The scene where Sisko is asked why he continues to live in the past is what elevates Emissary above everything else. Its one of the more profound moments in Trek and immediately allows us to understand what this series is about. Its a shame that Caretaker isn't able to find that moment for voyager.
And the way it was conveyed also - "you exist here" and "It is non-linear"; As we repeatedly returned to the same harrowing scenes it was starting to get annoying but then you realise that it is part of the point of the story - the aliens were not doing this to Sisko, he was doing it to himself. It was a great moment.
"Emissary" is most definitely Trek's best series opener. In addition to the setting and tone being firmly established, it has the best character development of all the pilots, particularly with Sisko having an active arc going from being a grieving man full of doubts and even grudges to a healing leader blessed with new purpose and direction. Michael Piller's teleplay is so brilliant in how it connects the high-stakes plot with the Cardassian stand-off so smoothly with an internal story about a man confronting a traumatic loss. Don't ever let anyone tell you that "real" Star Trek isn't all that emotional when DS9 opened with a plot centering around grief therapy.
@Tommy Gunn Because they weren't ready for it. They thought Star Trek could only ever be what it was in the 1960s, and exploring space in a starship every week. They're not ready for the so-called "nutrek" now, in *exactly* the same way. Honestly, someone should do a study or something...
I was excited about the show after seeing Emissary, but was later shaken away from the series after the Rumpelstiltskin episode, so I just went back to watching Babylon 5. I’m told DS9 got really good later on, so I need to get back to it one of these days. The only two Star Trek series I’ve seen every episode of are TNG and Enterprise, for context.
@@BordersJambo Great analysis. Still, DS9 proved more popular than all the naysaying would indicate. That's because the creators stuck to their vision, believing than fans would eventually GET the show. Expect history to repeat itself with the new batch of shows.
The DS9 pilot also Has one of the most beautiful quotes I‘ve ever heard… ever… that perfectly sums up not just the mandate of Star Trek‘s optimism, but the human condition at its best as a whole. „It is the unknown that defines our existence. We are constantly searching, not just for answers to our questions, but for new questions. We are explorers. We explore our lives, day by day.“
I'm glad to see Emissary in the top spot. It's a great pilot that still stands up after repeated viewings, and it captures the spirit of what the show would become far better than most of the rest of the first season.
My favourite is Caretaker. Maybe I'm biased because Voyager was what got me in to Star Trek as a kid in the late 90s. But I think it does a great job of setting up a premise. It got me excited. The idea of the combined marquis starfleet crew, delta quadrant, new bad guys, and it did a great job of establishing a bunch of likable characters with interesting backgrounds that had a lot of potential for interesting stories. Janeway needed to sell us out of the gate a strong female captain and she absolutely smashed it. The show didn't always deliver but boy did it have all the right pieces
My only problem with Caretaker is my big problem with Chakotay, and it's the fake Native American consultant and all the crappy fake Native/often times racist bits of the show the did with him. That being said, it's also my favorite and a 9/10 imo.
@@poomar yeah it's another example of a fantastic idea, let's have a Native American so we can explore an ancient culture in the 24th century, but very poorly executed.
@@poomar How can you blame the show for that though? They had no idea they were being scammed by that guy. Honestly the native American stuff never really bothered me as I had no idea as to its authenticity and neither did anyone else till after that guy was exposed. I just went along with it since this was a fictional show and it was a fictional part of his character.
There is something about The Cage that I find very fascinating. The barebones title card, the grey muted colors of the enterprise interior, and the overall somber tone gives this strange feel to it. It is definitely different from the much more colorful and sometimes campy vibes that TOS had and because of that is why I like it so much.
I just re-watched some TOS after watching SNW's and was very disappointed that the old series had been remastered. The original production would have been nice to see.
Thinking about Sisko, they begin with his most emotional moment: "I exist here." The redefinition of Star Trek's ethos is poignant and comprehensive. To the point that Sisko's words help Discovery launched its show ("We come in Peace!" "We don't fire, first!"). And, it blends so well with "I exist here!" that it feels like a real conflict with a superior race. "Aggressive...adversarial" describes Wolf 359 and Sisko living in the battles, seeing a dead woman. "It is not linear." Provides context for Sisko's perception, the likeness to memory and thought to the Prophets' nonlinear nature, while their confusion contrasts in the differences and likenesses. Jennifer is the unwritten member of the cast. She is the counterweight to Kasidy, and the weight to her importance in Ben's life. The relationship with Jennifer is re-legislated in 26 episodes of the 4th season (Ben's pain and resigning, Ben's regret over how his life led to Jennifer's death, and then Torias' guilt comes from Jadzia, Jake's second chance being what Ben might say to a Jennifer if he failed to pursue Kasidy, etc.). So, Emissary is #1.
@@SimuLord I feel like I'm the only person in the world who thinks The Inner Light is pretty "meh." Now, if you'd said "Yesterday's Enterprise" or "The Defector" or "Preemptive Strike" that would have been different.
I basically agree but would switch Emissary with Strange New Worlds. Emissary really drags a lot in the middle and has serious pacing problems, even if it has a wonderful payoff. So don't get me wrong I love the episode, but SNW is on another level. Let's forget about the easy stuff like the production values and CGI, or the music which is just mind-blowingly good--the writing, the pacing, the acting, it's all on such a high level, and it all works so well together, it's just incredible. I found Pike's emotional struggles and journey through this episode just hit me really hard, and are just as strong as Sisko's journey to me. He starts the episode as a broken man, running from a future he knows he cannot escape, and clearly contemplating just giving up completely. Effectively asking himself, "why try to accomplish anything if I'm doomed? What's the point?" And as we move through the episode we see him continue to struggle, haunted by his future he so desperately wants to escape even as he is thrust back into the thick of the action. And yet we never see that emotional turmoil affect his command decisions or his judgment in a negative way. In fact, his inner turmoil colors every action he takes during the episode and leads to some truly impressive revelations and decisions. His small conversation with La'an before he beams back down, where she elaborates on her own trauma and he relates and identifies with it is incredible. Even better is that it is what makes him decide to beam down and show them what will happen if they don't stop. As Pike walked the Kiley through their potential doom, he was also reflecting on his own, and when he concluded the speech saying that "right up until the very end, life is to be worn gloriously." I had tears running down my face, because he is also walking through the course of his own trauma there. Those words are the answer to the question he was asking himself at the beginning of the episode. He even calls himself a lucky man in his log. His journey isn't over, not until "A Quality of Mercy", but he's finally able to face it, when before he couldn't. The episode, like Emissary, also perfectly merges the themes of what is going on in the action plot with what is going on with the internal plot. The Kiley spiraling towards self destruction is a reflection of Pike's own trajectory, and as he uses his words to lift them up, he also lifts himself, and honestly, us. The ending was probably one of the most deeply optimistic endings to an episode I have ever seen. It made me believe the future could be a bright one, despite all the darkness we are experiencing right now, and while Emissary is a beautiful story, it never quite spoke to me on that same level.
You should do hella specific versions of this video, like "Star Trek Left Nacelle Designs Ranked from Worst to Best" or "Star Trek Hamfisted Racial Allegories Ranked from Worst to Best".
Most may disagree, but I still think TOS's "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the best of them all. I'm not knocking "Emissary" at all. But, "Where No Man.." is that episode that puts the audience directly into the decision-making aspect of the story. In the end, we knew Gary Mitchell had to die. But when viewing, it made me ask the very questions posed to Kirk, Spock, Lee, Dr. Dayner (?) etc.: what would WE do in their place? What's best for the ship? The crew? Kirk's friend? The galaxy? It's a morality tale throughout, and I asked those questions. 1. Should the Enterprise leave the galaxy, despite the warning from the data of the previous ship's recorder (I know, there's be no episode without it. But we all sit in front of the screen and say "If it was me, I (would/wouldn't)..." 2. Is Spock right to kill Mitchell much sooner? 3. Should Kirk have separated Dayner and Mitchell much sooner, once he noticed how close she was to Mitchell? 4. Once Kirk saw how powerful Mitchell was getting, should he have realized that the only option is to kill Mitchell, instead of marooning him on the planet, with the possibility of someone else discovering him? 5. Did the others (except Spock) ignore Sulu's analysis of the mathematics of Mitchell's exponentially growing powers? 6. And other questions the episode raised. This episode didn't start out like the other pilot episodes, with an origin story of some kind. This dove the audience right in, as if we're nearing the end of Year One of the Five-Year mission, and took us for a ride. In the end the resolution might be easy, but we can't say we all weren't asking what should have been done as the episode progressed. It's my personal favorite, one I never mind revisiting.
i think the reasoning is that if the kazons get the caretaker station it will shift the power in the quadrant - they will get access to technologies they dont understand and most likley get access to weapons far superior to what other people in their space have and they are not shy of slavery and violence - and THAT is why Janeway decide to go kablowie of his array
Emissary is easily my top choice too. I would go as far as to say it's as perfect a pilot episode as you can get. But The Cage would actually be my runner-up. Not only are its themes very interesting and well-developed despite the constraints of the time, but the mood, the ambiance of that episode is second to none. Sure, TOS is associated with optimism and bright colours, but I cant help but wonder if the series would have been able to find a different stride had they stuck around with Jeffrey Hunter and that kind of creepy aesthetic. I have always had a soft spot for that episode and I'm glad to see that other people do as well.
Thank you for giving the Strange New Worlds Pilot the respect it deserved. People are too quick to hate on new trek but strange new worlds has been a great marriage of the old and new, respecting what came before and expanding upon it
“Why do you keep bringing me here!” “We do not bring you here. You bring us here.” Yes, “The Emissary” definitely earns the top slot, not only introducing its characters and setting in reasonably deft fashion, but telling a seminal story about its lead that would have ramifications throughout the rest of the series. I’d swap the positions of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “Strange New Worlds,” which is TOS-colorful, fun, and heartfelt, but light-years less literate and thoughtful than the former. Other than that, we’re pretty much agreed. Amazing how many iterations of a failed ‘60s TV space opera there have been.
