Top 5 Best Star Trek Episodes To Watch On Netflix UK
If you want to prepare yourself for the arrival of Star Trek Beyond on the 22nd July, what better way to do it than binge watching your way through all of the previous Star Trek series! From today Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise, are all available on Netflix UK for you to devour!
In addition to those, you can also watch all 22 episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series, along with Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, and the 2nd of the rebooted Trek movies, Star Trek Into Darkness.
If you think you may struggle to make it through all 531 episodes now available to you, we’ve picked out our top 5 episodes you can watch right now on Netflix UK.
5. Carbon Creek (Enterprise)
https://youtu.be/33r3TyD834k
Enterprise was rather seen as the unloved offspring of the Star Trek series. Whilst it’s true, the show did take a while to find it’s feet, there were some great stand out episodes during it’s run. Carbon Creek saw Sub-Commander T’Pol relate the tale of her grandmother being stranded on Earth, over a century before First Contact was officially established. Set in 50’s USA, it’s a great example of Enterprise playing into classic Star Trek themes.
4. Living Witness (Voyager)
This is a fascinating look at how things can been seen very differently depending on your perspective on the actions. The episode features a backup of Voyager’s Doctor awakened in a museum which depicts the ‘warship Voyager’. A vessel full of evil-doers who interfered in the affairs of the planet so much that it riots, and causes a divide that still hasn’t healed 700 years later! The Doctor has been activated to set the record straight.
3. Mirror, Mirror (TOS)
This episode spawned a whole new concept for the Star Trek series, and influenced many other shows with the idea of a evil mirror universe. Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Uhura are hit with an ion storm just as they beam back to the Enterprise from an away mission. They materialise on board the ISS Enterprise, an evil version of the ship run by the nefarious Terran Empire, and have to figure out a way to get back to their own reality. The Mirror Universe became so popular with fans, it was used again in a number of episodes of DS9, and 2 episodes of Enterprise.
2. Trouble With Tribbles (TOS) / Trials & Tribble-ations (DS9)
So yes, this is technically 2 episodes, but they are so closely linked, it seems foolish not to watch them both! In Trouble With Tribbles, a trader gives Uhura a Tribble, a small round cooing ball of fur, as a present. The problem is that Tribbles multiply at an alarming rate, getting everywhere on the ship.
The DS9 episode Trials & Tribble-ations becomes a sequel of sorts to the TOS original. This sees Sisko and the crew of the USS Defiant flung back in time to the events of the Trouble With Tribbles, and features some brilliant effects work, allowing them to insert the DS9 crew into footage from the TOS episode.
1. Darmok (TNG)
Darmok is a great example of The Next Generation at it’s finest. The crew of the Enterprise make contact with a race called the Tamarian. Although the universal translators can translate their language into English, what they’re saying makes no sense, due to Tamarians only communicating through allegory – i.e. stories used to explain what they actually mean. As the Tamarians have no knowledge of Tamarian history, the things the aliens are referring to make no sense to the Enterprise crew. Equally their plain speaking English makes no sense to the Tamarians. Out of frustration, the Tamarian captain transports himself and Picard onto the nearby planet and block all transporters. Together they have to work out how to communicate with each other using this bizarre syntax.
There are literally hundreds of possible episodes we could have put in here from Star Trek’s various tv shows, but these 5 are some great examples of the franchise at it’s best. And if you’re missing Star Trek on the small screen, don’t worry, it will be returning under the helm of the brilliant Bryan Fuller, when a brand new Trek tv show arrives in January 2017.
