Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 1, Episode 3. First broadcast on Monday 5 October 1987. Stardate: 41209.2. An unexpected but not unprecedented miracle turns water into booze on board the Enterprise-D, and soon the entire crew is horny, depressed, or facing an awkward meeting with HR on Monday. After all this, Joe can’t see how this show becomes a hit, but Nathan thinks he can. Bottoms up, everyone!
Star Trek: The Original Series, Series 1, Episode 18. First broadcast on Thursday 19 January 1967. Stardate: 3045.6. Gornfest 2025 continues this week on Untitled Star Trek Project, as we head back to 1967 — when the Gorn were just a single rubber lizard in a spangly minidress and the Federation was barely a glint in Gene L. Coon’s eye. Iconic, memorable and visually striking — this is why nerds still podcast about the show 58½ years later.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Series 2, Episode 10 / Series 3, Episode 1. First broadcast on Thursday 10 August 2023. Stardate: 2344.2. This week, Strange New Worlds asks the question, “What if The Best of Both Worlds, but with higher production values, more modern narrative techniques, and much better hair?” The answer might surprise you.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 7, Episode 13. First broadcast on Wednesday 10 February 1999. Stardate: Unknown (2375). It’s the 1990s — the era of the Consulting Psychopath — and so when a pretty young lieutenant is shot dead in his locked quarters, perky newcomer Ezri Dax decides to investigate — with the help of her crap-haired and murderous previous host Joran. It’s all very light and implausible, but we get a few laughs, Ezri gets a big gun, and the regular cast (except Cirroc) get their usual DS9-style character beats.
Star Trek: Discovery, Series 1, Episode 3. First broadcast on Sunday 1 October 2017. Stardate: Unknown (2256). This week, disgraced Starfleet officer Michael Burnham falls down the rabbit hole, where she finds an unsettling mirror image of her previous life: a crew regarding her with suspicion, a captain manipulating her with falsehoods, and a Starfleet obsessed with operational security. And then the slavering monster shows up.
Star Trek: Voyager, Series 2, Episode 8. First broadcast on Friday 13 October 1995. Stardate: Unknown (2372). This week, Voyager is beset by a bunch of crazy Star Trek crap — involving china cups, sandwiches and curly-headed moppets, for the most part — but after 45 minutes we still have no idea why it happens or how we should feel about any of it. Still, Kate is awesome, as usual, and that counts for quite a lot.
Star Trek: Enterprise, Series 4, Episode 13. First broadcast on Friday 4 February 2005. Stardate: Unknown (2154). This week, the middle episode of a mid-range arc in the middest of all the shows in the Star Trek franchise. Trip and Malcolm are trapped in various rooms pressing buttons, while the Tellarites and Andorians are on their usual space alien bullshit. Harmless.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Series 2, Episode 9. First broadcast on Thursday 3 August 2023. Stardate: 2398.3. Strange New Worlds jumps genres this week to create something hitherto inconceivable in Star Trek: a high-stakes space problem that can only be solved with a massive, heartfelt musical finale.
Star Trek: Voyager, Series 6, Episode 7. First broadcast on Wednesday 10 November 1999. Stardate: 53167.9. This week, the crew of the USS Voyager awaken an ancient evil and unleash it upon the Delta Quadrant: the Vaadwaur, a phantom army that appears out of thin air, destroys entire colonies, and vanishes in the blink of an eye — but whose soldiers’ physiognomy is such that few men can find them afterwards.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 4, Episode 23. First broadcast on Monday 13 May 1996. Stardate: 49904.2. There’s a get-to-know-you buffet at 1930 this week, as the crew of the Defiant team up with the Jem’Hadar to fight some Jem’Hadar rebels who want to take over the Galaxy. And, surprisingly late in the series, we get the first appearance of Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun.
