10 Best Star Trek The Original Series Episodes

by Ewan Paterson

1. City On The Edge Of Forever

Star Trek City on the Edge of Forever
Paramount

The sixties might have had one time-travelling sci-fi series in Doctor Who, but Star Trek perfected the formula in The City on the Edge of Forever.

Focussing on the Enterprise as it encounters a temporal anomaly, Kirk, Spock, Uhura and a drugged-up Leonard McCoy travel back to thirties-era America where the latter unknowingly erases the Enterprise from existence. The true purpose of the episode, however, lies in how it ties the past, present and future all together. The setting of Depression-Era New York is no coincidence, and the Enterprise crew's arrival is thematically tied to the concept of Trek itself.

Back then and even today, Star Trek's future has always felt like a distant reality - not just technologically speaking (quite the opposite, seeing as how much tech Trek's preempted), but societally speaking as well. Trek's future isn't a utopia - not quite - but bigotry is admonished top to bottom; people of all faiths, races, religions, genders and sexes all serve together, live together, and explore together; money isn't spent on "war and death", but "on life" instead.

That's what The City on the Edge of Forever is all about: humanity's capability for something better, and a reminder for us all to make it so. You won't find a better advert for Star Trek, than it.

What are your favourite Star Trek episodes? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.