As the Variety article itself declares, (September 23, 2023), ‘ranking the best “Star Trek” episodes is a silly thing to do.” But then they go ahead and do it anyway — 57 of them — and not even just within one particular series, but including all of them, from 1966 onward. (Note to the Variety editor: Star Trek should be italicized or capitalized as the concept name; it’s the individual episodes that take quotation marks.)

Anyway, given that I agree that ranking is generally pointless — for every nod of agreement you’ll get a howl of outrage — why do I mention this? Because ranking is good clean fun. It’s human nature to want to separate the wheat from the chaff. We like to itemize the better episodes of a series we like, the better to cherish them — and to make sure we watch them again, instead of the duds. It’s also about giving credit where it’s due. We like to praise the good stuff and reflect on why it’s good.

That said, I always resist ranking episodes of the original series (TOS), in the same way I don’t rank the songs on Elton John’s best album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (from 1975). There are too many really good ones, and the good ones all work to expand our understanding and enjoyment of the show in a different way. It’s not a question of better or worse. So instead of ranking the episodes, and putting them in numerical order, I have just got my own personal group of favorites. But of course they are my faves because they’re ten of the best, greatest stories — not just in TOS, but in all of Star Trek full stop.

Over the next ten blog posts, I’ll highlight these ten best and greatest, one a day: what makes them great, what makes them distinctive. Stay tuned!