Let us all remember that when Avery Brooks breaks down in morning the death of Jennifer, this is the first episode ever shot of DS9. He is so wrapped up in the character's loss, that it is gripping & heartbreaking to see the character stripped down to his core emotions. Even as Nana Visitor's Kira confronts the Starfleet members for the first time, you can see the lifetime of anger & distrust she has on the surface of her every interaction. GREAT PILOT! A strong foundation for an incredible series.
Glad there is a consensus around Emissary, Avery Brooks is absolutely brilliant in that episode (and the series). The "it's not linear" breakdown gets me every time. Generally agree with your ranking, but I'd give more credit to Broken Bow!
I finally caved and bought Paramount+ in the UK. Thoroughly surprised and impressed with Prodigy, like you say, adults can enjoy it just as much. And having Kate Mulgrew back as Janeway is awesome. SNW has been brilliant. Every episode is getting better. I'd forgotten how good it is to hear th3, "Space; The final frontier...." intro. I'm absolutely hooked. I wouldn't disagree that much with your ranking list, Picard was too high up the list for me.
I think I'd put TNG > VOY and SNW, easily. I mean TNG is pretty bad, but it gives us Q and a simple mystery. Picard is abysmal, and moreso when you realize the mysteryboxes go nowhere.
The docking scenes are just so looooooong. And then Picard makes Riker watch a clip show of the previous events. And Picard gets unnerved by the sound of ship alarms and declares to Data that this mission to talk to the Bandi is really hard, it kind of makes Picard seem really pathetic. Encounter at Farpoint is just pain, at least the Voyager pilot has got action, mystery and the characters are effectively correct from the very start.
@@Edax_Royeaux Listen, TNG's pilot is pretty bad, but it introduces the characters and does 2 scifi things - Q and the mystery. It's rewatchable. VOY does one scifi thing - mystery of moving from point A to B "too fast"... and then it literally forgets the Kim/B'elanna subplot. Forgetting subplots is not okay. Also, am I really supposed to care about the Maquis/Federation squabble here? It's rewatchable, but this depends on how much you buy Janeway's choice. SNW... is literally just a bad episode of tv. DS9 builds on the Borg attack, but it's a small bit of background for Sisco; contrast this with Pike who is 100% about that glimpse of the (strangely unavoidable) future. He goes on a random rescue of his best friend (an alien pretending to be human because he's totes genetically engineered... I wonder if that'll come up again), and so his crew USE GENETIC ENGINEERING to go under cover, get caught, and so he just plays a History Channel Documentary on how yadda yadda WW3, don't use your "warp nuke" to destroy your enemies. Oh, and how did they get a warp nuke? Well, it's... uh... DISCO's problem, because... uh... they used warp in telescope distance of this planet? It's the pilot equivalent of giving yourself a pat on the back for a job well done in that OHTER show.
@@magnum3.14 Did Picard make some interesting setups? If you can't count what happens after, you can't count what happened before, either, meaning the whole Data, Data's Death, Data's Daughters, Romulan Refugees, Synth Ban, etc. are all just incoherent gibberish. John Doe is retired on his farm using alien migrant workers from a planet that was destroyed. The Nephew of his dead Dragon friend shows up, but Earth is fascist against Dragons now. John Doe goes to a place where they used to study dragons, but secret ninja spy aliens from that one destroyed planet show up to suicide kill the dragon in an unprecedented terrorist attack on (Fascist) Earth, which I'm sure the rest of the series will deal with. Is this a good pilot? I call bull.
Placing Discovery so high is madness. The episode has nothing to do with the rest of the show. Two episodes later we're following an entirely different story, the majority of the main characters are not even seen much less introduced, and the one character that is introduced is shown doing something so thoroughly dislikeable that it's hard to accept her ever being made a captain even 3 seasons later. The only thing it has going for it, is the visuals.
Just goes to show that everyone has different tastes, doesn't it? The Vulcan Hello blew me away (hi, Trek fan since I was 5 in 1975 here, before #notmytrek gatekeepers start accusing me of not being a 'real' fan, whatever that means). It's confident, it's exciting, it knows *precisely* what it wants to be and do, the main characters are utterly compelling. I couldn't give a toss about Klingon redesigns - hey, remember when they were completely redesigned, with no explanation whatsoever, for TMP? It's almost as if a) there might be certain variances within the race itself, and b) certain fans can't wrap their heads around change of any sort. Funny, that. Here's what Rowan's smoking, so you can have some: he's smoking 'Not being a toxic, cynical, gatekeeping fan who is utterly incapable of moving with the times'. You should try some, it's smooooth.
@@ste1bro You can like what you like, I've tried 3 times to get into Disco, and it's just not for me. I love SNW and LD, so I'm happy with what I'm getting. Haven't made up my mind yet about Picard, we'll see how it ends up.
Did you know that most of the animated series' scripts are not original to Star Trek? Many were lifted directly from short stories in the "Known Space" collection written by Larry Niven.
This is unrelated to the current video, but your synopsis of b5, was a blast to watch. Remember watching that as a kid, and in the middle of desert to remind me of some, homely thing.
In many viewing areas, TAS' first broadcast episode was actually Yesteryear. I really think that should have been the pilot, because its deeper messages about family relationships, the dignity of life, growing up, and learning to make difficult decisions responsibly, make it a far better story. That said, the rest of the series, while enjoyable, rarely achieved that high standard, so in terms of showing us what to expect, perhaps Beyond the Farthest Star was a more appropriate pilot after all. Yesteryear was always my personal favourite. When I spent a couple of weeks in hospital for tests at 10 years old (1973), young Spock finding the courage to face his challenges meant a lot to me. And now I rather envy older Spock getting to travel back and support his younger self. It's kind of like the re-parenting of our inner child that those of us who grew up in toxic families need to do to help ourselves deal with the effects of trauma.
Great list. Now I need to think of mine!!!! I’ll tell ya, the scenes in Emissary with Sisko taking to the profits, are some of my favorite Trek moments of all time. Also, it always breaks my heart when you talk smack on TAS. That was my intro to Trek along with TOS and it still is close to my heart. I’m sorry you missed out on that point of view! 🖖🏼 Also, Broken Bow needs to be higher! It’s been a long road! Lol
Pretty much agreed entirely. Out of all this, I have to say that SNW has been an amazing addition to the legacy of Trek. An old style appeal while also bringing a few new things, and the acting has been unbelievable.
It’s a fine addition to the collection. I mean it got a lot of the haters of new trek to enjoy it which is quite an accomplishment with how entrenched some of those people were
And now i comes to my top 3 Favorite Star Trek Pilot Episodes And The Begin Makes The Vulcan Hello/Battle At The Binary Stars from Star Trek Discovery. A very interesting and very good Double Episode, even if I didn't like the new design of the Klingons at all. But The Begin with Michael Burnham is very good and the Special Effect are very nice Next is Remembrance from Star Trek Picard. a very interesting, Entertaining and exciting beginning, which gave me goosebumps in one moment. And that's where you see the artifact for the first time and you've heard a variation of the TOS Romulan theme. A pretty awesome pilot episode. And seeing your favorite captain again after 18 years was really nostalgia. And last but not least, Coming now Caretaker from Star Trek Voyager. No pilot episode had taken me so much and amazed me as much as this episode, which starts so brilliantly and also fit everything that should fit. Also the beginning of the Main Characters and so much more, were so brilliantly done and also the beginning with the Kazon was super successful. That's why I think Caretaker is the best pilot episode of all Star Trek.
I think what elevates The Cage is the thematic link between Pike and The Talosians. Pike isn’t just on an adventure, he’s subjected to an ordeal tailor made to teach him a lesson, namely that he needs to embrace and live his life and not dry up and whither away - which is exactly the macro issue the Talosians face. It does what some of the highest art does, namely comment on its own art form. When it’s all said and done, it’s a fantasy adventure TV pilot telling you to get off your ass and live your life instead of watching fantasy adventure on TV.
I’d put Ep1 of Picard just above the Vulcan Hello. The scene with JLP and the reporter was one of the best Picard scenes ever. Really well acted and the way the reporter first acted naive and then really got under his skin was believable. Then when he walks out just saying “we’re done here” here you really get a sense it was damaging for him
Something about the original, fully restored "The Cage" really speaks to me, so my list would have it much higher, possibly all the way up at second place. Apart from that, though, I dig this ranking.
So we're pretty different in our appreciation of Star Trek! I haven't seen all the premieres that you have, but for those I have I largely disagree with your rankings. I would actually place "Emissary" second from the bottom, as it wasn't as much of a mess as STD's premiere, but it was still slow and poorly written. I remember seeing that premiere twice in the same weekend, just because I didn't believe it was as bad as I thought. It didn't improve for me on the second viewing. I also remember that Babylon 5 and a CBS show, Space Rangers, premiered within a week of DS9, and honestly, Space Rangers was the best of the three! I stand behind no one in my love of Babylon 5, but the episode of Space Rangers that they ran (which I would later discover *wasn't* the actual pilot!) was action-packed and incredibly fun. I'll note that JMS' cut of "The Gathering" was a great improvement. As far as the Trek shows, I go like this: 1. Voyager (compelling action and interesting characters and circumstances...that they would piss away within the 1st season) 2. Original Star Trek, 2nd pilot (pretty much everything you love about the series in a raw but still engaging form) 3. The Next Generation (what NextGen could have been before they screwed EVERYTHING over) 4. Original Star Trek, 1st pilot (not quite on the mark, but great ideas and performances) 5. Lower Decks (a little rough, but much more fun that some have said) 6. Picard (a pretty mess: not a lot makes sense, but it all looks great) 7. Enterprise (an unpretty mess with a shipload of boring characters and poor casting choices) 8. DS9 (so long, so drawn out, so boring...and so unlike how good the first three seasons would turn out to be) 9. Discovery (great special effects, but so full of bullshit you'd think it was filmed next to a farm! And what was with the FUCKING "Klingon" makeup?!?) Missed the Prodigy and Strange New Worlds pilots, so I can't say about them. But is it just me or do the tunics on SNW look HORRIBLY uncomfortable to everyone else too?! Even if they aren't to the actors, they just look WAY awkward compared to EVERY other version of the old shirt-and-pants uniform. And that includes those high-collar mistakes that they wore in Star Trek Beyond!
