With 890 episodes of Star Trek, there are a lot of episodes to choose from when deciding which ones would be included in the Top 57 to honor 57 years of the franchise.
Most of the recognizable and well-liked episodes made Variety’s The 57 episodes of Star Trek Ranked from great to perfect. We’re certainly not surprised to see The Original Series’ The City on the Edge of Forever, The Next Generations’ Inner Light, and Voyager’s Equinox on the list. And though not everone would agree that Deep Space Nine’s The Visitor should occupy the number one spot, it cleary belongs on the list.
An episode no Star Trek fan would be so sure about is The Original Series’ The Way to Eden. This one clocks in as number 57 on Variety’s list, and it does so because of its campiness, according to writers Adam B. Vary and Joe Otterson. They acknowledge the episode gets a lot of hate, but praise it for the jam session Charles Napier has with Spock (Leonard Nimoy).
Star Trek has so many other great-to-perfect episodes to choose from
I’m all about finding the good in the bad episodes of Star Trek, but I wouldn’t be including one on the list of great to perfect as there is little about The Way to Eden that is great. Sure, it has a lot of lessons to be learned. I even wrote an essay about those lessons for Startrek.com. The episode was redeemable for those teaching qualities but certainly not for the level of cringe it exhibited, although TVLine did include the mini-concert in sickbay as one of Star Trek’s 20 Most Memorable Moments. So clearly, not everyone agrees with the assessment that this is a skippable episode.
There is one thing you can certainly say about Trek, and that’s there truly is something for everyone!