It can be from any series, and if you want to pick a favorite from each show go ahead.
Picture very much related.
In the pale moonlight.
It humanizes Starfleet like no other episode.
"I can live with it. "
Good choice!
It’s not necessarily my favorite episode but it pops up always when I think of ST
It’s voyagers episode where they observe the planet which is in its own time pocket, so the whole evolution of the society happens in days from voys perspective
That’s a good one, and I can’t wait to see it again since I’m going through the shows with my wife (her first viewing of any of them)
The doctor beaming down for “just a minute” and being there for some ridiculous amount of time, I can’t remember exactly how long.
Great episode.
When I think of TNG, the first episode I think of is Yesterday’s Enterprise.
Imagine having Guinan look at you and say “your entire existence is just… wrong”
The first time I saw it, I came in a couple of minutes late, so I missed everything changing into an alternate timeline. I saw Tasha and thought, “is this a repeat?” And I thought, “no, the uniform is wrong.” I still think it would work better that way. Start it with the Enterprise C coming through the rift and the timeline already changed.
That would have been great! Just dump us in the action, let us figure it out with the crew.
Voyager did that for an episode, starts off feeling like normal but slightly off feeling, then it all starts unraveling.
It’s funny so many people picked Voyager episodes as their favorites. I remember when Voyager was supposedly “the bad Star Trek.” I always liked it.
The issue with Voyager was that you could pretty much give any characters lines at the end of the show to any other character and it would still work. There was no real character arc, none of them grew. They were still basically the same people from the first episode.
Don’t get me wrong, they did have some phenomenal characters (The Doctor), but overall, it was just… meh.
But hey, if you like it, you like it. It got seven seasons, so plenty of folks did.
To people who think the Orville is better : it doesn’t have nearly the amount of memes or dedicated subs. Checkmate.
wakes up after an entire life time
“Lemme go again, I think I missed a secret area.”
It’s a really good episode in terms of a basic story and really good acting, but if you think about it, its both a really bad way of memorializing a civilization and a horrible thing to do to a person. They could have put the entire library of their civilization into that probe, but instead they decided to make a device to make a person live an imaginary life and then have to live with the loss of a family that he never actually met in the real world and it all felt far more real than anything the holodeck could do.
I always feel so sorry for Picard after this episode. He literally gets convinced that his life is not real, to the point that he buys the fantasy, embraces and loves the fantasy. Then when he sees some fulfillment it gets taken away and he gets told that it was not real. He may have never wanted a family in his real life, but he got one he loved them so much…
It was a great episode but boy it cut really deep when you started thinking about it.
But on top of that, he gets to experience the loss of his entire family along with every single other person on his planet. But he’s never actually met any of them and never will.
Hard to pick just one but probably TNG 4x19 “The Nth Degree”. Love a good Barclay episode.
I love when Sci fi shows do the “person gets super duper smart” episodes.
Star trek and Stargate are my two favorites with this trope.
I think my all time favourite line from Stargate is when Carter explains the Uncertainty Principle to an advanced alien who replies “oh yes, one of the misconceptions of simple physics”.
This seems like a cliché answer, but my favorite overall is The Measure of a Man. Granted, there is a lot I haven’t seen (only pieces of DS9 and Voy, and none of the new stuff other than Lower Decks).
I just really like how it raises one specific issue without trying to skirt around it while dealing with it directly.
That episode has aged like the finest of wines, it’s only gotten more prescient.
The Measure of a Man
DATA IS NOT PROPERTY
He is a fully living sentient being. Full stop.
Glad we got that settled!
ಠ_ಠ
This was definitely my favorite episode from TNG.
I don’t have a favorite from DS9. It’s a toss up between the one where Jake is an old writer trying to find his dad, and the few episodes where Sisko is in the 40’s with the rest of the crew working as writers. I guess DS9 really liked writing themed episodes.
Writers write what they know.
DS9 Q-Less. Sisko punches Q.
YOU HIT ME! Picard never hit me!
And he never came back to bother him, either. All Picard had to do was punch him, apparently.
Voyager 5.17 “Course: oblivion”
Hell of an ending.
TOS, third season, episode 8: For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
I also love The Cloud Minders from the same season (episode 21), but that first one gets me every time, I have no idea why.
EDITED TO ADD: I also really like most of the SNW episodes, but haven’t seen them enough times to have a clear favorite. Possibly Ad Astra Per Aspera, or Charades, lol.