Pretty good list. I wouldn't personally put any Nu Trek on this list out of principle, but I love that you put DS9 as number one. God, that was such a strong opener for the show.
Here are my Star Trek Pilot Episodes: 1)Where No Man Has Gone Before 2)Emissary 3)Lost and Found 4)Strange New Worlds (Pilot) 5)Second Contact 6)The Cage 7)The Vulcan Hello and Battle at the Binary Stars 8)Broken Bow 9)Caretaker 10)Remembrance 11)Encounter at Farpoint
My list is almost the same, except bump up ENT several spots and switch the top 2. I hadn't even considered TAS when doing my own list. Strange New Worlds has had the strongest first season.
Remembrance from Picard S1 is still one of my favorite Trek episodes in general and is my favorite episode of all of Picard. It just set the foundation so well for the future and wasn’t afraid to allow characters to grow and change. It’s a shame that the rest of the show never quite lived up to that potential. Vulcan Hello and Battle of the Binary Stars though, wow, that hooked me in immediately and gave me everything that I had hoped and wished that modern Star Trek could finally be able to achieve. And it’s actually so incredibly bold to end a pilot where your main character’s position is so precarious. And Context is for Kings is almost like a second pilot for the show.
Are you sure you’re a Trekkie?! Where’s the insults and outrage? Lol all seriousness it’s nice to see fans like me who have their favorites but respect everyone’s opinions and connect over a mutual love of the universe.
@@HollywoodandWine101 Ahh, shoot. Good point. Sorry, I'll start over: * ehem* TAS is much more betterer than NuTrek wake garbadge! You are obviously not a True Fan (tm)
@@HollywoodandWine101 When it comes to art, nobody's views on "goodness" are right or wrong. I mean heck, I never saw any appeal whatsoever in Star Wars, but that doesn't mean I think people who like it are in anyway not entitled to that view. But yeah, I get you. Dunno why fans are always trying to pull each other apart these days.
Great video and I am proud to be the very first patron on the list! My only real disagreement is over the placements of Discovery and SNW. I would put Discovery below Picard because I felt the moral conflict in Discovery was very poorly defined compared to the moral conflict in Picard. Simiarly, the cheap moralizing at the end of the SNW pretty dated. I think we should expect more interesting conflict resolution from Star Trek!
Emissary is wonderful, for all the reasons stated by people below. I also found SNW to be absolutely terrific, quite possibly because it’s been so long since we’ve had “proper” Trek.
Do you have any opinions on Star Trek Continues? While some of the actors are clearly amateurs, the sets and props are very faithful to the original series and the writing is pretty good in my opinion.
Star Trek: Continues is so good. We interviewed Vic Mignogna (Kirk) earlier this year. It's a literal bridge between the end of TOS and TMP and the best fan series created (in my opinion).
Star Trek: Continues was a fantastic series. Vic and the rest of the cast did a wonderful job and the writing is far better than any 'official' trek in years.
Encounter at Farpoint was the absolute best pilot of any show, because it was the very first appearance of everyone’s favorite character, Groppler Zorn, who would go on to become one of the most important characters in Star Trek, if not all of fiction, as we all well know.
I tell you what I think. I think it's impressive that you were able to look past the dramatic change in style & production value over the many decades these pilots aired. A lesser review would have leaned towards the newer shows simply due to better visual effects. Bravo!
1. Strange News Worlds 2. Emissary 3. The Cage 4. Where No Man Has Gone Before 5. Broken Bow 6. Caretaker 7. Encounter at Farpoint 8. Lost and Found 9. Remembrance 10. Beyond the Farthest Star 11. Second Contact 12. Lost and Found 13. The Vulcan Hello
I agree with your ranking but you were too hard on Farpoint. I’d swap that pilot with Voyager’s pilot on this list. Don’t forget that TNG debuted into a total vacuum for prime time sci fi and under literal years of hate - yes, there were haters before UA-cam - from TOS fans and sci fi magazines that didn’t want ANYTHING to do with Trek that didn’t feature Kirk, Spock, Bones. The pressure on the writers and cast combined with yet another weird TV syndication deal must have been OUTRAGEOUS. Contrast that with Voyager, which is so slick and smooth, being generated by a Star Trek machine composed almost entirely of veterans and in a safe space of TV sci fi being a proven entity. Voyager’s debut feels TOO slick, takes no chances, and as we saw later didn’t end up using any of the elements set up in the first episode. Now for SECOND episodes, I would have a totally different list, that might be fun!
@Rowan J Coleman What a great list of First episodes. I completely agree with the reason for your rankings. I'm glad you showed love to Prodigy, which too many adult fans dismiss as "kiddie fare" (dumb). It's in fact one of the most amazing additions to the Trek franchise. You're also spot on about Discovery being the DS9 of the current crop of Trek shows. That's high praise.
Star trek the animated series was meant for KIDS, but their parents would *also* watch it because they used to watch TOS in the decade prior. It lasted 2 seasons but had interesting stories that had to be watered down a bit to carry a child's attention. Still, it is best enjoyed sitting on the floor in front of a giant color console eating rice krispies. And you can frown on the animation if you like, but when you saw a character, *you knew who it was immediately*. the fact they used stock animations and angles only meant they could crank out the stories faster and cheaper. I think considering the budget, it is well done.
My list would be far different. 1.) IMO Enterprise still had the best pilot/first episode of any of them. The show might not have lived up to its promise, but that pilot episode was two hours of pure entertainment. At no point was I yawning or bored. 2.) DS9 is my favorite Trek show too, but the pilot drags at times, particularly those LONG moments Sisko is with the prophets. 3.) The "filler" that Rodenberry added to Encounter at Farpoint was Q. The original one hour story written by Dorothy Fontana was the story of the Farpoint station. If anything, Rodenberry improved what could have been a very pedestrian first episode. 4.) IMO, Discovery's first two episodes were horrible and I'd put them next to dead last. And for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE don't try and compare that train wreck to DS9. Benjamin Sisko was a likeable character. Michael Burnham was not. She's not interesting in any way and the entire show evolves around her. 5.) My choice for worse would be Lower Decks. That first episode was so bad I cut it off half way in and haven't bothered watching the series since. It isn't funny and characters who act like idiots isn't why I watch Star Trek.
As someone who saw TOS when it premiered on television, I really looked foward to TNG. However, "Encounter..." was so inflated and dull, I didn't watch any TNG shows again for years, and then only because friends told me the show runners had finally started producing quality shows. Thanks for explaining the reasons for the lethargy in that first show.
Of the ones I’ve seen. 1. Emissary 2. Encounter at Farpoint 3. Remembrance 4. Caretaker 5. Broken Bow 6. Strange New Worlds 7. Where No Man Has Gone Before 8. Battle at the Binary Pulsars 9. The Cage
I agree with Emissary in the top spot, but I disagree with some of the other choices. 1. Emissary (DS9) 2. The Vulcan Hello (DIS) 3. The Cage (TOS-1) 4. Second Contact (LD) 5. Strange New Worlds (SNW) 6. Encounter at Farpoint (TNG) 7. Broken Bow (ENT) 8. Caretaker (VOY) 9. Beyond the Farthest Star (TAS) 10. Remembrance (PIC) 11. Where No Man Has Gone Before (TOS-2) 12. Lost and Found (PRO) The top three episodes on this list do the best job of exploring the lead protagonist's psychology. The LD and SNW pilots are nearly as good, but they don't hook me quite as much. The pilots for TNG, ENT, and VOY are about on the same level: they successfully sell me on the premise of the show, even if the central plots aren't the most interesting. TAS is essentially more of TOS, so it's not surprising that its first episode feels more like a season premiere than a series premiere. The premise of PIC Season 1 didn't intrigue me, and its first episode is partly to blame. The first Kirk-centered episode of TOS is pretty awful by Season 1 standards, and it's not even worth mentioning alongside "The Cage." And the pilot for the Nickelodeon show just convinced me that I'm not the audience for it.
I would have rated Encounter At Far Point higher, but other than that, agreed 100%. I really liked the slow pace of the first STTNG episode, it made me feel like I was living in that universe.
It seems like some completely confuse what's being done, here. He's reviewing the first episode, not the shows themselves. I pretty much agree with your list. I thought the first Picard episode was very good, even if I have lots of problems with the show afterwards. I didn't think Emissary was perfect, nor was season 1 of Deep Space 9, but still the best pilot. I can't comment on Strange New Worlds, but looking forward to seeing it in the near future.
DS9 has the strongest opening season in spite of - if not because of - getting a ton of hand-me-down TNG scripts with Enterprise search-replaced with DS9. Then it really begins to identify it's true identity near the end of the first season with the finale and evolves rapidly from there, reinventing itself every few seasons. The show is somehow very consistent despite the one-off episodes, with the perfect mix of serialization despite effectively soft rebooting itself every 2 seasons.
