This one is a little late for the “proper” 55th anniversary of Star Trek, which aired on Sept. 8, 1966, but this is a topic I really wanted to cover.

I love Star Trek, I am an avowed Trekkie and the various series are some of my television series and movies of all time. I have a lot of fond memories watching the show with my aunt and my late grandmother who were both big fans of the series and helped to introduce the series to me.

Over its 55 year history, Star Trek has had numerous spin-offs, movies, novels, comics, games that present a big, sprawling universe and show a potential future built on what humanity could accomplish by coming together and putting aside petit differences.

This top 10 list will be focused on episodes from the various live action TV series, so no movies or novels in this count. With that out of the way, here is the list.

10. Spectre of the Gun, Star Trek: The Original Series

Classic Trek was pitched initially as a “wagon train to the stars” since at the time the Western genre dominated the

television. This episode goes back to that original pitch with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov and Scotty trapped by powerful aliens in recreation of a western town on the date of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and on the losing side of history as the Cowboys versus the Earps.

This episode is smart, and when I say that I mean in the sense of execution. The crew literally try everything the audience might expect to try and avoid a confrontation with the Earps, with the final solution being pretty interesting an inventive.

9. Far Beyond the Stars, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Deep Space Nine (or DS9 for short) was different from prior Trek shows as it was mostly confined to a single location, the eponymous space station Deep Space Nine. The particular struggle of the show comes from a stable wormhole leading to the other side of the galaxy, and the resulting war with the Dominion, the primary superpower in that side of the galaxy.

This episode finds Captain Benjamin Sisko hallucinating following the death of a friend and the stress of the Dominion War. In these hallucinations, Sisko takes the role of Benny Russell, an African-American science fiction author in 1953,

Russell writes for Incredible Tales, an anthology magazine and he writes a story similar to the plot of Deep Space Nine. His story, while loved by his fellow writers, is ultimately rejected by the owner of the publication for featuring a black protagonist.

While Star Trek has dealt with racism in the past, this episode squarely puts the topic on Earth and drops symbolism and tackles a very real issue.

Many member of the cast who usually played roles as aliens got to appear without makeup in this episode, and it was also directed by Sisko’s actor Avery Brooks.

8. The Best of Both Worlds, Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generations, or TNG for short, is one of the best television series in history. It had a lot to live up to from the original and including reintroducing the setting nearly 100 years after The Original Series (once again, for short: TOS).

This two-part episode is one of Star Trek’s best offerings. The first half was the season finale for season three of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and sees the return of the adversaries introduced in the previous season: The Borg, cybernetic organisms that assimilate other creatures and cultures into their collective.

The first episode ends on one of the biggest cliffhangers in Star Trek history and the follow up episode is just as good in its deliver of the type of action that Star Trek can offer at its finest. These episodes are also very important for the development of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his relationship to the Borg.

7. The Measure of a Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation

The intro monologue of The Original Series and The Next Generation both mention the Enterprise’s mission being to seek out new life and civilizations; this episode brings that new life front and center.

In this episode, a Starfleet engineer wants to take about Lt. Commander Data, an android, to see how he works to make more androids for Starfleet since Data is currently the only one of his kind (well except for Lore, but thats another story). Data objects to this and the central conflict of the episode becomes whether Data is person or property.

This episode is at its heart a courtroom drama, but it is also an exploration in what makes someone truly human and what constitutes a soul. It is also very important in Data’s case, as the character’s primary drive is to become more human, and overcoming the obstacle of being considered a “thing” rather than a person is a crucial step in his development.

6. Sarek, Star Trek: The Next Generation

This episode bridges elements of TOS and TNG by its inclusion of Spock’s father Sarek, and is an interesting dive into the Vulcan condition.

For those unfamiliar with Trek, Vulcans are a race of pointy eared humanoids that eschew emotion for pure logic. A struggle with Spock’s character was often his human and vulcan sides clashing. In this episode, Sarek is due to attend an important conference to lay the foundation for a relationship between the Federation and a race of aliens called the Legarans.

Trouble begins on the Enterprise when the crew begins to experience an outbreak of anger amongst themselves. This outbreak is related to Sarek suffering of a degenerative neurological disease that causes him to emit “broadcast empathy”.

