Watch for falling links!

Star Trek Synopses - Humorous!

(For the three seasons of TOS and through three seasons of TNG)

These are a few of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, synopsized to the best of my memory. (There may be spoilers, but only if you haven't seen every episode of Star Trek ever made, in which case, shame on you!)

STAR TREK: THE MAINFRAME GENERATION

THE MAN TRAP: Shortly after McCoy's ex-girl-friend comes on board, a sudden rash of terminal hickeys breaks out. She gets caught in the act in Kirk's bedroom.
CHARLIE X: A strange teenager irritates everybody, so the Captain makes him an Acting Ensign.
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD: Kirk kills his best friend, destroying all evidence that his middle initial is not really "T".
THE MAKING TIME: Kirk makes love to the Enterprise, with disastrous results. Lwaxana confesses her love for Spock, who goes running to his mommy.
THE ENEMY WITHIN: No guest stars, so Kirk gets frustated and beats himself up.
MUDDY WOMEN: The Enterprise takes on a troop of traveling mud-wrestlers. All the crewmen, including Kirk, immediately become infatuated, so Uhura dumps them all on an ice planet to cool them off.
WHAT ARE LITTLE GIRLS MADE OF?: Kirk finally solves his problem of lust for the Enterprise by having a scientist build him a new ship in the shape of a woman. Unfortunately, it falls in love with the food dispenser, so he phasers them both.
MIRI, MIRI: The Enterprise discovers an Earth-like planet with no adults where everybody gets a certain fatal disease as soon as they reach puberty, so Kirk risks violating the Prime Directive by giving them condoms.
DAGGER OF THE MIND: The director of an insane asylum invents an electronic aphrodisiac and tries it out on Kirk (as if he needed one).
THE CARBONATE MANEUVER: Kirk fakes out a superior intelligence, or so the Captain's Log says.
THE MENAGERIE: Spock gets out of line again, so Kirk court martials him. Unfortunately, one of the judges turns out to be one of Spock's holograms, so he gets out of it. In a one-hour flashback, Spock reminisces about the good old days when he used to smile and yell like the best of them.
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING: Don King arranges a fight between Kirk and Worf, but the outcome is so obvious that the crew skips it to attend Picard's Shakespeare recital. Meanwhile, Kirk falls in love with a mass murderer, but her father disapproves of Kirk, so Kirk has her committed.
BALANCE OF ERRORS: Spock's father decides to get even with his son by taking over a Romulan warbird and trashing the Enterprise. The Romulans then blow themselves up to teach the Federation the meaning of honor.
SHORE ENOUGH: Kirk beats up/makes love to people from his past. (McCoy: "I'm dead, Jim!")
THE GALILEO SEVEN-ELEVEN: Spock takes the shuttlecraft to make a quick stop at a local planet to get a Slurpie, but the natives refuse to accept his Vulcan Express card.
THE SQUARE OF GOTHOS: The crew of the Enterprise is trapped by a super-intelligent being who plays pranks on them, but it turns out to be just Wesley.
ARENA: Kirk meets a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with a bad attitude. When he discovers he can't beat him up, he shoots him.
TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY: The Enterprise goes back in time again to visit the present, which is their past, but which is also our past, since this is a very old episode. Eventually they return to the future, which is their present, but is really their future, too, since an hour has passed since we started watching.
COURT MARTIAL: Kirk gets caught, so he edits the tapes.
THE RETURN OF THE ACORNS: Kirk defeats a superior computer by finding a bug in its program that had gone unnoticed for hundreds of years. As with all superior computers, as soon as its program enters an infinite loop, it immediately starts smoking and shooting off sparks until it explodes. (That's what happens when you buy a computer from General Motors.)
SPACE SPEED: Kirk gets in a fight with a 300-year-old man, tearing Kirk's tunic. This reveals that he has been getting hair transplants from his chest, so he exiles him to Fantasy Island.
A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON: Kirk finds a planet with no System Manager, where the users constantly play computer games. He again violates the Prime Directive by doing a reboot.
FLIP SIDE OF PARADISE: Spock gets the girl, so Kirk gets jealous and starts a fight. Spock beats him up, but by then he's no longer in the mood, so they leave the planet.
THE DEVIL IN THE DARK: When Kirk wakes up, he finds himself in bed with a silicon-based life form, plus a lot of eggs.
ERRAND OF MERCY: Kirk tries to save a planet from the Klingons, but they decide they'd rather have the Klingons.
THE ALTERNATIVE FACTOR: In this episode we learn that not only does antimatter have opposite physical properties, but opposite personality, too. (Well, it's totally consistent with the concept of warp drive.)
SITTING ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER (or: IF TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY, WHAT WILL LAST TUESDAY BE?): Harlan Ellison writes another time-travel story. Kirk goes back in time again. (Can't he ever go forward?) He falls in love again, but breaking up is hard to do, so he lets her get hit by a truck. Then he blames it on the Nazis.
OPERATION - ANNIHILATE: McCoy performs surgery on Spock. Spock seems OK, but realizes something may be wrong after he walks off the end of the shuttlecraft bay.