First of all as always this is a great vid I love watching your output its such high quality :) My own ranking as follows: 1. Voyager - Just thought and felt it was a really good story at the time. I always try to judge things in the context of time. Appreciate some characters were bland but if we're judging on story as opener, I felt it was strong. The "Caretaker" is different from Q and I found the relationship between "it" and the Ocampa interesting. 2. ST: TOS With Pike. Talosian episode. I'm almost thinking this should be no. 1 - can I tie them ;) ? I know I know mind control people will be in the comics of prior years but for TV its new, the way they affect people. Also I think worth note is that Pike ain't a superhero, he's a tired man at this point. A female 1st officer. A man with pointy ears who looks "like the devil"!!!! ;) This is all super stuff and that they did a follow-up (yeah I'm sure they ran out of money so did repeat episodes but still) shows its strength. As an aside - as a disabled person - I don't necessarily want to "re-write canon" but - I'm appalled at depiction of Pike in ST:DISC as if being disabled was in a horror movie. Its unforgiveable from the writers in the modern day. Btw I wonder if you would ever think of doing a video on the depiction of disabled people in Star Trek? Its really backward! I have to say, the binary 0 or 1 he is forced into is going to take a lot of explaining. 3. ST: TNG Again I am writing in context of time. By measure, others are better. I write with a different perspective. Why is this high in my POV? Decent story - I know you say its predictable but was that the case to the audience in 1987? It was such a long time since a Trek series. It showed us what Enterprise (D) could so. We already got to know and love our captain. We got one of the greatest antagonists of all time and it kind of set out the issues ahead. Full of flaws that I could write an essay on here, mainly the characterisation at the time (racist, sexist etc.) that others later had to fix - but as a first episode - well, it was enough to re-start the franchise in the face of huge opposition and it succeeded, as we have Trek now 35 years later :D
I have to agree with your aside - the use of Pike's future accident as horror or unflattering comparison of him being able and vital, to him in a beep chair. I would also like to see a study of how Star Trek depicts disability.
The big issue with TAS beside the animation - it’s just too short. At 22 minutes hard to develop deep stories tho Spock’s trip to his childhood is golden
Really great list. I think I would have elevated The Cage a spot or two as I find it to be very bold and risk taking in its creativity. TAS makes sense at the bottom as it’s not even really a debut so much as a continuation of TOS. Lower Decks almost requires watching the first 3 episodes to really understand what the show is trying to do. Strange New Worlds and DS9 Emissary are perfect choices for 1 & 2. I’ve always thought Emissary was an extremely strong start.
I would generally agree with two exceptions - I would have put both Strange New Worlds and the Discovery 2-parter lower in the list. I am enjoying Strange New Worlds the series, but the opener felt like it wasn't taking itself seriously - it almost parodied itself. As for the Discovery 2-parter, it was good in many ways but the biggest problem I had with it was it's insistence that Burnham had started the war with the Klingons when she clearly had done no such thing. It wouldn't have mattered so much except that they then used that as the basis of her character from that point - she was the one who people shunned because she started the war - except she didn't start it. Her plan to fire first was prevented. I would probably have put The Cage a bit higher, but I agree that Emissary was the best.
Very interesting essay. I think you are right when you note that The Cage looks and feels like 1950s science fiction. For that reason alone I think it should be rated further near the bottom. I remember liking the TNG pilot when it premiered. And I agree that DS9 is Number One.
I still remember being a kid and watching Encounter at Farpoint. Then watching Naked Now afterwards. Then declaring TNG sucks balls and they should have never made another series, a view I'd continue to hold for like 4 years and took forever to get out of. I'm glad TNG was made in the 90s, it'd NEVER survived season 1 if the internet were around.
I don't understand the Picard hate. The ending of S1 was a little hurried but it served. And S2 was gripping for the first four episodes, then meandered a lot but still had interesting stuff for four episodes, then wrapped up with a really solid final two that set up the last season in a really interesting way even if it was a bit on-the-nose in its omage to Mass Effect. But it's a series about the character work and it's all been great.
Agree with the Emissary it was a great Pilot as well as Stranger New Worlds. I can't get behind the ranking of the Vulcan Hello I couldn't stand that episode.
Technically I wouldn't count The Cage as the pilot episode, even though Where No Man Has Gone Before is the second pilot, the way I would count it, is The Man Trap is the first, although the broadcast and production order are different I would go with the broadcast order. Since technically The Cage was never an episode of TOS except The Menagerie storyline, not counting The Cage TOS has 79 episodes and counting The Cage is 80, however the first official full release of The Cage came out in 1986 I believe 20 years after TOS, good episode not saying its not lol, however I'm just not a big fan of Jeffery Hunter's Pike I just can't help myself compare him to Shatner's Kirk
I for one believe that "The Cage" is actually quite a good episode, all things considered in context. It surely has high production values, and the worst thing about it may be the performance by one of Star Trek's truly greatest actors, Leonard Nimoy. His performance was rather weak there only because he had not yet discovered the full nature of his character. In fact, I'd argue that it took a good portion of the first season until we began to see the Spock who we are now all very familiar with. I have no problem with Voyager's first episode except for the way in which the facts of the story are occasionally carried throughout the entire series. Star Trek Discovery? Ah, well ... It's seems SO very stupid that I just can't get into it. Deep Space 9 ... ? Very good overall, except it had plenty of characters who I just didn't give a crap about, and a few themes here and there which were like an anchor around DS9's neck. For example, those wormhole gods. Who gives a crap? Sisko was the best character, and then Sisko's baseball, followed by Worf. That Bajoran character had a very fine actress, but she was otherwise rather boring.
I roughly agree: • DS9 is by far the best pilot. Until the last couple years, I would’ve said it was the only one that wasn’t _bad_ . • I’ve only seen one ep of TAS, and it wasn’t the pilot, so I really can’t comment. • Haven’t seen SNW yet, so I’m happy to just assume it’s better than everything but DS9-AFAIC, that’s a fairly low bar, so I’m sure it clears it. • the rest, I’d say, are in a fine order-not the same order I’d pick, but nothing that I’d make a big fuss over. None of them are great; none of them are horrible. …except Lower Decks. For me, that’s #2 after DS9, and the only other truly _good_ Star Trek pilot [other than maybe SNW]. I just don’t think the Discovery pilot is very good or very interesting. And the fact that so much of it is thrown away with episode 2 (with some of it coming back later in the season or in later seasons, but much of it really being backstory) is just jarring. It’s like if they really had aired “The Cage” as the TOS pilot and then rolled straight into “The Man Trap” as ep 2-with a mostly-new cast, etc. If I _liked_ the Discovery pilot, I’d probably be more forgiving of spending 2 hrs on backstory, but since I don’t…🤷♀️ I also really don’t know where to put either TOS pilot, because they’re pilots for a different show that we never really got. As pilots for TOS, I’d probably put “The Cage” about where Rowan does, bur put “Where No Man Has Gone Before” a bit lower, just because it’s so different from the actual series, so it sorta misrepresents it. But as stories on their own merits, not considering the series that comes after, I’d probably rank them #3 & #4. I like TOS. I *love* the series promised in the first 3-4 eps of TOS, before they changed a bunch of things to create the ‘Trek we came to know.
So I guess I need to revise my original statement: turns out I don’t agree with Rowan’s order much at all. 😉 Leaving out the two series I have at seen yet, I’d say my ranking is about like this: 1: Emissary 2: Second Contact 4: Where No Man Has Gone Before 4: The Cage 5: Remembrance Those were the only ones that instantly sucked me in and had me wanting to watch more right away. After that, they’re all pretty much different flavors of “ok”-they laid important ground work or were important in hindsight, but if I were deciding whether to watch more based just on the pilot, and knowing nothing else about the series, I wouldn’t’ve continued on. So I’m not even going to try to rank all of them, and just call it a four-way tie, with ENT bringing up the rear: 9: Caretaker 9: The Vulcan Hello/Battle at the Binary Stars 9: Lost and Found 9: Encounter at Far Point 10: Broken Bow
Is there a way now to watch SNW in Europe? Also, I forgive Rowan for his love for DS9. ;) Seriously though and as always, good reasoning all around, wether I agree on it or not. Generally speaking I really have to say Star Trek usually isn't a good starter, to be honest. Its pilot episodes usually don't get me too excited about characters and stories.
The scene where Sisko is asked why he continues to live in the past is what elevates Emissary above everything else. Its one of the more profound moments in Trek and immediately allows us to understand what this series is about. Its a shame that Caretaker isn't able to find that moment for voyager.
I'm not sure Voyager ever had that moment at all.
And the way it was conveyed also - "you exist here" and "It is non-linear"; As we repeatedly returned to the same harrowing scenes it was starting to get annoying but then you realise that it is part of the point of the story - the aliens were not doing this to Sisko, he was doing it to himself. It was a great moment.
You exist here.
"Emissary" is most definitely Trek's best series opener. In addition to the setting and tone being firmly established, it has the best character development of all the pilots, particularly with Sisko having an active arc going from being a grieving man full of doubts and even grudges to a healing leader blessed with new purpose and direction. Michael Piller's teleplay is so brilliant in how it connects the high-stakes plot with the Cardassian stand-off so smoothly with an internal story about a man confronting a traumatic loss.
Don't ever let anyone tell you that "real" Star Trek isn't all that emotional when DS9 opened with a plot centering around grief therapy.
It wasn't *so* long ago that DS9 itself wasn't considered "real" Star Trek by those very same people.
Nothing changes.
@Tommy Gunn Because they weren't ready for it. They thought Star Trek could only ever be what it was in the 1960s, and exploring space in a starship every week. They're not ready for the so-called "nutrek" now, in *exactly* the same way. Honestly, someone should do a study or something...
I was excited about the show after seeing Emissary, but was later shaken away from the series after the Rumpelstiltskin episode, so I just went back to watching Babylon 5. I’m told DS9 got really good later on, so I need to get back to it one of these days.
The only two Star Trek series I’ve seen every episode of are TNG and Enterprise, for context.
@@ScrapKing73 For DS9, imagine ENTERPRISE’s 4th Season (the best one) but it’s like that for 5-6 seasons straight!
@@BordersJambo
Great analysis. Still, DS9 proved more popular than all the naysaying would indicate. That's because the creators stuck to their vision, believing than fans would eventually GET the show.
Expect history to repeat itself with the new batch of shows.
The DS9 pilot also Has one of the most beautiful quotes I‘ve ever heard… ever… that perfectly sums up not just the mandate of Star Trek‘s optimism, but the human condition at its best as a whole. „It is the unknown that defines our existence. We are constantly searching, not just for answers to our questions, but for new questions. We are explorers. We explore our lives, day by day.“
I'm glad to see Emissary in the top spot. It's a great pilot that still stands up after repeated viewings, and it captures the spirit of what the show would become far better than most of the rest of the first season.
