#and then after the movie we watched like half an episode of star trek (tos) and that was like a pallette cleanser. it had people who

[fifty-ten]

super mario bros (2023) isn't a good movie. sorry gamers

[thegeminisage]

STAR TREK MASTERPOST

hi my name is liz and i'm watching the entirety of star trek in release order, so this post was SIGH inevitable. i will edit with updates it as i make more

FANFIC

Gambler's Knife - AOS, Spirk, 22k. Twelve years after Tarsus IV and three months after dying to realign the warp core and save his ship, Jim Kirk seems to have a new lease on life: he's been resurrected, started pursuing a tentative new relationship with Spock, and has an entire five-year mission ahead of him. That is, until the attempted murder of an old friend forces him to divert the Enterprise away from her intended course and towards Planet Q. After a chance encounter on the planet's surface, new secrets about Jim's time on Tarsus IV come to light—secrets that threaten to destroy everyone he fought to protect, and the new life he's finally achieved. Some things you carry with you wherever you go.

SKIP/WATCH LIST

as i watch star trek, i am making an incredibly detailed spreadsheet which aims to guide new people into what to watch...or what not to watch. this list includes every single movie and tv series (including the animated ones), multiple watch orders (release order vs chronological order), runtimes, content warnings, and indicators on which characters feature in which episodes + indicators on which episodes are important for continuity. the only catch is i am updating it as i go, so it's a verrry slow work in progress. i've also still got a few blanks in the tos bit.

currently the only tumblr post with a link is this one, but i'll make a better post once i've finished going back and filling in the blanks on the tos section.

SPOCKANALIA DIGITIZATION

@maulthots and i are working on digitizing all 5 volumes of SPOCKANALIA - retyping text, cleaning up images, and adding alt text. they'll be added here as we complete them.

Volume 1

EPISODE REWRITES

sometimes star trek makes me crazy and i wanna fix it, but i don't have the time or patience to rewrite it in fic form so we get tumblr posts instead. they are in the order that i did them. right now there are only a few but i want to do like a thousand

[tos] the motion picture

[tos] the tholian web

[tng] violations

META

these are mostly small posts for now. someday i might make big ones.

marrying a vulcan is not unlike being a horsegirl

tos kirk vs aos kirk on retirement and the infinity of the universe

tos spock vs aos spock on love and death being real

tos spock vs aos spock on becoming close to one parent but remaining forever separated from the other

kirk and bones react differenly to spock showing emotion

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPACE BABES - kirk's encounters with women are often nonconsensual (collaboration with @maulthots)

funniest possible pre-mcspirk situation in aos

aos plot devices we could have had

small post about vulcans getting drunk on chocolate the first time

GRAPHICS

most of these are shitposts.

spock in shades for my header

"then perish" tas bones meme

spones graphic for wrath of khan/search for spock

CLIPS

i make clip shows sometimes.

bones being possessed in search for spock

tos scenes that remind me of tarsus iv

kirk insults spock for a minute and a half

kirk reacting to spock's emotions vs bones reacting to spock's emotions

STAR TREK TAGS

#tos -the original series

#tas - the animated series

#tmp - the motion picture

#wok - the wrath of khan

#sfs - the search for spock

#tvh - the voyage home

#tff - the final frontier

#tuc - the undiscovered country

#tng - the next generation

#ds9 - deep space nine

#aos - collective tag for the kelvin timeline movies

#st books - posts about the star trek novels

#st comics - posts about the star trek comics

#vintage trek - anything from before the turn of the century

#spockanalia - post about spockanalia, an early spock-centric fanzine

#spirk - kirk/spock

#spones - spock/bones

#mckirk - kirk/bones

#mcspirk - spock/kirk/bones

#st fav - fav star trek posts

LIVEBLOG TAGS

this includes the series AND the novelizations, if/when applicable - i am working my way through the tos movie novelizations and i want to read more. also, spockanalia <3

#tos lb - the original series liveblog (technically i didn't start liveblogging it until late into the series. rip)

#tas lb - the animated series liveblog

#tmp lb - the motion picture liveblog

#wok lb - wrath of khan liveblog

#sfs lb - search for spock liveblog

#tvh lb - the voyage home liveblog

#tff lb - the final frontier liveblog

#tuc lb - the undiscovered country liveblog

#tng lb - the next generation liveblog

#ds9 lb - deep space nine liveblog

#aos lb - the kelvin timeline movies (not much here because i wasn't star trek posting back when they came out)

#spockanalia lb - spockanalia

#star trek blogging - all of the above put together

MISC

my top 10 and worst 10 tos episodes

non-exhaustive list of youtube videos of vintage trek commercials, feel free to add your own

funny and unhelpful version of the skip/watch list i used with friends ie my only true record of tos first impressions

star tos "episode sorter" to rate every episode from best to worst

tos episodes on a tier maker

[sandwich-the-cat]

now i will do some void posting. this is more for myself than anyone else but i want my star trek fan credentials somewhere if i plan to be talking shit:

so here is a not well organized list of all of the star trek i’ve watched

TOS: my favorite! i’ve seen probably all of it, but i watch it out of order and so occasionally i am shocked when a new one comes up. the episode names are so great but also i can’t tell you what any episode is about (except maybe five i’ve studied to death(

TAS: i’ve seen maybe half of it in the last few days. it’s like alternate universe animated TOS and i love it.

TNG: i’ll be honest. i just watch random episodes here and there. mainly data and Q episodes. i’ve seen enough to have gone through multiple altitudes towards Wesley (neutral, annoyance, distain, tentative positivity, and finally love and acceptance). let’s say i’ve seen like 4 episodes of every season. in general it’s just kinda not my thing. it’s like an office drama , but i want sci-fi/political plots w/ an office comedy.

DS9: second favorite! man it’s so good. but also sometimes it’s a little to much drama, but not as much as TNG. i kinda stopped watching around season 4 though and don’t know anything about the war plot part. (that’s right, im a poser)

VOYAGER: i’ve seen the first ? 5 episodes. i just can’t . i’ve heard it’s wonderful enough to be many’s favorite, but i just never want to start it up again. i like the doctor.

ENT: i’ve seen the first episode 🤷

DISCO: all of it! love it! i watch this with my dad. a tad dark but its alright. really interesting but the tone is pretty different from most other shows

SNW: man i was waiting so patiently for this to come out. i’ve been following it since day one. as we know, I love TOS. i like it. i have to take a walk after every episode though. i am yelling and screaming at my tv. love paul wesley for the kirk casting cause i just found out he’s the guy from the vampire diaries. and so i watched a few episodes. man. it started to get sickly at episode 4. same with SNW! what can you do 🤷 but actually it’s much better at balance than disco i feel. i love episodic shows i love episodic shows.

LOWER DECKS: i love lower decks. i’ve seen all of it. Ransom was on my kin list in highschool.

i have not seen a lick of PICard or the other animated voyager spin off (?)

movies:

I’ve seen the first four films. love em! hate em! am charmed by them.

and i’ve seen all of the AOS films of course

i also posses almost a complete set of 25th anniversary TOS trading cards as well as two of leonard ninoys albums on vinyl .

[alfvaen]

Cellular Peptide Cake

I don't remember when I first saw Star Trek, but I was definitely quite young, maybe five years old.  I was born in 1971, so only a few years after it went off the air the first time, but still playing in syndication.  The first episode I remember clearly might have been "Operation--Annihilate!", and I imagine I found those plastic fried-egg cell things to be quite scary at the time.  I watched it sporadically for years, and I'm not convinced I saw every episode for a long time. I was also reading James Blish's Star Trek episode collections (and the Alan Dean Foster equivalents for the animated series) from the library, where they were filed down in the kids' section for some reason.  To some extent those books and the actual episodes blended together in my head.  In particular I remember Star Trek 9 and the episode "Obsession", which I never saw for years and years, but I knew how it went.  Some of my favourites were ones that maybe haven't held up particularly well, like "Court Martial" and "Specter of The Gun" and "The Savage Curtain", but in general I watched them pretty indiscriminately, had no concept of which ones were from which season or anything like that.  I did watch some of the animated series too, but not nearly as much.

I of course saw the first movie when it came out, and had the soundtrack album; I started reading the novels that came out afterwards, too.  (I suppose I had read some of the earlier ones, like "Spock Must Die", already as well, but mostly the newer ones.)  I saw most of the rest of the movies too (I still haven't seen all of Star Trek V); Star Trek IV was my favourite.  I also got the book "The Making of Star Trek" which lots of interesting behind-the-scenes stuff about how the series came to be.

And then TNG came out.  I was kind of iffy on it at first.  I missed "Encounter At Farpoint", but luckily a friend had it on tape so I watched it a little while later.  As a "gifted child" two years younger than my classmates, I had some issues with the character of Wesley Crusher, finding him painful to watch most of the time.  I stopped watching it with any consistency and it became an occasional thing. But I gradually became fond of it, and enjoyed most of the episodes I watched, though again I lost track of which ones were new or old.  At some point I got a book which had a list of all the TNG episodes, which helped me fill in some of the gaps.  (There was a period where they had TNG reruns on one channel late at night after Jerry Springer, and I caught up on a lot there.)  I wasn't as fond of the TNG movies, though; "First Contact" was the best, but even that was never a favourite.  I haven't rewatched any of them, though.

Deep Space 9...my wife and I tried it when it came out, watched a few episodes, but I think "Move Along Home" mostly killed it for us.  I've seen about half a dozen episodes since then--the tribbles one, the "O'Brien replicant" one, and some of the mirror universe ones.  One day perhaps I'll make a concerted effort to get back into it. It’s possible I won’t just consider it to be a Babylon 5 ripoff.

