Top 5: Original Star Trek Episodes

So, we all know Star Trek, right? No need to explain the concept or the characters? Frankly, if you're above the age of 10 and don't at least know the Star Trek basics, I'm not sure I'd want to know you. No offense, but, what do you do with your life?

As a kid, I watched Star Trek re-runs every day. I've probably seen every episode at least 20 times. They were on in the afternoons, so I'd watch after spending the first part of the day at school, then going home and playing outside (note to helicopter parents, your kids can play outside without you organizing some league or refereeing the proceedings, without them getting run over, abducted by child molesters, ruined psychologically because one kid got four turns when all the others got five, or impaling themselves on some misplaced garden tool). At the time, I, like most other kids, was totally enraptured with NASA's space exploits. I anticipated the not too distant future when I and my kids would routinely fly to the moon. Star Trek's whole "happens in space" aesthetic kept me watching. I'm not sure whether I understood the show's deeper, implicit messages. Maybe at some subconscious level. Like "oh, I guess we shouldn't wipe out spaghetti-looking, tunnel boring creatures just because they're different." But anyway, I was hooked early. I enjoyed the subsequent movies and spin-off series somewhat less, though I appreciated them. They didn't seem to explore that same place that the original series did. And the new Star Trek "reboot" movies, while flashy and entertaining, really seem to miss Star Trek's essential essence (which I will discuss below). Nonetheless, the original Star Trek still resonates years later.

And its not just comic book loving, man-child freaks who enjoy Star Trek either. One of my law school professors, Bill Powers, who now serves at President of the University of Texas, once said if you want to learn about jurisprudence, watch a lot of Star Trek episodes. They're all about right and wrong, good versus evil, following the letter versus the spirit of the law. He often cited Star Trek episodes to illustrate certain jurisprudential principles. All those little kids who grew up watching Star Trek became adults who continued to appreciate its basic messages. And watching Kirk stud it up all over the galaxy.

Gene Roddenberry conceived of Star Trek as "Wagon Train" in space. Each episode, the ship and crew would "seek out and explore new civilizations" different from ours, but not so radically different as to seem totally unfamiliar to American audiences. Each civilization would generally differ from 1960s America in one critical way, such as being run by women instead of men, or rich people living in a cloud while poor people lived on the surface and slaved away to support the rich people (Star Trek had a cloud city more than a decade before The Empire Strike Back), or they'd live in perfect harmony brought about by spores or some controlling being, or they'd be white on one side and black on the other (but with those who were black on the right side fighting with those who were black on the left side), or they'd be genetically superior but warlike, or there'd be a bunch of subservient machines that had run amok. Each time, the "difference" illustrated and held up to examination some aspect of American society. The story essentially examined whether that particular aspect was just and reasonable. Some episodes were combat stories, but even then would deal with moral questions in war (as America, in the throes of the Vietnam and Cold Wars, was doing). For the most part, the series stayed true to this original concept. The Enterprise, like the wagon train, or Mick Jagger, traveled from town to town and met weird and exotic people along the way. And Kirk got some.

And as the Enterprise explored the galaxy, the crew took with it a little of each new civilization's ways. Despite the Prime Directive (of non-interference...can you say "Vietnam," anyone?), it left behind some good old-fashioned earth values. Kirk and the Gang, despite lip service to said Prime Directive, more often than not managed to right whatever crazy alien world social wrong they encountered. From freeing the oppressed to correcting inequalities to turning off the computers that were ruining their lives (even if they didn't know it), the Enterprise often functioned like an interstellar Endeavour, finding new worlds and using some basic American know-how to fix the galaxy's problems. Or to get the hell off the planet one step ahead of the cops or angry husbands and fathers. And meet hot green women.

