The other night, I caught "Operation -- Annihilate!" on H&I's nightly run through all the Star Trek shows. I enjoyed it from a lot of different perspectives. It introduces Kirk's brother and, more broadly, the idea that he has a family apart from the ship. It famously gives us Spock's "inner eyelid" that saves him from blindness. And it is the first episode to have an extended outdoor shot, not a stage set -- which was actually pretty jarring, given the different lighting, etc. There were also a lot of interesting one-liners that I could recognize as the source of later episodes and tie-in novels. In short, exploring this corner of the Star Trek canon was a nice way to unwind after a long day at work.
But looking at the episode from a more objective perspective, I found it harder to enjoy. Why introduce Kirk's brother and kill him off is Kirk is hardly going to react at all? Why try to set up a moral dilemma where Kirk may have to kill "millions" to stop the spread of the virus when -- probably due to budget constraints -- the entire settlement was portrayed as being mostly empty? Doesn't Spock's internal eyelid feel a little cheap as a solution? And doesn't it break his character that he wouldn't think of or mention that possibility until it actually happens? What motivation could he have other than to rib McCoy? And aside from quibbles with the logic of the plot, the pacing dragged -- as often happens in TOS episodes. You can really see them struggling to fill the whole runtime.
In short, there's probably not much enduring value in "Operation -- Annihilate!" for someone not already invested in the idea of Star Trek. Only the fact that it is part of that bigger project makes it worthwhile to dig this baggy and kind of phoned-in sci fi story out of the archives. What it lacks in itself, the rich web of associations created by the franchise makes up for. And I would venture to say that "Operation -- Annihilate!" is close to the median TOS episode. If you were to pick episodes at random, that's the level of quality you're mostly getting.
This leads me to the title question: How many episodes of TOS would you feel comfortable recommending to someone who doesn't care about Star Trek and never will? I'm not asking for good introductory episodes for beginners here. I'm asking for episodes that hold up as standalone works of fiction -- episodes where the plot, characters, concepts, and moral dilemmas are still thought-provoking and enjoyable. Which episodes would be worth digging through the archive for if the Star Trek franchise had petered out in the early 70s, never to be heard from again?
Please show your work -- don't just give a title. What makes your chosen episode an enduring work that transcends "Star Trek"?
City on the Edge of Forever is definitely one of the best TOS episodes, but also one of the best episodes of television from that era, IMO. It does not rely heavily on canonical knowledge of the source material. Everything introduced in this episode can be contained within it.
More importantly this episode is a love story and a tragedy. The story urges us to reflect on the loss we have experienced in our relative pasts and understand how sometimes, even when we are not aware, a death can have lasting meaning both for the world and for us as individuals. The story also gives us a chance to take a familiar setting, like the great depression era USA, which for the time in which this episode aired was only 37 years prior. So, when my dad, as a child, watched this episode he was also able to connect with his parents who were themselves children during this time.
One thing I think newer fans (like myself, who was not alive for TOS) tend to overlook is what was going on in the minds of audiences during the production and airing of these episodes. Episodes like City on the Edge of Forever are like watching a fictionalized snapshot of this time. Likewise, Kirk, Spock and McCoy, are all living in a snapshot of a distant past relative to them.
Also, performance from DeForrest Kelley in this episode is so good.
That scene where the three of them finally connect after a few near-misses, are overcome with joy and then immediately that joy turns to tragedy. It happens so fast but you can feel the energy.
That’s also true for the setting that the Iotians were imitating in “A Piece of the Action”, which was also an excellent episode and 1 of the funniest TOS episodes. However, I’m guessing that there were fewer parents who witnessed that sort of mafia violence.
Haha at this point I don't think one to be a "newer" fan to be predated by TOS.
Hah that’s fair. I don’t know why I consider fans of 90s franchises as “new.” I’m just trying to stay young.
I do think though that like sometimes we take when something was contemporary for granted.
I still think of TNG and everything that came after it as newer Star Trek. I grew up during the age when there was only one Star Trek, and it was really something that we were starting to get actual theatrical movies for it! And I still remember my initial dubiousness at the prospect of a new generation that didn’t have anything to do with Kirk and Spock, and had an old bald captain!
I remember feeling this way too, and I was born in 1984.
I recall my dad telling me something like, "You know, they actually have a new Star Trek on TV now, but I haven't really gotten into it, I like the old characters."
5-6 year old me: "Yeah, Star Trek with NO SPOCK!?!?! I DON'T THINK SO!!!"
This was the first thing I thought of. City on the Edge of Forever is a precursor to so much entertainment across so many years.