 “Tapestry”

 

Most embarrassing episode: 01x04 “Code of Honor,” aka The Gang Goes to Space Africa

 

 

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999)

 

Best characters: Odo, Garak, Gul Dukat

 

Best seasons: 3–6

 

Best episodes: 03x14 “Heart of Stone,” 04x03 “The Visitor,” 05x06 “Trials and Tribble-ations,” 05x12 “The Begotten,” 05x22 “Children of Time”

 

Most embarrassing episode: 06x23 “Profit and Lace,” aka Quark Gets a Sex Change

 

 

Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001)

 

Best characters: The Doctor, Seven of Nine

 

Best seasons: 4–6

 

Best episodes: 03x08–09 “Future’s End,” 03x26–04x01 “Scorpion,” 04x08–09 “Year of Hell,” 04x18–19 “The Killing Game,” 04x23 “Living Witness”

 

Most embarrassing episode: 04x17 “Retrospect,” aka The Rape Allegory Episode

 

 

Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005)

 

Best characters: Archer, Dr. Phlox, Shran

 

Best seasons: 4

 

Best episodes: 01x07 “The Andorian Incident,” 03x08 “Twilight,” 04x07–09 “The Forge”/“Awakening”/“Kir’Shara,” 04x12–14 “Babel One”/“United”/“The Aenar,” 04x18–19 “In a Mirror, Darkly”

 

Most embarrassing episode: 04x22 “These Are the Voyages...,” aka Overweight TNG Cast Members Steal Another Show’s Finale

 

 

Star Trek: Discovery (2017–)

 

Best characters: Christopher Pike

 

Best seasons: They’re both bad

 

Best episodes: 01x07 “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” 02x02 “New Eden,” 02x08 “If Memory Serves,” 02x12 “Through the Valley of Shadows”

 

Most embarrassing episode: All the other ones

 

 

Star Trek: Picard (2020–)

 

Best characters: None

 

Best seasons: None

 

Best episode: 01x07 “Nepenthe”

 

Most embarrassing episode: The whole show

 

 

Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020–)

 

Best characters: None

 

Best seasons: None

 

Best episodes: None

 

Most embarrassing episode: “Pickle Rick”

 

 

Best to Worst Shows:

1. The Next Generation

2. The Original Series

3. Deep Space Nine

4. Enterprise

5. The Animated Series

6. Voyager

7. Lower Decks

8. Discovery

9. Picard

 

 

Best to Worst Movies:

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

2. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

3. Star Trek: The Motion Picture

4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

5. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

6. Star Trek: First Contact

7. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

8. Star Trek Beyond

9. Star Trek Into Darkness

10. Star Trek: Generations

11. Star Trek: Insurrection

12. Star Trek

13. Star Trek: Nemesis

 

 

Best to Worst Captains:

1. Picard

2. Kirk (1966)

3. Archer

4. Sisko

5. Pike

6. Janeway

7. Kirk (2009)

8. Lorca

9. Freeman

10. Rios

 

 

Historical and Mythological Figures from Earth Revealed to Secretly Be Space Aliens or Otherwise Supernatural:

 

The Greek god Apollo

Jack the Ripper

Methuselah

King Solomon

Alexander the Great

Lazarus

Merlin

Leonardo da Vinci

Johannes Brahms

The witches from the Salem Witch Trials

Satan

Mesoamerican feathered-serpent deity Kukulkan

 

 

Episodes I Remember Watching as a Child

 

TOS:

01x05 The Man Trap

01x06 The Naked Time

02x12 I, Mudd

02x13 The Trouble with Tribbles

03x15 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

 

TAS:

1x02 Yesteryear

1x08 The Magicks of Megas-tu

 

TNG:

01x01 Encounter at Farpoint

01x24 We’ll Always Have Paris

02x04 The Outrageous Okona

02x06 The Schizoid Man

03x13 Déjà Q

03x14 A Matter of Perspective

03x15 Yesterday’s Enterprise

05x02 Darmok

05x06 The Game

05x07 Unification, Part I

05x08 Unification, Part II

05x18 Cause and Effect

05x26 Time’s Arrow, Part I

06x01 Time’s Arrow, Part II

06x04 Relics

06x11 Chain of Command, Part II

06x15 Tapestry

07x01 Descent, Part II

07x11 Parallels

07x13 Homeward

07x25 All Good Things...

