10 Most Unique Star Trek Episodes
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00:00Star Trek is at its best when it's pushing boundaries with its storytelling. That is not simply limited to the actual stories
00:06it's telling but also the means by which it delivers them. The original series was famous for its morality plays and the clever use of
00:13the relatively small budget it had to work with. The next generation fared slightly better in some respects
00:17but even when it tried to cost-cut it could actually deliver some of the most powerful moments in television.
00:22Trek could delve into murky, morally dubious places and could rise to the highest heights
00:27shaking the ceiling of every theater Broadway has to offer. With that being said,
00:31I'm Tom Roberts Finn and this is the 10 most unique Star Trek episodes.
00:36Number 10, The Menagerie. The Menagerie, also known as the episode where the crew get together to watch a movie, was significant in a number
00:43of ways in 1966. First, it was the first and only two-part episode in the original series' entire run.
00:49Second, it consisted heavily of footage that had been reused from the cage. Though Geoffrey Hunter did not return to reprise the role of
00:56Christopher Pike, Sean Kenny sat in his place. From there, a tale of loyalty and Vulcan stubbornness plays out over both parts.
01:02It would be easy to write this episode off as filler and to be fair
01:06there is a large amount of time dedicated to watching Pike's adventures on Talos 4.
01:09But the framing is what truly makes it stand out. The cage, though
01:13it hadn't been aired at that point, showed the audience a very different Spock along with a different atmosphere on the Enterprise itself. Though William
01:19Shatner's Kirk and Hunter's Pike never shared any scenes,
01:22it is fascinating to see the juxtaposition of the command styles. The Menagerie also offered us the iconic bleep-bloop chair as well as those beautiful
01:29original style dress uniforms. Number 9, Assignment Earth.
01:33Assignment Earth serves as the season finale for the original series' second year, while also trying to serve as a backdoor pilot for a new
01:40spin-off series that Gene Roddenberry was thinking of. Robert Lansing's Gary Seven may never again have appeared on our screens,
01:46but the episode is a fun romp all the same.
01:48That is to say, it was fun from this side of the viewing experience. Actor Teri Garr had such an unpleasant time,
01:55thanks primarily to Roddenberry's hyper-focus on the length of her skirt, that she swore off ever returning to Star Trek and generally doesn't enjoy
02:02discussing it at conventions. Though this has somewhat tainted the episode's legacy,
02:05the Guardian saw a return in Star Trek Picard's second season. Talon, an agent stationed on Earth, listened to Picard talk to her about Gary
02:12Seven's adventure, confirming that he was, in fact, part of our organisation.
02:16That may be the most that Trek will see of Seven, and of course the iconic Isis,
02:20but for the stand-alone show that effectively had very little to do with the Federation, Assignment Earth rises above its environment.
02:27Number 8, Cause and Effect.
02:29A confession. As a younger person, this presenter watched this episode and thought, wow, they managed to save time and money here,
02:35repeating the act four times.
02:36I never claimed I was smart. Cause and Effect is unique in the fact the first act and the final act are almost identical in
02:43structure. Throw in the middle acts as well. The Enterprise is stuck in the rift, the Bozeman emerges, they impact, chaos on the bridge.
02:50Despite the new Soyuz-class ship introduced here, itself a redress of the old Miranda-class, this episode truly is a bottle show. Yet,
02:57it worked perfectly, repeating the events just enough to invoke the sense of déjà vu in the viewer, allowing the audience to start to figure
03:04things out as the characters begin to understand things have gone wrong.
03:06There was almost a cheers reunion in this episode.
03:09Kelsey Grammer guest starred as Morgan Bateson, while just behind him stood a dark-haired officer.
03:14Perhaps this is something of an urban legend,
03:15but the theory is, is that it was originally supposed to be none other than Lieutenant Savick standing there. A role originated, of course, by
03:21Grammer's Cheers co-star, Kirstie Alley. Number 7, The Inner Light.
03:26Morgan Jindal must have smiled when this script made it to air. Here was a simple story about a probe, and a flute, and a
03:32bit of sunshine. What it became is one of the most impactful, emotional, and outstanding episodes of the next generation.
