Episode 1: First Contact
(Picard, Riker, Troi, Crusher, Data, Worf)

Prime Directive episodes are usually tedious interactions where different crew members argue over whether or not to help some world that they probably imperiled in the first place. I've spared you from most of them. In this episode, they've pretty much been caught violating The Prime Directive, despite their best efforts to blend in to an alien populace. This is a damage control episode where the crew tries to work diplomatically to rescue Riker, who was undercover as a Malcorian. There's a lot of American political allegory that is still, sadly, relevant, twenty-six years after this episode aired, but it's not as heavy handed as Star Trek allegory often is.


Episode 2: Allegiance
(Picard, Riker, Crusher, Troi, Worf, Laforge, Data, Wesley)

It wasn't so long ago that Picard was captured by The Borg and assimilated, so you'd think they'd up security on The Enterprise, but, no, I am unsure if there is a single season where whomever is captaining The Enterprise at any given moment, isn't abducted by someone he can't identify (or Q, it is often Q). This episode serves as a morality play for Picard while the rest of the crew contends with a mostly ineffectual Picard doppelganger.


Episode 3: Future Imperfect
(Riker, Picard, Crusher, Laforge, Data, Worf, Troi)

After a noxious gas incident with Worf and Laforge, Riker wakes up to discover he's forgotten sixteen years of his life, and he's now Captain of The Enterprise. This is what Kirk would have called a Tuesday. Will this episode mean the entire chronology jumps forward sixteen years? 

No.


Episode 4: Tin Man
(Troi, Picard, Data, Riker, Laforge, Wesley)

Despite being an ensemble-focused show, most TNG episodes have one character at the core of its storyline. Picard, Riker, and Worf stories are usually fantastic (after season two), Data and Crusher stories are interesting, Wesley stories can grate, Troi stories are insufferable, and Laforge stories are always focused on how much he sucks, even though he's fun and competent as a secondary character. This is, so far, the only Troi episode I've made it all the way through, and I quite enjoyed it. Another Betazoid joins the crew to learn about a seemingly sentient spaceship. There's an interesting angle with Data, some Romulans cause havoc, all-in-all, it's just a solid episode where the writers finally make interesting use of Troi.


Episode 5: The Game
(Wesley, Riker, Picard, Crusher, Data, Laforge, Worf, O'Brien)

The idea that games in the twenty-fourth century would look like a version of golf they designed for Windows 3.0 is quaint. Wesley is visiting from Starfleet Academy and is disappointed by how the crew is behaving as The Game becomes super popular. Like Wordle. It's a pretty heavy handed treatise on the addictiveness of video games, but it's So Ridiculous and Over The Top that it's hard to be annoyed by it.


Episode 6: Darmok
(Picard, Riker, Troi, Worf, Data, Laforge, Crusher)

I feel this episode is best if, like the characters, you have no idea what you're getting into. It's my favorite episode of the season.


Episode 7: Ensign Ro
(Picard, Ro, Guinan, Riker, Data, Worf, Crusher, Troi, Laforge)

Starfleet shenanigans put a court martialed officer of a race made refugee by The Cardassians (who we are seeing for the first time in this chronology, but who will be hugely important as we progress). It's an interesting look at prejudice, and how politicians use terrorism and tragedy for their own ends. Something Star Trek often attempts, but rarely pulls off.


Episode 8: Disaster
(Picard, O'Brien, Ro, Troi, Riker, Data, Crusher, Laforge, Worf)

Several disaster movie cliches are overlapped in the most character-driven episode since "Family". The O'Brien/Ro/Troi interplay is my favorite non-main character study so far in the chronology. Also, it's nice to see a story where kids are just annoying children as opposed to spooky, powerful menaces.


Episode 9: A Matter Of Time
(Picard, Crusher, Riker, Data, Laforge, Worf, Troi)

An annoying time traveler (Max Headroom...aka Dr. Leekie from Orphan Black) shows up to observe what he claims is a pivotal mission for The Enterprise. It's a fun twist on a Prime Directive episode as the crew are the ones being kept in the dark to preserve the time continuum Or Whatever. It's mainly fun to watch an actor portray an annoying character and not have it be agonizing to watch.


Episode 10: Clues
(Data, Picard, Crusher, Worf, Laforge, Riker, O'Brien, Guinan)

Data regains consciousness after some sort of event knocks out everyone on board The Enterprise. He belives that thirty seconds have been stolen from the entire crew, but all signs point to something larger and more disconcerting.

​
Serial 1: Redemption
(Worf, Picard, Guinan, Data, Riker, Yar)

After all these one-off adventures, we finally tie into a major storyline, as we revisit the chaos of The Klingon empire. It's a direct sequel to "Reunion", though much time has elapsed. It's a satisfying conclusion(?) to the story arc begun in "Sins Of The Father".


Serial 2: Unification
(Picard, Spock, Data, Sarek, Riker, Yar, Worf, Troi, Crusher, Laforge)

Let's put aside the Klingons for a bit and get back to Vulcans and Romulans. And not just any Vulcans and Romulans but Sarek and Spock from The Original Series, and Tasha Yar's evil daughter from "Redemption". It's one of the best political strategy episodes so far. 


Episode 15: I Borg
(Picard, Crusher, Laforge, Guinan, Data, Riker, Troi, Worf)

The Borg are interesting villains in that they don't care to kill or acknowledge individuals, they are only interested in assimilating entire species at once. So when the crew of The Enterprise rescues a single Borg, against the wishes of Picard, Guinan, and most of the crew, everyone has to reevaluate their position on TNG's biggest bad. This episode gave me one the most positive visceral reactions to a Star Trek episode I've ever had.


Episode 16: Relics
(Scott, Laforge, Picard, Riker, Crusher, Worf, Data)
​
One of the best episodes of the series, the crew of The Enterprise finds Commander Scott from TOS trapped in a transporter loop. Not only is this the best episode featuring Scott of the series, it's one of the best Laforge episodes, too. That's three "best"s in one paragraph. It seems as though I enjoyed this treatise on how quickly technology makes the old seem obsolete.


Episode 17: Cause And Effect
(Picard, Riker, Crusher, Data, Worf, Laforge, Ro)

Another time loop episode! How will they figure their way out of the loop this time?


Episode 18: Conundrum
(Picrard, Riker, Worf, Data, Troi, Crusher, Laforge, Ro)

A strange ship begins scanning the Enterprise, and then suddenly no one in the crew knows who they are. They still retain all of their skills and talents but they can't place their own identities. Then they are told Starfleet is being threatened by a technologically impaired alien race, and they must completely wipe them out.


Episode 19: Next Phase
(Ro, Laforge, Picard, Crusher, Riker, Data, Worf)

From aging to death. And, once again, a transporter is at the center of it, as Ro and Laforge are believed dead, but have actually been phased in such a way that they can observe the crew but can not be observed, except by each other. 

Episode 20: Tapestry
(Picard, Q, Riker, Worf, Troi, Crusher, Data, Laforge)

Young Picard made some foolish decisions that lead us to the death of current Picard. And, surprise, Q is in charge of the afterlife. Can Picard repair his mistakes so that he neither dies nor completely changes history? Probably not.

I tell you this because I care. The solace we take from speaking calmly to children is not reciprocal. We imagine the wide eyes of toddlers when we yell as fear of volume. But it is only fear of consequences. Should you calmly explain to the niece or nephew who just dropped your indoor cat from your second story window to see if it would land on its feet, that the next time (s)he touches your cat with any intention other than petting, you will cut out the child's eyes and serve them to their parents as vitreous soup, they will be much more filled with wide-eyed terror than if you scream "No TV Or Internet For A Week, You Little Monster!" at full volume.

It's never about volume. 

When I was eleven, and terrified of horror movies, I got heavily into the work of Stephen King, so my mostly calm parents, my don't-shield-him-from-horror parents, my encourage-him-to-read-whatever-he-wants-because-he's-at-least-reading-more-than-his-idiot-friends parents, my last-year-it-was-judy-blume-maybe-next-year-it-will-be-tolstoy parents bought me the latest Stephen King paperback, The Eyes Of The Dragon.

I hated it.

As you, dear reader, doubtlessly know, writers who speak to children in hushed tones are often speaking in condescension. Should I explain this further? Many writers imagine children, not their own, mind you, but others' children, are stupid. They believe their writing should be as plain and calmly intoned as possible to help educate the child reader . By spelling out every plot point by having the protagonist's sidekick repeat the lesson that the reader has, no doubt, already inferred, in conversation to another character, the writer feels they have accomplished two things. One: the child has learned the lesson because it was  echoed at them. Two: If a parent is reading the story to the child, they will be subconsciously annoyed by the repetition of the lesson, and it will stick in their brain, so that they feel the need to discuss that point with the child, if they somehow manage to stay awake through the reading.

Stephen King is not a writer who aims his books at children. At eleven, I was unlikely to be who he imagined as his ideal reader for It, Cujo, Salem's Lot, and The Shining. But he wrote the Eyes Of The Dragon for his daughter. A girl. Someone around my age when I read the book. This book was written for someone in my demographic, and thus should have been my favorite.

I hated it.

I could not, and did not, gentle reader, express why I hated The Eyes Of The Dragon when I was eleven. I do not remember how many pages my eyes traversed before I put the book on my shelf. I don't believe I ever told whichever parent bought me the book, that I found it boring. That it did not interest me to read it further.

As an adult, I can share with you the truth. The Eyes Of The Dragon is a somewhat interesting premise for a thirty page fairy tale. This is the kind of story you should tell your child in an hour. It is not The Lord Of The Rings. Nor The Hobbit. 

There is, of course, an exercise commonly given to writers where you condense a story into Cliff Notes. It's part of the Murder Your Darlings school of editing. And King, as frequent murderer of fictional characters, should more have embraced this practice in his creation of The Eyes Of the Dragon, and presented us with a short story, instead of a novel.

Again, I have conversed with several friends who proclaim that The Eyes Of The Dragon is one of, if not their absolute, favorite novels of Stephen King. I mean those people's opinions no shade. Some people enjoy being condescended to. Or, mayhap, they read this book when they were young, and used to being spoken down to, and it reminds them of a time when they were safely coddled. They are welcome to this retreat. I, too, enjoy some children's books that I read as a child, that I probably would not have enjoyed if I'd first encountered them as an adult. 

So, if I, as an adult who is creating a chronology where I am in complete control, did not enjoy this book, whyfor am I recommending you read it? Merely because your taste in writing may differ? As a palette cleanser for the epicly long, more adult-focused apocalyptic The Stand, which you have just finished reading before making it this far?

I leave you to provide the answer at your discretion. Assume you know me well enough to be correct.

