MAKE IT POLL: ILX Star Trek nominations thread at last! VOTING ENDS 2016/09/09

haaaaaaapppppy 50th!

https://twitter.com/tomandlorenzo/status/773863593204936704

OK, started working on this today. I promise I'll have it done. With no TOS.

ok i will counter with all-TOS

oh crap this is due tomorrow?

someone name me 3 episodes of TOS to watch tonight before i hash out my ballot, assume i haven't seen any already except "Balance of Terror" and "City on the Edge of Forever"

(i have seen others but not in 10+ years)

Amok Time
Plato's Stepchildren
Mirror, Mirror

HEY! I'VE EXTENDED THE BALLOT SUBMISSION DEADLINE!! To indefinitely!

indefinitely?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cr2a72iUkAArxmL.jpg

poll will run until April 5, 2063

Dropping more Voyager eps in here than I thought I would.

Ciderpress - Doomsday Machine is awesome (and on my list) (which I haven't written yet)

all suggested are good, i will throw in squire of gothos

totally gonna make deadline btw!

Deadline? What deadline?

I might extend it out a few more weeks just to give myself time to hit the highlights of TOS seasons 2 and 3. (Shakey, should I just look at a certain ahem list that you send me for reference?)

Go on go on

well that's what *I* would say but other people have differing opinions. there are probably a handful of others that I think are either generally well-regarded or at least enjoyable via camp ridiculousness : The Immunity Syndrome, The Gamesters of Triskelion, Mudd's Women, I Mudd, etc. I also enjoy the Nazi/gangster/Roman planet ones altho I wouldn't say they are *great* exactly (they certainly established a trope that subsequent series returned to again and again)

(xp)

Tholian Web another one I forgot to mention

(they certainly established a trope that subsequent series returned to again and again)

fwiw not referring to the "planets with cultures remarkably like 20th Century Earth!" as much as "crew dropped into familiar historical scenario" (i.e. TNG does Robin Hood or Sherlock Holmes or whatever. I have no idea if Voyager or DS9 did this, I suspect Enterprise did but who has time to watch that garbage)

yeah def a genre. btw first tng holmes ep is pretty terrible imo but second one (ship in a bottle) is my second-favorite tng ep after darmok (and my favorite screen moriarty?)

https://scontent.fman2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14199436_10154609630783054_5907774098195355203_n.jpg?oh=45355ed25b606ee50e88cbde5063de47&oe=5885A110

ship in a bottle will be top 5 on my ballot for sure

love picard's closing remarks where he slyly breaks the fourth wall

yes! love also that it is a hardassed kirk solution disguised as a humanitarian picard one.

also that the technobabble is diagetic bullshit for a change

Ranking today, man these are almost impossible to rank.

Top 5 are pretty easy, but below that, it's like rating your kids, you love them all in different ways.

Was the deadline actually extended?

I will get my ballot in by the deadline! Helps that I live in the future (aka Seoul).

I just watched Yesterday's Enterprise, and it was *quite* as good as I remember, which is flummoxing.

What's deal re: deadline?

whoops, I mean it wasn't quite as good

I've been going through the TNG episodes I remember as being good + others recommended here - watched "The Game" last night, which was pretty good. Another deus ex machina ending that felt pretty abrupt, which is something I've noticed as a general problem with this series. There's a lot of slow buildup/scene setting and then oh hey problem solved by rerouting the dampeners phase blast coordinates through the temporal circuits or whatever and v little actual resolution/denouement. For ex., in The Game once Data shows up and frees everyone from the game, there's zero discussion of who the aliens behind this plot were or what their motives were or how the game actually worked it was just "hey problem solved! now let's have a scene where Wesley and Ashley Judd kiss THE END"

Still generally a fun episode. I am always down with a chase scene through the Jeffries' tubes.

similar thing happens with the Q episode where the Borg is introduced - crew spends 2/3rds of the episodes freaking out about the Borg when it all boils down to just Picard apologizing to Q in order to get him to snap his fingers and wave everything away in the last 5 minutes. Just a kind of weird pacing.

(speaking of Squire of Gothos upthread - lol that Trelane was retconned into being a member of the Q Continuum)

I can see and acknowledge that as a weakness. And then that's where DS9 started to shine when it had long strings of serialization, you really got that depth in the story.

Back to my list, I'm struggling at the bottom where I want to include my favorite Bev and O'Brien focused episodes. Like maybe they aren't in my top 20 of all time, but I want to give them proper representation.

still can't believe they made Sisko into what was basically space jesus but it worked out

Deadline has been extended!!

Submitted. I did good work.

How many ballots have been received? Let's make a deadline. Some future stardate.

watched Darmok last night. V good ep, I appreciated it's economy and it's sort of classic "what if?" conceptual SF story construction. I don't think the language-composed-entirely-of-analogies thing actually makes much sense (seeing as how the analogies were all still composed of conventional grammatical tools - verbs, nouns, etc.) but whatever.

Damn ok I guess I'm going to have to sit through chaka khan when the walls fell. Already suffered picard playing the nose flute in the inner light.

in other Star Trek news

https://features.wearemel.com/in-spocks-shadow-71305e8e0d0#.jdbl3w4ny

How many ballots have been received? Let's make a deadline. Some future stardate.

Six so far. :(

OK, I'm setting a hard date: 9/30 11:59pm PST.

I don't think the language-composed-entirely-of-analogies thing actually makes much sense (seeing as how the analogies were all still composed of conventional grammatical tools - verbs, nouns, etc.) but whatever.

the grammatical sentences we hear are meant to be an artifact of the struggling universal translator, right? so there's some unheard ~stream of images~ -- shaka, the walls, a certain time -- expressed according to who knows what rules, which the translator is grasping as images/ideas if not as metaphors and rendering in something like english. it just doesn't know who shaka is.

i could be wrong tho cuz i'm always confused about how the translator works. i mean their lips are always recognizably saying the english words, it never makes any sense. plus i mean that is Quite A Feat for a piece of software to be always performing on the fly w zero data to start with. really everyone should sound like darmok for the first few days.

iirc darmok is one of the first episodes featuring the rad captain jacket picard starts wearing in s5, love that jacket.

i'm a bad egg and did not make the deadline. working on it tho.

I'll do it, promise!

Anyone got any more good TOS/DS9/Voyager (or even Enterprise!) recommendations? Especially anything from DS9 that doesn't spoil the ongoing story.

Star Trek 101's Essential Episodes is a good news pace to start. http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek_101#.22Ten_Essential_Episodes.22_feature

Some of the DS9 ones are part of the main arc though.

I suggest DS9's The Visitor and Far Beyond the Stars. Total one-offs, no arc.

DS9 Past Tense is a fun 2 parter that's not part of the main arc. Also all the 'let's torture O'Brien' episodes (Whispers, Visionary, Hard Time)

for VOY I particularly liked:
Distant Origin
Living Witness
The Thaw

I forget if Bride of Chaotica is fun or not. Second The Thaw though.