I say American know-how, despite the fact that the crew resembled some sort of Rainbow Coalition welcome wagon. Whites, blacks, Asians, Indians, Russians, Scottish, Irish, Hispanics, women, men, Vulcans...anyone and everyone you can think of. A veritable census form sprung to life. All they were missing were the Village People. Mind you, this show happened when only men could serve on naval vessels or in combat, and few minorities served in the officer ranks. But everyone on the Enterprise seemed totally groovy man about the diversity. Every now and then Kirk would smugly school some racist or sexist alien leader about how the Federation is cool racially and socially, and hey, its not like I can interfere with your world or anything, but you're pretty barbaric unless you are too. Of course, unsaid is that the head guys were still white men, and a good percentage of the women and minorities held either bit parts or were Kirk dating material. The Red Shirts (i.e. "cannon fodder") were largely (a) male and (b) minorities. Remember that one guy who got turned into a ball of salt which the alien crushed (Sodom and Gomorrah allusion)? Black. Though one of the head guys was a pointy-eared freak, as McCoy frequently observed. McCoy served as the token closet racist sympathizer, I suppose (he spoke with a southern accent when drunk, thus predicting that 500 years from now everyone in the South will still be racists), though only against Vulcans. Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, famously grew so frustrated at her small part that she threatened to quit the show. But no less than Dr. Martin Luther King talked her out of it, convincing her that it was important for a black person to appear on network television in a regular role, no matter how small, playing an officer in an authority position. Lucky her, she got to participate in American television's first interracial kiss. Guess who with? This sounds tame today, but in 1966, on one of the major television networks, this was borderline subversive. Remember, this was still the era when Dean and Frank could fill a half hour show with little more than a few songs and racist jokes about Sammy and the Golddiggers prance around the stage.

Not to mention the imagination that Roddenberry and Co. brought to bear. Other than the warp drive, food replicators, and the transporter, a lot of Star Trek technological fantasies have happened in our lives. The medical scanner, the "communicator," the electronic tools, complex computers with vocal recognition (Siri, anyone?), handheld computers, books on computers, "shuttle craft," electronic games, phasers...all of these things which seemed fantastical in the 1960s exist today in some form.

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy pretty much were the show. Everyone else just added dimension. Even Scotty. You know how in "group" shows like MASH or Sex and the City or Friends, each group member represents a different archetype? Same with Star Trek. Spock acted entirely (actually, mostly) on logic, while McCoy, although a doctor and scientist, acted more impulsively and emotionally. Kirk was in the middle, part cowboy and part statesman. McCoy and Spock functioned like some sort of angel/devil on each shoulder, trying to bolster their respective sides of Kirk's character. As Captain, Kirk tried to remain steadfast, calm, and disciplined in every situation. But as explorer and soldier, Kirk could lash out, bluff, take unreasonable chances, and act irrationally. Repeated episodes showed Kirk trying to apply his emotions constructively, balancing them against reason. The three thereby played out a central human conundrum--whether to go with your heart or your head. Or in Kirk's case, figure out whether there's enough time to score with the hot alien chick and beam back up before the ship explodes.

People have written ad nauseum about Star Trek, so there's not much left to say. But I want to address a couple of things. First, the common perception that William Shatner just hammed it up and severely overacted as Kirk. That's just not true. People remember it that way largely owing to some admittedly hammy acting in later efforts such as T.J. Hooker or the Trek movies. Or his "albums," or whatever those were. Rocket Man? Thirty years later and that still makes no sense. But he actually played it pretty straight during Star Trek. Oh sure, he'd drop some real cheese every now and then. Like the time his "good" personality and his "bad" personality wind up in two different Kirks, and he loses his shit in the elevator (or was it a "turbo lift"?). But mostly, Shatner kept it under wraps. Which makes sense actually, because Kirk is supposed to exhibit steadfastness, control, and leadership. If he pranced around a la his $20,000 Pyramid antics, no one would have taken Kirk seriously. In fact, Roddenberry intended the Kirk character to portray a man battling to control his impulsiveness and recklessness. Roddenberry's original pitch, linked above, described the Captain (at the time named "Robert April") as "capable of action and decision which can verge on the heroic" yet "his primary weakness is a predilection to take action over administration" and to "continually fight the temptation to risk many to save one." Roddenberry described the Captain as "a colorfully complex personality," and Shatner actually captured that concept very well. So back off of Shatner already

I also want to mention the music. For TV theme music, its wonderfully compelling. You hear that music and you instantly think "Star Trek." You remember it years after the last time you watched the show. Its completely ingrained in the show. It forcefully advanced the plot, set the appropriate mood, and helped create that "futuristic space" atmosphere. So many shows after Star Trek have used its music in snippets (almost like "sampling"), particularly South Park. Alexander Courage wrote the famous opening music (over which Shatner voiced his "space, the final frontier...." rap). Courage had written music for hundreds of movies and TV shows, also arranged and orchestrated MGM musical scores. Others I've never heard of wrote the themes playing throughout the episodes. That music has become iconic. Amazon lists a box set of the original series soundtracks for $249.  Or you can get the 15CD set here. Or what I'm really trying to say is...I would really appreciate anyone who gave me this for my birthday.