But we did try Voyager when it came out, and it may be the only Star Trek series (or, at least, the only post-TOS pre-Discovery series) that we never gave up on. Oh, we did miss most of Season 2 because we lost access to cable channels for a year, but we went right back to it when we could, and watched it to the end.  I don't recall it having nearly as many standout episodes as TNG, but it was a lot more consistent from the very beginning, at least.

"Enterprise" we also tried but it didn't hold our interest.  Not sure if there was any big reason, but one thing that low-key bugged me was always when stuff taking place before TOS didn't feel continuous with it.  Like, TNG and Enterprise both used "offline" a lot.  TOS never did...and yet it was chronologically in between them.  It makes sense out-of-universe that TOS wouldn't have used terminology that didn't exist yet in the 60s, but it felt wrong in-universe.  Same thing with the visible tech level differences between Discovery and TOS later.  (And let's not even mention the periodic Klingon redesigns.)

The "reboot"/"Kelvin timeline" movies were okay but didn't wholly in me over either.  They seemed a little gimmicky sometimes.  The third one actually felt most like actual Star Trek to me.  I haven't rewatched any of those either.

Of the newer series...we watched three seasons of "Discovery" and may have given up on it for now.  At least, it's on hiatus for us.  The series-long arc thing takes some getting used to, the continuity issues do bother me a little, and some of the stuff just seems outlandish.  The spore drive?  The giant tardigrade? (Does it never occur to anyone that you can't just make a tardigrade bigger and expect it to have all the same characteristics?  Square-cube law, anyone?)  I like most of the characters, though, and the Harry Mudd time-loop episode was enjoyable.  We haven't tried "Strange New Worlds", and we only watched one episode of "Lower Decks" before deciding it wasn't for us.

"Picard" we've seen two seasons of, though not the third yet.  Once again with the season-long story arcs, but it is interesting how they pick up some of the dangling plot threads from TNG and weave them into other stuff.

Honourable mention has to go to "The Orville", which is the Star Trek which is the most Star Trek without being Star Trek.  (Like that Firesign Theatre joke: "Benjamin Franklin--the only President of the United States who was never President of the United States.")  It's most like TNG, but with characters who swear more and have more juvenile senses of humour.  Again, I haven't seen the latest season of it, but I enjoyed the first two and will probably get back into it at some point.

But it's TNG that I'm always going back to.  TOS I can't take seriously any more, for some reason; I did just rewatch it, partly in step with listening to the Mission Log podcast about each episode, but for the most part I feel like I'm done with it. The animated series...well, I'm still revisiting that one, but I suspect it's not going to hold up that well either.  TNG...the first two seasons are highly spotty, but after that it gets really consistent.  It is more episodic than modern shows, but that just means that individual episodes can be experienced on their own with greater enjoyment.  DS9...I've heard a lot of good things about it, and I'm sure if I can just get over that initial hump I'll enjoy it just fine.  Voyager...that one does demand more of an in-order watch, and there is that entire season I've mostly missed.  Enterprise...well, maybe, one day.

Right now we're doing a TNG watch-through (skipping the really bad episodes, mostly) with the family.  Looking forward to it.

[confirmed-for-trash]

an hour and a half long video about how to get into Star Trek... idk. back in my day if we wanted to get into something we just started fucking watching it. no shade or anything but all you need to do is pick a series based on the synopsis and start watching. and then if you don't like it after three or four episodes, pick a different series. or start with the TOS movies. anything you want.

the only thing I wouldn't personally recommend is starting with something like Lower Decks which has a lot of in-jokes and references. maybe save that until after you're more familiar with Trek. but of course, y'all can do what you want. there's no one right way to get into Trek. just get into it already lol. the more, the merrier. (unless you're a fascist douchebag, then we don't want you)

[gender-snatched]

Hey so I want you to tell me every single thing I could possibly want to know about Star Trek

OK YEAH. under cut because. well. you know me.

So, in the 60s, Gene Roddenberry started a sci-fi series. This was Star Trek. It's about a starship named the USS Enterprise, which is part of Starfleet. Starfleet is the exploration branch of the Federation of Planets, which is basically the UN of the galaxy. The USS Enterprise is, at the time of the show, captained by James T Kirk, although it was previously captained by Christopher Pike. Kirk is an extremely traumatized nerd who is doing what he really wants to do. His First Officer (and Science Officer) is Mr. Spock, the only alien on the ship. Spock is (half) Vulcan, a species that values "logic" above all, yadda yadda. His Chief Medical Officer is his bestie, Leonard "Bones" McCoy.

He also has: Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Communications Officer), Lt. Commander Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (Chief Engineer), Lt Hikaru Sulu (Navigator), Nurse Christine Chapel (Nurse), Ensign Pavel Chekov (pilot [?]), and Yeoman Janice Rand (Yeoman)

All these characters are MASSIVELY important for the time. Uhura was a black woman in a major position on the ship; Chapel, Uhura, and Rand were all strong women; Chekov was Russian during the Cold War; Spock was a metaphor for xenophobia and was also Jewish; Sulu was Asian in a time where anti-Asian racism was super high (and his actor, George Takei was Japanese and was raised in internment camps).

Importantly, Star Trek was so so amazing for a show from the sixties. It had one of the first interracial kisses on TV, and had multiple episodes with all sorts of metaphors. Yes, it had problems (misogyny and a fair bit of racism), but for the sixties? It was so incredible.

And the second season started with the episode "Amok Time", which was written by a queer man and focuses on the idea of Spock going into heat and going to die if he doesn't fuck. Somehow, writhing in the sand with Kirk cures this.

And that's the start of slash culture! Almost all slash culture is the fault of either Star Trek or X Files.

So Star Trek: The Original Series got 3 seasons and became a cult classic. And then in the 80s (?) it got the movies. The Motion Picture (bad, but tolerable), Wrath of Khan (pretty damn good), Search for Spock (bad and questionable), Voyage Home (aka The One With the Whales and fucking AWESOME), and then two others I didn't care about whatsoever.

And then, after the movies, The Next Generation came out. It takes place a bit later, with better cameras and effects. The spaceship is smoother, and it's also incredible. Its cast includes: Captain Jean Luc Picard, First Officer William Riker, Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher, Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge, Lt Cmr Data (what is his role I can't remember), Security Officer Tash Yar, Worf (also can't remember his role), Dr. Pulaski (I don't like her), Guinan (bartender), and Wesley Crusher.

Terrible confession, but I only finished TOS. I still know TNG pretty well tho.

After TNG we got: Deep Space Nine (my BELOVED), Voyager (wish I had watched more), Enterprise (good if you ignore the misogyny), and then all the nuTrek I haven't been paying attention to because I can't watch it.

Deep Space Nine is the other one I never finished but know, and it focuses on a space station near the planet Bajor. Bajor just threw off the rule of Cardassia, an empire. The Federation, with questionable motives, is helping them rebuild. They send a captain there, and then a wormhole opens, making the space station super super important. Then a war happens but I didn't reach that.

It focuses on Captain Sisko, his son Jake, his first officer Major Kira Nerys, his CMO Julian Bashir, his science officer Jadzia Dax (trangender worm), his engineer Miles O'Brien, a cop Odo, a bartender Quark, a "simple tailor" (actually an exiled Cardassian spy) Garak, and later, Worf.

It's really good, because while TNG pulls a full utopia, DS9 contradicts it and also has just amazing characters. Shame I didn't finish it before Netflix lost it. It also has the first CANONICALLY bisexual character in Star Trek.

There's a LOT of Trek, and I can probably give vague overviews about all of them and also answer any and all questions about it. Please. Please have questions.

[magnetic-rose]

Why Spones is a top-tier ship

AKA “the inherent homoeroticism of annoying the shit out of your co-worker.”

Spock and McCoy have a complicated relationship. A lot of their bickering and ideological differences lead fans to believe that they hate each other, but that’s an over-simplification of the truth. The reality is that Spock and McCoy are extremely close friends who care about each other deeply. Though sometimes their bickering turns serious during stressful situations, for the most time they seem to enjoy the banter. A common mischaracterization of their relationship seems to put McCoy as the bully and Spock as the victim. In truth, there are many times where Spock will say something specifically to get a rise out of McCoy. They fight. That’s how they show affection, not disdain. In fact, one could argue that some of their bantering have a flirtatious tone to it.

Kirk: Mister Spock, regaining eyesight would be an emotional experience for most. You, I assume, felt nothing.

Spock: On the contrary Captain. I had a very strong reaction. My first sight was the face of Doctor McCoy bending over me.

McCoy: ‘Tis a pity brief blindness didn’t increase your appreciation for beauty, Spock. (Operation -- Annihilate!)

Spock is a half-Vulcan, half-Human who has mostly chosen to follow his Vulcan heritage. As such, he is a being of almost pure logic. The truth about Vulcans are that they are secretly beings who feel things very deeply and intensely, and they feel the need to keep a tight lid on their emotions as to not succumb to them. McCoy, on the other hand, is a regular human. He’s a deeply emotional man who cares about others. One could argue that McCoy is almost too empathetic, as he lets his emotions rule him. Spock and McCoy are polar opposites; the brain and the heart, the logic and the emotion, the super-ego and the id.

Despite these differences, the two men are similar in a lot of ways. They’re both men of science, men of peace, and they both care very deeply for their Captain. They’re both self-sacrificing morons, to the chagrin of the other. Spock will prioritize McCoy’s life even when both of them know it’s not the logical choice to do so. Likewise, McCoy will take a hit for Spock even when they both know the Vulcan is stronger and better equipped to deal with pain than the doctor.