Second Season

AMOK TIME: Spock beats Kirk up again in another fit of logic. Spock's fiancee tries to have him killed to avoid an illogical divorce.
WHO THE HELL IS ADONAIS?: Kirk finds he can kill gods the same way he does computers: by talking to them until they commit suicide.
THE CHANGELING: Kirk finds that one of his illegitimate children is a robot, so Spock adopts him.
MIRROR, MIRROR: Kirk goes to a perpendicular universe, but that Spock beats him up, too. He sure looks good in a beard, though.
THE APPLE: Kirk has trouble finding any remaining virgins, so he goes back in time to find Eve.
THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE: Kirk finally finds someone with a bigger appetite. They feed it Kirk's lunch all at once and it explodes, making the galaxy safe again, at least till Kirk's suppertime.
CATSPAW: Another alien woman falls in love with Kirk, but she turns out to be a real witch, so Kirk dumps her in the usual manner.
I, MUD: Kirk learns what his real middle name is.
METAMORPHOSIS: Kirk discovers that universal translators can not only translate languages they never heard before, but also determine an alien's sex just by the sound of its voice, allowing him to avoid future embarassment.
JOURNEY TO BABEL: Spock's parents attend an intergalactic PTA meeting.
FRIDAY'S CHILD: The Enterprise visits another society so primitive that they've still gotten only last season's episodes. Kirk then has to teach them how dishonorable and sneaky Klingons are.
THE DEADLY YEARS: Kirk loses his toupee.
OBSESSION: Kirk does his best to stop a killer cloud, but the crew has doubts about his sanity because they think he might be confusing it with just any killer cloud. Spock gives the OK to destroy it when he realizes it is an intelligent being.
WOLF IN THE FOLD: Scotty commits rape and murder, and blames it on Jack the Ripper. Kirk gets him off Scott free by claiming that the crimes were actually committed by a being of sheer energy who was only after pantyhose.
THE TROUBLE WITH STAR TREK: is that it's not a comedy, and when it tries to be it's about as funny as a bar-room brawl or a bad pun. Besides, it's a well-known fact that quadrotriticale occurs naturally only in 137-grain bread.
THE HAMSTERS ON TRICYCLES: Kirk gets paid to do what he does best (and the other thing, too), and after he beats up his girl friend (twice), becomes ruler of another planet that fortunately hadn't heard of the Prime Directive.
A PIECE OF THE ACTION: Kirk cheats at cards.
THE IMMUNITY SYNDROME: When a planet-size alien threatens to reproduce, the Enterprise becomes a giant contraceptive.
A PRIVATE LITTLE WAR: Kirk forgets how the Vietnam War ended.
RETURN TO TOMORROW: Actually, it wasn't really tomorrow, since we now know that tomorrow was actually yesterday. Kirk beats up some gods.
PATTERNS OF FORCE: Kirk shows that he's the only one who can get away with violating the Prime Directive.
BY ANY OTHER NAME: Kirk seduces an octopus to prove who has more hands.
THE OMEGA GLORY: The crew of the Enterprise discovers that, just as human beings are an unavoidable result of evolution, so is the United States of America.
THE ULTIMATE COMPUTER: Kirk proves once and for all that the smarter a machine is, the easier it is for him to bore it to death.
BREAD AND CIRCUSES: Kirk does his best to follow the Prime Directive (for a change) in order to save an old friend who gets killed anyway by the Romans (not to be confused with the Romulans).
ASSIGNMENT: EARTH: The Enterprise goes back in time again, to the 20th century again. (This saves a lot of money on sets, props, and costumes.) An alien invades Earth, disguised as an Earthling. (This saves more money on costumes and makeup, and makes casting easier.) This was a pilot for a new show that the network liked so much they not only didn't pick it up but they canceled Star Trek besides.

