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”