Spock: (In the middle of a blizzard) In this severe cold, we cannot survive much longer.

McCoy: Leave me here, Spock.

Spock: We go together or not at all.

McCoy: Don’t be a fool. My hands and face are frostbitten. I can’t feel my feet. Alone, you have a chance. Now do what I say. Go try to find Jim.

Spock: We go together! (All of Yesterdays)

In the episode, “The Empath,” Kirk, Spock and McCoy have to choose someone to be offered as sacrifice to be tortured by a group of aliens. Kirk obviously volunteers, but gets put to sleep by McCoy with a tranquilizer. Spock then states that he’ll offer himself up, as he has the higher chance of surviving the torture. McCoy then proceeds to sedate Spock as well, and sacrifices himself to be tortured by the aliens.

Spock: While the captain is asleep, I am in command. When the Vians return, I shall go with them.

McCoy: You mean, if I hadn't given him that shot

Spock: Precisely. The choice would have been the captain's. Now it is mine.

(McCoy turns away. Spock sits to carry on working. Gem puts her hand on Spock's shoulder, and smiles. McCoy comes up behind him and gives him an injection.)

Spock: Your action is highly unethical. My decision stands. (Spock falls asleep next to Kirk.)

McCoy: Not this time, Spock.

Underneath all the fighting and disagreements, there is a deep caring between Spock and McCoy that manifests itself into protectiveness towards each other. In “All of Yesterdays,” Spock is constantly showing concern for McCoy after he almost died of hypothermia. In aftermath of McCoy’s torture in “The Empath,” Spock is seen hovering over his body and caressing his face, worry written into his features. On the other hand, while McCoy constantly makes fun of Spock for his lack of emotions, he’s also highly aware of the Vulcan’s mental state and protective of it when others threaten to shatter his resilience.

McCoy: He's a Vulcan. You can't force emotion out of him.

Philana: You must be joking, Doctor.

McCoy: You'll destroy him.

Parmen: We can't let him die laughing, can we?

McCoy: (Watching as Spock starts to cry) I beg you! (Plato’s Stepchildren)

The episode “Amok Time” also demonstrates McCoy’s perceptiveness of Spock and Spock’s true feelings of friendship towards McCoy. McCoy is in fact the first person to notice that something is wrong with Spock:

McCoy: Oh, captain. Got a minute? It's Spock. Have you noticed anything strange about him?

Kirk: No, nothing in particular. Why ?

McCoy: Well, it's nothing I can pinpoint without an examination, but he's become increasingly restive. If he were not a Vulcan, I'd almost say nervous. And for another thing, he's avoiding food. I checked and he hasn't eaten at all in three days.

Kirk: That just sounds like Mister Spock in one of his contemplative phases.

Kirk doesn’t notice anything wrong with Spock, and initially dismisses McCoy’s concern, but McCoy immediately picked up on Spock’s mental turmoil. Despite his cantankerousness, McCoy not only cares about Spock but goes out of his way to look out for his mental state. Part of it might be because he’s his doctor, but how many doctors go so far as to monitor someone’s eating habits because they notice that person’s suddenly being fidgety? On Spock’s end, when it comes time for him to beam down to Vulcan to complete his marriage ceremony, he specifically asks for McCoy to be there:

Spock: By tradition, the male is accompanied by his closest friends.

Kirk: Thank you, Mister Spock.

Spock: I also request McCoy accompany me.

McCoy: I shall be honoured, sir.

One episode I find extremely fascinating in terms of McCoy/Spock moments is “Mirror, Mirror.” In this famous episode, half of the Enterprise crew get transported into an alternate universe dubbed The Mirror Verse, in which evil versions of the characters exist and terrorize space as a fearsome military force. McCoy is part of the team that gets transported in the Mirror Verse, while Spock stays in their regular universe. Mirror Spock immediately realizes that half of the crew, including Kirk and McCoy, are acting strangely. When he corners Kirk to question him, he does so by threatening McCoy: “I shall not waste time with you. You’re too inflexible, too disciplined, once you’ve made up your mind. But Doctor McCoy has a plenitude of human weaknesses, sentimental, soft. You may not tell me what I want to know, but he will.” This Spock seems to have a intimate knowledge of McCoy’s mind.  When the party decides to attack Mirror Spock, he fights all of them except for Uhura and McCoy, who he simply pushes out of harm’s way.

When Mirror Spock gets hurt as the crew is trying to escape back to their own universe, McCoy is suddenly unable to leave his side. Kirk allows him to stay to nurse Spock back to health, and McCoy risks almost staying in the Mirror Verse forever for him. When Mirror Spock awakes, he backs McCoy into a wall and initiates a forced mind meld onto the doctor. The next scene has Mirror Spock holding a disoriented McCoy up and bringing him back to his crew; he now understands what is happening and he wants his regular crew back, and thus he allows Kirk and company to make the switch back to their own universe.

Other Star Trek properties have gone more in depth on how a forced mind meld can be extremely traumatizing on the person receiving it. Star Trek: Enterprise has an entire story arc dedicated to the Vulcan T’Pol trying to heal from a forced mind meld. Unfortunately, because the nature of TOS episodes were episodic, we never got the chance to explore the emotional fallout of McCoy’s forced mind meld and how that might have affected his relationship with Spock. The franchise also never went in depth on Mirror McCoy outside of what Mirror Spock speaks of him, since Mirror McCoy died of xenopolycythemia in 2269.

Closing the list of evidence of Spock and McCoy’s affections towards each other are the Star Trek movies “The Wrath of Khan” and “The Search for Spock.” Towards the end of Wrath of Khan, Spock sacrifices himself to save The Enterprise in one of the franchises most heart-wrenching scenes. Moments before his sacrifice, he knocks McCoy unconscious, touches his face and whispers “remember.” What happened in this scene was that Spock, knowing he was about to die, transferred his Katra to McCoy. The katra being the Vulcan equivalent of a soul. This speaks to the amount of trust that Spock has in McCoy. For someone who keeps most of his emotions under a tight lid, it’s a huge gesture to entrust another with the essence of their entire being. The next movie, The Search for Spock, is a journey as the Enterprise crew fight to return to Vulcan so they can reunite Spock with his body. When they finally arrive, the Vulcans warn McCoy that the process is extremely dangerous and could even result in his death. McCoy calmly replies that he “chooses the danger.” He cannot fathom living his life without Spock.

McCoy: (Speaking to Spock) I'm going to tell you something that I... I never thought I'd hear myself say...But it seems I've missed you. I don't know if I could stand to lose you again.

So in conclusion, Spock and McCoy have a rich and complex relationship that is much more than simply just “they dislike each other because they bicker a lot.” Their bickering is more akin to that of an old married couple. There are plenty of examples not even included in this post of how deeply they care for each other. Despite their ideological differences, they balance each other out quite nicely. McCoy is finely attuned to Spock’s emotions, arguably better than anyone else on the ship. Spock in turn is protective and gentle with McCoy. Once you stop looking at their interactions solely on the surface level, you’ll be able to see the tenderness and years of love and friendship between them. This is why I think Spock/McCoy is one of the most underrated and misunderstood relationships of TOS. Don’t let the constant arguing fool you into believing these two dummies don’t adore each other.

Shout-out to Tempest for their extremely lengthy ship manifesto on Spones called “Spiced Peaches,” which goes even more in depth on why Spones is a great couple. Using their manifesto as a reference was key to remembering Spock/McCoy moments. Also shout-out to the site chakoteya for having full transcripts of TOS episodes, so I could easily find quotes for this. If you’ve come this far, thanks for reading!

[worfs-fabulous-hair]

Star trek the original series spoilers !

Also sorry to anyone who doesn't like that I'm pretty much spamming the star trek tag with my posts, I am but a sickly person with to much time on my hands.

Series I'm currently on : TOS

Episodes watched: 01x18 - 01x20

Episode names:

Arena

Tomorrow is Yesterday

Court Martial

Thoughts:

Arena

The entire landing party have the monologue of " why can't I just have one nice thing " when they find out that outpost has been destroyed

Oof the red shirt already died and it's been less than 5 minutes

Jim almost gets blown up by the small bombs that are being thrown at them and the way he falls afterwards is hilarious

Your telling me this man has been severely injured since yesterday afternoon but will conveniently die half an hour of you finding him if you can't get him to sick bay

Oh Jesus Christ what kind of canon bombs do star fleet just keep around that to that shit

This man just yelling "why " at Jim fully expecting a real response , and is not taking " I don't know why do you think I'm asking you questions" as an answer

" I don't think that we should do that James " Spock never calls him James you know it's serious now

The ship their chasing full stops without warning Jim goes " oh yeah boy we got 'em " and then has the audacity to be surprised when the same thing happens to the enterprise

Also I almost go flying when my parents hit the breaks hard in a car I'd assume that with a full stop from warp seven everyone on the ship would go flying from one end of whatever room they're in to the other

More disembodied God like beings fucking with the enterprise

Yo it's the lizard guy , I know this episode now, last time I saw it I was like 10

Slowly and over dramatic punches , kicks and throwing of objects and the other person

The gorn after hearing Jim complement him through the devices they were given :

Kirk's out here pulling some elaborate tom and Jerry shit

So is the lizard boi apparently

Jim just shoved a hand into a pile of dust he found and then stuck it in his mouth another thing that star fleet officers need to stop doing

