10 Greatest Star Trek Bottle Episodes
1. Shuttlepod One
Shuttlepod One has taken on a life of its own, with dramatic readings of the script to mark the episode's anniversary, and an entire podcast featuring Conner Trinneer and Dominic Keating, but the original episode was intended to be a small-scale event.
Small scale, that is, in that only six of the show's main cast members appear on screen. The bulk of the story takes place in the eponymous craft, with the audience watching Trip and Reed grow their beards, wrap up in blankets, and comment on their colleagues' bums, while the oxygen levels drop.
The episode is perhaps best remembered for truly humanising Reed, who until that point had been a little rigid in his role as tactical officer. Here, we learned that he was, in fact, a raging lothario back on Earth. Trip listens to him record his various goodbye letters to his various lovers, and both character and audience alike are shocked.
As often happens with bottle shows, this installment became a favourite of cast and fans alike. Manny Coto wrote a reference to this story into the script for Similitude, the third season episode that broke hearts worldwide, with Keating in particular citing this episode as his favourite outing.