Our Man Bashir (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, S4 E10) was recommended by he/him Crimson like the color, who said: This one is probably pretty well liked already but...man it's just a blast so why not love on it too? Bashir's 60s Action Spy Holonovel is interrupted by a transporter emergency and all the major characters are replaced by runabout crew. We get the utter delight of the crew getting to ham it up in absurd Bond-style roles, all the while Garak snarks on the whole mess as a 'real spy.' The Garak-Bashir interactions are great, Colm Meany gets to play a gangster, which he does well, and Avery Brooks gets to monologue, plus the 60s spy camp is perfect. Plus we get a bit of a "B" plot that lets Odo, Quark, Rom, and even Eddington solve problems in the dark, which is neat. AND holodeck malfunctions are a classic of Star Trek!

Our Man Bashir first aired on November 27, 1995, written by story by Robert Gillan, teleplay by Ronald D. Moore, and directed by Winrich Kolbe

The Joy of Trek is hosted by Khaki & Kay, with editing & production by Chief Engineer Greg and music by Fox Amoore (Bandcamp | Bluesky)

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Starship Mine (Star Trek: The Next Generation, S6 E18) was recommended by Royce Day (pronouced like Rolls Royce) he/him, who said: While this episode is safely in the "filler" category, lacking any connection to past episodes and never being mentioned again in the series, I'm fond of it because it's just FUN. It makes no bones (or McCoys) about being straight up "What if Die Hard, but on a Starship?" with Picard alone and rapidly losing his uniform tunic to crawl around in the Jefferies tubes and take on a bunch of terrorists/thieves by himself. Also unless I'm mistaken, this is the most running and punching he does in the series until the First Contact film.

Side Note: My second favorite "Die Hard on an X" story is the made for video film "Interceptor" which is set on a C5 Galaxy aircraft, and improbably stars Jurgon Prochnow as the requisite german terrorist out to steal a VR equipped F-117.

Starship Mine first aired on March 29, 1993, written by Morgan Gendel, and directed by Cliff Bole

The Joy of Trek is hosted by Khaki & Kay, with editing & production by Chief Engineer Greg and music by Fox Amoore (Bandcamp | Bluesky)

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Unexpected (Star Trek: Enterprise, S1 E05) was recommended by Hoofburd, he/him, who said:

I would really like to hear from the writer/s if they knew that mpreg was an actual thing on certain password-protected tumblrs before they wrote this episode.

This one goes in the pot because I *didn’t* see it, at least not at first. I was watching on original broadcast, I was 10, and were only a few episodes in before one of the Cub Scout dads (very conservative bunch, my family/scout troop) mentions something hyperbolic about not letting his family watch the show anymore. I then didn’t see that episode myself and didn’t think anything of it, but then some eleven years later, I started watching the series start to finish, and found out that the reason why I didn’t remember this one was hilarious.

Unexpected first aired on October 17, 2001, written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga, and directed by Mike Vejar

The Joy of Trek is hosted by Khaki & Kay, with editing & production by Chief Engineer Greg and music by Fox Amoore (Bandcamp | Bluesky)

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