Star Trek: Picard, Series 2, Episode 6. First broadcast on Thursday 7 April 2022. Stardate: Unknown (12–13 April 2024). This week: a party. The crew of La Sirena turn up at a lavish black-tie gala for some top-quality character work, only to be overshadowed by an incredible musical number by Alison Pill and a lovely scene of kindly encouragement from Patrick Stewart. But then they find themselves overshadowed, in turn, by the ineffable hotness of Santiago Cabrera.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 1, Episode 17. First broadcast on Sunday 23 May 1993. Stardate: 46925.1. Three plots for the price of one this week on Deep Space Nine. In reverse order of importance: (C) we all stand around in Ops talking about the computer; (B) Julian gets some funny lines and a pleasantly unsurprising character arc; and (A) Odo and Lwaxana are trapped in a lift together with nothing to do but some amazing and even quite moving acting. Underrated, but mostly by people who don’t enjoy things that are good.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 6, Episode 15. First broadcast on Monday 15 February 1993. Stardate: Unknown (2369). When Q first turned up on the Enterprise bridge in 1987, he came to teach all of humanity a lesson about its terrible past. But this week his mission is more personal: to teach Picard how much he owes his young, undisciplined self, and to remind us that youth is silly and difficult, and that the people living through it deserve our respect. (On that topic, if you wish to see the inspiration for Joe’s preferred 1990s hairstyle, you should check out the cover of Star Trek: The Next Generation — Boogeymen (1991) by Mel Gilden.)
Star Trek: Voyager, Series 6, Episode 5. First broadcast on Wednesday 20 October 1999. Stardate: Unknown (2376). Sometimes everything just comes together — a dull script, routine design, a generic score, perfunctory direction, an uncharismatic leading man and a guest star’s strange and flaccid performance. Meanwhile, on Star Trek: Voyager, Tom screams at his long-suffering girlfriend after falling in love with a car or something.
Star Trek: Lower Decks, Series 5, Episode 10. First broadcast on Thursday 19 December 2024. Stardate: Unknown. This week, we witness the ascension of Star Trek: Lower Decks, as it finishes its run on television and becomes a show fuelled by interdimensionality itself — decoupling its superpositions and spriralling off into an infinite number of unseen quantum possibilities. It’s funny and heartwarming and visually arresting, of course, and we can’t imagine what life would be like without it. Engage the core!
Star Trek: Lower Decks, Series 5, Episode 7. First broadcast on Thursday 28 November 2024. Stardate: 59499.6. This week, Tendi and T’Lyn learn the usual Star Trek lesson about co-operation and competition, Boimler and Rutherford learn that Starfleet uniforms are less absorbent than is sometimes necessary, and Mariner learns that the real Inner Light experience comes from the friends (and murderers) we meet along the way. And Data shows up too, is just as delightful and wise as we always expect him to be.
Star Trek: The Original Series, Series 3, Episode 12. First broadcast on Friday 6 December 1968. Stardate: 5121.5. A series of urgent production catastrophes this week, as we arrive at Paramount Studios with no set, no lines for our female guest star, and a script with no story and no plot. Can these omnipotent bum-headed aliens help us out?
Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 3, Episode 21. First broadcast on Monday 29 April 1991. Stardate: 44769.2. This week, Jean Simmons strides imperiously onto the Enterprise bridge, accompanied by her executive assistant, her scary stenographer, her daddy issues, and a terrifying sense of self-righteous rage. Unmissable.
Star Trek: Enterprise, Series 3, Episode 23. First broadcast on Wednesday 19 May 2004. Stardate: Unknown (2154). It’s the second last episode of the Xindi arc, which can only mean one thing: a big, dumb spectacle in which we’re all trying to prevent a bunch of lizards wearing slinkies from hurling a massive lethal wiffle ball into planet Earth. Fortunately, Connor, Jolene and Billingsley are here with some acting for us to enjoy as well.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 6, Episode 7. First broadcast on Friday 10 October 1997. Stardate: 51247.5. This week, Worf and Jadzia celebrate the triumphant 150th episode of Untitled Star Trek Project by setting a date for their wedding, holding one fun party and one excruciating one, punching a future mother-in-law in the face, calling off the wedding, calling it back on again, and having sex with that handsome young lieutenant from the USS Sutherland. Or was that last one just us?