I have mostly included it because the villain of the book is Randall Flagg, also the villain of The Stand, which I mentioned earlier. He has the same powers, and the same agenda, but now, instead of being in a disease ravaged twentieth century America, he is in a fairy tale land of kings and baronies. Instead of crucifying his betrayers on the lampposts of Las Vegas, he has them beheaded in the main square. He is still as cunning, as red eyed, and mysterious as The King's Magician, as he was as The Walking Dude. And, just like in The Stand, we don't spend nearly as much time with him as we do with the much less interesting characters who surround him.

I know you are eager to get to The Dark Tower. You wonder why we are two books in and have met A Roland, but not The Roland who will serve as The Dark Tower's protagonist. Why even bother with this world of The Eyes Of The Dragon.

The answer is simple. This book takes place in Roland's world. Some of the language King uses in The Dark Tower series sneaks in. Characters you will not see for several books are casually referenced. Devices that will not be used for thousands of more pages of this chronology, are seen. Their import not quite yet understood. It is the building of a world, and, while it was excruciating for me, it is well loved enough by others for me to believe you would benefit from knowing this story.

There are, over the course of the three hundred pages, several promises by the narrator that we will encounter certain characters again. At the end of this book, you might be tempted to believe that Thomas and Dennis's quest is the journey to The Dark Tower that we will be following. Alas, this will be the last we hear of them. It is time for us to join The Roland on the main quest. 

Place this bedtime tale on your nightstand, and give its protagonists no more of your thoughts. Be familiar enough in the world presented here to travel A Bit East and join a more adult crew. Go, now. There are better worlds than this.

Stray observation:

--at only 367 pages, this book was just about 1/3 the length of The Stand, but felt three times as long, bringing us to a total of 1,520 pages of Randall Flagg so far.

Episode 1: Where No One Has Gone Before 
(Wesley, Picard, Riker, Crusher, Laforge, Data, Traveler)

An annoying faux-engineer and his alien counterpart, The Traveler, trying to improve The Enterprise's warp drive. They end up being hurtled far beyond charted space, where they are left at the end of the episode. This is a pro-Wesley episode.


Episode 2: Q Who 
(Picard, Q, Riker, Troi, Data, Laforge, Crusher)

I LOATHE Q. He's my least favorite recurring character in all of the Star Trek franchise. But there's no denying his existence, as he pops up in some crucial episodes. For my continuity's sake, the crew mever got back to charted territory in the last episode, so they're still trying to figure out where to go when they encounter the weird Q moron, who leads them straight into the cubey hands of the newest Star Trek enemy race: The Borg!


Episode 3: Remember Me
(Crusher, Picard, Wesley, Traveler,  Laforge, Wesley, Data, Troi, Worf, O'Brien)

Returning from their Borg mission, Enterprise docks at a Starfleet base. One of Dr. Crusher's old professors visits the ship, but soon after his arrival, he disappears, and there is no record of him ever existing. Slowly, but surely, the whole Enterprise Crew also starts to disappear. This sounds like some Traveler shenanigans.


Episode 4: Peak Performance
​(Picard, Riker, Data, Worf,  Wesley, Troi, Pulaski, Laforge, O'Brien)

It's time for war games between Picard and Riker, with the bridge crew being divided between them, as well as Data and a strategy expert (think of an entertainingly weasley chess master) battling over a game of Strategem (think of a Nintendo Wii version of speed chess, that they never explain the rules to...which is to the benefit of the episode). Naturally, something happens that turns the war games into an important life or death struggle. This episode features Pulaski instead of Crusher, as I like to imagine she is still missing from the events of the last episode.


Episode 5: The Emissary 
(Worf, Picard, Riker, Troi, Data, Laforge, Pulaski)

Not my favorite episode but it introduces Worf's ex, a half-Klingon/half-human political ambassador whose existence is vital to later continuity.  Also, still no Beverly Crusher. 


Episode 6: A Matter Of Honor
(Riker, Picard, Data, Worf, Wesley, Pulaski, Laforge)

Klingon culture is complicated, and the early episodes of TNG that focus on Worf and his relation with his heritage are Not Very Good. In this episode, we see the Klingon's through the lens of Riker, who is assigned as First Officer on a Klingon ship. Some chaos ensues when someone similar to Wesley's friend from the first episode fails to alert either The Enterprise or the Klingon that there is something on the Klingon hull that could destroy the ship.


 Episode 7: Contagion
(Picard, Riker, Laforge, Worf, Data, Troi, Wesley, Pulaski, O'Brien)

A computer related  problem, a lost Starfleet vessel, Romulans, and Pulaski. It's not a great episode, but it has an interesting conceit. And ... no Crusher.


Episode 8: Time Squared 
(Picard, Pulaski, Riker, Data, Laforge, Troi, O'Brien)

For our continuity's sake, the technological problem from Contagion is the cause of another glitch, this one phases Picard slightly out of synch with the universe. The crew, including Doctor Pulaski, barely manage to fix the problem, and save Picard. But the slight rip in time leads to 


Episode 9: Yesterday's Enterprise
(Picard, Data, Yar, Guinan, Riker, Worf, Laforge, Wesley, Crusher)

A rip in time causes a dimensional change that's a bit like The Mirror Universe we explored in Season Three. The crew isn't evil, but their timeline has changed, and Yar, who died offscreen during the previous season, is back. When they encounter a previous Enterprise crew (the crew from between TOS and TNG), they know they have to send the ship back to its original time, where they all will die, in order to prevent the Starfleet/Klingon war that dominates this Mirrorverse.  Any scenes with Beverly Crusher before the time rip are edited out. So that there's some shock for the viewers (but not the crew, who don't know that their timeline has been altered) when both she and Tasha Yar are alive again and part of the crew. Unlike Yar, though, Dr. Crusher gets to stick around, and much like in the actual series, Pulaski is never mentioned, as though she never existed at all.


Episode 10: Evolution
(Wesley, Picard, Riker, Data, Laforge, Crusher, Worf, Troi)

Dr. Bob Kelso from Scrubs was an insufferable prick in the Star Trek universe, as well. His science mission comes in conflict with one of Wesley's school experiments, which is in conflict with The Enterprise's computer. This is one of the best Wesley episodes in the series, and has him acting like his mom was merely away for a while on a mission, and not that she ceased to exist for a while.


Episode 11: The Defector
(Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, Crusher, Laforge, Troi)

For most of the series, the Romulans have been an offscreen threat. We don't even know precisely why they're at war with Starfleet, other than they both want to explore the world and claim it as their own. In this episode, a top officer from The Romulans defects to Starfleet, claiming he knows about a weapon that will change the tide of war. 


Episode 12: Deja Q
(Q, Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, Laforge, Troi, Guinan, Crusher)

Q is a godlike creature with a penchant for drama. He's the Scrappy Doo of Star Trek but with unlimited power, which he only uses to be infuriating. But in this episode, he's had his powers stripped by other members of the Q continuum, and is not a threat, just a withstandable annoyance. Also, a moon is going to crash into its planet, killing millions if The Enterprise can't figure out a way to change its course. My continuity tweak would be to make his failure to help with the Borg situation earlier in the season the reason he is punished.


Episode 13: Sins Of The Father
(Worf, Picard, Riker, Data, Wesley, Laforge, Crusher, Troi)

Earlier this season, we saw Riker transferred to a Klingon ship as part of an exchange program. This season, a Klingon officer comes to work on The Enterprise. But, OH SHIT, it's Worf's younger brother, and he has some distressing family news.


Episode 14: Reunion
(Worf, Picard, Riker, Data, Wesley, Laforge, Crusher, Troi)

The fallout of "Sins Of The Father" come into play, and one of Worf's exes shows up to help mitigate it. She's brought a surprise, and so have they.


Episode 15: Sarek
(Picard, Sarek, Riker, Crusher, Data, Laforge, Worf, Troi)

The crew of The Enterprise hosts Spock's dad and his ... new wife? It turns out that Sarek has what's essentially Vulcan dementia, and it completely messes with the crew.


Episode 16: Menage A Troi
(Troi, Riker, Lwaxana, Picard, Crusher, Wesley, Data, Worf, Laforge)

Troi's mom is Trouble. While trying to hook her daughter up with Riker, she ends up ensnared in a Ferengi plot. Plus, Wesley is getting ready to leave The Enterprise for Starfleet Academy.


Serial 1: Best Of Both Worlds
(Riker, Picard, Data, Worf, Laforge, Crusher, Wesley, Guinan, Troi)

The Borg are back in town! And they abduct one of The Enterprise crew and turn them into The Borg before heading to Earth to assimilate the human race.


Episode 19: Hollow Pursuits
(Laforge, Riker, Barclay, Picard, Data, Wesley, Troi , Worf, Crusher)

I hate holodeck episodes, and this is not generally considered one of the best of them, but it does introduce Barclay who ... sigh ... we will be seeing again later.


Episode 20: Family
(Picard, Worf, Troi, Riker, Crusher, Wesley)

After the cataclysmic events of the last episode, the crew has some down time, and we get some insight on the off-mission lives of Picard, Worf, and the Crushers. This is unlike any other TNG episode, and it's a cool change of pace. And a precursor to something that will take place several seasons in the future.

Last month, I suggested a reading order for the extended universe of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, a series I loved, but hadn't read any of since Volume 7: The Dark Tower came out in 2004. I realized that I missed the characters from the series, and wondered if the reading order I suggested would really hold someone's interest all the way through. I scoured some local bookstores, and then the internet for the hardcovers of the books, and prepared for my quest to read a Super Long series of books. ​

You made it! You're 1,000 pages into the longest book on the list, and you finally have a vague idea of what The Stand actually is. It's a typo. This whole post-apocalyptic plague story is about the origin of the Nu-Metal rock group, Staind. As rock related merchandising goes, it's at least better than Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park.

Everyone good is flawed. Everyone evil is flawed. Nobody is as good a spy as they imagine when they watch espionage films. Having sex with someone you don't care about, just because you're lonely and don't like your neighbors won't necessarily get you killed, but it's not going to make either of you feel better in the long run. Everything's cyclical. Fanaticism will get you killed every time, no matter whether or not you think you or the focus of your devotion is benevolent, or lets you get away with your sinful behavior.

The last third of The Stand is much like the first third, in that it's a road trip story. Only this time, instead of a bunch of survivors journeying to stay alive, it's a bunch of survivors who all assume they're traveling towards their death. And they're not all wrong. 

Having read this at very different parts of my life, I want you to know it's not a book with a satisfying ending (and I don't mean the tiny epilogue, which you should actually skip entirely), but I think it's the right ending for a story like this. I don't think it will make you angry or sad. It's just not a blockbuster ending, even though the beginning of the book seems to be setting up a blockbuster event. 

There is, finally, a ton of Randall Flagg in this section. You get a peek at some of his villainous potential, and some of his fallibility. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, there's a short epilogue that shows you what happens to Flagg post-The Stand. SKIP IT. It's 20th century well-intentioned, maybe, racist, and in the the story of this chronology, completely irrelevant. If I were editing the books for this chronology, it would be one the two hundred or so pages I'd chop out. I'd replace it with the first chapter of the next book, The Eyes Of The Dragon, to give it that Nightmare On Elm Street ending that Randall Flagg sort of earns.


