My New Favorite Episode of Star Trek: The Original Series

Yo, what's up, Kemosabes?

This is your friendly film, TV show, and episode reporter here.

Normally, I'd create reviews on stuff to give in-depth thoughts on them. Today, though, I decided to do something different by merely revealing that I have a new favorite episode of "Star Trek: The Original Series":

"The Changeling" (Season 2, Episode 3)

For those who'd like to know what this episode is about, here's the summary:

The Enterprise encounters a powerful energy force that has apparently killed all human life in a solar system with over one billion inhabitants. They identify the culprit as a small space probe that had its origins on Earth. Called Nomad, it merged with another and, as a result, took on a new mission to destroy all biological beings as being imperfect. It believes Captain Kirk to be its creator and, as such, has spared the Enterprise and its crew, at least temporarily.

In all honesty, I was originally going to make an individual analysis on this episode, mainly because I learned that "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was particularly based off of it in terms of its story and concept. However, I later realized that it wouldn't be worth doing so considering I made an entire list of what my favorite episodes of "Star Trek: The Original Series" were and that I primarily revealed what I thought of them in short. With how many common qualities the episodes shared, I also discovered that I'd basically be saying what I already thought of the overall show.

And then it hit me. To accommodate the fact that "The Changeling" became one of my new favorite episodes, I decided to discuss why that was in the simplest way possible. Just like when I did my episode listings of this show long before.

I really can't lie to you guys, all the reasons for why I enjoyed this episode are because it's everything that "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" isn't.

Compared to the aforementioned film, "The Changeling" had a much more gripping storyline that helped me get engaged! A particular credit goes to how inspired Marc Daniels's direction and John Meredyth Lucas's story was. The whole episode was much more evenly paced compared to the film, and hardly anything about it was confusing or hard to understand. It had its occasional witty moments, and the thrills and drama the episode contained were very well-worked.

The character of NOMAD was also a better robotic villain than V'Ger ever was. As a matter of fact, I found myself understanding the intentions of NOMAD way more than V'Ger's, and something about them were easier to process. In contrast to V'Ger often having the feel of a filmmaker unable to decide whether to make the character a robot or a human, NOMAD's role was not as conflicted. As a character, he was written like he truly was supposed to be a robot based on how he talked or acted despite having gained sapience long before meeting the crew of the Enterprise, and the development he had also felt like the kind of growths an actual robot would have.

The performances of the people playing the crew of the Enterprise, and the characters themselves, were likewise much more fun to watch. The cast members all seemed like they were having a great time being there compared to when they worked on "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", and the characters as a whole had a greater sense of personality and life. The performances of William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, and DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy were especially as fun as ever.

At the end of the day, as I frequently compared "The Changeling" and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" side-by-side in my own head, I found this episode to be superior in every way. Gene Roddenberry obviously had a greater head on his shoulders for this episode than he did for the film, that's for sure.

So, without further ado, I hereby add "The Changeling" to my list of favorite episodes from "Star Trek: The Original Series", and with this addition...comes a change in the list title. From this moment on, the list name shall be changed from the "Noteworthy Nineteen" to the "Terrific Twenty".

With all this being said, thank you for your time.

And once again, Happy New Year!