The ship now has a live feed, the disembodied God like beings also told them " ya boi is losing prepare him a funeral "

The ship crew is commentating on what Jim is doing like people do with shows and horror movies like "turn around bitch "

I think Jim's making a bomb

Space Twink shows up when Jim decides not to kill the gorn

Like -

Space Twink (this was one of the disembodied God like beings)

Now their suddenly across the galaxy from where they were and the episode ends there with them on their way back to the outpost from the beginning

Other episodes under the cut

Tomorrow is Yesterday

1960s air force , if they went back to the past in this episode then I want to know how many times these guys end up going back in time

Yup they got shot into the past

They kidnapped an air force pilot

Every time they find military people they always go see a woman officer and lose their minds , it's so funny to me

" we might have to kill this man , he knows to much "

An all woman planet sounds dope , they also apparently changed the computer to be extremely affectionate and giggle every once and a while

Imagine getting kidnapped from people from the future and when you tell them that them taking you may change the course of history they hit you with a " they didn't make any significant contributions in their life"

The pilot tried to escape , Jim knocked him out

" you did nothing significant but your son who hasn't been born yet on the other hand "

My favorite past time , breaking into government buildings in order to steal documents . (For all legal purposes this is a joke )

" hand me your belts "

This man's fucking face when he gets beamed aboard cause he took one of the communicators , and his stance with the gun is the best

(it won't rotate help )

More fights between Kirk and air force officers , he whole ass threw them in a corner and then frog jumped on them

Jim has been arrested and is being questioned

While pointing the end of a phaser that was just set to kill towards their face " what is this thing what happens if we push these buttons "

They've been betrayed by the man that they kidnapped

He's been rekidnapped

We're going straight into the sun baby

The air force officers have been unkidnapped and don't remember anything

They are back to their proper time

Court Martial

We're supposed to believe that this woman who looks like she's in her 30s is a teenage girl that is the daughter of the singular crew member to die during the last mission

Also her costume looks cool but just not on her if that makes sense

So they think that Kirk wanted this guy to purposely die ???

I know that captain Kirk is being accused of purposeful negligence resulting in death because of possible grudges but he's being really theatric in everything he's saying

You show up to court and it's your ex girlfriend trying to prove your guilty

Spock master of sass

I like how everyone in star fleet has serial numbers

Surveillance footage

"see this man that was not looking down at the buttons pressed the button that was right next to the button he wanted to press , see he did it on purpose !"

The guy is going to be alive and this is all going to be some big plot huh ?

Spock plays chess with the computer and realizes that there is a bug in the computer

I was right ! This guy faked his own death because he hated Jim that much

Yeah he looks as creepy as I thought he would

Imagine holding a grudge against someone for over 10 years cause someone pointed out that you made a mistake that could have killed everyone around you

Kirk once again wrestling someone with torn clothing

"I messed up the engine you're all going to die " "your daughter is on board the ship " " oh shit let's fix this bitch "

Everyone pretending not to be staring at Jim having a moment with his ex girlfriend

[thegreaterlink]

Reviewing Star Trek TNG - S1E10 "Haven"

The Next Generation has hit double digits. If only there had been a better episode to mark the occasion.

THE PREMISE

The Enterprise has been summoned to the planet Haven by Counsellor Deanna Troi's mother, Lwaxana (pronounced "loo-axe-anna"). Deanna had previously been betrothed to human doctor Wyatt Miller, so her mother has tracked her down to force her to marry him. However, as Deanna is half human and half Betazoid, Lwaxana and Miller’s parents quickly clash over their cultural differences.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise encounters a ship which the crew identify as Tarellian, a species thought to have been wiped out by a lethal and highly contagious virus, headed towards the planet Haven.

MY REVIEW

I'm not particularly interested in arranged marriage plots in general, and this episode does little to endear them to me - Deanna doesn't want it because she's obviously in love with Riker, Miller (who isn’t particularly interesting as a character) is clearly having second thoughts after actually meeting Deanna, and Riker is caught in the middle. So we have a love triangle. Joy of joys. And anyone who's seen Nemesis knows how it'll end anyway.

Having watched Deep Space Nine before this, I'm no stranger to an episode being divided between an A and B plot. The problem is that the B plot of the plague ship feels out of place in this episode for the most part and gets much less focus. I wouldn't be surprised if they were either two separate plot concepts meshed into a single episode, or the B plot was thrown in at the last minute to pad out a script that was running short.

However, the writers probably realised this and at least found a way to tie the two plots together - Miller is disappointed upon meeting Troi because she doesn't match the visions of a woman that he's been having for years and has fallen in love with. And it just so happens that the woman, Arianna, is a passenger on the plague ship. So Miller gets his dream girl and Troi gets to stay on the ship. Everybody wins!

Deanna Troi's mother, Lwaxana, is played by Majel Barrett. In addition to being married to Star Trek's creator Gene Roddenberry, Barrett had previously played Number One in the TOS pilot "The Cage", Nurse Christine Chapel in the rest of the series and two of the movies, and would voice most of the computer interfaces up until the 2009 reboot. She's thoroughly entertaining as Lwaxana Troi, even if the character can be a bit overbearing at times - just ask Odo.

As for Lwaxana's bickering with Miller’s parents, it's... fine. Not what I'd really like to watch in a Star Trek episode, but tolerable. Though I have to give a special mention to Data watching on in the background like his favourite show just came on. I love him.

In addition to Barrett, this episode features two other notable guest appearances. Lwaxana's valet, Mr Homn, is played by Carel Struycken, who also played Lurch in the the 1990s Addams Family movies, making him the second Lurch to appear on Star Trek.

The other is Armin Shimerman, making his second guest appearance as the face of a Betazoid gift box, who will live forever in my nightmares from this day forward.

4/10 - One which I'd most likely skip on a rewatch.

Side note: There’s a scene early on where I swear Troi calls Riker “Bill” instead of Will.

Previous Episode | TNG Masterpost | Next Episode

[cosmicbeastie]

Sorta kinda jumping off this post, I want to talk more about Star Trek Discovery and how I wish it (and other modern TV series/movies like it) could be more like TOS or 90s Trek when it comes to that era’s more episodic, laid-back pacing and storytelling styles as a result of having a smaller budget/more limited FX to work with.

Which isn't to say that all Star Trek media HAS to be like 90s Trek to be good. I feel like a lot of us tend to gauge whether or not a new entry into the franchise is “good” based on how similar it is to that era. Discovery is allowed to be different and its more plot-centric and serious tone isn’t necessarily a bad thing for Star Trek outright. However, a major flaw Disco has is that it sacrifices character development and dynamics (or at least showing these things well) for its heavy plot. 

Mainly there’s one thing I really wish it had handled better, and hope it handles better past season 4: show, don't just tell, especially when it comes to characters. Putting less emphasis on The Plot would allow this show to better flesh out its characters & their dynamics. I keep watching because I love the characters! They are my primary motivation for keeping up with new episodes and I feel like they are Discovery’s strongest asset. But the overly plot-heavy, constantly life-or-death storytelling style the writers of this show insist on using is, in my opinion, detrimental to that asset. The problem with such a plot-heavy approach to telling a story in a television format is that it leaves little room for those filler episodes & moments that are hallmarks of other Star Trek series, where characters get a chance to simply Exist. Interact. Form bonds with each other. 

The Discovery crew is obviously very close, and clearly we as the audience are meant to see that they see each other as found family. Michael and Tilly are best friends and roommates by choice for much of the series. Both Saru and Stamets have been shown to be paternal with Tilly. Michael and Saru have said they love each other like siblings and arguably have one of the strongest bonds in the show. And of course there’s Stamets & Culber literally adopting Adira and Gray. We see hints of crew members outside of the core four being close, too (Owo & Detmer primarily). But while all those bonds are clearly There at this point in the show (season 4 having just finished airing), the writers didn’t put a lot of time into actually showing us these bonds as they were developing -- even when such moments of development should have been treated as crucial to the story (skipping Saru and Michael's journey toward healing their friendship after Michael’s betrayal; only revealing Airiam's close friendships with her crewmates in her final episode to give her death emotional weight; rushing Stamets’ paternal dynamic with Adira; conveying an unspoken but obvious tension between Stamets and Michael at the end of season 3 just to gloss over it in season 4; etc., etc., etc.).

The problem isn’t that Discovery has a tonally different, less episodic approach to storytelling compared to previous Treks. It’s that it focuses Too Much on plot and over-the-top stakes and not enough on its characters. We shouldn’t be four seasons and counting into this show and know next to nothing about more than half of the bridge crew. We shouldn’t need to be constantly forgiving haphazardly-inserted character development “bombs” like Michael and Saru going from ex-friends/begrudging crewmates to best friends/found family in the space of one episode. They (the writers) just don’t give themselves (or maybe are not given) enough TIME to develop these dynamics more smoothly and organically.

And I feel like this isn’t completely on the writers. Modern media as a whole has created this atmosphere where only constantly high-budget, constantly high-stakes, constantly plot-heavy stories can be accepted as watchable/meaningful enough to keep from getting axed at the drop of a hat (*cough* it’s the MCU’s fault *cough*). I just wish we could go back to the days where shows could be allowed to BREATHE and general audiences and streaming service executives weren’t afraid of a filler episode or two where maybe the plot didn’t advance much or at all (the “stakes” a malfunctioning replicator or something), but we learned something new about the characters and that was enough.

At this point I don’t expect Discovery to change its ways when it comes to its overstuffed plot and clunky approach to character development, but I do hope that we can eventually have a Trek series that (to circle back to the subject of the post I linked at the top) more closely resembles the pacing and storytelling styles of older Trek while still maintaining the diversity and minority representation that Discovery provides.