Stray observations:

--It never gets easier in a post-apocalyptic world, huh? "Oh no, almost everyone is dead. What should we do now? Kill more people? OK!"

--Stephen King was really figuring out his voice in this book. In many ways, I enjoy the way he writes in this book more than his work from when he was a more Established Writer, and certainly more than his current status as a Legendary Writer. I'm certainly going to miss his voice in the next book.

--While not every agnostic character makes it out of this book alive, NONE of the religious people do.  And given how all of the religious people behave, whether they worship God, Satan, Mother Abigail, Randall Flagg, themselves, or agnosticism (never get high on your own farts), I highly approve of clearing them all off the board.

--This book was only 1,153 pages from cover to cover. A breeze. And there's only twenty or so more books to go, right?

Last month, I suggested a reading order for the extended universe of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, a series I loved, but hadn't read any of since Volume 7: The Dark Tower came out in 2004. I realized that I missed the characters from the series, and wondered if the reading order I suggested would really hold someone's interest all the way through. I scoured some local bookstores, and then the internet for the hardcovers of the books, and prepared for my quest to read a Super Long series of books. 

I know this seems a little early to say, but if you can make it through this section, you can make it through the whole chronology, as this is a long trudge through world building between an amazing first section of an epic, and the actual action of the third act. I ended up skipping some chunks of this section, and you can to, without fear that you're missing any part of the Dark Tower journey.

Voiceover: Meet Randall Flag. He's just a regular guy in a regular world. 

(A guy wearing jeans and cowboy boots shrugs at the camera.)

Voiceover: Until one wacky summer when the American government accidently unleashes a supervirus killing billions of people, and the American survivors start to see him as Our Dark Lord, Satan.

(Guy In Jeans And Cowboy Boots's eyes turn red.)

Voiceover: It's like The Hangover but instead of a bunch of bachelors, it's hardened criminals doing community service by having to rebuild Las Vegas in a post apocalyptic world, while a bunch of hippies follow a crazy religious lady from Nebraska to Colorado.

(A pregnant lady, a filthy teenager, a kid holding a knife, a woman with a white streak in her hair, a guy holding a guitar and wearing sunglasses, a sixty year old professory type, and an average Joe are all playing hackey sack when a Very Old Black Woman shows up...a record scratches)

I don't think I ever watched the first TV miniseries version of The Stand, and I definitely haven't seen the remake, but I imagine they mainly skipped this second section. There are some necessary plot points to get us to the third section of the book, but there's also a ton of Mother Abigail backstory and a focus on religion that you, thankfully, don't find in most Stephen King books. 

Scott Woods has a whole lecture on Stephen King's Magical Negro Problem, and that trope
is in full force in this book, as Mother Abigail is really given no depth, except that she's old, and people were really racist to her when she was young. Oh, and she thinks God has been speaking through her, and that's why she was Freddy Kruegering people in the first section of the book.

I skipped most of the chapters that focused on her. It was clear that, since she was one hundred and (mutters under breath) at the beginning of the book that she probably wasn't going to make it to the end, why bother getting to know her? We want to know more about this Randall Flagg guy, and how he convinced The Bad Survivors Of the Plague to go to Vegas and help him. And we get some perspective on that, but not enough.

What I like about the dividing up of people between Randall Flagg ad Mother Abigail is that it's not actually Good People vs. Bad People, it's mostly Efficient People vs. Dreamers. Everyone is flawed, and most people mean well. The people who don't mean well are in Vegas AND Boulder, and neither Flagg nor Mother Abigail really know their motives, which speaks to a more humanist view than the religious Good Vs Evil trope that's being set up for The Stand. And we still don't know what The Stand is or will be in this section of the book.

This is the longest section of the book, and it feels like it, at over 500 pages. As I said in the intro, if you can make it through this, you can make it through the whole chronology. It's not bad writing, it's just not as fun and attention-grabbing as the first section, and it's not as consequential as what follows, but you do get some quality time with Randall Flagg, who's going to be with us to the bitter end of this journey.

Stray observations:

--I really did skip through most of the Mother Abigail story. It's tedious, and is clearly a White Dude from Maine trying to write about the difficulties of growing up a Black child in the midwest, and that's not what Stephen King is known for. Nor should it be what he's known for.

--Don't ever get too attached to anyone who seems like they might be a protagonist in this book. It will blow up in your face.

--Who says this chronology is long? We're already 2 parts in, and it's only 927 pages so far.

To watch all of The Star Trek franchise, it would take you nearly a month of no-sleep-marathoning. Nearly 550 hours at this point. Twenty-four days. AND THEY'RE STILL MAKING MORE. You don't have that kind of time.

I've attempted to put together a much more condensed series of Star Trek. Dividing it into ten episode seasons. For the most part, these are My Favorite Episodes. I've left out some that are historically important episodes, in favor of things that I found fun to watch. If you're a Trekkie or Trekker, or just consider yourself a fan, I may have left off your favorite episode. Sorry. But this is more a list for people like me, who had seen an episode here and there, were interested in seeing more, but don't want to invest in the whole 530+ hours. I'm doing it, so others don't have to.

Now that we've finished with the original cast, it's time to see The Next Generation take over, as well as look back at the previous generation and how their actions affect the new crew.  The theme of this season is What Constitutes Life in the future. We'll examine this from several angles. Much like TOS, we'll be jumping around the first couple of seasons, mostly because the first two seasons of The Next Generation are Awful. As bad to worse than the third season of The Original Series, so we're skipping most of it.  It's logical.

Episode 1: Coming Of Age
(Picard, Riker, Wesley, Crusher, Troi, Worf, Data, Laforge)

In the actual viewing order, this episode of The Next Generation shows up about halfway through the first season, and one of the biggest criticisms of it, is that it has false consequences, as the two major storylines center on crew members possibly leaving the show, which was obviously not going to happen. But while this is not a great episode to endure after you've spent a bunch of time with the crew, it's a great intro.

As we learned last season, Starfleet is bastards (similar to "Timelords are assholes", I know, but equally true). We see them from two angles in this episode as an Admiral orders an annoying auditor to investigate Captain Picard's competency while Honorary Ensign Wesley Crusher applies to Starfleet Academy to become an official crew member. As you might expect, not much is at it seems. 


Episode 2: Conspiracy
(Picard, Riker, Data, Crusher, Worf, Laforge, Troi)

A group of rogue Starfleet captains approach Picard about the possibility that Starfleet has been corrupted by an outside source. So when Starfleet orders The Enterprise to a star base, Picard is understandably concerned. When it turns out that the jerky auditor from the first episode, as well as the admiral who sicked the auditor on the ship in the first place, are involved, the crew of The Enterprise springs into action.


​Episode 3: We'll Always Have Paris
(Picard, Riker, Data, Crusher, Worf, Laforge, Troi)

Starfleet may be bastards, but it's scientists who keep mucking things about TNG. In this case, a disgraced Starfleet scientist has caused time issues not completely unlike "Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad". Data is chosen to solve the problem, as Picard has the very Kirkian problem of having one of his favorite exes show up on board.


Episode 4: Simultude
(Trip, Archer, T'Pol, Phlox, Reed, Sato, Mayweather)

Once again, we're back with the crew of the first Enterprise. During repairs, Trip is gravely injured, and Phlox suggests a controversial technique, wherein a clone of Trip, with a fifteen day life cycle is created purely to harvest parts of its brain to help Trip recover. It is Dark and Emotionally Draining to watch, but well-written, and fast paced.


Episode 5: Project Daedalus
(Spock, Burnham, Pike, Saru, Stamets, Tilly, Ariam, Nhan)

Everyone is on edge on the Discovery. Spock and Burnham, Stamets and Culbert, Pike and Tyler, Ariam and Nhan. Ok, not Tilly. She's still delightful. But someone on board has either been feeding information to Section 31 or else taking information from the Sphere they encountered last season. And it's unclear what they're doing with it. But the now fugitive Discovery is in Section 31 territory and the proverbial fan is oscillating in proverbial feculince.


Episode 6: Too Short A Season
(Picard, Crusher, Riker, Yar, Worf, Data, Laforge, Troi)

Elderly Starfleet bastards journey to Enterprise to help diffuse a hostage situation. But they are BAD at it.


Episode 7: Datalore
(Data, Picard, Riker, Yar, Worf, Wesley, Laforge)

It turns out that Data isn't the only android like him. His "brother", Lore, is A Jerk. What happens if he replaces Data as an officer?


Episode 8: Borderlands
(Archer, T'Pol, Soong, Phlox, Sato, Trip, Reed, Mayweather)

Was the guy who made Data and Lore evil? We may never know. But the original crew of The Enterprise has to deal with a Klingon problem while they're transporting one of Dr. Soong's ancestors, who's been messing around with augmented humans who, as it happens, are wreaking havoc with the Klingons.


Episode 9 & 10: The Undiscovered Country
(Kirk, McCoy, Spock, Sulu, Uhura, Scott, Chekov, Rand, Sarek, Worf)

This is it, the end of The Original Series cast. That offhanded joke I made about The Wrath Of Kirk? Wellllll, he may have gone a little bit speciesist, and his behavior makes him the prime suspect when a Klingon Peace Advocate is assassinated. It's up to the crew of The Enterprise, along with Captain Sulu from The Excelsior (a ship The Enterprise sabotaged back in Search For Spock) to clear Kirk's name. Again, we get a Rand cameo, and we also see Michael Dorn, who played Worf in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, play an unnamed Klingon lawyer, who I like to believe was Worf, and that the kangarooness of the court proceedings led him to quit the bar and join Starfleet. Wave goodbye to the crew. You might see one or two of them pop up in future seasons, but this is the last time the bulk of the cast gets to interact, as it's finally time for The Enterprise to be decommissioned.


Episode 11: Perpetual Infinity
(Burnham, Spock, Saru, Stamets, Tillly, Culber, Tyler, Pike, Georgiou)

The identy of The Red Angel is finally revealed.


 Episode 12: Through The Valley Of Shadows
(Burnham, Tyler, Pike, Spock, Saru, Stammets, Culber, Amanda, L'rell, Reno)

Back to Klingons and family problems, as Burnham, Pike, and friends must visit the home of the Time Crystals which are ... guarded by Tyler and L'rell's son? Oh, Time Crystals, how your wackiness allows us to overcome things like, the passing of time, in order to have an emotional conundrum.


Episode 13: 11001001
(Picard, Riker, Data, Crusher, Laforge, Worf, Yar, Wesley)

It's a communications error on The Enterprise that can only be solved by creatures who communicate in ... Binary? Seems a bit 20th century, but ok.