So now we come to the list:

5. Amok Time. I almost didn't include this one, but it made nearly all the other "best Star Trek episode" lists, so I succumbed to peer pressure. (Oh, yeah, other people already had this idea, go figure). This is the one where Spock gets all spring fever-ish 'cause its once every seven years (BTW, if Vulcans mate only once every seven years...there must not be that many of them, and they probably don't have any professional basketball players) and has to go back to Vulcan to mate. Only he gets there and his arranged marriage bride T'Pring is running around on him and makes him fight Kirk to the death. Typical woman. The episode features some fantastic Kirk-Spock character development, and represents one of the very few times the ship visited Vulcan. Viewers learned a lot about Spock and his complicated childhood and emotional battle. Then Kirk and Spock had that awesome fight with the weird traditional Vulcan weapons (guess it wouldn't have been much of a fight if they gave them both phasers) and the brass-heavy, tension-filled music accompanying it. I nearly didn't include this episode because even though it features first rate acting and an interesting story, it didn't particularly advance any great truths or dramatize the human condition. Or Vulcan condition for that matter. What's the lesson here? Give a Vulcan a wide berth during the Pon Farr? Oh, I suppose there's some universal message about no matter how sophisticated we become, we're all really still animals. But whatevs.

4. Court Martial.  By contrast, this one never makes anyone's "best of" lists. But that's because they're ignoring the brilliance of one Samuel T. Cogley, Esq., Attorney at Law. Kirk gets railroaded on some bogus charge about killing one of his crew members, because, as it turns out, a computer log erroneously showed Kirk "jettisoning the pod" before warning some long-since left behind rival whom Kirk had assigned to the pod to get out. And the prosecutor? One of Kirk's old girlfriends. Guess what comes around goes around, huh big guy? That's the downside of getting with every woman this side of Jupiter. Spock discovers the computer error after beating the computer at chess. Natch. Cogley, played by gifted character actor Elisha Cook (who had roles in such greats as Rosemary's Baby, Shane, the Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep), was the old crank lawyer defending Kirk  against seemingly insurmountable evidence--the computer's assumed infallibility. Cogley passionately rails against the computer and pleads for the dignity of man against the machines' inhumanity. He rips off some great lines about how computers can never replace man, and how books contain all mankind's essential truths, not computers. That, and my next entry, really illustrate one of Star Trek's major themes-man against the dehumanizing machine. The Sixties witnessed the computers' initial rise,  as well as fantastically (for the time) complicated technology seemingly beyond most people's comprehension entering our lives. MICROWAVES YALL!!! They evoked the spectre of machines dominating, rather than serving, man. Much popular science fiction explored that theme, but this and other lesser episodes really dramatically made the point. Here, much like in Westerns where the hero rode out to face the villains singlehandedly, Cogley on Kirk's behalf took on the seemingly impossible task of cross-examining the one witness against Kirk--the computer. A witness that could not bear cross-examination. This story continues to resonate today, as so many lawsuits and criminal prosecution involve "technology" as the witness: DNA testing, surveillance data, computer and cell phone records, and the like. Computers and communication technology touch nearly every move we make. On the one hand it makes many tasks easier, but how much humanity do we sacrifice as computers take control of more and more of our lives? This episode memorably raises that question.

3. The Doomsday Machine. My other "machines gone wild" episode. Some civilization from eons ago built this huge "planet killer" device, which somehow kept on destroying planets long after its builders became extinct. The USS Constellation stumbled upon it, and the machine kicked the hell out of it. Then the Enterprise came to the rescue and a pretty gripping power struggle between the Constellation's higher ranking captain (played by the inestimable William Windom) and Kirk ensued. Eventually they defeat the machine by exploding the Constellation's burned out hull inside it. Again, the show casts the machines as inherently beyond human control and when so, capable of destroying everything they touch. The episode implicitly warns about rapid technology growth, spiraling beyond man's ability to control it. Today we still struggle with how to apply certain technology ethically, and to control its effects. We question how (and whether) to use genetically modified crops, nuclear power plants, gasoline, abortion, to prolong life medically, to alter chromosomes, to use human stem cells. Or maybe the whole episode was a pollution metaphor. We may know how to do things, but not how to control or harness all our technology safely.

