TrekCulture presents the 10 best episodes to introduce Trek to newbies
City on the Edge of Forever
Amok Time
Q Who
Yesterday's Enterprise
Duet
Our Man Bashir
Scorpion
Year of Hell
Brother-I can't comment on Discovery
Second Contact-Seriously, what's a Lower Decks episode doing here?
Here's the thing: the "best" episodes aren't necessarily the ones you use to introduce someone to Trek, they usually have too much required knowledge to fully appreciate it. For example, I greatly enjoy "The Way of the Warrior", but you can't just show it to someone and have them understand everything.
Alternate universes and holodeck counterparts exist to subvert expectations of the characters, but if you don't know about how the characters work when they're normal, where's the impact?
I'd put episodes like "Conscience of the King" and "Who Watches the Watchers" above some of the ones on this list.
__________________
mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate.
Zeke: It comes
nateurally to him.
mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea.
Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity.
Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own!
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further.