Third Season

SPOCK'S BRAIN: Most memorable line: "Brain and brain, what is brain?" They brought back Star Trek for this?
THE ENTERPRISE INCIDENT: Kirk looks lousy in pointed ears. Starfleet Command orders Kirk and Spock to steal a cloaking device from the Romulans, and then never bothers to use it again.
THE PARADISE SYNDROME: Captain Kir-ok parties a little too hardy and steers the ship right into an asteroid. When he wakes up the next morning, he can't even remember how to pronounce his own name. Spock & Doc rescue him, but not until after he gets stoned again. Oh, yeah, he also falls in love again and gets another woman pregnant, so he gets her an abortion the hard way (see "Sitting on the Edge of Forever").
AND THE CHILDREN SHALL BLEED: Melvin Belli leads Kirk's nephew's band to take over the Enterprise.
IS THERE IN TRUTH NO BEAUTY?: Pulaski goes blind.
SON OF A GUN: Kirk proves he can beat up anybody, even ghosts. This earns the respect of a superior civilization.
DAY OF THE DOVE: Another being of pure energy that feeds on pure emotion. Where do they get their fiber?
FOR THE WORLD IS HOLLOW AND I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY: (Actually, since the world was hollow, he must have really touched the ground.) McCoy finally finds a planet where the people are as narrow-minded as he is, and decides to stay.
THE THOLIAN WEB: Intergalactic spiders trap the Enterprise. Uhura finds Kirk in her bedroom.
PLAYDOUGH STEPLADDER: Kirk finally kisses Uhura. Nimoy finds an excuse to sing.
WINK OF AN EYE: Kirk finally meets a woman who is too fast for him.
THE EMPATH: Kirk makes love to Troi's great grandmother. Unfortunately, she's a bit kinky, so everyone in sight gets tortured. It's OK, though, because this allows Kirk to teach a valuable lesson to more-intelligent beings.
DEANNA OF TROI: Kirk learns about better living through chemistry when he makes love to alien royalty. He gets out of this one by claiming he's already in love with his ship, which leads to history's most unique paternity suit.
WHO DESTROYS GODS: Kirk does, of course, but he can't find any in this episode, so he looks for trouble in an insane asylum, where they mistake him for one of the inmates.
LET THAT BE YOUR LAST BATTLEFIELD: The Enterprise encounters two strange beings who are at war with each other because they are each other's mirror image, which leads to complications when they try to shave.
THE MARK OF GIDEON: Kirk discovers a planet populated completely by his illegitimate children. He solves their overpopulation problem by teaching them the true meaning of VD.
THAT WHICH SURVIVES: Killer holograms survive, unfortunately, but at least they're pretty.
THE LIGHTS OF ZETAR: The Enterprise gets attacked by another bunch of flashing lights, which wreaks havoc with traffic but saves oodles on the special effects budget.
REQUIEM FOR METHUSALEH: Kirk punches out a 4,000-year-old man, falls in love with his daughter, and talks another robot to death.
THE WAY TO EDEN: Kirk learns that flower children are really OK, just misguided.
THE CLOUD MINERS: Kirk solves prejudice with gas masks.
THE SAVAGE CURTAIN: Kirk kicks Genghis Khan's ass. (Kirk: "KHAAAAAAN!!!") This teaches a more highly advanced civilization the meaning of good, bad, and ugly.
ALL OUR YESTERDAYS: Well, most of them anyway. Quite a few got used up in previous time-travel episodes. (Or were those tomorrows?) Spock falls in love with a dead woman.
TURNABOUT INTRUDER: Kirk learns his final lesson when he switches bodies with a woman who gets him pregnant.