03:38Even if the Enterprise-D only features in a small portion of it.
03:40Picard's encounter of the Catan probe is one of those events that managed to stay with him long after the credits roll. In the 90s era
03:46of Star Trek, this was still quite a taboo thing to get away with. Even at the time,
03:50Picard's assimilation by the Borg was effectively dealt with in the best of both worlds and family,
03:55then it would take some time to rear its head again.
03:57This ended up being an experience that would cross over into the real world. As the tune that is played,
04:02featuring a guest performance by Daniel Stewart,
04:04Patrick's actual son, would go on to form the basis of the theme tune for Star Trek Picard. Number 6, Necessary Evil.
04:12Moving now to Deep Space Nine, this second season episode was the first noir crime drama told in both present and flashback,
04:18given to the audience via snippets of Constable Odo's logs.
04:21It gave us some of our first views of Terok Nor, the terrifying ore processing station that would go on to become the eponymous
04:28Federation outpost. Odo's time as head of security under Gold to Cat would be revisited again in such episodes as Things Past,
04:34but it is here that the hard-boiled nature of the changeling is truly on display.
04:38Coupled with this is his initial meeting with Keira Norris,
04:41leading to the reveal of a hidden crime all those years later,
04:44something that affects both of them deeply. While the next generation and the original series had flirted with darkness,
04:50this felt like a mission statement for the new show. René Aubergine Noir is fantastic as the Carver-esque
04:56detective, trying to solve a murder across two time frames.
04:59It is perhaps a shame that it wasn't a genre that we spent more time in while the show was airing,
05:04but that also only serves to highlight the strength of its outing. Number 5, Far Beyond the Stars.
05:10In a way, the inclusion of this episode is quite obvious. Here, we'll Star Trek using not simply allegory,
05:15but a full period drama to depict racial discrimination in America in the 50s. Though the original series
05:20debuted in the 60s, it bears remembering that it was born in times and situations like these. For example,
05:26not a visitor doubles as both Major Keira and K.C. Hunter here, the only female writer on staff at the magazine.
05:32Her name is given in initials only so that the readers won't discover that she is in fact a woman.
05:37There are certainly echoes here of DC Fontana,
05:39one of the main writers on the original series, as well as becoming the showrunner on the animated series.
05:44The bulk of the episode follows Avery Brooks as Benny Russell,
05:47the only black writer on staff, and the one who suffers the most from the racism of the day.
05:51Russell writes his story featuring a black captain, and not only is the magazine pulped for the run,
05:56but he is fired. The breakdown that Russell undergoes, played to perfection by Brooks,
06:00who was also on director duties, is harrowing. Star Trek had never shied from discussing issues of the day,
06:06and here was one of the most painful
06:08examples of real-world bigotry that had ever been shown, and Star Trek was never quite the same afterwards. Number 4, Coarse Oblivion.
06:15The premise for Coarse Oblivion is a little silly. A ship full of goo people think they're the originals,
06:20then things quickly begin to fall apart.
06:22Literally. Some of the makeup effects can edge into the ridiculous during this episode, and some of the effects haven't aged very well.
06:28That being said, the episode offers one of the most crushing endings of any Voyager offerings, before or after.
06:34The episode follows this crew of not-Voyagers as they go from celebrating the wedding of Paris and Torres to desperately trying to reach a
06:40demon-class planet to regenerate. As the episode goes on, the audience discovers that they haven't been following the usual characters at all.
06:47These are all copies, born from the silvery blood on the demon planet a year before.
06:51It's a shock to say the least, but things become even more grim as crew members start dying. A new propulsion system,
06:58much faster than the original, has been irradiating them to such a degree that they are beginning to lose cohesion.
07:03That's not even the worst part. When it becomes clear that the ship may not survive, all of the crew's logs are
07:08downloaded into a probe, so that at least some of them can be left for others to discover. And then the probe is destroyed.
07:14And then the ship is destroyed, leaving nothing but a cloud of globules floating in space.