Episode 14: Skin Of Evil
(Yar, Troi, Picard, Riker, Worf, Laforge, Data, Crusher, Wesley)

This is the worst TNG episode on the list. By far. It's poorly written, has lackluster effects, and it redshirts a major character for contract reasons. Unfortunately, we kind of need to see the character die for ... reasons.


Episode 15 & 16: Cold Station 12/The Augments
(Archer, Soong, Phlox, Trip, Reed, T'Pol, Mayweather, Sato)

Back to the original Enterprise's Klingon and Soong problem, The Augments take over the medical facility that holds thousands of augmented embryos. The situation causes Soong to have to choose between humans and Augments, doctors to choose between the potential for life and their already living colleagues, and The Klingons to choose between killing The Augments, killing the humans, or just killing everyone.


Episode 17: The Most Toys
(Data, Picard, Riker, Wesley, Laforge, Worf, O'Brien)

DATA IS NOT A TOY. But there is a collector who values the android's worth, and decides to fake Data's death and steal him from Starfleet, and Data makes a Very Human decision to try and escape. This has one of the few I Am Evil villains that I don't mind, as his motives are purely villainous but believable.


Episode 18: Measure Of A Man
(Data, Picard, Riker, Laforge, Pulaski, Worf, Wesley)

Another Starfleet Bastard tries to interfere with The Enterprise by ordering Data to be dismantled so that he can build more androids for Starfleet. When Data, and then Picard refuse, the issue of Data's status as a lifeform goes to trial with Starfleet's JAG (yea, like the court procedural TV show). This is probably the best episode of the season.




Episodes 19 & 20: Such Sweet Sorrow
(Burnham, Spock, Pike, Saru, Stammets, Georgiou, Stammets, Tilly, Tyler, Culber, Sarek, Amanda, Reno,  L'rell)

Discovery! Enterprise! Control! Starfleet! A thing that must be destroyed lest it fall into the wrong hands! Timstream manipulation! Sacrificed characters! Nannites! It's a game changing adventure for everyone to close out the fourth season.

Last month, I suggested a reading order for the extended universe of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, a series I loved, but hadn't read any of since Volume 7: The Dark Tower came out in 2004. I realized that I missed the characters from the series, and wondered if the reading order I suggested would really hold someone's interest all the way through. I scoured some local bookstores, and then the internet for the hardcovers of the books, and prepared for my quest to read a Super Long series of books. 

I've spent most of the last decade reading poetry collections and graphic novels, rarely investing my time in long form fiction, even though it's what originally got me into reading. I tried doing this with the Terry Pratchett novels a couple of years ago, but ended up distracted, so wish me luck. M-O-O-N that spells luck.

Artie Moffa tells the story of how, when he was a middle schooler, he got guilted into reading The Stand by a shopkeeper. And since he never read Needful Things, we don't know for certain if it was Leland Gaunt: Just read this book while you are at summer camp, young Mr. Moffa, and steal a radio for me, and you shall have the finest shoes for the rest of your days. Just don't take them dancing until you've broken them in.

I was already versed in Stephen King by the time I got to The Stand, I read it back to back with Les Miserables, which, while definitely not written by Stephen King, is almost precisely the same length. The length of the last hour of school before a dentist visit. The length of years it would take to watch every episode of the Star Trek franchise, The Simpsons, the Law & Order franchise, the Doctor Who Franchise, and Guiding Light while taking only occasional breaks to eat, use the restroom, and convince yourself not to bash your head into the television until it stops working forever. Except longer.

The only reason The Complete And The Uncut Version Of The Stand is readable is because of the first section. It does what every sci-fi, apocalyptic, horror, autofictional,  romance, fantasy, historical novel should aspire to do: it draws you in with its opening chapter, and then makes every chapter that follows feel like it's also a first chapter.  If I were going to teach a class on modern fiction, I would probably spend two weeks just on the first book of The Stand, which is The Circle Opens.  From a storytelling perspective, it's perfect (from a modern sociological standpoint, it needs a lot of work). It's so good that the perfectly fine second and third acts of the book seem to be enormous letdowns in comparison.

The opening four hundred pages of the hardcover edition tell the story of The End Of The World As We Know It (where not many people feel fine). But the plot and the characters of the first book are mostly inconsequential to the Dark Tower narrative, they're just part of a Very Good Story that ever so slightly involves Randall Flagg, The Walking Dude, a man who appears in the dreams of the survivors of  plague. A man who is pretty clearly evil.

In comic books, there is a trope when a series is launched or relaunched (which seems to happen every other year or so with Marvel and DC comics) wherein you meet a cast of characters who are clearly meant to be assembled into a team. Some may not make the grade, and end up as future villains, some will be protagonists, some will come and go from the team, but it's important you meet them early on. That's what The Circle Opens is. Four hundred pages to meet the players and care about them.

It shouldn't work. But it does because of the pacing, the constantly shifting points of view, and the believable characters.

When I made the original post How To Read The Dark Tower If You're A Fucken Masochist, my roommate, a devout Mainer and fan of Stephen King, pointed out that this technically takes place a bit later in the chronology. Several websites would have you read this between Wastelands and Wizard and Glass. DON'T BELIEVE THEM. While there are some great characters in this book, Flagg is the only one who ends up being important to The Dark Tower, so it doesn't make sense, once you are heavily involved in the characters  journey to The Dark Tower, to take you out of the main story for 1400 pages, just to see what the villain did to Mid-World (which is the Stephen King version of our world) in the early 1990s.  But you should read this in order to understand what Flagg is capable of. So do it now. Bask in these first four hundred or so pages, depending on which printing you're reading, of addicting storytelling.

Stray observations:

--Stephen King originally wrote this in the 1970s, and then restructured and retooled it in the 1980s. I would like to think that in the 21st century, the very progressive and socially responsible Stephen King would not have made such gratuitous use of racial slurs. You can argue the importance of having characters of color having to overcome this word, if that's a thing you want to invest time in, but during this first book, the racial slur is aimed at a Very White protagonist to describe his singing style. It is also used as a disparaging type of behavior, though, again, there is precisely One character in the book who's presented as Not White, and she is barely in this first section. Having family from 20th century Maine, I understand that this was the way many people actually talked, but in the context of this first book, it's totally unnecessary, and several times took me out of the otherwise enjoyable story.

--I'm not going to give Content Warnings for any of these books in this chronology. Stephen King doesn't often fuck around. There's going to be violence, murder, sex of the consensual and nonconsensual variety. There is going to be every type of inappropriate language you can imagine. The actions and language are rarely (but occasionally) gratuitous. There is Almost Always context. Neither the non-consensual sex nor the violence is ever glorified. If these are not things you can handle, Stephen King is not going to be on your Holiday Gift Exchange list.

​--We are a meager 394 pages into this journey

uEpisode 1: A Piece Of The Action
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Chekov)

City On The Edge Of Forever took place in New York City, during the Depression. This episode takes place on an alien world, but an alien world that has based their system of government on 1930s Chicago gangster rule. Kirk does a hilariously and probably intentionally bad gangster accent for most of the episode. This is a truly silly episode that encapsulates some of the potential that most of The Original Series aspired to but didn't quite reach.


Episode 2: Doomsday Machine
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Sulu)

After discovering several ravaged star systems, Enterprise encounters The Constellation, another Federation ship, but one that's been badly damaged. Like every Starfleet Captain they encounter, Constellation's has gone cuckoo pants. When the planet killing machine that damaged The Constellation starts to follow The Enterprise, Captain Cuckoo Pants takes over the ship before Kirk can get back on board. The planet killer is deduced to be from an alternate dimension. Wait...so...there are other Star Trek dimensions?


Episode 3: Tholian Web
(Spock, McCoy, Scott, Sulu, Uhura, Chapel, Chekov, Kirk)

The beginning of a dimension expanding saga finds The Enterprise Crew encountering The Defiant, another Starfleet ship that appears to be phasing through dimensions. When Kirk also phases, Spock decides the ship can't leave the location, even though an alien species called the Tholians are ensnaring The Enterprise in a web that could doom them to the same fate.


Episode 4 & 5: In A Mirror, Darkly
(Archer, T'Pol, Phlox, Sato, Mayweather, Reed, Forrest)

So where did The Defiant go when it phased? The Mirrorverse. An alternate dimension where good and evil are flip-flopped, and nobody behaves in a familiar way. The crew of The Mirrorverse Enterprise become embroiled in a political conundrum where they think their best chance of survival is to take The Defiant as their new ship.


Episode 6: Mirror, Mirror
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Chekov)

It's TOS's crew's turn to explore the Mirrorverse, as Kirk ends up in the topsy-turvy world where crew members must kill to be promoted. Will Spock help him return to his home dimension? I mean, he must, otherwise this would be the end of the series, right?


Episode 7: Despite Yourself
(Burnham, Saru, Tyler, Stamets, Tilly, Lorca)

Oh no! Discovery is ALSO caught in the Mirrorverse? This is crazypants. But unlike the other series, there seems to be a reason for them being here besides random chance. 


Episode 8: Vaulting Ambition
(Burnham, Saru, Tyler, Stammets, Tilly, Lorca, Georgiou)

There is Definitely a reason that Discovery ended up in The Mirror Universe, and as they try and figure their way back into the regular universe, we (the audience...not so much the crew) learn the messed up truth behind all of their adventures so far.


Episode 9: What's Past Is Prologue
(Lorca, Georgiou, Burnham, Saru, Tyler, Stammets, Tilly)

Once the crew catches up with the audience, they are even more motivated to get the hell out of the Mirrorverse. Turns out pretty much nothing is ever as it seems. I'm sure their return to the regular universe will make everything status quo again, though. Isn't that how Star Trek works?

​
Episode 10 & 11: The Wrath Of Khan
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, Khan, Scott, Sulu, Uhura, Saavik)

Sure, we're back in the original dimension, but it's many years later. Kirk is an admiral, Spock's back on Vulcan, and Chekov is a commander on The Reliant. On a research mission, Chekov runs into Khan from back in the first season, and is forced into a trap intended to ensnare Kirk. But what's more important to Khan? Killing Kirk or getting his hands on The Genesis Device?


Episode 12: Brother
(Burnham, Pike, Saru, Tilly, Stamets, Sarek, Grayson, Reno, Linus)

Something major happened to Spock at the end of The Wrath Of Khan, so now we're going to go all the way back to when he was a child, and explore his relationship with Burnham. And, oh yea, Pike is now the temporary captain of The Discovery, as the ship goes off in search of the cause of the Seven Lights.


Episode 13: An Obol For Charon
(Burnham, Pike, Saru, Tilly, Stamets, Reno, Linus)

Like one of the classic episodes, an unidentified sphere takes control of Discovery, messes with its computer, and turns the whole ship higgledy-piggledy. It also triggers an illness in Saru that is fatal to his species.