My favourite is Caretaker. Maybe I'm biased because Voyager was what got me in to Star Trek as a kid in the late 90s. But I think it does a great job of setting up a premise. It got me excited. The idea of the combined marquis starfleet crew, delta quadrant, new bad guys, and it did a great job of establishing a bunch of likable characters with interesting backgrounds that had a lot of potential for interesting stories. Janeway needed to sell us out of the gate a strong female captain and she absolutely smashed it. The show didn't always deliver but boy did it have all the right pieces
My only problem with Caretaker is my big problem with Chakotay, and it's the fake Native American consultant and all the crappy fake Native/often times racist bits of the show the did with him. That being said, it's also my favorite and a 9/10 imo.
anything but STD
@@poomar yeah it's another example of a fantastic idea, let's have a Native American so we can explore an ancient culture in the 24th century, but very poorly executed.
Respect! Voyager falls right into the comfort zone of Star Trek for me. I'm always up for an episode of Voyager when the Star Trek bug bites.
@@poomar How can you blame the show for that though? They had no idea they were being scammed by that guy. Honestly the native American stuff never really bothered me as I had no idea as to its authenticity and neither did anyone else till after that guy was exposed. I just went along with it since this was a fictional show and it was a fictional part of his character.
There is something about The Cage that I find very fascinating. The barebones title card, the grey muted colors of the enterprise interior, and the overall somber tone gives this strange feel to it. It is definitely different from the much more colorful and sometimes campy vibes that TOS had and because of that is why I like it so much.
Agreed. Also, a female second in command. Definitely think that it was ahead of its time and it was too much.
I just re-watched some TOS after watching SNW's and was very disappointed that the old series had been remastered. The original production would have been nice to see.
how could chris pike not get aroused with vena, susan oliver has the most stunning blue eyes( R.I.P.)!!!!
@@scottpoerschke8807 , majel barrett was the best, even as nurse chapel, and the ship's computer voice also( married to gene roddenberry)
I just can't believe that 'Caretaker' is above 'Broken Bow'. 0_0 0_0 0_0
Thinking about Sisko, they begin with his most emotional moment:
"I exist here."
The redefinition of Star Trek's ethos is poignant and comprehensive. To the point that Sisko's words help Discovery launched its show ("We come in Peace!" "We don't fire, first!"). And, it blends so well with "I exist here!" that it feels like a real conflict with a superior race.
"Aggressive...adversarial" describes Wolf 359 and Sisko living in the battles, seeing a dead woman.
"It is not linear." Provides context for Sisko's perception, the likeness to memory and thought to the Prophets' nonlinear nature, while their confusion contrasts in the differences and likenesses.
Jennifer is the unwritten member of the cast. She is the counterweight to Kasidy, and the weight to her importance in Ben's life. The relationship with Jennifer is re-legislated in 26 episodes of the 4th season (Ben's pain and resigning, Ben's regret over how his life led to Jennifer's death, and then Torias' guilt comes from Jadzia, Jake's second chance being what Ben might say to a Jennifer if he failed to pursue Kasidy, etc.).
So, Emissary is #1.
RIP Nichelle Nichols 1932 - 2022. The original Uhura
I love me an arbitrary ranking video. It's always nice to see how other people love the franchise.
@@SimuLord
I feel like I'm the only person in the world who thinks The Inner Light is pretty "meh."
Now, if you'd said "Yesterday's Enterprise" or "The Defector" or "Preemptive Strike" that would have been different.
@@SimuLord
Good choice.
@@SimuLord How about a ranking of every episode of every trek combined? I just want to hear Rowan talk about Star Trek. :)
I basically agree but would switch Emissary with Strange New Worlds. Emissary really drags a lot in the middle and has serious pacing problems, even if it has a wonderful payoff. So don't get me wrong I love the episode, but SNW is on another level. Let's forget about the easy stuff like the production values and CGI, or the music which is just mind-blowingly good--the writing, the pacing, the acting, it's all on such a high level, and it all works so well together, it's just incredible. I found Pike's emotional struggles and journey through this episode just hit me really hard, and are just as strong as Sisko's journey to me. He starts the episode as a broken man, running from a future he knows he cannot escape, and clearly contemplating just giving up completely. Effectively asking himself, "why try to accomplish anything if I'm doomed? What's the point?"
And as we move through the episode we see him continue to struggle, haunted by his future he so desperately wants to escape even as he is thrust back into the thick of the action. And yet we never see that emotional turmoil affect his command decisions or his judgment in a negative way. In fact, his inner turmoil colors every action he takes during the episode and leads to some truly impressive revelations and decisions. His small conversation with La'an before he beams back down, where she elaborates on her own trauma and he relates and identifies with it is incredible. Even better is that it is what makes him decide to beam down and show them what will happen if they don't stop. As Pike walked the Kiley through their potential doom, he was also reflecting on his own, and when he concluded the speech saying that "right up until the very end, life is to be worn gloriously." I had tears running down my face, because he is also walking through the course of his own trauma there. Those words are the answer to the question he was asking himself at the beginning of the episode. He even calls himself a lucky man in his log. His journey isn't over, not until "A Quality of Mercy", but he's finally able to face it, when before he couldn't.
The episode, like Emissary, also perfectly merges the themes of what is going on in the action plot with what is going on with the internal plot. The Kiley spiraling towards self destruction is a reflection of Pike's own trajectory, and as he uses his words to lift them up, he also lifts himself, and honestly, us. The ending was probably one of the most deeply optimistic endings to an episode I have ever seen. It made me believe the future could be a bright one, despite all the darkness we are experiencing right now, and while Emissary is a beautiful story, it never quite spoke to me on that same level.
For me, at least, it's a tie between Emissary and Strange New Worlds.
I'm so happy you are enjoying Lower Decks. It grew up to be not only humorous but, to steal your line of, quintessential Star Trek 🖖
You should do hella specific versions of this video, like "Star Trek Left Nacelle Designs Ranked from Worst to Best" or "Star Trek Hamfisted Racial Allegories Ranked from Worst to Best".
Always enjoy catching your videos! Great job as always!
Most may disagree, but I still think TOS's "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the best of them all. I'm not knocking "Emissary" at all. But, "Where No Man.." is that episode that puts the audience directly into the decision-making aspect of the story. In the end, we knew Gary Mitchell had to die. But when viewing, it made me ask the very questions posed to Kirk, Spock, Lee, Dr. Dayner (?) etc.: what would WE do in their place? What's best for the ship? The crew? Kirk's friend? The galaxy? It's a morality tale throughout, and I asked those questions.
1. Should the Enterprise leave the galaxy, despite the warning from the data of the previous ship's recorder (I know, there's be no episode without it. But we all sit in front of the screen and say "If it was me, I (would/wouldn't)..."
2. Is Spock right to kill Mitchell much sooner?
3. Should Kirk have separated Dayner and Mitchell much sooner, once he noticed how close she was to Mitchell?
4. Once Kirk saw how powerful Mitchell was getting, should he have realized that the only option is to kill Mitchell, instead of marooning him on the planet, with the possibility of someone else discovering him?
5. Did the others (except Spock) ignore Sulu's analysis of the mathematics of Mitchell's exponentially growing powers?
6. And other questions the episode raised.
This episode didn't start out like the other pilot episodes, with an origin story of some kind. This dove the audience right in, as if we're nearing the end of Year One of the Five-Year mission, and took us for a ride. In the end the resolution might be easy, but we can't say we all weren't asking what should have been done as the episode progressed. It's my personal favorite, one I never mind revisiting.
i think the reasoning is that if the kazons get the caretaker station it will shift the power in the quadrant - they will get access to technologies they dont understand and most likley get access to weapons far superior to what other people in their space have and they are not shy of slavery and violence - and THAT is why Janeway decide to go kablowie of his array
Emissary is easily my top choice too. I would go as far as to say it's as perfect a pilot episode as you can get. But The Cage would actually be my runner-up. Not only are its themes very interesting and well-developed despite the constraints of the time, but the mood, the ambiance of that episode is second to none. Sure, TOS is associated with optimism and bright colours, but I cant help but wonder if the series would have been able to find a different stride had they stuck around with Jeffrey Hunter and that kind of creepy aesthetic. I have always had a soft spot for that episode and I'm glad to see that other people do as well.
Great article Rowan, thank you!
Thank you for giving the Strange New Worlds Pilot the respect it deserved. People are too quick to hate on new trek but strange new worlds has been a great marriage of the old and new, respecting what came before and expanding upon it
“Why do you keep bringing me here!” “We do not bring you here. You bring us here.” Yes, “The Emissary” definitely earns the top slot, not only introducing its characters and setting in reasonably deft fashion, but telling a seminal story about its lead that would have ramifications throughout the rest of the series.
I’d swap the positions of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “Strange New Worlds,” which is TOS-colorful, fun, and heartfelt, but light-years less literate and thoughtful than the former. Other than that, we’re pretty much agreed. Amazing how many iterations of a failed ‘60s TV space opera there have been.
Glad you finally caught up with the remaining new shows, looking forward to hearing your thoughts on them!
Let us all remember that when Avery Brooks breaks down in morning the death of Jennifer, this is the first episode ever shot of DS9. He is so wrapped up in the character's loss, that it is gripping & heartbreaking to see the character stripped down to his core emotions. Even as Nana Visitor's Kira confronts the Starfleet members for the first time, you can see the lifetime of anger & distrust she has on the surface of her every interaction.
GREAT PILOT! A strong foundation for an incredible series.
Glad there is a consensus around Emissary, Avery Brooks is absolutely brilliant in that episode (and the series). The "it's not linear" breakdown gets me every time.
Generally agree with your ranking, but I'd give more credit to Broken Bow!
