If you're still doing top 5 questions: top 5 episodes of Star Trek, any iteration, and why!! 🚀🌠
Eeee, great question! I’ll do my top TOS episodes.
1. Journey to Babel - my absolute fave. I love it because it introduces Sarek and Amanda, and gives us a glimpse into Spock’s family life; it’s a fascinating (if frequently upsetting) dynamic and character backstory. Also, Kirk and McCoy are total badasses in this episode and prove exactly why they’re fantastic at their jobs. Even though he’s injured and in total pain, Kirk powers through so that Spock can go into surgery, and McCoy performs a complicated surgery and blood transfusion on patients with unfamiliar Vulcan anatomy WHILE THE SHIP WAS UNDER ATTACK. The triumvirate at their best.
Also, McCoy’s delighted evil smile when he hears about Spock’s pet sehlat gives me life.
2. Devil in the Dark - THE HORTA. I love how this shows us a lifeform that’s truly alien, and possesses a different kind of intelligence. I also appreciate that the solution was to actually LISTEN to the Horta and work with it. Confronting the unknown with curiosity rather than hostility, finding a peaceful cooperative solution, respect for different kinds of life – Star Trek values at their best.
Also, Spock’s adamant refusal to kill the Horta… which completely goes out the window when it looks like it’s threatening Kirk. He’s so in love.
3. Amok Time - come on now.
4. This Side of Paradise - I like the conflict between duty and happiness, and how Kirk powers through that through sheer will. Doing what needs to be done requires sacrifices, and I like the idea that paradise isn’t what we need, and that humans need struggle and ambition to truly live. Also, Spock finally being able to show happiness and give in to positive emotions is heartbreaking (”I can love you”). However, not a big fan of his random heterosexuality.
Also, McCoy is once again a goddamn delight in this episode. “Hiyah, Jimmy-boy!” and “Would you like to see how fast I can put you in a hospital?”
5. The Trouble With Tribbles – Fifteen-minute bar fights notwithstanding, this episode is just so much fun.
Honourable mentions: City on the Edge of Forever (so heartbreaking and a fascinating moral conundrum), The Enemy Within (the dog “alien”, “I’M CAPTAIN KIIIIIRRRRK”, the idea that Kirk’s decisiveness and leadership qualities are from his negative side), and A Taste of Armageddon (one of the first Star Trek episodes I ever saw, and it scared the shit out of me).