[qwertyfingers]

we know that bobby only watched ds9 and dean watched the tos movies for sure which implies he's seen tos as well (plus he calls jack spock). so what do you think everyone's favorite trek is? sam is without a doubt a tng fan first and foremost. i think out of all tos movies cas prefers the wrath of khan because he Feels Things when kirk and spock do the ta'al through the glass. charlie has definitely seen some trek (we've seen her llap), do you think she's into tos first and foremost? anyway let's talk about star trek nights in the bunker.

OKAY SO I HAVE. MANY MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS. SORRY THIS IS SO LONG.

like. like of COURSE bobby only likes ds9 of course he does i could have told you this without the show becuase like. bobby is That Bitch. i think rufus will have watched TOS at least because leonard nimoy worked hard on linking jewish faith and practices into the vulcan lore and i think that would mean something to him. bobby will catch rufus smiling at him sometimes while they’re watching ds9 and ask him what all gruffly and rufus will smirk at him and say something about sisko with jake and bobby with dean and bobby will just cough and take a swig of whiskey and rufus will raise his eyebrows but let it slide. rufus definitely makes a comment once about dean&cas being like jake&nog that totally flies over dean’s head but bobby is all knowing eyebrow raise about.

i think cas and jack would really like discovery. while it has some issues with inconsistency, pacing, being a little dark, it also does better than the other TV treks at utilising the nature of film as a medium to instill a sense of wonder, at space and the world, and that’s something they’d really appreciate. i have my own issues with disco, but an obol for charon is as close to the central core of trek that disco ever gets. cas and jack also like that one in particular because they like listening to all the different languages being spoken. they all love michael (everyone loves michael). cas’ faves are stamets and reno because they’re mean and gay, jack’s fave is tilly because she’s excitable and bright and he latches onto that. dean likes reno because she’s got spunk. sam’s fave is airiam and he will never forgive them for killing her off. sam, cas and dean all feel an uncomfortable kinship with both ash and culber - they’ve both been the one with monster teeming under the surface, controleld by something not themself, but they’ve also all spent that time in hell/purgatory, separated from everyone they love.

thinking about episodes that would really get to them all, darmok is. THE ONE. i have a whole unfinished essay about darmok as the platonic ideal of star trek; the perfect distillation of everything trek is SUPPOSED to be about. it doens’t always get there but by god it tries! that speech michael gives in the disco s2 finale - “There's a whole galaxy of people out there who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find that person who seems farthest from you and reach for them.” - that’s what darmok is about!!! it’s all about a situation where real communication seems impossible, where everything we know about talking and learning has broken down. and picard says, okay, i will find another way. i can’t relate to you, you can’t relate to me, but by god i’m going to try. we all meet people we have trouble communicating with in our lives, and often, those people will not care about changing their own ways to accommodate us. for people with autism, adhd, psychosis, the list goes on, this is a very common occurrence. it’s exhausting and frustrating and alienating. darmok is all about crossing that barrier. about reaching for someone through a world of difficulty and learning how to talk. learning how to share something with someone who seems out of our reach. it’s beautiful, it’s heartwrenching, it means more to me than i can easily put into words! 

anyway i think the bunker fam would experience a lot of emotions watching it together. there’s defintiely a lot of hugging eachother, sam cries a lot and won’t look at anyone until after the episode ends. jack just asks a lot of questions and talks about his progress learning sign language with cas. dean snakes his hand into cas’ halfway through and doesn’t let go. doesn’t show the emotion on his face, but he clutches harder at the emotional beats. cas runs his fingers through jack’s hair and thinks a lot, and decides not to say anything unless dean talks first. its just a Lot for everyone. 

dean def makes them marathon all the TOS and TNG movies. it’s an experience everyone needs at least once. i think you’re right about cas and TWOK with the ta’al through the glass, but also ‘this simple feeling’ and the hand hold would make him feel crazy. bones being the one that spock entrusts with his katra DEF makes dean feel some type of way because as much as destiel is kirkspock-coded, dean IS bones, and seeing spock trust bones so completely despite how at odds they were when they first knew eachother would dig deep into dean’s psyche and make him more than a little bit nutso. the movies are way too long for jack so he mostly sits and plays animal crossing while they watch and looks at the screen when everyone else gasps or when something exciting is happening that holds his attention for a while. sam’s fave is nemesis precisely because it’s terrible and he loves how camp it is.

dean has definitely seen all of trek. i refuse to believe someone who watches as much tv and films as dean wouldn’t sit and watch the whole shebang. i think he’s probably seen TOS and the TOS movies more than the others because its easier than sitting through 7 seasons, but i think rather than that being his favourite he’d just have really strong opinions about the best episodes of each one? like if you asked him what his favourite is he’d say you can’t answer that because they’re all so different from eachother

VOY - bride of chaotica, non seqitur, macrocosm for the favourite episodes. seven, janeway and tuvok would be his favourite characters. he think toms a bit of a knob but also feels a kinship with him for the similar brand of bab dad-ism but he wouldn’t be able to put that into words. he’s also a fierce defender of threshold being a good episode (he’s right for that)

DS9 - our man bashir it’s our man bashir. he doesn’t dislike ds9 but its very plot heavy and he didn’t care for it when he was younger. rewatching it after living through multiple supernatural wars he’d probably appreciate it more. i know for a fact he cries every time there’s an episode about sisko being a good dad. jadzia and garak are his faves

TNG - he LOVES q. he also absolutely will not be caught dead referencing how much loves q after cas comes into his life because sam will do the little brotherly knowing eyebrow raise at him and he will die of embarrassment. he regularly references ‘there are four lights’ because he’s a fucking nerd. he has made cas watch elementary my dear data and fistful of datas a half dozen times each at LEAST. cas KNEW how dean was going to be about the cowboy hat he’s defintiely got into full cowboy getup at home just for watching movies and in cas’ head star trek is fully to blame.

TOS - oh there are so many good TOS eps to choose from. obv he loves most of the series becuase TOS has MANY banger eps, his favourites are probably like. mirror mirror, amok time (baby dean defintiely had some kind of crisis watching it for the first time; i know the rituals are intricate). i know deep in my bones that dean watched the conscience of the king (introduction of the tarsus iv massacre) once and then spent his entire teenage years writing fic about that in his head, whether he posted it or not. dean related too much to those experiences of shared hunger. city on the edge of forever is one of everyone’s faves for a reason (and i’m STILL mad we never got a closer take on that episode in spn it could have been so fun). 

ENT - he definitely thinks enterprise is stupid and he’s not wrong but he has also definitely watched it and been very repressed about the whole thing. mans was like oh i feel a kinship with malcolm reed the obviously repressed queer man. i will never examine this feeling ever again thank you <3 he also makes fun of archer for being obsessed with, of all sports, water polo. shran is his favourite character because he’s a little shit and makes him laugh, and t’pol, because t’pol is a badass and he’d appreciate that. i can’t remember the title of a single episode off the top of my head though lol.

i can see what you’re saying about sam being a TNG stan. i’m conflicted though, I feel like TNG’s generally the favourite of 1) obnoxious nerds who think knowing trivia facts makes them smart, 2) men desperately trying to seem masculine and 3) people who’ve watched it three times and have extremely complex thoughts on the personhood and rights of robots. i could see sam fitting into the third group, but people who are in it for the robot feelings are a coin flip between voyager and tng being the fave, and i just have a feeling that voyager would be his favourite. i know kid sam is getting gender envy watching voyager in shitty motels while dad and dean are out, trying to find the words for it. his first semester at stanford he talks a friend into giving him the janeway haircut and rides that high for months. sam’s favourite characters are seven and EMH. 

sam and dean have definitely had dozens of long drawn out debates about philosophical topics in star trek. do the holograms deserve rights and if so which ones. are the romulans and vulcans still meaningfully the same people. was spock right for trying to foment reunification by going undercover on romulus. can the borg be redeemed. etc etc.

i haven’t seen any of picard at all so i can’t comment. i also think sam and dean probably read a lot of the trek books? they’re pretty common to find in secondhand bookstores and cheap, would have been even cheaper back in the day. sam probably doesn’t care for them much, dean has a few solid faves though. i’ve only read the disco books so i can’t comment anything specifically (besides the fact that i think dean read dead endless and cried like a baby), but some of the TOS and DS9 books are gay as hell and i know dean was eyes emoji-ing that shit. 

[orphancookie69]

Star Trek: Series Ranking

I can say with no shame, that I am a trekkie. My dad watched it as a kid, his father watched it as a young married man (back when you had to watch one episode per week). It is a family legacy. Before the streaming wars made content its “pawn of separation”, Most of the star trek TV series and films were on Netflix. I decided to watch all of them (listed here, there are more than this out there) and rank them: 

My Ranking: 

1) Star Trek: The Original Series: Nothing beats the original. I love the newness of this series-the old school way of doing things. This also shows the true origin of some of the now iconic Star Trek ideals, like live long and prosper. Amazing how something goes from “Well I am an alien, maybe I should have specific way of doing things” turns into a bumper sticker you would find on a trekkies car today. Also, I have to say, DAMN KIRK-you look good. And the uniforms get better the more formal the event is ;) 

2) Star Trek: The Next Generation: As far as anything beyond my favorite goes, I love the captain here. The cast is diverse, like any star trek cast. Data is also one of my favorite characters in the star trek universe. If I lived in the star trek universe, based on my personality-I would either be a betazoid or vulcan. Picard though, is his own man, but carries on the legacy of how a captain should act (left behind by Kirk). Some of my favorite episodes here are the flash backs they do. 