Episode 14: The Sound Of Thunder
(Saru, Burnham, Pike, Tyler, Stamets, Culber, Linus)

Everything Saru knew about his species lifespan was a lie, so he decides to break The Prime Directive to set his species free. Plus, Culber is alive again, and Tyler is back on the ship. Awwwwwkwaaaaaaaaaaard.


Episode 15: Fallen Hero
(Archer, Ph'lox, T'Pol, Reed, Mayweather, Sato, Trip)

First officers having cultural identity problems occur all over the Star Trek timeline. During the Enterprise era, T'Pol must balance her loyalty to the crew with her Vulcan heritage. 


Episode 16 & 17: The Search For Spock
(Kirk, McCoy, Scott, Saavik, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Sarek, Spock)

The Wrath Of Khan is considered by most to be The Best Star Trek movie, and I don't disagree. It sets all the rest of The Star Trek films into motion as a really cool storyarc on aging military personnel desperately clinging to power. Here, the crew of The Enterprise must defy Starfleet to rescue their missing friend. Also, Klingon bastards do Something that will incur The Wrath Of Kirk.


Episode 18: If Memory Serves
(Spock, Burnham, Pike, Saru, Stamets, Tilly, Tyler, Georgiou, Culber)

It looks like The Enterprise wasn't the only ship to find Spock. Young Spock is back with Burnham trying to get to the Discovery via Thalos IV, the planet from The Menagerie. What will his involvement due to help them discover the purpose of The Red Angel, and how will it affect Discovery's relationship with Starfleet and Section 31?


​
Episode 19 &20: The Voyage Home
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, Uhura, Scott, Sulu, Sarek, Saavik, Rand)

After the events of The Search For Spock, the former Enterprise crew must journey back to 20th century Earth in an unfamiliar vessel in order to bring some whales back to Earth to keep it from being obliterated by an amok probe. It's a weird premise, and the movie is filled with more Colorful Metaphors than you'd expect in a Star Trek film. This is the most honestly funny chapter in TOS, as its humor is based on the various crew members' failure to understand 20th century culture. And it's very much a mid 1980s comedy. It's also fun to see Rand show up again, even if it's Very Briefly.

To watch all of The Star Trek franchise, it would take you nearly a month of no-sleep-marathoning. Nearly 550 hours at this point. Twenty-four days. AND THEY'RE STILL MAKING MORE. You don't have that kind of time.

I've attempted to put together a much more condensed series of Star Trek. Dividing it into eighteenish episode seasons. For the most part, these are My Favorite Episodes. I've left out some that are historically important episodes, in favor of things that I found fun to watch. If you're a Trekkie or Trekker, or just consider yourself a fan, I may have left off your favorite episode. Sorry. But this is more a list for people like me, who had seen an episode here and there, were interested in seeing more, but don't want to invest in the whole 530+ hours. I'm doing it, so others don't have to.

Unlike my other reimaginings, I'm not saying how many seasons this will be, because I don't know yet. THEY ARE STILL MAKING MORE!
​
Last season, we got to meet and spend some time with all our major characters, watch them repeatedly fall in love with someone who either died or had to be left behind, defy Starfleet orders, and we spent some time in the pre-TOS (The Original Series) days with the cast of Enterprise and Discovery, who we'll revisit this season.  This season has more Federation Of Planets intrigue, a seemingly endless supply of new alien species, and more women from the crew's past and future (sorry Uhura and Chapel, no male exes are allowed on-screen this season).

Episode 1: Journey To Babel
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, Uhura, Sarek, Amanda)

It's Meet The Parents, Vulcan style, as Spock's mumsy and dadsy are sent as ambassadors to broker some peace, when a fight breaks out between the Tellarites and the Andor---seriously, More Blue Jerks? What is this Avatar? This is a really good episode about diplomacy in both the political and family setting, and gives us an interesting glimpse into Spock. Plus, those blue jerks are actually growing on me. Like antennae.


Episode 2: The Andorian Incident
(Archer, T'Pol, Phlox, Sato, Mayweather, Reed, Trip, Shran)

Back in the time before The Federation Of Planets, The Vulcans were showing we bumbling humans around space. So it makes sense that we would want to know a little more about our tour guides. But while visiting a Vulcan monastery planet, the crew ends up in a showdown with some very crabby (I guess irritable is a better word, as they don't walk sideways or have claw appendages) blue antennaed jerks. Luckily, we learned last season that, apart from the Vulcans and humans, space is so vast that, once you encounter an alien race,  you never see them ever again.


Episode 3 & 4: Babel One/United
(Archer, Shran, Reed, Trip, T'Pol, Phlox, Mayweather, Sato)

Oh for fuck's sake, more blue jerks, already? An Andorian ship is attacked by a race called the Tellarites, who were attacked by some Andorians, and Klingons are in the mix and--wait, someone is pitting aliens against each other, which is super easy, since they're all such incredible jerks. The villainous species turns out to be another returning threat from season one. Somehow Reed and Trip end up getting separated from the ship and the crew again (hold it together, guys, how are you always together on the brink of death?), and we learn about another new technology that confuses our simple human brains. This is technically the first 2/3rds of a three story arc, but the last third is irrelevant to our season, so we're going to skip it.


Episode 5: All Our Yesterdays
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy)

The Big Three from The Original Series get stuck in different eras on an unfamiliar planet and must figure out how to reunite and return to their present. It's the most Doctor Who-y episode of Star trek so far.


Episode 6: Lethe
(Burnham, Sarek, Saru, Tyler, Tilly, Stammets, Lorca)

Spock's mummy and daddykins raised an adopted human daughter named Mike Burnham. You know, the protagonist of Discovery. So when Sarek ends up on the brink of death, it's his fully human daughter who comes to his rescue.


Episode 7: This Side Of Paradise
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura)

Mellow out, man. Even Spock gets groovy in this tale of a planet that keeps everyone chillaxed and on the serious harmonius vibology. Will someone narc them out to Starfleet so they can get back to The Man's duty?


Episode 8: Operation Annihilate!
(Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Scott, Uhura)

Ok, now This outpost is having some actual problems. In fact, they're ready to kill The Enterprise crew. But Kirk has family here, so they'll be able to help out with---oh, it's another mind control thing? Yikes. This seems to be happening an awful lot. Maybe this time they'll just kill all the mind controllers in the universe, and they can start trusting each other again.


Episode 9: Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad
(Burnham, Tyler, Mudd, Stammets, Lorca, Saru, Tilly)

It's time loop madness when Mudd comes back to exact his revenge on Lorca and Tyler for leaving him in the Klingon prison last season.


Episode 10: I, Mudd
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Mudd, Scott, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov)

And now it's time for Mudd to have his revenge on Enterprise for what *they* did to him last season. Why so angry Muddsy? You have an entire planet of hot cloned androids to keep you company. Why would you ever want to get away from them?


Episode 11: Mudd's Passion
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Mudd, Scott, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Chapel)

A bonus episode! We take a quick peek back into The Animated Series Universe for one more magic moment with Star Trek's favorite con-man.


Episode 12: Changeling
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Sulu, Chapel)

It's the original series cast vs. Wall-E, as a friendly little Starfleet droid threatens to destroy the entire universe if it doesn't get its way.



Episode 13: Immunity Syndrome
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, Scott, Uhura, Chapel)

Another new type of...alien?...planet?...galaxy?...dimens---what is going on in this episode? Will the crew have to make an ultimate sacrifice to save the universe? I mean, probably not. We are only twelve episodes into the second season. But maybe one of the cast will die this time to establish some stakes. Maybe?


Episode 14: Shore Leave
(Kirk, McCoy, Spock, Sulu, Uhura)

This season has been so taxing. The crew rather desperately needs some R&R, so they find an abandoned planet, send Sulu and McCoy to check it out, and prepare for a nice, uneventful time. Wait. Did McCoy just see The White Rabbit from Alice In Wonderland? Is he on shrooms? Are there people here? Are we back in mind control territory? Damn it, will the crew ever get to properly relax?


Episode 15: Dead Stop
(Archer, T'Pol, Reed, Trip, Mayweather)

The Tellarites give the crew of The Enterprise some terrible advice, and they end up getting repairs from a surreal space station. Crew members will die! Plots will twist. 


Episode 16: Space Seed
(Kirk, Spock, Khan, McCoy, Scott, Uhura)

The Enterprise stumbles on an abandoned ship filled with prisoners once jettisoned from Earth, including a certain sexpot with the name Kirk most likes to yell in his sleep. That's right, it's the debut of KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN!!!!!


Episode 17: The Enterprise Incident
(Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, Chapel)

We started this series with The Enterprise chasing down Romulans, but haven't seen them since. Well, Starfleet has decided that the crew needs to go on board a Romulan vessel and steal a Romulan cloaking device. We've seen Kirk get creepy with the ladies, but this time good old Spock will be the catfish bait for the Romulan captain. He will, of course, me-ow logically.


Episode 18: For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky
(McCoy, Kirk, Spock, Scott, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, Chapel)

A McCoy-centric episode where they visit a ship full of people who don't know they're on a ship. There's a love plot, the possibility of a character being left behind, and some mind-control, so it's pretty tropey, but fun!


Episode 19: City On The Edge Of Forever
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Sulu, Chapel)

Many people have this as their favorite episode ever of The Original Series. I am not one of those people. I think this is a middle-of-the-road episode, but if you don't see this, your Trek friends will snub you at your next antisocial gathering. Joan Collins guest stars in this time travel tale where Kirk and Spock follow a crazed McCoy through a dimensional gate. Kirk falls in love with someone historically important, and decisions must be made.  May you love this episode as much as the people who expressed rage at my indifference.

​
Episode 20:  Deadly Years
(Kirk, McCoy, Spock, Chekov, Sulu, Scott, Chapel, Uhura)

A seemingly abandoned planet turns out to actually be a deathtrap, as it causes most (but not all) the people who visit it to age rapidly. That's right, you'll get to see Grandpa Kirk, Wizardly Spock, and a whole bunch of other crew members grow grey over a single episode. Shockingly, no one is mind controlled into thinking they're young. 

In the unnecessary and unfair space nerd dichotomy of Star Trek vs. Star Wars fandom, I fall firmly on the Wars side. I also fall more on the Battlestar Galactica side.  The Stargate Side.  And, obviously, The Doctor Who side. Possibly even the Sliders side.

This is not because Star Trek is bad, though, some of it, like some of Stargate, BSG, and Sliders, is Very, Very Bad.  This is because, like Doctor Who, there is So Much Star Trek that there can't help but be a ton of Awful Crap. So, even though it means I'm wading through a lot of Awful to get there, I've decide to do a reimagining of the entire Star Trek Universe, where each season is about ten episodes long, and tries to hold a theme or tell a particular story. Consider this a guide to enjoying Star Trek, if you're not already a Star Trek fan.