I finally caved and bought Paramount+ in the UK. Thoroughly surprised and impressed with Prodigy, like you say, adults can enjoy it just as much. And having Kate Mulgrew back as Janeway is awesome.
SNW has been brilliant. Every episode is getting better. I'd forgotten how good it is to hear th3, "Space; The final frontier...." intro. I'm absolutely hooked.
I wouldn't disagree that much with your ranking list, Picard was too high up the list for me.
Have to agree : "Emissary" was and still is an amazing opener. Blew me away when it first came out on rental VHS here in the UK.
I think I'd put TNG > VOY and SNW, easily. I mean TNG is pretty bad, but it gives us Q and a simple mystery.
Picard is abysmal, and moreso when you realize the mysteryboxes go nowhere.
The docking scenes are just so looooooong. And then Picard makes Riker watch a clip show of the previous events. And Picard gets unnerved by the sound of ship alarms and declares to Data that this mission to talk to the Bandi is really hard, it kind of makes Picard seem really pathetic. Encounter at Farpoint is just pain, at least the Voyager pilot has got action, mystery and the characters are effectively correct from the very start.
@@Edax_Royeaux Listen, TNG's pilot is pretty bad, but it introduces the characters and does 2 scifi things - Q and the mystery. It's rewatchable.
VOY does one scifi thing - mystery of moving from point A to B "too fast"... and then it literally forgets the Kim/B'elanna subplot. Forgetting subplots is not okay. Also, am I really supposed to care about the Maquis/Federation squabble here? It's rewatchable, but this depends on how much you buy Janeway's choice.
SNW... is literally just a bad episode of tv. DS9 builds on the Borg attack, but it's a small bit of background for Sisco; contrast this with Pike who is 100% about that glimpse of the (strangely unavoidable) future. He goes on a random rescue of his best friend (an alien pretending to be human because he's totes genetically engineered... I wonder if that'll come up again), and so his crew USE GENETIC ENGINEERING to go under cover, get caught, and so he just plays a History Channel Documentary on how yadda yadda WW3, don't use your "warp nuke" to destroy your enemies. Oh, and how did they get a warp nuke? Well, it's... uh... DISCO's problem, because... uh... they used warp in telescope distance of this planet?
It's the pilot equivalent of giving yourself a pat on the back for a job well done in that OHTER show.
I think you have to rate Pilots on their own. Picard's Pilot made some interesting setups.
@@magnum3.14 Did Picard make some interesting setups? If you can't count what happens after, you can't count what happened before, either, meaning the whole Data, Data's Death, Data's Daughters, Romulan Refugees, Synth Ban, etc. are all just incoherent gibberish.
John Doe is retired on his farm using alien migrant workers from a planet that was destroyed. The Nephew of his dead Dragon friend shows up, but Earth is fascist against Dragons now. John Doe goes to a place where they used to study dragons, but secret ninja spy aliens from that one destroyed planet show up to suicide kill the dragon in an unprecedented terrorist attack on (Fascist) Earth, which I'm sure the rest of the series will deal with.
Is this a good pilot? I call bull.
This ... is pretty on point. Love your work, as always!
Looking forward to this :) thank you very much!
Placing Discovery so high is madness. The episode has nothing to do with the rest of the show. Two episodes later we're following an entirely different story, the majority of the main characters are not even seen much less introduced, and the one character that is introduced is shown doing something so thoroughly dislikeable that it's hard to accept her ever being made a captain even 3 seasons later. The only thing it has going for it, is the visuals.
Ikr. He tends to get somewhat delusional when it comes to new trek. Shame really.
I wish I had some of whatever he's smoking.
Just goes to show that everyone has different tastes, doesn't it? The Vulcan Hello blew me away (hi, Trek fan since I was 5 in 1975 here, before #notmytrek gatekeepers start accusing me of not being a 'real' fan, whatever that means). It's confident, it's exciting, it knows *precisely* what it wants to be and do, the main characters are utterly compelling. I couldn't give a toss about Klingon redesigns - hey, remember when they were completely redesigned, with no explanation whatsoever, for TMP? It's almost as if a) there might be certain variances within the race itself, and b) certain fans can't wrap their heads around change of any sort. Funny, that.
Here's what Rowan's smoking, so you can have some: he's smoking 'Not being a toxic, cynical, gatekeeping fan who is utterly incapable of moving with the times'. You should try some, it's smooooth.
@@ste1bro buzzword buzzword buzzword buzzword. You sound like the paramount/cbs pr department. Oo
@@ste1bro You can like what you like, I've tried 3 times to get into Disco, and it's just not for me. I love SNW and LD, so I'm happy with what I'm getting. Haven't made up my mind yet about Picard, we'll see how it ends up.
I truly enjoy your work. Thank you for sharing your passions!
Where have you been?! 😉
Oh right. Babylon 5.
Missed all the trek stuff!
Did you know that most of the animated series' scripts are not original to Star Trek? Many were lifted directly from short stories in the "Known Space" collection written by Larry Niven.
This is unrelated to the current video, but your synopsis of b5, was a blast to watch. Remember watching that as a kid, and in the middle of desert to remind me of some, homely thing.
In many viewing areas, TAS' first broadcast episode was actually Yesteryear. I really think that should have been the pilot, because its deeper messages about family relationships, the dignity of life, growing up, and learning to make difficult decisions responsibly, make it a far better story.
That said, the rest of the series, while enjoyable, rarely achieved that high standard, so in terms of showing us what to expect, perhaps Beyond the Farthest Star was a more appropriate pilot after all.
Yesteryear was always my personal favourite. When I spent a couple of weeks in hospital for tests at 10 years old (1973), young Spock finding the courage to face his challenges meant a lot to me. And now I rather envy older Spock getting to travel back and support his younger self.
It's kind of like the re-parenting of our inner child that those of us who grew up in toxic families need to do to help ourselves deal with the effects of trauma.
Always fun to hear ur thoughts, and Emissary is probably my favourite too
Great list. Now I need to think of mine!!!! I’ll tell ya, the scenes in Emissary with Sisko taking to the profits, are some of my favorite Trek moments of all time.
Also, it always breaks my heart when you talk smack on TAS. That was my intro to Trek along with TOS and it still is close to my heart. I’m sorry you missed out on that point of view! 🖖🏼
Also, Broken Bow needs to be higher! It’s been a long road! Lol
Your intros are the best! X
02:03
That eternal seeming redocking sequence in TNG’s pilot, and riker literally sitting down to watch what happened.
Deep Space Nine is a masterpiece. Will always be my favorite.
Very good, enjoyed this
Pretty much agreed entirely. Out of all this, I have to say that SNW has been an amazing addition to the legacy of Trek. An old style appeal while also bringing a few new things, and the acting has been unbelievable.
It’s a fine addition to the collection. I mean it got a lot of the haters of new trek to enjoy it which is quite an accomplishment with how entrenched some of those people were
And now i comes to my top 3 Favorite Star Trek Pilot Episodes
And The Begin Makes The Vulcan Hello/Battle At The Binary Stars from Star Trek Discovery. A very interesting and very good Double Episode, even if I didn't like the new design of the Klingons at all. But The Begin with Michael Burnham is very good and the Special Effect are very nice
Next is Remembrance from Star Trek Picard. a very interesting, Entertaining and exciting beginning, which gave me goosebumps in one moment. And that's where you see the artifact for the first time and you've heard a variation of the TOS Romulan theme. A pretty awesome pilot episode. And seeing your favorite captain again after 18 years was really nostalgia.
And last but not least, Coming now Caretaker from Star Trek Voyager. No pilot episode had taken me so much and amazed me as much as this episode, which starts so brilliantly and also fit everything that should fit. Also the beginning of the Main Characters and so much more, were so brilliantly done and also the beginning with the Kazon was super successful. That's why I think Caretaker is the best pilot episode of all Star Trek.
I think what elevates The Cage is the thematic link between Pike and The Talosians. Pike isn’t just on an adventure, he’s subjected to an ordeal tailor made to teach him a lesson, namely that he needs to embrace and live his life and not dry up and whither away - which is exactly the macro issue the Talosians face. It does what some of the highest art does, namely comment on its own art form. When it’s all said and done, it’s a fantasy adventure TV pilot telling you to get off your ass and live your life instead of watching fantasy adventure on TV.
I’d put Ep1 of Picard just above the Vulcan Hello. The scene with JLP and the reporter was one of the best Picard scenes ever. Really well acted and the way the reporter first acted naive and then really got under his skin was believable. Then when he walks out just saying “we’re done here” here you really get a sense it was damaging for him
Something about the original, fully restored "The Cage" really speaks to me, so my list would have it much higher, possibly all the way up at second place. Apart from that, though, I dig this ranking.
I definitely agree with your list. I'd swap 1-2 depending on my mood so imma just declare it a tie.
Pleasantly surprised with the ranking of Where no Man has gone before. Can’t disagree with any of these at all
So we're pretty different in our appreciation of Star Trek! I haven't seen all the premieres that you have, but for those I have I largely disagree with your rankings. I would actually place "Emissary" second from the bottom, as it wasn't as much of a mess as STD's premiere, but it was still slow and poorly written. I remember seeing that premiere twice in the same weekend, just because I didn't believe it was as bad as I thought. It didn't improve for me on the second viewing. I also remember that Babylon 5 and a CBS show, Space Rangers, premiered within a week of DS9, and honestly, Space Rangers was the best of the three! I stand behind no one in my love of Babylon 5, but the episode of Space Rangers that they ran (which I would later discover *wasn't* the actual pilot!) was action-packed and incredibly fun. I'll note that JMS' cut of "The Gathering" was a great improvement.