3) Star Trek: Voyager: Seven of Nine is a very very very close second to Data as one of my favorite characters. The Borgs, villains in this series, are a very very good villain. I first watched this out of order, but watching it in order was awesome. Neelix grows on one too, and a female captain before the age of “because I am a woman I am a feminist” was bold. Tuvok is one of the oldest vulcans to show in this universe, and a full vulcan (compared to spock who is half vulcan). The holographic doctor is amazing. Chakotay is also an interesting add as original star trek doesn’t really touch religions (as much as the federation feels like one sometimes). But he uses his in their crazy story of “how the heck do we get home before we retire” from going out on their first mission.  

4) Star Trek: Deep Space 9: This is one of the more recent ones, in real life and in the star trek universe. And the way I am wired, I don’t tend to like new stuff....even if it is star trek. But you see the white dude in this photo? He is from TNG, with Worf from the same series eventually joining. Now, I know that “we go on one mission and it takes us 7 seasons to get home” can’t be better than life on a space station right? I thought the space station would be better, or even safer than a ship in motion right? NO. The amount of times they are in trouble is insane, and if you asked me to live there...I would do so for a SHORT amount of time. It is nice to see more into cultures like Ferengi, Trill, and Bajor. But the best parts of this play off of things already developed in universe. The changelings are the villains this time. 

5) Star Trek: Enterprise: This looks older, older than TOS right? It is supposed to be. It precedes all other series mentioned but is filmed in the 2000′s, after DS9. You have mostly humans, vulcan, and the doctor is denobulan. The show had to have “star trek” added to it after the fact, and it also plays off of anything already built in universe. Like, the prime directive at this time does not exist so they go through adventures which shape the “prime directive”. Same idea for First Contact, ship design and features. The premise of “how did all the rules come into play” is a very good one, the same way that how does Voyager survive in the wild wild universe. Execution feels weird to me, like in later years the mind meld is used very freely-here its a thing that vulcans “on the edge of society” do and if you participate in it, you get shunned by vulcan society. 

By the time this will have been posted, Star Trek would have left netflix. No plans to watch the modern series. I also have all the movies in DVD format, and will watch and rank those! 

[aion-rsa]

The Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Best Define the Franchise

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

By the time my generation got to watch Star Trek: The Original Series, the episodes often were being presented in top-ten marathons. When I was ten-years-old, for the 25th Anniversary of Star Trek, I tape-recorded a marathon of ten episodes that had all been voted by fans as the best-ever installments of The Original Series. Later, I got lucky and found Trek stickers at the grocery store and was able to label my VHS tapes correctly. But do I think all the episodes that were in that marathon back in 1991 were really the best episodes of all of the classic Star Trek? The short answer: no. Although I love nearly every episode of the first 79 installments of Star Trek, I do think that certain lists have been created by what we think should be on the list rather than what episodes really best represent the classic show. 

This is a long-winded way of saying, no, I didn’t include “Amok Time” or “The Menagerie” on this list because, as great as they are, I don’t think they really represent the greatest hits of the series. Also, if you’ve never watched TOS, I think those two episodes will throw you off cause you’ll assume Spock is always losing his mind or trying to steal the ship. If you’ve never watched TOS, or you feel like rewatching it with fresh eyes, I feel pretty strong that these 10 episodes are not only wonderful, but that they best represent what the entire series is really about. Given this metric, my choice for the best episode of TOS may surprise you…

10. “The Man Trap” 

The first Star Trek ever episode aired should not be the first episode you watch. And yet, you should watch it at some point. The goofy premise concerns an alien with shaggy dog fur, suckers on its hand, and a face like a terrifying deep-sea fish. This alien is also a salt vampire that uses telepathy that effectively also makes it a shapeshifter. It’s all so specifically bonkers that trying to rip-off this trope would be nuts. Written by science fiction legend George Clayton Johnson (one half of Logan’s Run authorship) “The Man Trap” still slaps, and not because Spock (Leonard Nimoy)  tries to slap the alien. Back in the early Season 1 episodes of Star Trek, the “supporting” players like Uhura and Sulu are actually doing stuff in the episode. We all talk about Kirk crying out in pain when the M-113 creature puts those suckers on his face, but the real scene to watch is when Uhura starts speaking Swahili. The casual way Uhura and Sulu are just their lovable selves in this episode is part of why we just can’t quit the classic Star Trek to this day. Plus, the fact that the story is technically centered on Bones gives the episode some gravitas and oomph. You will believe an old country doctor thinks that salt vampire is Nancy! (Spoiler alert: It’s not Nancy.)

9. “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield” 

There are two episodes everyone always likes to bring up when discussing the ways in which Star Trek changed the game for the better in pop culture’s discourse on racism: “Plato’s Stepchildren” and this episode, “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield.” The former episode is famous because Kirk and Uhura kiss, which is sometimes considered the first interracial kiss on an American TV show. (British TV shows had a few of those before Star Trek, though.) But “Plato’s Stepchildren” is not a great episode, and Kirk and Uhura were also manipulated to kiss by telepaths. So, no, I’m not crazy about “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Uhura being forced to kiss a white dude isn’t great.

But “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield,” oddly holds up. Yep. This is the one about space racism where the Riddler from the ‘60s Batman (Frank Gorshin) looks like a black-and-white cookie. Is this episode cheesy? Is it hard to take most of it seriously? Is it weird that Bele (Frank Gorshin) didn’t have a spaceship because the budget was so low at that time? Yes. Is the entire episode dated, and sometimes borderline offensive even though its heart is in the right place? Yes. Does the ending of the episode still work? You bet it does. If you’re going to watch OG Star Trek and skip this episode, you’re kind of missing out on just how charmingly heavy-handed the series could get. “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield” is like a ‘60s after-school special about racism, but they were high while they were writing it.

8. “Arena”

You’re gonna try to list the best episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and not list the episode where Kirk fights a lizard wearing gold dress-tunic? The most amazing thing about “Arena” is that it’s a Season 1 episode of The Original Series and somehow everyone involved in making TOS had enough restraint not to ever try to use this Gorn costume again. They didn’t throw it away either! This famous rubber lizard was built by Wah Chang and is currently owned by none other than Ben Stiller.

So, here’s the thing about “Arena” that makes it a great episode of Star Trek, or any TV series with a lizard person. Kirk refuses to kill the Gorn even though he could have, and Star Trek refused to put a lizard costume in a bunch of episodes later, even though they totally could have. Gold stars all around.

7. “Balance of Terror”

The fact that Star Trek managed to introduce a race of aliens that looked exactly like Spock, and not confuse its viewership is amazing. On top of that, the fact that this detail isn’t exactly the entire focus of the episode is equally impressive. The notion that the Romulans look like Vulcans is a great twist in The Original Series, and decades upon decades of seeing Romulans has probably dulled the novelty ever so slightly. But, the idea that there was a brutally cold and efficient version of the Vulcans flying around in invisible ships blowing shit up is not only cool, but smart.

“Balance of Terror” made the Romulans the best villains of Star Trek because their villainy felt personal. Most Romulan stories in TNG, DS9, and Picard are pretty damn good and they all start right here.

6. “Space Seed”

Khaaaan!!!! Although The Wrath of Khan is infinitely more famous than the episode from which it came, “Space Seed” is one of the best episodes of The Original Series even if it hadn’t been the progenitor of that famous film. In this episode, the worst human villain the Enterprise can encounter doesn’t come from the present, but instead, the past. Even though “Space Seed” isn’t considered a very thoughtful episode and Khan is a straight-up gaslighter, the larger point here is that Khan’s evilness is connected to the fact that he lived on a version of Earth closer to our own.

The episode’s coda is also amazing and speaks of just how interesting Captain Kirk really is. After Khan beat the shit out of him and tried to suffocate the entire Enterprise crew, Kirk’s like “Yeah, this guy just needs a long camping trip.” 

5. “A Piece of the Action”

A few years back, Saturday Night Live did a Star Trek sketch in which it was revealed that Spock had a relative named “Spocko.” This sketch was tragically unfunny because TOS had already made the “Spocko” joke a million times better in “A Piece of the Action.” When you describe the premise of this episode to someone who has never seen it or even heard of it, it sounds like you’re making it up. Kirk, Spock, and Bones are tasked with cleaning-up a planet full of old-timey mobsters who use phrases like “put the bag on you.” Not only is the episode hilarious, but it also demonstrates the range of what Star Trek can do as an emerging type of pop-art. In “A Piece of the Action,” Star Trek begins asking questions about genres that nobody ever dreamed of before. Such as, “what if we did an old-timey gangster movie, but there’s a spaceship involved?”

4. “Devil in the Dark”

When I was a kid, my sister and I called this episode, “the one with giant pizza.” Today, it’s one of those episodes of Star Trek that people tell you defines the entire franchise. They’re not wrong, particularly because we’re just talking about The Original Series. The legacy of this episode is beyond brilliant and set-up a wonderful tradition within the rest of the franchise; a monster story is almost never a monster story

The ending of this episode is so good, and Leonard Nimoy and Shatner play the final scenes so well that I’m actually not sure it’s cool to reveal what the big twist is. If you somehow don’t know, I’ll just say this. You can’t imagine Chris Pratt’s friendly Velicrapotrs, or Ripper on Discovery without the Horta getting their first.