 

VOY: 03x17 Unity

 

 

Timeline:

 

Distant Past

VOY 02x18: “Death Wish”

TOS 02x23: “All Our Yesterdays”

 

1893

TNG 05x26: “Time’s Arrow”

 

1930

TOS 01x28: “The City on the Edge of Forever”

 

1947

DS9 04x08: “Little Green Men”

 

1957–58

ENT 02x02: “Carbon Creek”

 

1968

TOS 02x26: “Assignment: Earth”

 

1969

TOS 01x21: “Tomorrow Is Yesterday”

 

1986

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

 

1992–96

Eugenics Wars

 

1996

VOY 03x08: “Future’s End”

 

2004

ENT 03x11: “Carpenter Street”

 

2024

DS9 03x11: “Past Tense”

 

2026–53

World War III

 

2063

Star Trek: First Contact

 

2151–61

Star Trek: Enterprise

 

c. 2230

Short Treks: “The Girl Who Made the Stars”

 

2239

Short Treks: “The Brightest Star”

 

2254

Short Treks: “Q&A”

TOS Pilot: “The Cage”

 

2256–57

Star Trek: Discovery – Season 1

Short Treks: “Runaway”

Short Treks: “The Escape Artist”

 

2257–58

Star Trek: Discovery – Season 2

Short Treks: “The Trouble with Edward”

Short Treks: “Ask Not”

 

2265–69

Star Trek: The Original Series

 

2269–70

Star Trek: The Animated Series

 

2273

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

 

2285

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

 

2267–85

Short Treks: “Ephraim and Dot”

 

2286

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

 

2287

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

 

2293

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

 

2364–70

Star Trek: The Next Generation

 

2369–71

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Seasons 1–2

 

2293–2371

Star Trek: Generations

 

2371–73

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Seasons 3–4

 

2373

Star Trek: First Contact

 

2373–75

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Seasons 5–7

 

2375

Star Trek: Insurrection

 

2371–78

Star Trek: Voyager

 

2379

Star Trek: Nemesis

 

2380

Star Trek: Lower Decks

 

2385

Short Treks: “Children of Mars”

 

2387

Kelvin Timeline:

Star Trek (2233–58)

Star Trek Into Darkness (2259–60)

Star Trek Beyond (2263)

 

2399

Star Trek: Picard

 

3188

Star Trek: Discovery – Season 3

 

Far Future

Short Treks: “Calypso”

Till All Are One

EPISODE 51: NEMESIS, PART 1

Paul: BEAST WARS T-1: Meagtron find spacship

Paul: big boom

Paul: Waspinator rebels.

Paul: Um, Derpth Charge finally killed a crab, and also Dinobot 2 died while flashing back to the real one for some reason.

Me: They cut the shot of Rampage letting go of the sword and allowing Depth Charge to kill him when it aired on Fox Kids.

Me: Blew my mind when I saw it on DVD.

Paul: If shoving energon straight into his open spark was enough to kill the "immortal" Rampage then MAYBE they should have thought to do that back on Cybertron. They have enough energon.

Me: Hahaha

Paul: Yeah I guess he wanted to die?

Paul: Hmm neato.

Paul: Nah but I read you, though.

Me: Only RAW energon!

Paul: RAW energon that is naturally in the shape of a sword for no reason.

Me: So they could have a sword fight on the bottom of the ocean.

Me: I assume that was a last-minute resolution they threw in because they thought they were getting a fourth season.

Me: Which is why they set up Tarantulas’s “secret origins” and then he immediately died.

Paul: They should've both been eaten by the Firaxa.

Me: THERE'S ALWAYS A BIGGER FISH

Paul: https://youtu.be/TQi8oP2v2V4?t=1220

Me: Re: Dinobot, you may remember in the episode before the original Dinobot died he hooked himself up to the Maximal ship’s computer in a scene that was never explained. This was meant to lead into a season 3 episode where it turned out that he had made a backup of his hard drive and Rattrap went on an adventure to install it in the clone. The original Dinobot’s personality would emerge momentarily but Rampage’s spark was too strong and the clone personality quickly reasserted itself, leaving Rattrap despondent.

