Top Five Star Trek Part 1: TOS

So the next three blogs are gonna be my top five episodes from Star Trek. this week is the Originial Series. I’m not gonna do DS9 or Enterprise. I don’t like DS9 and am just starting to get through enterprise so maybe I’ll do that when I get through it all. 
Original Series Star Trek was made of three series comprising of 79 episodes. It aired from  1966 – 1969 and followed the crew of the Enterpise.

• The Enemy Within – Season 1 Episode 5  {http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Enemy_Within_(episode)}  This has the best Alien creature in all of Sci-Fi. Its basically a dog in a furry suit with a unicorn horn! A transporter malfunction leads to Kirk being split in to two. All  of Kirk’s higher emotions such as love, caring, empathy etc have been put in to one Kirk whilst all the more base emotions are in the other creating an Id type character. Whilst the “good” Kirk continues to captain the ship, he struggles with decision making due to not having conviction or confidence. The episode also has a scene where “Evil” Kirk attempts to rape Ensign Janice Rand in what must have been a very shocking scene for the period in which it was filmed. Another great example of Trek pushing boundaries. To add tension to the episode, there is a landing party trapped on the surface of an ice planet and they can not beam them up until the transporter is fixed. This plot device helps to lend more pressure and suspense to the episode.  

• The City of the Edge of Forever – Season 1 Episode 28 {http://en.memoryalpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever_(episode)}

     
This episode has a guest star in Joan Collins and I like it because it illustrates the impacts of time travel and how one small action can have huge results. The Enterprise is investigating a temporal distortion. McCoy, Kirk and Spock go through and find them selves in 1930’s New York. There’s a great moment where Kirk tries to explain Spock’s ears by telling people he was involved in a farming accident or something similarly stupid. They discover that Joan Collins’ character, Edith had originally been hit and killed by a car but when McCoy went back he saved her life. However this has had disastrous effects on the future, as Edith was involved in the peace movement and her actions led to the USA delaying their involvement in World War II which led to the Nazi’s winning the war by developing the atomic bomb. Kirk has fallen in love with Edith but knows that he must let her die in order to save the future. A great example of the importance of the Prime Directive. 

• Operation Annihilate – Season 1 Episode 29 {http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Operation_–_Annihilate!_(episode)}

 This episode sees Kirk and his ship investigate bizarre behaviour on the planet Deneva. Kirk’s brother is stationed on the planet and when they arrive they find the residents behaving violently, attempting to attack them. Kirk’s brother is dead and is sister in law and nephew are gravely ill. They transport them back to the ship where Kirk’s sister in law dies after telling them that something was controlling their actions. Kirk and Spock beam down with a landing party where they discovered fried egg looking creatures, one of which attaches it’s self to Spock. Spock is able to tell them that the creature is attempting to control him. He is able to control it using his Vulcan control techniques allowing them to learn valuable information about the creature and it’s habits. They attempt to free Spock from the creature and cure Kirk’s Nephew but their experiments lead to Spock being blinded temporarily. Its the first time we see a more family orientated side to Kirk.

• Amok Time – Season 2 Episode 1 {http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Amok_Time_(episode)} 

Here Spock falls prey to the Pon Farr, a Vulcan mating ritual where by Vulcan males must mate or die. Spock meets with T-Pring, a female he has been betrothed to since they were 7. However it is clear that T-Pring has a Vulcan on the side so she invokes “koon-ut-kal-if-fee”. This is a physical challenge between the two males. However, instead of choosing her mate as the challenger for Spock, she chooses Kirk. McCoy and Spock argue against it but Kirk insists. The fight ends with Spock killing Kirk and rejecting T-Pring. She had used her logic to calculate that which ever of the challengers had won, they would have rejected her, thereby leaving her free to be with her chosen mate. Spock returns to the Enterprise to face trial for Kirk’s murder to find that McCoy had played the age old trick of “injection that simulates death” and Kirk is fine. Here we see Spock display genuine happiness at the discovery that his friend is alive. He later denies any such display, much to the annoyance of McCoy.

• The Trouble with Tribbles – Season 2 Episode 13 {http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Trouble_with_Tribbles_(episode)} 

Not the greatest episode out there but you can’t not mention the Tribbles! They made over a thousand of them for the episode which involves tension between the Klingons and the Enterprise. The Enterprise is begrudgingly guarding grain stores when a Tribbles is brought on board, the crew begin to love these furry creatures that eat and reproduce at an alarming rate.  The Tribbles are scared of Klingons and will screech whenever they are near them. Soon they begin to eat through essential ship systems and stores including the grain that Enterprise is guarding. They are just super cute little balls of fluff and this is a lovely light hearted episode.