3. “The Corbomite Maneuver” 

If there’s one episode on this list that truly represents what Star Trek is usually all about on a plot level, it’s this one. After the first two pilot episodes —“Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “The Cage”—this was the first regular episode filmed. It’s the first episode with Uhura and, in almost every single way, a great way to actually explain who all these characters are and what the hell they’re doing. The episode begins with Spock saying something is “fascinating” and then, after the opening credits, calling Kirk, who is down in sickbay with his shirt off. Bones gives Kirk shit about not having done his physical in a while, and Kirk wanders through the halls of the episode without his shirt, just kind of holding his boots. 

That’s just the first like 5 minutes. It just gets better and better from there. Like a good bottle of tranya, this episode only improves with time. And if you think it’s cheesy and the big reveal bizarre, then I’m going to say, you’re not going to like the rest of Star Trek. 

2. “The City on the Edge of Forever”

No more blah blah blah! Sorry, wrong episode. Still, you’ve heard about “The City on the Edge of Forever.” You’ve heard it’s a great time travel episode. You’ve heard Harlan Ellison was pissed about how the script turned out. You heard that Ron Moore really wanted to bring back Edith Keeler for Star Trek Generations. (Okay, maybe you haven’t heard that, but he did.)

Everything you’ve heard about this episode is correct. There’s some stuff that will make any sensible person roll their eyes today, but the overall feeling of this episode is unparalleled. Time travel stories are always popular, but Star Trek has never really done a time travel story this good ever again. The edge of forever will always be just out of reach.

1. “A Taste of Armageddon”

Plot twist! This excellent episode of TOS almost never makes it on top ten lists. Until now! If you blink, “A Taste of Armageddon” could resemble at least a dozen other episodes of TOS. Kirk and Spock are trapped without their communicators. The crew has to overpower some guards to get to some central computer hub and blow it up. Scotty is in command with Kirk on the surface and is just kind of scowling the whole time. Kirk is giving big speeches about how humanity is great because it’s so deeply flawed.

What makes this episode fantastic is that all of these elements come together thanks to a simplistic science fiction premise: What if a society eliminated violence but retained murder? What if hatred was still encouraged, but war was automated? Star Trek’s best moments were often direct allegories about things that were actually happening, but what makes “A Taste of Armageddon” so great is that this metaphor reached for something that could happen. Kirk’s solution to this problem is a non-solution, which makes the episode even better. At its best classic Star Trek wasn’t just presenting a social problem and then telling us how to fix it. Sometimes it was saying something more interesting — what if the problem gets even harder? What do we do then? 

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The humor and bombast of “A Taste of Armageddon” is part of the answer to that unspoken question, but there’s also a clever lesson about making smaller philosophical decisions. In Star Wars, people are always trying to rid themselves of the dark side of the Force. In Star Trek, Kirk just teaches us to say, “Hey I won’t be a terrible person, today” and then just see how many days we can go in a row being like that.

What do you think are the most franchise-defining episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series? Let us know in the comments below.

The post The Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Best Define the Franchise appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[markcampbells]

8, 10 & 32 for the fanfiction questions!

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

Ahh, the Star Trek story! ... is not all that fascinating, LMFAO. The short version:

I see Bottle Shock when it comes out, when I'm 17, and my mom and I really enjoy Chris Pine's performance in particular. We come home and look him up online and I yell upstairs, "MA! HE'S GONNA BE CAPTAIN KIRK!"

On the strength of knowing I like Chris Pine and nothing else, never having seen Star Trek in any capacity before despite growing up in a Trek-loving household, I go with my parents to see 2009 in theaters the following summer. I am instantly smitten. I'm talking my close friend who also loved it and I buy each other Jim (for me) and Spock (for him) dolls for our high school graduation.

I start reading for my current (and only) ship, McKirk (Jim/Bones), probably somewhere between 2009 and Into Darkness. I definitely shipped them of my own volition; I have always been taken with their dynamic whether platonic or romantic, but I can't remember if I first sought out fic myself or if I read one purely because a mutual I used to have also shipped them and sometimes reblogged fic.

Between 2009 and when the next two movies come out (2013, 2016), I try watching the original series at least once and bounce off it. In between the two movies I occasionally go back to reading fic (particularly by an author I really like), but nothing really sticks. In 2018, I end up trying the original series again and getting into it shockingly quickly this time around.

For no particular reason I get to the middle of the final season and stall, and I don't watch any Star Trek episodes in 2019. However, 2020 brings the pandemic, and I start needing something to fill my time. I go back and finish TOS, watch the original movies, and revisit the new films again, and when my focus snaps like a twig and I can't focus on prose, I decide to go back to McKirk fic for real. I remember that there's a well-regarded slow-burn for the pairing I've always half-thought about reading (Switch) and start there, as well as revisiting fics by the author I had started reading with (shoreleave). I spend literal months reading nothing but fanfiction for the pairing because it's all my brain can focus on, LOL.

Ultimately what starts me writing is just that I start having ideas of my own, to my surprise after shipping the pairing on and off for over a decade and never thinking of writing! I found the USS McKirk Discord server through the folks on here talking about it and joined with the thought it would be nice having some friends who ship the pairing, and now it's two months later and I'm grateful every day I found myself there and that I've found my way back to fanfiction again. <3

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

I haven't read in the fandom in quite a while, but Jane Austen! I enjoy JAFF a lot. I stick almost entirely to the published stuff for ease's sake, and there's plenty of variety there (though diversity is still a work in progress, unfortunately). I did write an Austen fic once when I was a young teen, but in general writing it would require a lot of historical accuracy and era-appropriate language I'm not the greatest fit for, and everyone's interpretations of the characters vary so widely that as a writer I would probably have constant anxiety, LOL. I stepped away from fandom a lot after the 2016 election, including reading fic, but I still honestly find a lot of comfort in the thought of a Pride and Prejudice variation or sequel because the characters are like old friends and it's nice to see where authors take them.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

My last several fics have been titled after songs! Sometimes related to what the content of the story is, sometimes not and the lyric just worked, LMAO. Those were:

but we just haven't mastered the fall - "My Darling" by Ingrid Michaelson

your hands can heal, your hands can bruise - "Poison & Wine" by The Civil Wars

pack up the life that's left - "Old Days" by Ingrid Michaelson

Ingrid Michaelson is obviously a big one, as evidenced here! Her lyrics tend to lodge in my brain and cause things to happen. (My shameful secret is that a lot of the best writing music for me comes from 2000s dramas like Grey's Anatomy, The OC, and One Tree Hill. Just. 2000s era pop. I hate myself.) The USS McKirk server also has a phenomenal McKirk Vibes playlist that really sparks me.

[transxfiles]

I originally followed you for Lumberjanes and because you felt like a friend, but after seeing so much about Star Trek...I’m curious. What’s the premise and where can I watch it? (Explain it to me like you’d explain it to a child, I don’t watch live action TV)

I want to start out by saying that this ask is so sweet and it made my day, so thank you so much :D 

Star Trek is a bit hard to explain in a sense simply because there’s so much of it. I’m gonna stick to what I know (and what I post about) which is The Original Series (other people will abbreviate it to TOS, I abbreviate it to STOS bc I think of it as ‘Star Trek Original Series’) which came out in the 1960s, and I'll briefly explain Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST: TNG or just TNG), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), and Star Trek: Discovery (often simply referred to as Discovery, ST Disco, Disco, etc.) bc I post a bit abt them too, though not as much.

The Original Series is what I mainly watch. It’s about a crew of people from all over Earth (and some other planets, but mostly from Earth) who are traveling in a spaceship called the Enterprise. They’re supposed to be finding new worlds and species, but really they just fuck around and find out. Most of the time they don’t even follow basic lab safety, which gets them into many shenanigans that will have you yelling at the television abt how stupid they are. 

This is Captain Kirk. He’s a Human from Riverside, Iowa and his job on the ship is basically to be dumb and pretty. In a good way. He comes up with some good plans and some bad plans, but no matter what he’ll pretty much always divert an entire mission to save his First Officer, Spock. He’s a romantic who likes flowers and antique books, and doesn’t know what black holes are. 

This is Spock! He’s in charge of Science with a capital S (we don’t really know specifics, but he’s really smart...) and he’s Captain Kirk’s first officer. He’s the only main character who’s an alien - he’s half-Human, half-Vulcan, and was raised on Vulcan by his Vulcan father and Human mother. Vulcans are a species who, unlike Humans, follow a strict philosophy of logic, which means that Spock often appears emotionless and unfeeling to his Human coworkers. Every seven years after hitting puberty, he goes into a mating frenzy when this logic leaves him and he has to have sex or he’ll die. He really likes playing chess, hanging out with Captain Kirk, and the word ‘fascinating’. He does not like McCoy, which is reasonable, because McCoy is basically space racist.

This is McCoy, sometimes referred to by the nickname Bones. He’s the Chief Medical Officer of the ship, an old country doctor from Georgia, and it’s implied that he’s working in space because of his divorce back on Earth. He spends a lot of time with the main crew which will make you question who’s actually on ship taking care of the Medbay. He likes hyposprays (super fast space shots that work like a charm) and drinking hard liquor on the job. He’s an old friend of the Captain. He’s incredibly xenophobic; he does not get along with Spock, and often refers to Spock using words that in-universe are essentially slurs against Vulcans. 

These two guys are Sulu (on the left) and Chekov (on the right). They navigate the spaceship. Sulu likes fencing, botany, and messing with Chekov. He’s friends with everyone on the ship. At one point Space Madness causes Sulu to run through the ship with a fencing foil shirtless and cackling. Chekov’s Russian and won’t shut up about it. He claims that everything was invented in Russia, including but not limited to the book Alice In Wonderland and the invention of the Warp Drive. One of his best lines is “Oh yes, I’ll live, but I won’t enjoy it.” 