Unlike my other reimaginings, I'm not saying how many seasons this will be, because I don't know yet. As I write this, I have just finished watching The Original Series, and a few scattered episodes of Enterprise. While I have, at one point, watched much of The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine, I did most of that watching in the 90s. I skipped most of Voyager, and all of Enterprise until last week. I Doubt that this will only be ten seasons, but I'll shoot for it. I'm already into season three, and I'm only up to the TOS movies. Updated to add: Now that I've watched the entire franchise, including the first season of Discovery, I've switched around some of the orders for thematic reasons, moved the episode count to twenty, and peppered both Discovery and Enterprise mostly in the early seasons of the chronology. 

Season one is a crash course in well-intentioned, poorly aged feminism as written by white guys in the 1960s. I didn't intend to do this, but most of The Original Series can be broken down into: Woman Are A Lot Like Aliens, Starfleet Captains Go Crazy All The Time, Big Balls Of Energy Will Possess Your Body In Order To Be Immortal, Greek And Roman Societies Were Sure Fucked Up On Earth But Even More Fucked Up In Space, Children Are Creepy, or No Alien Race Understands What Love Is Until William Shatner Shows Up. I tried to not to have multiple episodes with similar themes but I wrote "women as objects" as a predominant theme for 85% of Star Trek The Original Series episodes, so I tried to cluster as many of them as possible into the first season, while also trying not to completely overwhelm myself or anyone else watching this order with the theme. Then I added in the Enterprise and Discovery episodes that referenced (I don't want to say "mirrored" because that will happen soon enough) the TOS storyline.

Episode 1: The Balance Of Terror
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Rand, Sulu, Scott, Uhura)

Kirk is one of the worst parts of The Original Series (TOS). He's frequently possessed, crazy, or trapped on a planet while his ship is in peril. He's always off on ill-advised away missions, and if you cut out Shatner's dramatic pauses, the average TOS episode is only four minutes long. But in this episode, we see him at his best. The Balance Of Terror introduces us to The Romulans, a species whom The Federation is at war with. Kirk engages in what would be a submarine chase movie, if submarines were starships, and water was...well, you get the idea. This is my favorite episode of the series, and a decent introduction to the major players of TOS.


Episode 2: Dear Doctor
(Phlox, Cutler, Sato, T'Pol, Archer, Mayweather, Reed, Trip)

The series Enterprise is a prequel to TOS, but to watch it first, and then follow it with TOS is a disservice to both, as is watching it after the other modern series, so I'm sprinkling Enterprise as backstory during the entire series. In this first glimpse into the days before TOS, we witness The Enterprise through the eyes of the ship's Doctor Phlox, and meet the crew of the original Enterprise, as they grapple with an odd stage of evolution in an alien species.


Episode 3: Galileo Seven
(Spock, Scott, Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura)

While on a research mission, led by Spock, a small crew of Enterprise officers is stranded on a planet. For once, Kirk is not on the away mission, and so he and The Enterprise search for Spock and the shuttlecraft. The focus on the Vulcan logic vs the human crew's emotions is handled much better here than in most episodes. Plus, we rarely get to see Spock and Scotty play off each other as often as they do here.


Episode 4: Shuttlepod One
(Reed, Trip, Archer, T'Pol, Phlox, Sato, Mayweather)

While on a research mission, led by Trip, a couple of Enterprise officers are stranded in space. For once, Archer is not on the away mission, so he and The Enterprise search for Reed and Trip on the shuttlecraft. The focus on Reed's dispassion vs Trip's...this is So Familiar.  But also more fun, despite the lack of giants.


Episode 5: The Man Trap
(McCoy, Kirk, Spock, Rand, Sulu, Uhura)

Moving on to the next Doctor on The Enterprise, McCoy ends up running into an old flame on a research station. This being Star Trek, things are not as they seem. This is on some peoples' Worst Episodes list, but I think it's ridiculous sixties sci-fi in a fun way, and it's focus on the often under-used McCoy makes me happy.


Episode 6: Naked Time
(Kirk, Spock, Sulu, Riley, McCoy, Scott, Rand, Uhura, Chapel)

A disease that causes its victims to act irrationally ends up on Enterprise, severely affecting the crew, particularly Sulu and Riley.  Mind control is The Most Frequent trope in TOS, but here it's focused more on fun than on allowing Shatner to overact.


Episode 7: Conscience Of The King
(Kirk, Riley, McCoy, Spock, Rand, Uhura)

Shakespeare in space! An acting troupe may be hiding a mass murderer, and it's up to Kirk (who's totally in love!) to draw him out. Sadly, this is the last time we'll see Rand and Riley for a very, very long time.


Episode 8: Context Is For Kings
(Burnham, Saru, Stamets, Tilly, Lorca, Landry)

In the very early days of the Klingon War, Starfleet's first mutineer is taken on board a science vessel comprised of some of her former shipmates. This episode is a great balance of sci-fi and horror tropes, and a cool intro to the pre-TOS crew.


Episode 9: Dagger Of The Mind
(Kirk, McCoy, Spock, Uhura)

An escaped mental patient (from a planet-sized asylum, of course) beams onto The Enterprise. When Kirk and one of McCoy's staff go to examine the psych ward, they discover something nefarious, of course.


Episode 10: Devil In The Dark
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott)

This little one-shot of a small portion of the crew trying to help out a mining planet was a ton of fun, and it turns out that it's on many of the actors' Favorite Episodes list. You can see how much fun they're having as they run into another new form of alien life. This time there's no mind control, this alien is just going to straight-up kill you. See, FUN!


Episode 11: Is There No Truth In Beauty?
(Kirk, Spock, Scott, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov)

I am avoiding most of the Energy Creatures possess the Enterprise crew stories, but this episode features a humanoid who accompanies an energy creature who means well but who causes any human that gazes upon him to go Insane. His assistant is a low level telepath who senses that someone on the ship is A Murderer! (dun-dun-DUNNNNN)


Episode 12: The Butcher's Knife Cares Not For The Lamb's Cry
(Burnham, Saru, Stamets, Lorca, Tilly)

The Discovery's sister ship, The Glen was destroyed by Klingons, but Burnham and the crew found a creature called a Tardigrade on board. It appears to be one of the missing pieces to help The Discovery make faster jumps. But Burnham suspects the creature may be sentient and that using it as fuel may be causing it irreperable harm.


Episode 13: Mudd's Women
(Kirk ,Spock, Mudd, McCoy, Scott, Sulu, Uhura)

Ladies, amirite, gents? A sleazy con artist, lonely crystal miners, and three beautiful women combine to make one of the season's most stunning examples of Good Intentions In Writing Women In Twentieth Century Sci-Fi Haven't Aged Well. 


Episode 14:  Choose Your Pain
(Burnham, Saru, Lorca, Tyler, Stammets, Tilly, Mudd)

Lorca is kidnapped by Klingons and jailed on one of their ships. The crew believes the only way to save him is to use the Tardigrade to make a massive jump into Klingon space. But Burnham and Stammets both believe this will kill it. Also, one of Lorca's cellmate turns out to be that pesky jerk we just met in the last episode of The Original Series!


Episode 15: Yesteryear
(Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty)

An animated episode? Yes. Fun with Spock and time travel and portals! On the way back from a time adventure, Spock and Kirk return, only to find that nobody on The Enterprise knows who Spock is. Let's see if poorly animated space travelers can restore the timeline!


Episode 16: Twilight
(Archer, Phlox, Tucker, T'Pol)

While we're futzing around with time travel, let's check back in with Archer's Enterprise. In trying to save T'Pol, Archer becomes gravely wounded. We flash forward a bit to see how, without Captain Quantum Leap, the crew can't save the world. So Phlox attempts to go back in time and set everything right.
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Episodes 17 & 18: The Menagerie
(Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Scott, Pike, Uhura)

A reshoot of TOS's pilot features Spock appearing to commit mutiny (man, Sarek is a Bad Influence) in order to take his previous captain, Pike, back to a planet where he was once part of a zoo. Part flashback, part trial, part sci-fi adventure, this two-part episode shows that it was Pike, not Kirk who was into making out with multi-colored aliens. And it leaves us with a nice Starfleet themed episode to conclude the season.

I created the Doctor Who In Significantly Fewer Episodes list several years ago, in response to a Facebook request about how to watch the series without Watching The Entire Series. I even watched much of the abbreviated seasons that I created myself, and thought they were great.

In late 2019, I started dating someone who wanted to see Doctor Who without having to watch The Entire Series, and took it as an additional experiment to see if my order worked. We didn't make it far into the classic series before he tuned out. The episodes are Super Long (they're all serials that end up being movie length or LoTR movie length) and they're, you know, mid-twentieth century sci-fi, so you have to be either really nostalgic or in the proper mood.

When we moved into the modern era, he got really into it. Although, like me, he's a completist, and wanted to watch All Of The Episodes. Until we watched two that weren't on my list. Now he's okay with just watching the good stuff. And, for the most part, my list has held up. But I have added and dropped a few episodes for clearer story structure, and I've also removed some episodes because, apart from sentimental moments, they didn't really hold up as well I remembered.

It's still a very subjective list, but one that, I believe, makes a great condensed series of Doctor Who episodes.

Here are the basics everyone should know before getting involved: The show is about an alien time traveler. He takes companions, almost always humans, with him as he explores time and space. The companions change frequently, and in this series format, you sometimes get no closure. You might love a particular companion in one episode, and, in the next, they've been replaced by people you have no context for. Also, when The Doctor gets very ill, his appearance changes. By which, I mean, he is portrayed by an entirely different actor.  This is a cool concept, but it can be jarring at first. It will happen Many Times over the course of this headcanon.

Last season was all about grief and getting over the terrible things you've done in life. We met Clara, several times, we wondered who she was, we found out, we moved on, The Doctor regenerated, he was cranky, Clara has started to decranky him, we moved on. This season follows their adventures together, and features one of the most fun multiple Time Lord stories in the show's history.

Episode 1: The Girl Who Died
(12, Clara, Ashilde)
45 minutes

The Doctor. Clara. Aliens. Time travel. Death. The usual. Surely there will be no consequences spinning out of this perfectly fine, but not remarkably interesting episode.


Episode 2: The Zygon Invasion
(12, Clara, Osgood, Kate Stewart, Zygons)
90 minutes

It's a reunion for pretty much all the non-Timelord characters (except The Doctor) from "Day Of The Doctor". Have The Zygons broken their treaty with humanity? Will companions and beloved recurring characters die? (Wait, didn't one or two of them die in "Death In Heaven"? I guess not Very Much.) It's all sorts of mistaken identity hijinks with the greatest doppelganger aliens in the franchise.