This is a really good episode and has some amazing acting from both Mark Lenard and Patrick Stewart.

5. The Way of the Warrior, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

There was a big of a running gag on TNG that fans dubbed: “The Worf Effect”. This reference to Lt. Worf, the Enterprise’s chief security officer and the first Klingon in Starfleet, who would often find himself on the receiving end of a beatdown by the antagonist of the week to showcase how much of a threat they were. Of course, this usually had the opposite effect and resulted in Worf coming off as a pushover.

This episode changes things.

This two part episode is sent along the backdrop of a brewing war between the Klingon Empire, now allies of the Federation, and the Cardassian Union, who have served as primary antagonist on DS9 up till this point. Worf is brought aboard to deal with the Klingons and what follows in one of the best showcase of this character and adds him as a regular to the cast.

This episode also features some of the best space battles in Trek and is where the show really kicks off for with the massive Dominion War storyline for the next four seasons.

4. The Trouble with Tribbles, Star Trek: The Original Series

Speaking of Klingons, this classic Trek episode is one of the best of the original series (or my favorite episode of it anyway).

In this episode, Kirk and the Enterprise are called to Deep Space Station K7 to guard a supply of grain, and give his crew shore leave. At the same time, a group of Klingons are also taking shore leave and tensions mount between the two crews.

During this confrontation, an interstellar trader give Lt. Uhura a tribble, a furry little ball of fluff that makes purring sounds, eats a lot and reproduces like crazy. Eventually, both the Enterprise and the station are swarming with tribbles.

This is a comic and light-hearted adventure that showcases some of the bizarre elements of the series. It was also later referenced in DS9 when the crew of that series travels back in time to the events of this very episode in Trials and Tribble-ations.

3. The Visitor, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

This episode is widely agreed upon as a good episode, but this one also has a personal value to me.

In this episode, an accident causes Captain Sisko to be sent outside the normal flow of time, only appearing once every few years. The episode follows the perspective of his Jake as he goes through a lifelong obsession with trying to bring his father back.

The older Jake Sisko is played by actor Tony Todd in this episode, and Todd delivers a phenomenal performance and one of the most powerful in all the series.

Now I mentioned this one had personal value to me and a lot of that had to do with my grandmother I mentioned earlier.

My grandmother (I called her Mamaw) loved watching Star Trek, she watched it as a kid when the series was new and I have memories from before “I” was even interesting in the series of her watching Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager.

She passed away nearly five years ago, and I was devastated, I lost family members before but this one was really hard for me. It came at a time when I moved to Oklahoma City for film school and was going through a lot grieving process.

A few months after her passing, I began to re-watched DS9 (my favorite Trek) when I got to this episode, it hit a little harder than it use to and I think it helped me in a lot of ways to remember all the good memories I had watching the show with her and the time we spend together.

2. Cause and Effect, Star Trek: The Next Generation

The writers of TNG liked to do time travel episodes with a twist, this episode sees the crew of the Enterprise stuck in a continuous time loop that always ends with the destruction of the Enterprise.

I love episodes of science fiction television when there is a threat that doesn’t have a face, but is instead a “force” that the cast have to deal with. In this case it is a time loop. The episode also does a good job of establishing the rules of the situation and finding a solution to it within those rules.

This episode was directed by Commander Riker’s actor Jonathan Frakes, and is one of his best.

1. In the Pale Moonlight, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

This episode serves as something of a turning point in the on-going Dominion War storyline, the Federation and the Klingon alliance are on the losing end of the war and need something to turn the tide. Captain Sisko approaches Garak, a Cardassian tailor that works aboard DS9 and has a shady past as a member of the Obsidian Order, Cardassia’s primary intelligence organization, to find a way to bring the Romulans into the war effort.

This episode has terrific performances from Avery Brooks and Andrew Robinson as Sisko and Garak respectively. It also shows just how dirty Sisko is willing to play in order to win the war effort, in contract to the typical “nice guy” approach the Federation usually takes. This one has a lot of good twists and his highly recommended.

So that’s the list, where does Star Trek go from here? Hopefully forward, the series is at its strongest when addressing the human condition and our shared experiences in it. Where there are so many dystopian futures shown in fiction, Star Trek offers a look at what humanity might be able to accomplish, together, when petty differences are put aside.