As far as the Trek shows, I go like this:
1. Voyager (compelling action and interesting characters and circumstances...that they would piss away within the 1st season)
2. Original Star Trek, 2nd pilot (pretty much everything you love about the series in a raw but still engaging form)
3. The Next Generation (what NextGen could have been before they screwed EVERYTHING over)
4. Original Star Trek, 1st pilot (not quite on the mark, but great ideas and performances)
5. Lower Decks (a little rough, but much more fun that some have said)
6. Picard (a pretty mess: not a lot makes sense, but it all looks great)
7. Enterprise (an unpretty mess with a shipload of boring characters and poor casting choices)
8. DS9 (so long, so drawn out, so boring...and so unlike how good the first three seasons would turn out to be)
9. Discovery (great special effects, but so full of bullshit you'd think it was filmed next to a farm! And what was with the FUCKING "Klingon" makeup?!?)
Missed the Prodigy and Strange New Worlds pilots, so I can't say about them. But is it just me or do the tunics on SNW look HORRIBLY uncomfortable to everyone else too?! Even if they aren't to the actors, they just look WAY awkward compared to EVERY other version of the old shirt-and-pants uniform. And that includes those high-collar mistakes that they wore in Star Trek Beyond!
Before I start watching.......it's surely Emissary
DS9 is my favorite show as well, but Strange New Worlds is definitely my favorite of the new Trek. Great video as always, RJC!
Pretty good list. I wouldn't personally put any Nu Trek on this list out of principle, but I love that you put DS9 as number one. God, that was such a strong opener for the show.
Here are my Star Trek Pilot Episodes:
1)Where No Man Has Gone Before
2)Emissary
3)Lost and Found
4)Strange New Worlds (Pilot)
5)Second Contact
6)The Cage
7)The Vulcan Hello and Battle at the Binary Stars
8)Broken Bow
9)Caretaker
10)Remembrance
11)Encounter at Farpoint
My list is almost the same, except bump up ENT several spots and switch the top 2.
I hadn't even considered TAS when doing my own list.
Strange New Worlds has had the strongest first season.
SNW didn't have a single 'bad' episode. I mean sure its a short season, but even so that is impressive.
SNW is easily the best Trek show in the streaming era,, by a large margin IMO.
Remembrance from Picard S1 is still one of my favorite Trek episodes in general and is my favorite episode of all of Picard. It just set the foundation so well for the future and wasn’t afraid to allow characters to grow and change. It’s a shame that the rest of the show never quite lived up to that potential.
Vulcan Hello and Battle of the Binary Stars though, wow, that hooked me in immediately and gave me everything that I had hoped and wished that modern Star Trek could finally be able to achieve. And it’s actually so incredibly bold to end a pilot where your main character’s position is so precarious. And Context is for Kings is almost like a second pilot for the show.
Too bad every other ep is crap.
I would put some pilots in different order but I think that you did a great job analyzing each one 👍🎬😎
*"Where No Man has Gone Before"* is actually my favourite Star Trek Pilot
Ps. *Good Ranking* 👍
Don't worry about upsetting us TAS fans. No two people are going to like the same things, you shouldn't feel compelled to explain yourself, man.
Are you sure you’re a Trekkie?! Where’s the insults and outrage? Lol all seriousness it’s nice to see fans like me who have their favorites but respect everyone’s opinions and connect over a mutual love of the universe.
@@HollywoodandWine101
Ahh, shoot. Good point.
Sorry, I'll start over:
* ehem*
TAS is much more betterer than NuTrek wake garbadge! You are obviously not a True Fan (tm)
@@HollywoodandWine101
When it comes to art, nobody's views on "goodness" are right or wrong.
I mean heck, I never saw any appeal whatsoever in Star Wars, but that doesn't mean I think people who like it are in anyway not entitled to that view.
But yeah, I get you. Dunno why fans are always trying to pull each other apart these days.
Great video and I am proud to be the very first patron on the list!
My only real disagreement is over the placements of Discovery and SNW. I would put Discovery below Picard because I felt the moral conflict in Discovery was very poorly defined compared to the moral conflict in Picard.
Simiarly, the cheap moralizing at the end of the SNW pretty dated. I think we should expect more interesting conflict resolution from Star Trek!
Emissary is wonderful, for all the reasons stated by people below. I also found SNW to be absolutely terrific, quite possibly because it’s been so long since we’ve had “proper” Trek.
The Cage is one of the best episodes of the entire franchise
Do you have any opinions on Star Trek Continues? While some of the actors are clearly amateurs, the sets and props are very faithful to the original series and the writing is pretty good in my opinion.
Star Trek: Continues is so good. We interviewed Vic Mignogna (Kirk) earlier this year. It's a literal bridge between the end of TOS and TMP and the best fan series created (in my opinion).
@@coecludd Vic was a highlight for sure.
Star Trek: Continues was a fantastic series. Vic and the rest of the cast did a wonderful job and the writing is far better than any 'official' trek in years.
“I don’t want to upset TAS fans too much “
Too late
Encounter at Farpoint was the absolute best pilot of any show, because it was the very first appearance of everyone’s favorite character, Groppler Zorn, who would go on to become one of the most important characters in Star Trek, if not all of fiction, as we all well know.
The Orville needs a video Rowan :)
I tell you what I think. I think it's impressive that you were able to look past the dramatic change in style & production value over the many decades these pilots aired. A lesser review would have leaned towards the newer shows simply due to better visual effects. Bravo!
I honestly agree with every one of those, which surprises me. You would think we disagree somewhere, but nope.
Very interesting list, nothing at all like mine 😅
But that's the beauty of Star Trek, it has enough variety that we all view it in out own way.
1. Strange News Worlds
2. Emissary
3. The Cage
4. Where No Man Has Gone Before
5. Broken Bow
6. Caretaker
7. Encounter at Farpoint
8. Lost and Found
9. Remembrance
10. Beyond the Farthest Star
11. Second Contact
12. Lost and Found
13. The Vulcan Hello
good work spot on
I agree with your ranking but you were too hard on Farpoint. I’d swap that pilot with Voyager’s pilot on this list. Don’t forget that TNG debuted into a total vacuum for prime time sci fi and under literal years of hate - yes, there were haters before UA-cam - from TOS fans and sci fi magazines that didn’t want ANYTHING to do with Trek that didn’t feature Kirk, Spock, Bones. The pressure on the writers and cast combined with yet another weird TV syndication deal must have been OUTRAGEOUS. Contrast that with Voyager, which is so slick and smooth, being generated by a Star Trek machine composed almost entirely of veterans and in a safe space of TV sci fi being a proven entity. Voyager’s debut feels TOO slick, takes no chances, and as we saw later didn’t end up using any of the elements set up in the first episode. Now for SECOND episodes, I would have a totally different list, that might be fun!
@Rowan J Coleman
What a great list of First episodes. I completely agree with the reason for your rankings.
I'm glad you showed love to Prodigy, which too many adult fans dismiss as "kiddie fare" (dumb). It's in fact one of the most amazing additions to the Trek franchise.
You're also spot on about Discovery being the DS9 of the current crop of Trek shows. That's high praise.
Star trek the animated series was meant for KIDS, but their parents would *also* watch it because they used to watch TOS in the decade prior. It lasted 2 seasons but had interesting stories that had to be watered down a bit to carry a child's attention. Still, it is best enjoyed sitting on the floor in front of a giant color console eating rice krispies. And you can frown on the animation if you like, but when you saw a character, *you knew who it was immediately*. the fact they used stock animations and angles only meant they could crank out the stories faster and cheaper. I think considering the budget, it is well done.
My list would be far different.
1.) IMO Enterprise still had the best pilot/first episode of any of them. The show might not have lived up to its promise, but that pilot episode was two hours of pure entertainment. At no point was I yawning or bored.
2.) DS9 is my favorite Trek show too, but the pilot drags at times, particularly those LONG moments Sisko is with the prophets.
3.) The "filler" that Rodenberry added to Encounter at Farpoint was Q. The original one hour story written by Dorothy Fontana was the story of the Farpoint station. If anything, Rodenberry improved what could have been a very pedestrian first episode.
4.) IMO, Discovery's first two episodes were horrible and I'd put them next to dead last. And for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE don't try and compare that train wreck to DS9. Benjamin Sisko was a likeable character. Michael Burnham was not. She's not interesting in any way and the entire show evolves around her.
5.) My choice for worse would be Lower Decks. That first episode was so bad I cut it off half way in and haven't bothered watching the series since. It isn't funny and characters who act like idiots isn't why I watch Star Trek.
I'd suggest giving Lower Decks another go. The first couple episodes are really bad, but it picks up afterward.
As someone who saw TOS when it premiered on television, I really looked foward to TNG. However, "Encounter..." was so inflated and dull, I didn't watch any TNG shows again for years, and then only because friends told me the show runners had finally started producing quality shows. Thanks for explaining the reasons for the lethargy in that first show.
Good choices & ranking.
Of the ones I’ve seen.
1. Emissary
2. Encounter at Farpoint
3. Remembrance
4. Caretaker
5. Broken Bow
6. Strange New Worlds
7. Where No Man Has Gone Before
8. Battle at the Binary Pulsars
9. The Cage
I agree with Emissary in the top spot, but I disagree with some of the other choices.
1. Emissary (DS9)
2. The Vulcan Hello (DIS)
3. The Cage (TOS-1)
4. Second Contact (LD)
5. Strange New Worlds (SNW)
6. Encounter at Farpoint (TNG)
7. Broken Bow (ENT)
8. Caretaker (VOY)
9. Beyond the Farthest Star (TAS)
10. Remembrance (PIC)
11. Where No Man Has Gone Before (TOS-2)
12. Lost and Found (PRO)
The top three episodes on this list do the best job of exploring the lead protagonist's psychology. The LD and SNW pilots are nearly as good, but they don't hook me quite as much. The pilots for TNG, ENT, and VOY are about on the same level: they successfully sell me on the premise of the show, even if the central plots aren't the most interesting.
TAS is essentially more of TOS, so it's not surprising that its first episode feels more like a season premiere than a series premiere. The premise of PIC Season 1 didn't intrigue me, and its first episode is partly to blame. The first Kirk-centered episode of TOS is pretty awful by Season 1 standards, and it's not even worth mentioning alongside "The Cage." And the pilot for the Nickelodeon show just convinced me that I'm not the audience for it.
