Star Trek Headcanon Reimagined, 10: Fan Service

Obviously I love all the seasons from this reimagined headcanon. Otherwise, why would I have spent all this time watching and writing about them? This season, however, is probably my favorite. There are a ton of nostalgic adrenaline hits in this season from the first episode to the last. We start with the TOS/TNG crossover film, Worf joins the cast of DS9, Lower Decks gives us some quality callbacks in eac of their episodes, and we also have the brilliant DS9/TOS crossover where new footage is seamlessly added to the "Trouble With Tribbles" episode of The Original Series.

If I ever decide to watch a full season out of the context of the other seasons, it will be this one.

Season 10:
​Fan Service

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TOS - The Original Series, 1963-1967               TOSM - The Original Series Movies, 1979-91
TNG - The Next Generation, 1987-94          DS9  - Deep Space Nine, 1993-99 
TNGM - The Next Generation Movies, 1994-2002               VOY - Voyager, 1995-2001 
 ENT - Enterprise, 2001-05          ST - Short Treks, 2018-2020          LD - Lower Decks, 2020-24

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1001. Generations (TOSM/TNGM)
(Picard, Kirk, Riker, Data, Laforge, Worf, Troi, Scotty, Chekov, Crusher)

Not the greatest Star Trek film by a long shot, but we do get to see a prolonged sequence with Picard and Kirk working together to stop the villain from A Clockwork Orange, I mean the villain from Tank Girl, I mean Mad Mod from Teen Titans. It's....watchable, and a fun adventure to start off the season.


1002. Tomorrow Is Yesterday (TOS)
(Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Sulu, Uhura)

Sometimes you just need a basic time travel story to calm your nerves. In this one, the TOS crew return to the 1960s (hey, that's when the series was airing!) to stop a time paradox. This is the introduction of the ol' slingshot the ship around the sun time travel method that series will return to several times.


1003. Future Tense (ENT)
(Archer, Phlox, T'Pol, Reed, Mayweather, Sato, Tucker)

An episode from the Temporal Cold War, the crew of the Enterprise discovers a corpse inside a pod from the future. This episode provides with both a timeloop (still one of my favorite tropes) and involves the Tholians, who we just never have enough time with over the entire course of the franchise, so this is a little treat.


1004. Way Of The Warrior (DS9)
(Worf, Sisko, Odo, Kira, Dax, Garak, O'Brien, Gowran, Quark, Gul Dukat, Bashir)

The Klingons haven't been a big part of Deep Space Nine. Sure, Dax and some of her Klingon friends went on an adventure, and yea, the sisters of Duras were around for an early episode, but for the most part, they haven't been very present. But when Gowran decides The Klingon Empire should protect the wormhole from The Founders, he incites a war between The Klingons and The Cardassians, and it gets so intense that Deep Space Nine recruits Worf from Enterprise to join their crew. Take that, Riker.


1005. Homefront (DS9)
(Sisko, Odo, Jake, Nog)

What if The Founders reached Earth, which has been a paradise since the beginning of this series (apart from the whole Borg attack in Best Of Both Worlds a few seasons ago, and the whale problem from The Voyage Home)? Sisko, Odo, and Jake return to San Francisco (say that five times fast) to help prepare the planet, only to discover The Founders may already be there. This is a particularly good episode about fear mongering and the loss of freedom due to the fear of terrorism (and this was a pre 9/11 series). It's technically part one of a two-part arc, but the second half undoes the power of this episode, if it existed in a vacuum.


1006. To The Death (DS9)
(Sisko, Worf, Dax, Bashir, Kira, Odo, Quark)

After Deep Space Nine is attacked by a faction of the Jem'Hadar, the crew of The Defiant run into another faction of Jem'Hadar who were also attacked. The two crews work together to take down the first faction. There are some great moments of culture examination in this episode between The Jem'Hadar, humans, Klingons, and The Founders. Deep Space Nine was truly the best Star Trek series when it comes to examining how every side in a war is actually The Bad Side.​


1007. Broken Link (DS9)
(Odo, Sisko, Worf, Garak, Drax, O'Brien, Quark, Bashir, Kira, Gowron)

Odo isn't doing very well, and needs the help of The Founders to get better. Of course, shenanigans ensue as Worf and Garak are amongst the crew that heads to The Founders' home planet. This episode sets up a ton of different storylines for the rest of the season.


1008. Apocalypse Rising (DS9)
(Sisko, Odo, Worf, Kira, Bashir, O'Brien, Gul Dukat, Gowran, Quark, Dax, Jake)
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Last season, it seemed like The Jem'Hadar were the all powerful enemies, but it turned out that they just serve The Founders. Then the Klingons got involved. Then we went to Earth and it looked like maybe The Founders had taken over Starfleet. But what if they actually took over the Klingons? They are Everywhere. And Sisko, Odo, O'Brien, and Worf have to go undercover to unmask Gowran (who, apart from Worf, has the longest ongoing storyline this season). And Sisko makes A Fantastic Klingon. It's a joy to watch.