07:18It is, perhaps, one of the cruelest twists in Star Trek history, making this episode a standout example of a writer needing to be asked,
07:26Who hurt you?
07:26Number three, Pathfinder. On the surface, Pathfinder shares some similarities with Coarse Oblivion, in that the Voyager crew seen for the most part
07:34aren't actually the regular characters, but merely copies. This time, holograms.
07:38However, Pathfinder stands out for its use of Lieutenant Barclay and Deanna Troi. In a way, this episode of Voyager serves as something of a side
07:45episode of The Next Generation, post First Contact. Though Reg had appeared on Voyager before, this was his first big focus episode.
07:52We see him dashing through the standing sets slash holographic
07:56recreations of the ship, while the others at Starfleet Command are rapidly losing patience with him. Though Troi attempts to
08:02placate him and aid him to escape work for a while, the episode truly serves as an obsession. By a character from the previous Star
08:08Trek iteration, attempting to meet his heroes. That ending, featuring some of the most affecting moments in Star Trek history, are both a true
08:15punch-to-the-air moment and a bursting-into-flood-of-tears moment as well.
08:18Janeway's last cry to Starfleet, asking them to keep a docking bay open for them, combined with Admiral Paris telling his son he loves him,
08:25breaks even the stoniest of hearts. For an episode that features the main cast for all five minutes,
08:30it's one of the most powerful standout episodes of the lot. Number two,
08:34Kobayashi.
08:35Star Trek Prodigy offered, in its fifth season, something of a glorious treat for long-term fans of the franchise.
08:41Kobayashi sees the return of Gates McFadden, Rene Aubergine Noir, Nichelle Nichols,
08:46James Duhan, and Leonard Nimoy to Star Trek, despite almost all of them having passed away by the time this episode was released.
08:52In fact, writer Aaron Waltke revealed in an episode of the Clone Star podcast that when the episode was originally pitched, both Rene and
08:59Nichelle were still in the position to record new dialogue.
09:01However, the nature of the Hollywood machine delayed it sufficiently, and this never came to be. So, in a way, the episode becomes
09:08something of a scrapbook for fans. Stock dialogue was used for Odo, Uhura, Scotty, and Spock's dialogue. While recording technology had evolved
09:15somewhat by the 90s, there was very little to be done to make the recordings from the 60s sound as though they were fresh out of
09:21Dull's quips. Hours and hours of research were done to source the words, and having the recordings exist in their original form is now a
09:27sweet coda to some of their performances. We dare anyone not to get dewy-eyed hearing those giants of Trek speak one more time.
09:35Number one,
09:36Subspace Rhapsody.
09:37Star Trek finally went and did a musical episode. Love it or hate it,
09:41Subspace Rhapsody was a bold move on the part of the franchise. Of course,
09:44there have been musical moments in Trek before this, with the odd song here and there, or musical
09:49performances in the Fourth Intersect in Geoffrey's Tube 25, but never before had a full-scale spectacular like this been attempted.
09:55It's an episode that works best when one gives oneself over to the sheer fun of events.
10:00Not every cast member will be taking home the Tony Award, while some of the dancing could do with a polish.
10:05But that actually adds to the awkwardness of the situation,
10:08something that shows only too well on the face of the beleaguered Captain Pike.
10:11Celia Rose Gooding is probably the strongest vocal performance in the episode,
10:15but for a cast who may not have been classically trained,
10:18they all give it their best, and the songs have been stuck in our heads for weeks now. After 57 years,
10:23Star Trek is taking chances and boldly going to places
10:26it has never travelled before. That, in our opinion, is why it manages to stay unique.
10:31And that was the 10 most unique Star Trek episodes.
10:33Make sure to like and share the video, and subscribe if you haven't already, and tap the
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10:42comments. You can find us on Twitter at Trek Culture, and on Instagram at Trek Culture YT.
10:46You can also find myself and Sean Farrick on the Trek Culture podcast, on various podcast apps.
10:51If you're interested in what I'm up to, which includes writing a self-published gothic fantasy novel series,
10:56then follow me on Twitter at Tom C. Finn, and on various other socials as well. Thanks for watching, and until next time, bye-bye.