I would have rated Encounter At Far Point higher, but other than that, agreed 100%. I really liked the slow pace of the first STTNG episode, it made me feel like I was living in that universe.
I agree Emissary is the best pilot and Avery Brooks is great as Siskoo
This list makes me wonder if you hate star trek...
SNW is easily in my top 3 ST shows. I was blown away with the 1st season from beginning to end.
It seems like some completely confuse what's being done, here. He's reviewing the first episode, not the shows themselves. I pretty much agree with your list. I thought the first Picard episode was very good, even if I have lots of problems with the show afterwards. I didn't think Emissary was perfect, nor was season 1 of Deep Space 9, but still the best pilot. I can't comment on Strange New Worlds, but looking forward to seeing it in the near future.
DS9 has the strongest opening season in spite of - if not because of - getting a ton of hand-me-down TNG scripts with Enterprise search-replaced with DS9.
Then it really begins to identify it's true identity near the end of the first season with the finale and evolves rapidly from there, reinventing itself every few seasons. The show is somehow very consistent despite the one-off episodes, with the perfect mix of serialization despite effectively soft rebooting itself every 2 seasons.
#1 Emissary. Ok, we are friends now 🙂
First of all as always this is a great vid I love watching your output its such high quality :)
My own ranking as follows:
1. Voyager - Just thought and felt it was a really good story at the time. I always try to judge things in the context of time. Appreciate some characters were bland but if we're judging on story as opener, I felt it was strong. The "Caretaker" is different from Q and I found the relationship between "it" and the Ocampa interesting.
2. ST: TOS With Pike. Talosian episode. I'm almost thinking this should be no. 1 - can I tie them ;) ? I know I know mind control people will be in the comics of prior years but for TV its new, the way they affect people. Also I think worth note is that Pike ain't a superhero, he's a tired man at this point. A female 1st officer. A man with pointy ears who looks "like the devil"!!!! ;) This is all super stuff and that they did a follow-up (yeah I'm sure they ran out of money so did repeat episodes but still) shows its strength.
As an aside - as a disabled person - I don't necessarily want to "re-write canon" but - I'm appalled at depiction of Pike in ST:DISC as if being disabled was in a horror movie. Its unforgiveable from the writers in the modern day. Btw I wonder if you would ever think of doing a video on the depiction of disabled people in Star Trek? Its really backward!
I have to say, the binary 0 or 1 he is forced into is going to take a lot of explaining.
3. ST: TNG Again I am writing in context of time. By measure, others are better. I write with a different perspective. Why is this high in my POV? Decent story - I know you say its predictable but was that the case to the audience in 1987? It was such a long time since a Trek series. It showed us what Enterprise (D) could so. We already got to know and love our captain. We got one of the greatest antagonists of all time and it kind of set out the issues ahead. Full of flaws that I could write an essay on here, mainly the characterisation at the time (racist, sexist etc.) that others later had to fix - but as a first episode - well, it was enough to re-start the franchise in the face of huge opposition and it succeeded, as we have Trek now 35 years later :D
I have to agree with your aside - the use of Pike's future accident as horror or unflattering comparison of him being able and vital, to him in a beep chair. I would also like to see a study of how Star Trek depicts disability.
You just convinced me to watch the first episode of Picard.
I’m with you on your number one when I first watched ds9 emissary had me wanting more it felt different like an evolution of what I’d loved
The big issue with TAS beside the animation - it’s just too short. At 22 minutes hard to develop deep stories tho Spock’s trip to his childhood is golden
Really great list. I think I would have elevated The Cage a spot or two as I find it to be very bold and risk taking in its creativity. TAS makes sense at the bottom as it’s not even really a debut so much as a continuation of TOS. Lower Decks almost requires watching the first 3 episodes to really understand what the show is trying to do. Strange New Worlds and DS9 Emissary are perfect choices for 1 & 2. I’ve always thought Emissary was an extremely strong start.
I would generally agree with two exceptions - I would have put both Strange New Worlds and the Discovery 2-parter lower in the list. I am enjoying Strange New Worlds the series, but the opener felt like it wasn't taking itself seriously - it almost parodied itself.
As for the Discovery 2-parter, it was good in many ways but the biggest problem I had with it was it's insistence that Burnham had started the war with the Klingons when she clearly had done no such thing. It wouldn't have mattered so much except that they then used that as the basis of her character from that point - she was the one who people shunned because she started the war - except she didn't start it. Her plan to fire first was prevented.
I would probably have put The Cage a bit higher, but I agree that Emissary was the best.
Very interesting essay. I think you are right when you note that The Cage looks and feels like 1950s science fiction. For that reason alone I think it should be rated further near the bottom. I remember liking the TNG pilot when it premiered. And I agree that DS9 is Number One.
I still remember being a kid and watching Encounter at Farpoint. Then watching Naked Now afterwards.
Then declaring TNG sucks balls and they should have never made another series, a view I'd continue to hold for like 4 years and took forever to get out of. I'm glad TNG was made in the 90s, it'd NEVER survived season 1 if the internet were around.
I don't understand the Picard hate. The ending of S1 was a little hurried but it served. And S2 was gripping for the first four episodes, then meandered a lot but still had interesting stuff for four episodes, then wrapped up with a really solid final two that set up the last season in a really interesting way even if it was a bit on-the-nose in its omage to Mass Effect.
But it's a series about the character work and it's all been great.
Interesting that your list is almost directly the opposite of mine. Except I forget if I saw TAS pilot...
I don't *love* TAS, but I do like it. To quote a dying James T. Kirk: "it was fun".
Agree with the Emissary it was a great Pilot as well as Stranger New Worlds. I can't get behind the ranking of the Vulcan Hello I couldn't stand that episode.
Technically I wouldn't count The Cage as the pilot episode, even though Where No Man Has Gone Before is the second pilot, the way I would count it, is The Man Trap is the first, although the broadcast and production order are different I would go with the broadcast order.
Since technically The Cage was never an episode of TOS except The Menagerie storyline, not counting The Cage TOS has 79 episodes and counting The Cage is 80, however the first official full release of The Cage came out in 1986 I believe 20 years after TOS, good episode not saying its not lol, however I'm just not a big fan of Jeffery Hunter's Pike I just can't help myself compare him to Shatner's Kirk
I would place "The Cage" in the #2 slot.
I for one believe that "The Cage" is actually quite a good episode, all things considered in context. It surely has high production values, and the worst thing about it may be the performance by one of Star Trek's truly greatest actors, Leonard Nimoy. His performance was rather weak there only because he had not yet discovered the full nature of his character. In fact, I'd argue that it took a good portion of the first season until we began to see the Spock who we are now all very familiar with. I have no problem with Voyager's first episode except for the way in which the facts of the story are occasionally carried throughout the entire series.
Star Trek Discovery? Ah, well ... It's seems SO very stupid that I just can't get into it.
Deep Space 9 ... ? Very good overall, except it had plenty of characters who I just didn't give a crap about, and a few themes here and there which were like an anchor around DS9's neck. For example, those wormhole gods. Who gives a crap?
Sisko was the best character, and then Sisko's baseball, followed by Worf.
That Bajoran character had a very fine actress, but she was otherwise rather boring.
I roughly agree:
• DS9 is by far the best pilot. Until the last couple years, I would’ve said it was the only one that wasn’t _bad_ .
• I’ve only seen one ep of TAS, and it wasn’t the pilot, so I really can’t comment.
• Haven’t seen SNW yet, so I’m happy to just assume it’s better than everything but DS9-AFAIC, that’s a fairly low bar, so I’m sure it clears it.
• the rest, I’d say, are in a fine order-not the same order I’d pick, but nothing that I’d make a big fuss over. None of them are great; none of them are horrible.
…except Lower Decks. For me, that’s #2 after DS9, and the only other truly _good_ Star Trek pilot [other than maybe SNW].
I just don’t think the Discovery pilot is very good or very interesting. And the fact that so much of it is thrown away with episode 2 (with some of it coming back later in the season or in later seasons, but much of it really being backstory) is just jarring. It’s like if they really had aired “The Cage” as the TOS pilot and then rolled straight into “The Man Trap” as ep 2-with a mostly-new cast, etc. If I _liked_ the Discovery pilot, I’d probably be more forgiving of spending 2 hrs on backstory, but since I don’t…🤷♀️
I also really don’t know where to put either TOS pilot, because they’re pilots for a different show that we never really got. As pilots for TOS, I’d probably put “The Cage” about where Rowan does, bur put “Where No Man Has Gone Before” a bit lower, just because it’s so different from the actual series, so it sorta misrepresents it. But as stories on their own merits, not considering the series that comes after, I’d probably rank them #3 & #4. I like TOS. I *love* the series promised in the first 3-4 eps of TOS, before they changed a bunch of things to create the ‘Trek we came to know.
So I guess I need to revise my original statement: turns out I don’t agree with Rowan’s order much at all. 😉
Leaving out the two series I have at seen yet, I’d say my ranking is about like this:
1: Emissary
2: Second Contact
4: Where No Man Has Gone Before
4: The Cage
5: Remembrance
Those were the only ones that instantly sucked me in and had me wanting to watch more right away.
After that, they’re all pretty much different flavors of “ok”-they laid important ground work or were important in hindsight, but if I were deciding whether to watch more based just on the pilot, and knowing nothing else about the series, I wouldn’t’ve continued on. So I’m not even going to try to rank all of them, and just call it a four-way tie, with ENT bringing up the rear:
9: Caretaker
9: The Vulcan Hello/Battle at the Binary Stars
9: Lost and Found
9: Encounter at Far Point
10: Broken Bow
Is there a way now to watch SNW in Europe?
Also, I forgive Rowan for his love for DS9. ;) Seriously though and as always, good reasoning all around, wether I agree on it or not. Generally speaking I really have to say Star Trek usually isn't a good starter, to be honest. Its pilot episodes usually don't get me too excited about characters and stories.