Me: I think they had the whole script ready but Hasbro canceled the episode because it was too dark.

Paul: "Dark Glass" was an unproduced episode planned for Beast Wars' third season, written by Christy Marx. It was replaced by "Go With the Flow". Rattrap salvages a computer bank from the Axalon and in it's circuits he and Rhinox find the core consciousness of the old Dinobot (which as you will recall Dinobot downloaded in a previous episode). Rattrap gets obsessed with the idea that he can restore the old Dinobot by getting it into the new Dinobot's systems. Rhinox tells him this will probably not work, as a core consciousness without a spark is only an illusion of the person to whom it belonged. And if it didn't work, it just might give the Dinobot II all the old Dinobot's memory schematics and habits on the Maximals which could give the Preds and advantage. Optimus thus forbids the attempt. Rattrap defies this order, sneaks out and at much risk to himself, does manage to get the core consciousness in place. For a moment the old Dinobot does seem to emerge but as Rhinox warned he is only a shadow of his former self and must do everything he can to keep Dinobot II from regaining control of his body, a weird mental struggle which would have been fun to animate. The old Dinobot knows he is doomed to lose this struggle and tries to "sacrifice" himself again by infiltrating the Predacons and taking out Megatron before he can complete his master plan to destroy the Autobots that were in stasis in the Ark. It doesn't work and Dinobot II regains control of his body only to be blasted by Megatron. Rattrap comes to accept that his old pal is truly dead and realizes he cannot bring him back. However he honors his friends memory. (original post)

Paul: Yes!!!

Paul: That would have been cool!

Me: Clearly the episode with cave people building a super weapon was better.

Me: Be careful though you’re treading toward spoilers for the finale!!!

Me: The secret of Waspinator’s fate must be preserved.

Paul: Damn would that have made Dinobot II a much more fucking interesting character.

EPISODE 52: NEMESIS, PART 2

Paul: Anyways, last ep.

Paul: So wait the fourth season was canceled at the last moment?

Paul: Oh also this scripture stuff is bizarre!

Me: I haven’t read up on it in a while but I’m pretty sure that the first two seasons they didn’t know if they were renewed or not, so they intentionally ended on big cliffhangers, whereas in season 3 they were supposed to be renewed so Tarantulas’s secret origins and Tigerhawk were introduced real late, as well as Megatron’s dragon form, because they were supposed to feature more in season 4. There was also going to be a new character from the toy line brought into the show called Optimus Minor.

Me: The Nemesis story was going to be the season 3 finale and they were supposed to find three G1 Decepticons on board, Dirge, Ramjet, and Thrust, who would reactivate and fight the Maximals or something.

Me: Don’t know how much they had planned out but at the last minute Hasbro told them they were canceling the show and the toy line and firing the creative staff so they could make Beast Machines instead so they had to wrap everything up at the last minute.

Me: They did a pretty good job, besides stuff like Tarantulas being dropped and new forms being introduced at the last minute you wouldn’t be able to tell.

Me: Transformers mythology is a fucking rabbit hole.

Paul: hahaha

Paul: Okay.

Paul: So that one shot from Empire Strikes Back happened.

Paul: And happy end.

Paul: Happy ending for Waspinator!

Paul: Nice show.

Paul: That was a little rushed there but o well.

Me: What was the shot from Empire?

Paul: https://youtu.be/ETFNSVNQqfE?t=17

Me: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wcnnxsAjdDk

Paul: Haha that's right, they forgot to put his soul back oops.

 

Mad Megatron Beyond Cybertron

EPISODE 49: MASTER BLASTER

Paul: EP 49: MASTER BLASTER

Paul: WRITTEN BY not d c fontana oh well.

Paul: Dude, she like JUST died.

Paul: December 2, 2019.

Paul: Alright so um

Paul: Megatron immediately winds and sexually harasses Black Arachnia.

Paul: Cool.

Paul: So Megatron wants to gay-kiss Megatron, gotcha.

Paul: Duude the shit around his spar is gnarly AF.

Paul: Like, six layers of armor, an artichoke, and a tentacle.

Paul: Drop him in the lava, One Ring-style.

Paul: Quickstrike the murderous hillbilly from the Old West is growing on me as a character.

