The best Star Trek trial episodes

One common practice of Star Trek over the years has been to take a pause from the weekly exploration of the cosmos to center on the exploration of ourselves, our own rules or laws.

They’ve done this traditionally by holding trials. Sometimes it’s because of something that has happened in the everyday operations onboard the starship; other times it has to do with a new occurrence of the week. Either way, something has happened which has created a conundrum which must be cleared up for our characters’ lives to move on, and in order do clear up said conundrum, we’re treated to a Star Trek trial episode!

I’m sure for some these aren’t always the favorite episodes because we’re largely confined to a courtroom or inquiry panel hearing setting, so there’s far less phaser fire or meeting new and interesting alien species and the like. But for others, like me…I’ve always loved these style episodes of Star Trek! They stray from the “norm”, tend to make you think and usually there is some truly great dialogue between the characters…which sometimes includes an epic speech from the Captain!

For each entry, I’ll include the Star Trek series, season and episode numbers, and I implore you to go check out the episodes. If you have Paramount+, these episodes are all included on the subscription service,  because for as detailed as I’ll try my best here to be, I can only do the episode so much justice in print form. These episodes are all well worth a good viewing in your spare time!