Episode 3: Face The Raven
(12, Clara, Ashilde,  Judoon, Ood, Ice Warriors, Silurians, Cybermen, Sontarans)
45 minutes

Oh, hey, it's that immortal young woman from the series premiere! She has her own place now, and seems to be running it very well. She's clearly up to something that doesn't involve The Doctor and...OH SHIT. EVERYTHING GOES WRONG. SO VERY VERY WRONG. 


Episode 4: Heaven Sent
(12)
45 minutes

For the first time since the inception of the series, this episode features almost no one except The Doctor. He is being menaced by...something, but this is ALL Peter Capaldi as The Doctor on his own trying to figure out where he is, and if he can undo the events of the previous episodes. In my opinion, it's one of the best episodes in the history of the series.


Episode 5: Hell Bent
(12, Clara, Timelords, Sisterhood of Karn, Rassilon, Daleks, Weeping Angels, Cybermen)
45 minutes

The Doctor is Very Cross about the last two episodes, and goes to Gallifrey to make The Time Lord Assholes suffer. Previous villains abound, as The Doctor Shall Have His Revenge.


Episode 6: Husbands Of River Song
(12, River, Nardole)
60 minutes

During the holiday special a couple of seasons ago, The Eleventh Doctor married River Song. It's all very wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey. Well, this version of The Doctor runs into River on her own adventure, and she is married to...perhaps several other people. Don't worry, there's no slut shaming, or pro or anti polygamy stances taken. It's just that The Doctor is desperate for River Song to recognize him, and she has no idea who he is.


Episode 7: Pilot
(12, Bill, Nardole, Heather, Daleks)
45 minutes

The Doctor seems to have retired to Earth to become a college professor. Another staff member realizes there's something very unusual about him, and decides to get involved in his life. Thus, he gets involved in hers, and, voila, meet the new companion, Bill.


Episode 8: Smile
(12, Bill, Nardole)
45 minutes

The Doctor and Bill go to a human colony on another planet where something has gone wrong. This is actually what seems to happen on every companion's second adventure with The Doctor, but I've skipped all the rest of them because they weren't very good. This one, involving some creepy emoji robots, is a fun little adventure.


Episode 9: Oxygen
(12, Bill, Nardole)
45 minutes

The Doctor and Bill go to space! Capitalism is bad! Space future is tough! The Doctor is good! Bill is human! Capitalism is bad! Space adventures are fun!


Episode 10: Extemis
(12, Bill, Nardole, Missy)
45 minutes

The last episode ended with what seems like a radical change for The Doctor going forward. But he needs to fix that change, while not letting Bill know it has taken place. Meanwhile The Vatican has asked The Doctor to read a text that causes all humans that read it to end their own lives. This is part of a trilogy that we won't come back to. And the A story is just kind of okay. But the B story brings Missy back into the fold, and that's definitely worth the watch.


Holiday Special: World Enough And Time / The Doctor Falls
145 minutes
(12, Bill, Nardole, Heather,  Missy, The Master, Cybermen)

It's the final part of Steven Moffat's era of Doctor Who. Will Missy continue her journey to be a good person when she's literally confronted by her past in the form of her previous incarnation, The Master? Is Bill Pots the first Cyberman? Are we stuck with Nardole for much longer? (He really is The Worst.) Is The Twelfth Doctor seriously going to regenerate into The First Doctor again? I guess it would be kind of cool if the whole series ended up being cyclical. Right?

A few years ago, I was asked to come up with a Doctor Who In 50 Episodes List on Facebook. For people who wanted to get really into the series without getting Super Really Into The Series.  With over fifty years worth of episodes, the prospect of becoming a fan of Doctor Who can be completely daunting.

I've compiled this list of episodes that I like, so it's very subjective. I have tried to make it so that there is a rough arc to the seasons. I don't give a fuck about episodes that are historically important, this is a guide intended to make you Like The Series, not be an Expert On The Series.

Here are the basics you should know: The show is about an alien time traveler. He takes companions, almost always humans, with him as he explores time and space. The companions change frequently, and in this guide, you sometimes get no closure. You might love a particular companion in one episode, and, in the next, they've been replaced by people you have no context for. Also, when The Doctor gets very ill, his appearance changes. By which, I mean, he is portrayed by an entirely different actor.  This is a cool concept, but it can be jarring at first. It will happen Fourrteen Times over the course of these twelve seasons.

Last season we saw the end of Torchwood's story arc, the satisfying and optimistic end of Amy & Rory's time with The Doctor. This season should be a clean slate of adventuring with no continuity or storyarcs hanging over The Doctor's head except for his own. Ahhhh, glorious new beginnings.

Episode 1: Asylum Of The Daleks
​(11, Amy, Rory, Clara, Daleks)
45 minutes

It turns out that we're not done with Rory & Amy yet, and their lives have turned Bleak. And full of Daleks. The Doctor is reunited with his former companions by a Congress of Daleks who need The Doctor to go to the surface of Skaro, their home planet, and save them from their own maddest Daleks. It turns out, due to the whole cracks in time thing from Season Eight, they don't appear to have any idea who he is. And that's not the biggest surprise in this episode.


Episode 2: Angels Take Manhattan
(11, Amy, Rory, River, Weeping Angels)
45 minutes

Rory, Amy, and their precocious time-traveling daughter River Song get sucked into mid-twentieth century Earth where The Weeping Angels are seriously fucking up the timeline. I'm sure their involvement will mean everything ends up a-ok, and no one will be sad.


Episode 3: The Snowmen
(11, Clara, Vastra, Flint, Strax, The Great Intelligence)
60 minutes

The Doctor has gone all broody sadsack again, and he's living in the nineteenth century with The Paternoster gang, occasionally helping them solve mysteries. But a giant mystery in the form of Soufle girl from "Asylum of The Daleks" lands in his path, and he must discover how this Impossible Girl has come back into his life.


Episode 4: The Bells Of Saint John
(11, Clara, Great Intelligence)
45 minutes

Clara is alive. Again. And in modern times. Someone gave her The Doctor's number, and now he is determined not to let her die again again. The main plot of the episode involving wifi is on the extra cheesy side, but this is a good introduction to Clara in her finalish form. And it fits into a smooth, if not very interesting, Great Intelligence arc.


Episode 5: Name Of The Doctor
(11, War Doctor, Clara, River, Vastra, Flint, Strax, Great Intelligence, Whisper Men)
45 minutes

The Doctor, Clara, The Paternoster Gang, and River Song all end up on Trenzalore, which is where The Doctor is said to be buried.  The Great Intelligence, from the last two episodes, need the Doctor's name so they can go into the timestream and wreak havoc on The Doctor's timeline. We also find out why Clara is The Impossible Girl, which was a huge, exhausting, and complex season long storyarc if you were watching all the episodes she appeared in, but distilled down to the three episodes in this continuity is a satisfying, fun mystery.


Episode 6: The Day Of The Doctor
(10, 11, War Doctor, 4, Clara, Bad Wolf, Osgood, Kate Stewart, Elizabeth, Zygons, Daleks, Timelords)
77 minutes

Waaaaaay back in Season Six, there started to be allusions to The Time War, a big terrible battle between Time Lords and Daleks that fucked up the entire universe. Since then, we've seen The Daleks a bunch of times, but only had to deal with Those Asshole Time Lords (apart from The Master) once. Welllll, welcome to The Time War. It's going to take three of The Doctors to figure out how to save Gallifrey and undo the damage they did in The Time War originally. Or...hold up...is THIS the damage they did in the Time War that they've been grumbling about? Unlike classic multi-Doctor episodes, we don't get every Doctor showing up with one of their companions to fill us with nostalgia, but there are some surprise cameos, including The Zygons, who we've not seen since Season Two.

Episode 7: Time Heist
(12, Clara, Danny)
45 minutes

WOAH THERE! This time The Doctor really did regenerate offscreen? For our purposes, yes. There was actually an episode after Day Of The Doctor where we see The Doctor regenerate into this new face, but it is FUCKEN AWFUL, and we don't have time for that crap. We're also mainly skipping over the whole The-Doctor-has-a-new-face-and-doesn't-know-how-to-be-who-he-used-to-be-how-will-we-ever-get-used-to-him trope. We're launching right into an adventure where The Doctor and Clara have to rob a bank or else be slaughtered by the bankers. Weird twists abound!


Episode 8: The Caretaker
(12, Clara, Danny, Missy, Seb)
45 minutes

The Doctor goes Deep Undercover. In the school where Clara and Danny work. Which just so happens to be the school that Barbara and Ian worked out way way way way way back in Season One.  Nothing unusual could ever happen there. Also, The Doctor and Danny get along about as well as The Doctor and Mickey, or The Doctor and Rory.


Episode 9: Dark Water/Death In Heaven
(12, Clara, Kate Stewart, Osgood, Danny, Missy, Seb, Cybermen) 
90 minutes

Clara's got a boyfriend! Clara's got a boyfriend! Annnnnnd, he's dead. Sad Clara and Cantankerous The Doctor go to the afterlife to find out what happened to him, and end up running into Cybermen and an old foe with a new face. You're not the only one who can regenerate, Doctor face.


Episode 10: The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar
(12, Clara, Kate Stewart, Missy, Davros, Daleks)
​90 minutes

Clara ends up teaming up with The Doctor's foe from the last episode in order to survive Davros and The Daleks. This episode actually reaches all the way back to an off-hand remark from "Genesis Of The Daleks" to explain why The Doctor didn't just kill All The Daleks and put an end to this millennia ago (although I guess he did, temporarily, in The Time War, but we've dealt with that already, get over it).


Holiday Special: Under The Lake/Before The Flood
(12, Clara, Tivolans)
90 minutes

The Doctor, Clara, and...ghosts...under water? It's another adventure where The Doctor tries to save a bunch of people from something he doesn't understand. And Clara is trying to get this The Doctor to be less cantankerous. He is, seriously, Colin Baker/William Hartnell rude, not at all the modern Doctor we had gotten used to. Maybe solving this mystery will make him more agreeable. Probably not.

Serial 1: Children Of Earth
(Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Rhys, Frobisher, The 456)
5 episodes, total of 225 minutes

Yikes. What do you do when ALL the children on the planet stop moving at the same time, and start delivering, in unison, a message from aliens? What do you do if you're a government who knows who these aliens are and what they want? What do you do when those aliens want 10% of the children left on the planet, or they will kill everyone?

This miniseries is Dark As Hell. And even though there was another miniseries, this serves as a perfect ending point for the Torchwood series, and is, as mentioned in the season description, one of the best things to ever come out of the Doctor Who franchise.


Episode 6: The Doctor's Wife
(11, Amy, Rory)
45 minutes

Returning to The Doctor's adventures, we're reunited with Amy and Rory as The Doctor is called to an unknown planet. Is it possible that other Time Lords have survived the Time War? Welllllll, maybe, but this is mainly the story of The Doctor and one of the most important parts of his life that we often see, but which is rarely addressed.


