The 10 Best Original Star Trek Episodes for Strange New Worlds Fans

If you’re a new Star Trek fan because Star Trek: Strange New Worlds got you hooked, welcome to the club, nerd! Season 2 of SNW ends this week, so if you’ve got an itch for Star Trek, give Star Trek : The Original Series a try. SNW is creatively going where no Trek has gone before, but the original series is the source of most of its characters and lore.

But don’t just dive into a random episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. There are 79 episodes (all available to stream on Paramount+), but only a few of them are really good; if you pick one at random, you might wonder why Abraham Lincoln fights Genghis Khan (S3E23 “Wild Curtain”) or why an entire episode is dedicated to a wish.com time lord and his stupid secretary (S2E26 “Mission: Earth”). “). Instead, watch the 10 episodes listed below. Each one is a classic that perfectly complements and intersects with Strange New Worlds .

Menagerie (S1E11 & 12)

In the first episode of Strange New Worlds , we learn that Captain Pike foresaw his horrific and depressing end. If you want to know what happened to him after that, this two-part episode is for you. It’s also a celebration for fans of the noble Spock, whose loyalty is only rivaled by his logic. The connection between Spock and Pike, revealed in SNW , adds depth to Spock’s decision to risk his career and freedom for his old friend.

Naked Time (S1E4)

Both Uhura and Nurse Chapel were iconic characters in Star Trek, but they didn’t get a chance to do anything special – Chapel mostly helped Bones and fell in love with Spock. Uhura’s job was to say, “Frequency call open, captain.” But Naked Time is an exception for both characters. In it, a space virus lifts inhibitions from the crew of the Enterprise, allowing Spock and Chapel to express the hidden passion explored in Strange New Worlds. Also, Uhura delivers the best line in Star Trek history (perhaps TV history). When a besotted Sulu calls her a “beautiful girl”, Uhura replies “Sorry, neither”, having enough power to end patriarchy in a nutshell.

Seven Galileos (S1E16)

Like everyone, I love Spock so much that I think about him literally all the time, and while there are many episodes in both The Original Series and Strange New Worlds that explore the inner life of a half-human, half-volcano, science of the Enterprise. , none of them are as effective as Galileo’s Seven. In it, Spock commands a small team that has landed on a shuttle on a hostile planet. He has to fight both the aliens outside the ship and the misunderstanding and prejudices of his own crew.

Operation – Destroy! (S1E29)

One of the great things about Star Trek: The Original Series was the creative freedom you could come up with as you went along—the creators of TOS tried everything and kept what worked. Kirk’s brother Sam seems to be one of those “of course, add it.” Samuel Kirk is mentioned once in an early episode of TOS, but his only appearance is in “Operation – Annihilation!” and he only appears as a corpse played by William Shatner with a mustache, and Kirk hardly seems to care. I just love that SNW turned a forgotten plot into a fully fledged character.

Cosmic Seed (S1E22)

Much is made of Lieutenant Laan Noonien-Singh’s ghostly bloodline in Strange New Worlds , and this episode explains exactly why so many people are disgusted and horrified by Laan. Her ancestor, Khan Noonien Singh, is one of the most formidable adversaries in the Star Trek universe. He is like a cosmic Hitler played by Ricardo Montalban. In “Space Seed”, Kirk competes wits with Khan. The battle continues in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , arguably the best Star Trek movie, in part because Khan has good reason to hate Kirk.

Amok Time (S2E1)

Stingy Trek fans might disagree that Strange New World focuses on the team’s romantic interests rather than alien battles and the like, but that’s only because they forget episodes like Mad Time. In it, Spock experiences Pon Farr, the Vulcan time of mating or death. Everything here, from Nurse Chapel’s unrequited love for Spock, to the troubled relationship between T’Pring and Spock, to the disapproval of Spock’s future mother-in-law of his human half, to the fight to the death between Kirk and Spock, is bloody emotional in their own way. There is even a wedding . What I love most about The Time of Amok is Spock’s logical conclusion about his relationship with the T’Pring.

Mirror, Mirror (S2E4)

In “Mirror, Mirror” Uhura has a chance to prove himself by stepping out from behind a communications console and kicking someone’s ass. When Uhura, Kirk, Scotty and McCoy are transported to an alternate reality where the Enterprise is a brutal ship driven by violence, Uhura tricks the scarred evil Sulu with her feminine wiles and then pulls a knife on him, proving that the communications officer can throw, if she needs to.

Private Little War (S2E19)

Doctor M’Benga is my favorite character in Strange New Worlds , and I was a few years old when I found out that he appears in two episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series . The main plot of A Little Private War is the story of the second season, in which Kirk and Bones head to the state park “Planet Malibu” and find themselves in the midst of a skirmish between the natives. But the real action takes place in the second plot, where Dr. M’Benga uses his knowledge of Vulcan physiology to save Spock’s life with slap-based therapy. His character is not deeply studied, but he is still a complete badass.

Balance of Terror (S1E14)

Although Lieutenant James T. Kirk appears in several episodes of the second season of Strange New Worlds , he is the main character in only one of them, and even in this he is an alternate timeline Kirk. So SNW viewers might be asking themselves, “What’s so special about Kirk?” The original series episode “The Balance of Terror” gives you the answer. In the best episode of Star Treks ever (I’ll fight you for this), Kirk’s desperate, deadly fight with a Romulan adversary is a perfect illustration of why Captain Kirk is Captain Bloody Kirk .

Arena (S1E18)

While Gorns’ retcons aren’t perfect (why does everyone act like they’ve never seen them before?), Gorns are such great villains that it’s forgivable… Every ST:TOS fan remembers the strange lizard that Kirk is forced to fight in “The Arena” but Gorn’s backstory remains open – back then, it was enough just to be bloodthirsty lizards. As we know from SNW , though, the Gorns are extremely evil, which makes the moral of Kirk’s decision to spare his opponent in “The Arena” even more ambiguous.