STAR TREK: THE MACINTOSH GENERATION

ENCOUNTER AT GUNPOINT: Picard saves a big jellyfish.
GET NAKED NOW: After both get drunk, Jean gets Lucky with Beverly. Data, interested in learning human behavior, follows his example.
COAT OF HONOR: Yar beats up a king who gets out of line with her. This fails to discourage him, so she beats up his wife, who then divorces him.
HAVEN: In this episode it is revealed that Christine Chapel is really Deanna Troi's mother (which would make Gene Roddenberry Deanna's father). Troi is forced into a prearranged marriage, but tries to avoid it by challenging Kirk to a duel. Meanwhile, her fiance dumps her for a leper.
WHERE CAPTAIN KIRK HAS GONE BEFORE: Picard gives Wesley the keys to the ship, and he gets in an accident.
THE LOST OUTPOST: The first encounter with the Ferengi, a race who drink way too much coffee. On an alien planet the crew of Enterprise discovers some Japanese who still think WWII isn't over.
LONELY AMONG US: While on a mission to the movie planet Paramount, the Enterprise is invaded by a super-intelligent cloud that kills the Captain. Fortunately, the crew discovers they can bring dead people back to life with the transporter, which they unfortunately forget by the next episode.
JUST US: Wesley visits a planet, and the people there want to kill him, too.
THE BATTLE: The Ferengi give Picard a headache. Picard tries to destroy the Enterprise with the Picard Maneuver, but Data stops him with the Data Maneuver. Riker saves the Captain with the Heimlich Maneuver.
HIDE AND Q: Q returns and makes Riker a member of the Q Continuum. Riker then offers to satify the crew's wildest dreams, but they decide to keep him instead.
TOO SHORT A SEASON: Another writer's strike forces the Enterprise to suffer a boring script.
THE BIG GOODBYE: Picard outsmarts a hologram.
DATA'S SORE: Data beats up Worf, takes over the Enterprise, and blames it all on his brother.
ANGEL WON: Riker is marooned on a planet run by women. They kick him off.
11001001: Riker finds this phone number on the bathroom wall, then discovers his blind date is a hologram. Meanwhile, some shy robots take over the Enterprise.
HOME SOIL: The Enterprise just barely manages to defeat some guys a billion times smaller than they are, but what do you expect from a bunch of ugly bags of mostly water?
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS: Aliens kidnap Wesley for ransom. After a couple of hours, they agree to pay Picard to take him off their hands.
COMING OF AGE: Wesley flunks his Starfleet Academy entrance exam because he's only smart enough to save the Enterprise and not the entire galaxy. As part of the exam, the examiners trick Wesley into thinking he let somebody die. (Wait'll he sees what Academy hazing is like.)
HARD OF GLORY: Klingons try to destroy the Enterprise out of nostalgia, but Worf kills them to teach them what honor is really all about. (Good thing Worf never saw any episodes from the old series.)
THE ARSENAL OF FREEDOM: The crew of the Enterprise discover a planet where all TV programming consists entirely of commercials, and replace it with old Star Trek reruns.
SKIN OF EVIL: The Enterprise is attacked by a being of pure acne.
SYMBIOSIS: The Entrerprise discovers a solar system with a planet where everybody believes that a drug they're addicted to is actually a cure for something. Right next to it is a planet where everybody believes tobacco is totally harmless and tastes good, and another planet where everybody believes everything the NRA tells them.
WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARROTS: Captain Picard invites his old girl-friend aboard, but before she can make her move, Beverly crushes her.
CONSPIRACY: Starfleet Command is invaded by those yucky things from Star Trek II, but now they go in through the mouth instead of the ear. (I hate to think where they'll enter next time.)
THE NEUTRAL ZONE: Picard learns that fresh is better than frozen. The Borg invade the Federation, but forget all about it and go back home.