Serial 3: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People
(11, Amy, Rory, Gangers, Madame Kovarian)
90 minutes

The Doctor, Amy & Rory end up in a the nearish future where Not Autons but kind of sort of Autons are created to keep humans from getting killed in industrial accidents. Of course, being a science fiction story, this goes Horribly Wrong, and it's up to The Doctor and his "ganger" (a synthetic duplicate of himself) to teach everyone lessons and save the bloody day.


Episode 8: The Girl Who Waited
(11, Amy, Rory)
45 minutes

If I've learned anything from sitting down and watching Star Trek, it's Never Take Shore Leave, Never Go To The Planet Where Everything's Fine And Go Hang Out At The Water Park Or The Laser Tag Planet Or Whatever, because something there has gone horribly awry, or there is a serial killer there, or both. This is a particularly devastating character study episode where things sort or turn out fine in the end, and yet its resolution is still emotionally gutting.


Serial 9: The Good Man Goes To War/Demon's Run
(11, Amy, Rory, River, Vastra, Flint, Strax, Mme Kovarian, Maldovar, Cybermen)
55 minutes

A cult called The Headless Monks have been working behind the scenes in the last few episodes and have been seriously messing with one of The Doctor's companions. River Song steps in to help save the day, and finally reveal who she is, and why she keeps popping up along The Doctor's timeline. We also get to watch the founding of The Paternoster Gang.

Episode 10: God Complex 
(11, Amy, Rose, Weeping Angels)
45 minutes

Holy Hell, we're at the end of the season already? Wowsers. The Doctor & Companions end up at a spooky hotel that kills everyone who enters it. Yaaaaaaaay! It's even a labyrinthian hotel, and the thing that kills you is a minotaur. Take that, tropes! Again, it's mostly a character study, and while not quite as devastating as the previous episode, we do say goodbye to Amy & Rory forever, as they end up with one of the most optimistic endings for The Doctor's companions ever.


Holiday Special: The Wedding Of River Song
(11, Amy, Rose, River, Mme Kavorian, Maldovar, The Silence)

This is mostly a resolution of plot points from last season's Holiday Special ("The Impossible Astronaut"/|"Day Of The Moon") and "A Good Man Goes To War". It's also an alternate timeline adventure, so we get to see familiar characters in new and exciting roles. It's not My Favorite Episode by a longshot, but it's a nice coda to the River, Rory and Amy saga from this season.

Serial 1: Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead
(10, Donna, River)
90 minutes

The Doctor and Donna are trapped in a library where the shadows are filled with space piranha. But they're rescued by someone from The Doctor's past and future. Unfortunately, he has no idea who she is.
 

Episode 2: Turn Left
(10, Donna, Rose, Wilfred, Sylvia, Trickster)
45 minutes

While The Doctor peruses a flea market, Donna is forced to relive her life as if she had never met The Doctor, thus dooming the world several times over. But one of The Doctor's former companions swoops in to help save the day. For now.


Serial 3: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
(10, Donna, Rose, Sara Jane, Mickey, Jack, Martha, Gwen, Ianto, K-9, Jackie, Wilfred, Sylvia, Harriet, Luke, Francine, Davros, Daleks)
90 minutes

So much happens in this episode. The Daleks from Doomsday. Davros. Every companion from the modern series, and some from the classic series. Even the woodwork comes out of the woodwork to help The Doctor when the Daleks steal Earth and a variety of other planets in their attempt to kill everything Not Dalek. At the end, all of the companions are dispersed. Now, we've seen companions evicted from the TARDIS, killed by Cybermen, abandoned in alternate dimensions, and returned to the entirely wrong part of England, but this episode gets my vote for most heartbreaking removal of a companion ever. 


Serial 4: The Wedding Of Sarah Jane
(10, Sara Jane, Luke, K-9, Clyde, Trickster)
56 minutes

The Trickster, who was somehow involved in Turn Left, has devised a plot to trap Sarah Jane Smith out of time. Luckily, The Doctor shows up, and he and Sarah Jane's army of children set out to rescue her.


Serial 5: The Waters Of Mars
(10)
60 minutes

Lonely Doctor is usually a scary Doctor. But when he shows up at a Fixed Point In Time, he sticks around to see an important historical moment that he's not allowed to change. This is the last time we'll see 10 this season. I originally had his farewell episode "The End Of Time" on this list, but upon further watching it's pretty terrible. There are some great Goodbye Moments at the very end of the episode, but I think I'd rather graft them on at the beginning of the next episode than make someone sit through the confusing and disappointing final moments of 10.


Episode 6: The Eleventh Hour
(11, Amy, Rory, Prisoner Zero, Atraxi)
45 minutes

The new face of The Doctor is the youngest yet, and he encounters a young girl with cracks in her wall that do not sit well with him. How is he going to fix this?


Episode 7: The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood
(11, Amy, Rory, Silurians)
90 mins

The Doctor and his new companions' vacation in Rio turns into a mining hill disaster when a drill reaches further beneath the Earth's surface than anything has ever gone before, and ends up disturbing a classic Doctor Who species. Also, that pesky crack in the wall appears to be ... following them. 


Episode 8: Vincent & The Doctor
(11, Amy, Vincent)
45 minutes

The Doctor and Cracks In The Wall Girl (now a woman) go back and visit a depressed Vincent Van Gogh. There are some alien shenanigans, for sure, but this episode is about being human, and trying to help the mentally ill. It's excellent.


Episode 9: The Lodger
(11, Amy, Craig)
45 minutes

Separated from Cracks In The Wall Girl, The Doctor moves in with the Carpool Karaoke Guy (no, really), and completely ruins James Corden's life by trying to be a decent human being and a good friend.  Also, aliens kill a bunch of people.


Serial 10: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang
(11, Amy, Rory, River, Vincent, Daleks, Cybermen, Judoon, Cybermen, Sontarans)
90 minutes

Soooo...about those cracks in the wall. It turns out. Maaaaaaybe. Possibly they're The Doctor's fault. And a whole mess of alien villains (The Cybermen, The Daleks, The Sontarans, and The Judoon to name a few) have to stop The Doctor before he destroys all of time. Oh, and that lady from the library is back to help him out. She's way more of a badass than he is, sweety.


Holiday Special: The Impossible Astronaut
(11, Amy, Rory, River, The Silence)

Along with The Weeping Angels and River Song, The Silence are one of the coolest things Steven Moffat introduced to The Doctor Who Universe. He built a whole season around them. Unfortunately, the season is mostly terrible and unsatisfying. But their first appearance is creepy, and worth a look. Plus, this episode sets up some interesting problems for Amy and Rory going forward.

Interseason Special, Episode 0: The Runaway Bride
(10, Donna, Wilfred, Sylvia, Racnoss)

Modern Doctor Who regularly (but not consistently) presents a Christmas or New Year's Special between seasons. We're going to take a page out of this book to give you the adventures of The Doctor and Donna Noble, who showed up in the TARDIS at the end of last season. We get an explanation, an adventure, and The Most Over The Top Villain so far in the series. It's really not one of the greatest episodes ever, but it makes Donna's abrupt appearance later this season much more fun.

Episode 1: Everything Changes
(Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Owen, Tashiko, Suzie, Rhys, Andy, Weevils)
50 minutes

A Welsh detective stumbles on to an alien conspiracy involving Jack Harkness, The Doctor's companion, who we last saw in "The Parting Of Ways". He has an elite team of alien fighters, and a drug called Retcon that can wipe people's memories. I'm sure this will end well.


Episode 2: They Keep Killing Suzie
(Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Owen, Tashiko, Suzie)
53 minutes

Now that The Welsh Detective is a part of Torchwood, she has to use one of their sciencey toys to resurrect a dead former teammate to solve a series of grisly murders that all seem to involve Retcon. Somebody done Fucked Up.


Episode 3: Smith & Jones
(10, Martha, Francine, Tish, Leo, Clive, Judoon)
45 minutes

Hey! It's The Doctor again. He's been wandering solo and off the radar for a while, but he's popped over to Earth just in time for some Moon shenanigans, and to meet Doctor Martha Jones. Welcome new companion, may your fate be less depressing than that of your predecessors.


Serial 4: Human Nature/Family Of Blood
(10, Martha)
90 minutes

In order to hide from some vindictive aliens, The Doctor has to forget who he is, and live as a human in the days leading up to World War I. Martha lives out the Louis CK routine about how time travel sucks if you're not White. And there's even a little kid who has The Shining.. Can Martha keep John Smith safe, or will she have to reveal to him that he's The Doctor so they can survive The Family Of Blood.


Episode 5: Blink
(10, Martha, Weeping Angels)
45 minutes

One of the best episodes ever. The birth of wibbley-wobbley, timey-wimey, as a regular old non-companion human must defeat a new type of alien menace in order to return the TARDIS to The Doctor and Martha, whom she has never met, but who are trapped somewhere in The Past. 


Serial 6: End Of Days/Utopia
(10, Jack, Martha, Ianto, Owen, Toshiko, Rhys, Andy, The Master, Weevils)
95 minutes

Back at TORCHWOOD, coworkers are hooking up, members of the team are dying, Jack is being even weirder than usual, and The Rift is going slitheenshit. Jack is in the midst of deciding what to do with his team when he hears the TARDIS in the distance, and forces a reunion that sends him, The Doctor, and Martha Jones to The End Of Time, where they stumble on to cannibals, the last humans, and a Classic Villain.


Serial 7: Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords/Time Crash
(10, 5, Jack, Martha, Francine, Tish, Leo, Clive, The Master)
100 minutes

The Master is  the new Prime Minister. Good going, Doctor. Betchya wish you hadn't fucked over Harriet Jones now. The world is under his command. The Doctor and Jack Harkness are his prisoners, and only Martha Jones can save the world. And when the crisis is over, The Doctor realizes he must travel alone and---Wait A Second -- It's another The Doctor. Will he be his own companion?
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Serial 8: Planet Of The Ood
(10, Donna, Ood)
45 minutes

The Doctor and his new companion encounter a slave race being sold by humans as "servants". The whole scenario is not okay, and The Doctor and Donna are going to do their best to fix it.


Serial 9: Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky
(10, Donna, Martha, Wilfred, Sylvia, Sontarans)
90 minutes

UNIT, the military outfit that was super prevalent in Season Two, calls The Doctor for help. Well, to be specific, their officer, Martha Jones calls him in. Martha, Donna, and The Doctor have to stop a spoiled rich kid and an invading alien species from destroying the Earth. Classic sci-fi.


Serial 10: The Doctor's Daughter
(10, Donna, Martha)
45 minutes

During the first season, The Doctor was traveling with his granddaughter, Susan. So, of course, he Must Have a child who created that grandchild. Maybe this is her origin story. Or maybe it's just Donna, Martha, The Doctor, and some baby aliens playing some old-fashioned war games.