1009 & 1010. First Contact (TNGM)
(Picard, Riker, Worf, Data, Crusher, Troi, Laforge, Ogawa, Doctor)

It's fun to see the TNG cast in action again (aside from Worf who just won't leave Deep Space Nine). Especially without the baggage of the TOS cast. In what's easily the best TNG movie, the crew follows the Borg into Earth's past, where everyone's favorite assimilators (unless you're a Cyberman fan) attempt to keep Earth's first contact with Vulcans from taking place.


1011 & 1012 .Scorpion (VOY)
(Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Kim, Kes, Torres, 7of9, Doctor, Paris, Neelix)

What could possibly frighten The Borg? Why, a mostly terrible new alien race from another dimension who The Borg just can't seem to assimilate. This new enemy is such a threat that The Borg and the crew of Voyager must team up to stop them.


1013. The Gift (VOY)
(7of9, Kes, Janeway, Doctor, Tuvok, Chakotay, Kim, Torres, Neelix)

The newest member of Voyager is A Borg! And it's up to the rest of the crew to teach her how to be more human. It's somewhat Data-ey, but with more  potential murder than holodeck detective work.


1014: Begotten (DS9)
(Odo, Kira, O'Brien, Keiko, Bashir, Quark, Sisko, Worf)

Quark finds a baby changeling, and gives custody of it to Odo, causing him to rethink his relationship with the doctor who raised him. Alsowhile, Kira is having O'Brien and Keiko's baby and it is awwwwwwwwwwwwkward for everyone.


1015. The Trouble With Edward (ST)/An Embarrasment Of Dooplers (LD)
(Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, Freeman, Ransom, Shax, T'ana)

After we meet the Starfleet moron responsible for the Tribble outbreaks for the entirety of the Star Trek franchise, we meet a different race of reproducing aliens. These ones, however, are a member race of the Federation who happen to duplicate whenever they're embarrassed, and they embarrass easily.


1016. Trials & Tribbilations (DS9/TOS)
(Sisko, O'Brien, Bashir, Worf, Dax, Odo, Kirk, Chekov, Scott, Kira, Uhuru, Spock)

This may be my favorite episode in the whole franchise. Filmed like a TOS episode, the crew of Deep Space Nine goes back in time to keep the Klingon villain from "The Trouble With Tribbles" from changing history.  There are a few scenes from the original TOS episode spliced in, and a lot of fun non-interactions between the two casts. I find this much preferable to the original "Trouble With Tribbles" episodes, so I felt no need to include the original episode.


1017: Affliction (ENT)
(Archer, Phlox, T'pol, Reed, Tucker, Sato, Mayweather)

Why do The Klingons look so different between The Original Series, the Next Generation/Deep Space Nine era, and Discovery? Well, the crew of The Enterprise is back to try and answer that question as best as possible.


1018. Divergence (ENT)
(Archer, Phlox, T'pol, Reed, Tucker, Sato, Mayweather)

A disease has been threatening to make Klingons look more humanoid (as they do in The Original Series). It's up to some rogue Klingons and Doctor Phlox to come up with a cure to save the Klingon identity so that they can all look like Worf again by the time we get to Next Generation. It's a neat explanation, but, uh...why do they look like Glittery bathbombs in Discovery?


1019. In Purgatory's Shadow (DS9)
(Sisko,  Garak, Kira, Bashir, Dax, Odo, Worf, Gul Dukat, O'Brien, Nog, Rom, Martok, Jake)

The standoff with The Dominion gets a whole lot tougher when Gul Dukat leads The Cardassians into an alliance with The Dominion to take on Starfleet. There's a changeling spy on Deep Space Nine, AND Worf and Garak get trapped in a Jem'Hadar prison. This is the episode that cemented Garak as my favorite Cardassian, and soured me on Gul Dukat


1020. Darmok (TNG)/Kayshon (LD)
(Picard, Riker, Data, Laforge, Worf, Crusher, Troi, O'Brien)
(Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, Freeman, Ransom, Shax, T'ana)

Another of my all-time favorite episodes. No spoilers. The TNG episode is about metaphor and languaged. Anyone who tells you why this isn't a great episode or who argues about how the language doesn't make sense is not worth having in your life. I mean this, anyone who dislikes this episode is a joyless buzzkilling troll who does not deserve your time or friendship. I'm willing to disagree about pretty much any book, movie, TV episode, whathaveyou, but I will hold firm on this, if you don't love this episode, that's totally ok. If you hate it and need to suck the joy out of this episode for other people, please join a silent monestary, none of your opinions in life are valid.

The follow-up Lower Decks episode is a fun adventure that re-introduces the race we meet in Darmok. It's also a blast.