2. Mirror, Mirror. This is where the landing crew beams back to the ship, only to find out they've entered some evil parallel universe where the Enterprise operates like some pirate ship. Not like a fun Capt. Jack Sparrow pirate ship, mind you, but a real, kill someone for looking at you wrong kind of ship. Everyone's in a bad mood, everyone carries around knives and periodically whacks their crewmates and takes their jobs. And Spock has a really fetch goatee. Yeah, I know, shades of Dr. Evil ("an evil petting zoo?"). So to survive long enough to figure out how to get back to their own universe, where everyone is nice and not a murdering cutthroat, they have to at least pretend to be tough enough to allay suspicions. Its sort of the Star Trek version of that Stir Crazy scene where Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder go to prison and try to act tough enough to keep the other prisoners from attacking them ("that's right, we bad"). This episode raises a couple of really interesting concepts. First, the whole "alternate universe." What if we lived in a world that was different in a particular way? How would we cope? Could we succeed if violence and not law, for example, kept society in order? What if civilization had evolved in a way that led us down that kind of  a different path? The other related issue is how would we adjust to such a different society if suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into it? And having spent our lives essentially trying to be "good" and to follow the law, how would we fare if required to act as savages? If suddenly plunked into a high tech Lord of the Flies island? The Enterprise landing party fared well enough, though by the time they figured out how to get back home the Alternate Enterprise crew was on to them. But even though civilized, they did hold the wolves at bay long enough to survive. Oh, and South Park famously lifted this premise for the Evil Cartman episode (Cartman has the same beard Spock wore in this episode), which spawned the insanely brilliant  "Best Friends" song.

1. The City on the Edge of Forever. "Edith Keeler." The greatest Star Trek episode, and pretty much universally regarded as such. In fact, one of the greatest television shows ever. McCoy gets whacked out on some drug meant for Sulu, beams himself down to the Planet of the Week, which oh by the way just happens to have a fully functioning time machine not in a hot tub. Kirk and Spock go after him, and no sooner do they arrive than they find out the Enterprise has vanished, and all of human history after the point where McCoy went back in time has been altered. They are utterly marooned, so they go through the time machine to find McCoy and to straighten out the time line. They find themselves in pre-World War II America. Of course, Kirk manages to find pre-Dynasty Joan Collins as a do-gooder running a soup kitchen, a la Sergeant Sarah Brown from Guys and Dolls, falls in love in about 20 minutes, then has to give that up when he finds out that if they let Edith Keeler live it somehow lets Hitler win World War II and enslave the Earth. Well, its a little more complicated but that's the gist of it. Written largely by the famous science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, the episode won a Hugo Award. Its spectacularly well written and acted. More so than any other episode, it fully confronts the moral dilemma--would you sacrifice one life to save millions? And it calls upon Kirk to do something utterly foreign to his nature, giving up not only the woman, but a woman with whom he, lone wolf Kirk, has fallen in love, to save the greater good of humanity? Its kind of the same choice that Bogart made in Casablanca, taking one for the team. Later, Star Trek II posed the same choice on a more overwrought scale, with the whole "needs of the many versus the few or the one" scene. The episode also evokes the Sixties peace movement. If she lived, Edith Keeler would have led a successful peace movement that delayed US entry into World War II, long enough for Hitler to develop nuclear weapons. Kirk said, "she was right, peace was the way." To which Spock replied "yes, she was right...but at the wrong time." This could well have described arguments for and against the Vietnam War, or any war for that matter. And, its the only time in the whole series that anyone said "hell" (or any other "bad word").

Honorable Mention: Balance of Terror. That's the one where they chase the Romulan cruiser back to the Neutral Zone, eventually destroying it, but not after gaining some respect for the Romulans' tenacity and its commander's integrity.

NEXT-Top 5 Diseases? Really? We'll have to see about that.