In this photo, we see Uhura (on the left) and Scotty (on the right). Uhura’s in charge the ship’s Communications Officer and is a xenolinguist, which means she’s a master of pretty much all known alien languages. She likes big earrings and has a beautiful singing voice. Scotty (on the right) is the ship’s Chief Engineer, who fixes all the problems when Kirk or aliens break the ship. He’s Scottish and you won’t ever forget it. He and Bones are probably drinking buddies.

This is Nurse Chapel. She runs the Medbay when Bones is dancing around on the Bridge or various alien planets. She’s pretty chill and has a little crush on Spock that sometimes causes problems. She and Uhura hang out sometimes.

And finally, this is Yeoman Rand. She and Sulu hang out sometimes. She also vibes with Uhura. I’m not really sure what her exact job is - she delivers food to people sometimes, but she also eats it when no one’s looking. She has the wackiest hairdo on the show. I love her so much.

As far as plot goes, in The Original Series, there isn’t any. They run around on alien planets and sometimes little paper mâché rocks are thrown at them from offscreen. Sometimes they fight Klingons, which are their main enemy (though that doesn’t happen a lot). Sometimes they end up on a planet that’s entirely composed of gangsters from the 1930s and 1940s, sometimes they end up on a planet that’s actually run by the Greek god Apollo, sometimes they end up on a planet but all the people on it are being eaten by space ravioli, sometimes they end up on a planet and a space ghost is killing people to eat their fear, etc. 

You can watch The Original Series on Netflix, and you can generally find copies of it in various Google Drive folders or on video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo. There are also six movies: The Motion Picture, The Wrath Of Khan, The Search For Spock, The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier, and The Undiscovered Country. But really you can stop watching after The Voyage Home if you want.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is basically the first series but with more plot, and we have some more aliens plus an android in the mix. Also the characters aren’t nearly as stupid as they are in The Original Series, which makes for less yelling at the screen. (You can watch this on Netflix)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine focuses on a group of people who work on a space station instead of a spaceship. There are some humans in the mix, but this crew also has a bunch of aliens. There is a bunch of plot, and religion, and the aftermath of war and colonialism. (You can watch this on Netflix)

Star Trek: Discovery has the most plot, and follows Spock’s adopted sister, Michael Burnham, after she accidentally starts the war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. She ends up serving on a spaceship called the Discovery, where she starts working to discover the secrets of the ship and those who work on it. (You can watch this on CBS’s streaming service but it’s not worth it to get a streaming service just so you can watch one show so I recommend just buying the DVDs on sale at like, Target, if you really wanna see it).

Sorry this ended up being kinda long, I hope this is helpful! The main takeaway is that The Original Series is mostly just a bunch of science fiction short stories in TV episode format. 

[calliecat93]

When I was fifteen years old, I found out about Star Trek: The Original Series. Back then, Star Trek as I knew was only The Next Generation, and I was apathetic about that. I found out through simple curioaity, but I had nothing to better to do so I looked into it. It sounded kind of interesting, so I found the show on Hulu and decided to give it a shot. I quit midway through the third episode. I saw it as old, cheesy looking, and dumb. Why waste my time on something old? Over the years, the more I got involved in online fandom culture, the more I would see it pop up. The more I would ehar about how having PoC inr egular roles was revolutionary just because it showed that they existed. How the show enrained so many science fiction tropes and ideals into modern Americn media in the vein as Dotor Who has in Britian. Heck a review show I used to watch went over the comic adptations of the films, and came off as so passionate about the franchise that I remembered my previous stance. Remembered how I threw it aside as a relic of the past, despite me even thn seeing the value as I valued classical animaiton and children’s media very highly.

IDK what provoked it, but in January of this year, I decided to watch the entirety of Star Trek. Maybe it was quarentine rentine making me snap. Maybe it was me giving in at last to those urges that had been prodding at me for years. Regardless, I made the choice, and it only made sense to begin with the one that started it all. I am now 28 years old. I have grown far more patient and respectful with the things that came before my time. Media holds a great deal of value and whether I understood it or not, Star Trek was vital to popular media. I was ready to give it a second chance. I expected to go in with a greater appreciation, but otherwise not have many strong feelings abou it. I got through those three episodes again with my feelings better than before, but not too different. But I was determined to keep going. So for two months, I watched episode after episode and this weekend I ended it with the original films. Now here we all at the end of the journey. How do I feel?

I felt very regretful for throwing it aside the way that I did.

I greatly enjoyed TOS. Far more than I had ever expected. It is very much a product of the 60’s. There was a limited budget and it showed, though they made the most of it. There were many ridiculous plots, rampant sexism, and hammy acting that is utterly laughable. Some days I could go along with it, other days I just wanted them to get it over with. And yet, none of it kept me away. There were ideals revolutionary for the time like PoC standing equal to others, themes of all kinds such as anti-war and humanity, great science fiction concepts that may be standard today but don’t rob them of their enjoyability, and so much fun but also many moments that made you think. But most of ll, it had such lovely characters. For me to care about a show, I have to care about it’s chracters. I knew a few things via pop culture, butt hat’s not the same as understanding them as a viewer and media can frequently exaggerate the reality. And as I found out, there was far more to them than what mdia lead me to believe.

Kirk I only ever knew as a brave captain who made out with a lot of women. While that’s true, I can’t call him a reckless womanizing asshole. He was brave, optimistic, diplomatic, and charming. He could be light-herted, but also very much a devoted Starfleet Captain whose duty is his entire being. I was shocked at how much I grew to care about him. Seeing his triumphs, his failings, his strengths and flaws, even on an off day I cared about him. Even when William Shatner hammed it up too much, I enjoyed seeing him. Spock was who I knew the most about consideirng how popular he was and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I also grew to love him. His logic, his struggle with his dual being as half Vulcan and half Human, his loyalty to Kirk and his dedicaiton to his duty. I could see why he meant so much to people, esecially witht he level of depth and work that Leonard Nimoy put into the character. There’s s amny little things that you begint o notce and it makes Spock feel all the more real. But by far the biggest appeciaiton I grew was for McCoy. He was the character I knew the least about aside form him being a doctor and remembering the first episode. But GOD I love his character so much. His crankiness, snarkiness, and his arguments with Spock were entertaining but seieng how compassionate, devoted, and caring that he is especially when I watched The Empath ahead of time and saw his sacrifice... damn. Not to mention DeForest Kelley’s perormance with him imo being the best peformer aside from Nimoy. He gave it hus all even during the dumbest episodes and that always earns my respect. I didn’t think I’d care about Bones that much, knowing him as that guy who’s more important than the rest but not even close to as much as Kirk and Spock, and he walked away as my absolute favorite character who I will continue to give the love and appreciate that he deserves.

The others were great too. Scotty was funny, great at his job, and the amount fo times he saved thm all via some miracle is to be admired. Sulu was significant for being an Asian man as a regular and in a high position, and I just loved having his prescence. Uhura being a Black woman treated as an equal by her white male peers and being a dedicated, sassy communicaitons officer as well as her lovely musical talents made her a delight. Chekov when he came along added a nice, youthful prescence without him getitg annoying and having a Russian as a hero at that time was also a big deal. While the show struggled BIG TIME with gender and feminism, it was major at the time for presenting PoC and those of other nationalities as equal to others, and the cast clearly did their best to make them feel like actual people. I respect that a great deal. We all should sot hat we can keep improving from there.

I didn’t expect to care. I expected to get the show over with and have something to occupy my time. And yet, I do care. I care about these characters. I care about the shenanigains that they get involed in. I worry when they get into distress even though I know that they’ll be fine. There were plenty of things I knew in advance like Spcok’s deaht in the movies... and I cried anyways. I knew that nothing long-term bad would happen in the series, yet I feared for the cast and their situaton anyways. I grew invested in them. In their relaitonships. The Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic was by far my favorite thing and it kept me wanting to keepw atching. Not to occupy my time, but because I genuienly wanted to see what they got into and how they got out of it. To see Kirk and Spock’s mutual respect and trust in each other. To see Spock and McCoy argue over logic and emotion and be wiling to defend the other, to see Kirk and Bones joke and be at ease with each other as the close longitme firends that the are, and just having the three together... it was such a perfect dynamic. Hell I didn’t expect to ship anything aside form maybe Spirk due to knowing it’s significance to fandom, slash,a nd the LGBT+ community. And I came away shipping all three dynamics...a nd veering on all three together, but IDK if I’m quite there yet. But whether shippy or platonic, their relaitonship together is perfect and I loved it.

Now, the journey is over. Oh I plan to go back and do it all over again. I plan to pay even more atteniton. I plan on giving each episode as good of an analysis as I can give. I plan to try and seek out things like the novels and the comics so that I can have more itme with them. I plan to watch the reboot films to see what happes in a different universe. I plan to watch TNG and hope that I enjoy those charactrs that I ignored my entire life just as much as I did these. But for now, it’s over. It is a ride that I am thankful to have taken. I came in indifferen, and am leaving a fan looking forward to whatever else awaits. Thank you Star Trek TOS for this amazing two month journey. Thank you tot he cast and crew who put so much into it despite everything working against them. Thank you to the fans who watched it and kept it alive for all of these decades. And to those who read tot his point and all of my watchthrogh posts, thank you for sitcking with me. It was, without doubt, an experience that I’m never going to forget.