Second Season

THE CHILD: (No, not Wesley.) Troi finally gets pregnant, but can't remember who the father is because she slept through the whole thing. (Troi: "I feel...?") Picard calls a meeting to decide what to do (Picard: "Who did it?" Riker: "Don't look at me!" Worf: "Kill it!"), but before he can make up his mind, the kid grows up, leaves home, graduates from college, and gets his own starship.
WHERE SILENCE HAS LEASE: The Entrerprise is attacked by the alien super-intelligence Hava Nagila who, like most alien super-intelligences, is too stupid to know how to ask questions, and so does experiments on them instead. He learns that the concept of curved space drives Klingons crazy.
ELEMENTARY, DEAR DATA: The most intelligent member of the crew turns out to be a hologram. To save his own job, Picard turns him off.
THE OUTRAGEOUS ARCHON: Data tries to learn to become a comic, but discovers that he was already funny to start with.
THE SCHIZOID MAN: Data beats up Picard and blames it on his grandfather.
LOUS AS A WHISPER: A deaf mediator finds he can no longer function when someone removes the banana from his ear.
UNNATURAL SELECTION: The Enterprise discovers some children that everybody is allergic to. Pulaski gets cured by the transporter but, as usual, everybody forgets this medical breakthrough by the next episode.
ANTI-MATTER OF HONOR: Picard tries the Tribble Maneuver with Riker, but the Klingons give him right back.
THE MEASURE OF A MAN: Data teaches the rest of the crew the Metric System.
THE DOLPHIN: Wesley finds he's no Kirk when he dates a marine mammal. Her mother gets mad and beats up Worf.
CONTAGION: A computer virus invades the Enterprise. It takes Geordi the whole episode to remember the backup tapes and to reboot.
THE ROYALE: Data can cheat at gambling even better than Kirk, since he doesn't have to make up his own games.
TIME SQUARED: Picard commits suicide.
THE ICARUS FACTOR: Worf finally has his Bar Mitzvah.
PEN PALS: Data wants to save a planet from utter annihilation, but nobody can agree whether it's OK because they all learned the Prime Directive from watching episodes of the old show instead of reading their Starfleet Manuals. (Too bad Saavik wasn't around.) Data takes things into his own hands, and the Captain changes his mind and decides not to stop him after he hears what a cute little voice Data's alien girl friend has.
Q YOU: Q introduces the Enterprise to the Borg, a race whose main interest is shopping. Q saves the Enterprise when the Borg threaten to turn it into a mall.
SAMARITAN SNARE: The Entrerprise is attacked by an inferior intelligence.
UP THE WRONG LADDER: Riker is about to have a clone, so he decides to have an abortion. Pulaski agrees.
MANHUNT: Lwaxana dumps Gene for Jean. Then she discovers that holograms are not only more intelligent than humans, but better lovers.
THE EMISSARY: A female Klingon shows Worf the "Kick Me" sign he's been wearing for the past two seasons, so he asks her to marry him and become a houseKlingon, but she chooses her career instead.
PEAK PERFORMANCE: Riker fianlly gets his own ship, but he blows it up, so the Enterprise has to take him back.
SHADES OF GRAY: We finally learn the meaning of "partly new episode".