Paul: Wow this must have blown your mind as a kid.

Paul: I do like a little change, a little twist.

Paul: Then again p. sure he's not dead aha.

Paul: Megatron Rex's dumb, anyways, cuz original Optimus looks a lot fucking better than original Megatron.

Paul: Just better design.

Paul: He's gonna look like shit.

Paul: hahahaha a DRAGON??

Paul: That

Paul: makes no sense.

Paul: Also ice powers lol.

Paul: Hahaha awesome.

Paul: God fucking dammit, WHO are the builders aliens and WHEN do we see them?

Me: Next episoddddddddd.

Paul: Good!

Paul: Time for the big finale!

Me: We know from Skyrim that dragons can breathe either fire or ice.

Paul: Or just shout loud.

EPISODE 50: OTHER VICTORIES

Paul: hhahaa they're baaack!

Paul: Thank god Samurai and Smaller Gay Samurai are back in the picture.

Paul: And everybody was nice to them at the end, and they got a WELCOME HOME from Optimus!

Paul: Wow this is a lot better than that time corporate had them make a zombie Dinobot.

Paul: Also, things are coming to a close.

Paul: Cool.

Me: Now that all the characters have been introduced and achieved their final forms you can finally make your definitive ranking.

A Fantastic and Spectacular Voyage… Through the Predacon Body… Into the Core Consciousness.

EPISODE 48: CROSSING THE RUBICON

Paul: Whhaaaaat ?????

Paul: Beast Wars...written by D C Fontana?

Paul: Black Arachnia desperately wants to change her body.

Paul: Is this the bulimia episode?

Paul: With all these men worrying about what’s going on inside a woman I’m getting serious Rosemary’s Baby vibes.

Paul: OMGGGGG

Paul: I’m getting TREMENDOUS Bones vines from Rhinox!!! The growling doctor talking about a risky medical procedure haha.

Paul: The only problem is... IT’S NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE.

Paul: omg omg omg this is a treat.

Paul: And then she goes out under the moon to reflect on fate.

Paul: Awesome. I love character drama.

Paul: Ooooo “you’re only a predacon because of Tarantulus.”

Paul: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQmzp-NA5PM

Paul: Haha Rattrap gets bullied by white knights.

Paul: It’s always such a hard question... who do I hate more, all men or all women?

Me: Most men or all women.

Paul: All men or most women.

Paul: Transmen or fallen women.

Paul: Unwed mothers or fuccboiz.

Me: #NotAllMen

Paul: #YesBlackArachnia

Paul: Dude this ep is chill.

Paul: I like having B A as the center of attention, it’s nice that she gets her own episode. Well I guess that’s happened before.

Paul: But it feels realer this time.

Me: She just had her own episode two episodes ago.

Paul: All the boys are worried and half are in love with her haha.

Paul: Though it doesn’t feel very Mary Sue somehow idk.

Paul: Ummm.

Paul: They’re sending a tiny blimp inside of her.

Me: Fantastic Voyage the evil right out of her.

Paul: Is this a sex ed video?

Paul: Never seen Fantastic Voyage.

Paul: Seems cool though.

Paul: Dude what is this episode.

Paul: Like, the Predacons actually attack for a real reason.

Paul: And we get the rubber ducky!!

Paul: But normally they just attack cuz.

Paul: Dude this ep rocks, she literally died.

Paul: And now the ALIEN ARTIFACT is glowing

Paul: with what I swear to god is a sound effect from TOS

Me: Maybe DC Fontana brought it with her.

Paul: She’s fucking cool though!

Paul: Oh dang now B A is COOL.

Paul: I want to see Silverbolt kill Tarantulus tho.

Me: Silverbolt is a beta.

Paul: BA: “Some crabs never know when to let go!” is this about the VD?

Paul: Haha

Paul: First half of ep was better than second half.

Me: It was an episode about women’s problems like body dysmorphia, venereal disease, and breast reduction.

Paul: Ah so it couldn’t help but be a little stupid got you.

Me: Only four episodes left!

Me: What will happen?

Paul: idk will I ever find out who these dumb aliens are what built this rock?

Paul: Are they the Talosians?

Paul: Was it the Talosians all along?