Third Season

THE LIEUTENANTS OF COMMANDER: A radioactive woman falls in love with Data, but he has no feelings for her. (If she only knew he was fully functional...)
REVOLUTION: Wesley accidentally invents a doomsday device, the nanoo-nanoo. Picard surrenders, but they agree to leave the Enterprise when he gives them a planet to conquer. Unfortunately, it turns out to be the same one Kirk already gave to Khan.
THE SURVIVORS: Picard harasses a lonely old man, but leaves him alone after he finds out he committed genocide.
HOW MUCH WATCH WOULD A WATCHER WATCH: Some Vulcanoids mistake the Captain for "The Donald", in response to which he surrenders to them.
THE BONDING: Worf finally finds someone too small to beat him up, and they become instant friends. The boy's (no, not Wesley's) mother disapproves of the arrangement.
BOOBY TRAP: Troi's new dress is so tight she can't move. While experimenting on the holodeck with Princess Leia, Geordi discovers a way to free her.
THE ENEMA: Geordi loses his glasses and white contact lenses after a Romulan shows him where he can put them.
THE PRICE: Troi falls in love with a visitor who is half betazoid, half creepazoid.
THE VENGEANCE FACTOR: A hundred-year-old woman falls in love with Riker, so he blasts her to smithereens.
THE DEFECTIVE: Data kisses up to Picard by learning some Shakespeare. A Romulan traitor tries to help the Federation by lying and being generally obnoxious, but his fellow planetpersons turn out to be better at it then he is, being well trained at dishonor. (Too bad they didn't watch the old series.)
THE HUNTER: A pacifist killer makes fools out of the Enterprise crew.
THE HIGH GROUND: Another contemporary story told from a contemporary point of view with a contemporary conclusion, but with futuristic props.
DATA Q: Q is kicked out of the Q Continuum, who exile him to the Enterprise and take away all his powers except whining.
A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE: In a trial, Troi can't tell who's lying. What happened to those good-old lie detectors they had in the original series?
YESTERDAY'S ENTERPRISE: In an alternate timeline, there is a TV show called "Star Trek" where the Enterprise blasts enemy ships to bits every week, the Captain never surrenders, there is no Counselor, and the Klingons are bad guys. This is one episode of that program, obtained through a black hole. There was a minor bit of editing, however, including changing the Captain's name from "Kirk" to "Picard."
THE LOOSE SPRING: Data's daughter makes a pass at Riker, who flees in terror. Another robot confuses itself to death, but Kirk was nowhere in sight.
SONS OF THE FATHER: Worf's brother treats him like an ass ('cause that's the Klingon way), then asks for his help. Worf saves his home planet, for which they disown him. ("Being a Klingon means never having to say you're sorry.")
ALLEGIANCE: Alien's replace Picard with an imitation whose only flaw is that he isn't so stuck-up.
CAPTAIN'S HOLIDAY: The further adventures of that famous archeologist, Indiana Jean.
THIN MAN: These are the voyages of the warbird Tomahawk. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to kill them.
HOLLOW PURSUITS: The aw-A Team learns that one of its members has a problem. (Worf: "I pity the poor fool that messes with the holodeck!")
THE MOST BOYS: A strange alien who collects baseball players decides Data would make a great center fielder.
SORRY: Spock's father tuns out to be a bigger nag than Troi's mother. Beverly finally smacks Wesley.
MANAGE A TROI: Lwaxana meets her match in a Ferengi (or is that "Ferengus"?) who's as desperate as she is. She escapes by threatening to bring the rest of Gene's relatives on as guest stars every year.
TRANSFIGURATIONS: Jesus visits the Enterprise.
THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS: The alien tanker Mega Borg returns and threatens to oil slick the entire galaxy. Riker answers that age-old riddle, "How do you keep a Trekkie in suspense for three months?"

February 6, 1994 - Robert Lentz (ralentz@ralentz.com)