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Even decades after its end, "Star Trek: The Original Series" remains one of the most influential science fiction shows around, even after only running for three seasons. While the series produced celebrated stories like "The City on the Edge of Forever," there are plenty of "Tos" episodes that truly hit the mark, but go largely overlooked. Whether not quite the level of critical darlings as their more acclaimed counterparts or featuring offbeat narrative premises, there are "Tos" episodes that deserve more love. Indeed, some episodes not included on the more prominent best-of lists are hidden gems that may have eluded more casual "Star Trek" fans for years.

From the most overtly comedic episode to murder mysteries on the iconic starship Enterprise, "Tos" wasn't afraid to mix up its usual storytelling formula. And even the more unorthodox episodes in the series have since earned their fair share of vocal fans. These...

In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Survivors", an underrated episode, the U.S.S. Enterprise arrives at a remote colony on the planet Delta Rana IV, responding to a distress call. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) finds that the entire planet is dead, an uninhabitable desert wasteland. Mysteriously, however, there is a single house left standing, located in a small, inhabitable bubble. Several Enterprise crew members beam down to investigate and find a well-maintained lawn surrounding a completely untouched manse. The officers are greeted by Kevin and Rishon Uxbridge (John Anderson and Anne Haney), a kindly elderly couple who welcome them inside for tea.

The Uxbridge's do not seem to fully acknowledge that the rest of their planet has been completely wasted. They said they witnessed an attack by aggressive aliens called the Husnock but were unaware they were the only survivors. The longer the Enterprise says, the stranger things become.

Ronald D. Moore is one of the most accomplished "Star Trek" writers of the "Next Generation" era. His subsequent work creating "Battlestar Galactica" (telling stories he couldn't on "Star Trek") and "For All Mankind" cement him as a king of science-fiction television writing.

While he writes in the science-fiction space, Moore prioritizes human drama over high concepts. He writes not with embarrassment towards his chosen genre but conviction that your audience will care most when your characters experience familiar struggles even if they walk around in unfamiliar settings.

So, it makes total sense that Moore has consistently called "The Conscience of the King" one of his favorite "Star Trek" episodes ever. It's a brilliant episode that kickstarts the tradition of intertwining "Star Trek" and Shakespeare. The episode title is a "Hamlet" quote, and the episode's guest players are a Shakespearean theater troupe.

Written by Barry Trivers (his only produced "Star Trek...

Captain Kirk and Commander Riker had questionable Star Trek romances with murderous women. Both "The Vengeance Factor" (Tng) and "The Conscience of the King" (Tos) feature murderous women and themes of revenge. In both episodes, the officers' judgment is clouded by their romantic interests, leading to tragic consequences.

Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) of Star Trek: The Original Series and Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) of Star Trek: The Next Generation both romanced women who turned out to be murderers. Like Captain Kirk before him, Riker was a bit of a ladies' man, particularly during the early seasons of Tng. Kirk and Riker both had their fair share of romances over the course of their respective series, and some of them ended better than others. While both Starfleet officers had a strong sense of morals, Riker and Kirk's judgment sometimes faltered when they encountered a particularly pretty face.

The 2001 series "Star Trek: Enterprise" takes place about a century before the events of the original "Star Trek," and a lot of the technologies Trekkies took for granted hadn't been invented yet. Transporters, for instance, weren't yet safe for human use. Starships didn't have shields and instead were equipped with specialized hull plating that needed to be polarized to deflect phase cannon blasts. Instead of tractor beams, the Enterprise had grappling hooks. And, because Earth hadn't yet encountered too many alien species, there wasn't yet a workable universal translator. 

That's where Ensign Hoshi Sato (Linda Park) came in. Ensign Sato was a language wunderkind whose ear for language and knack for syntax proved invaluable for making first contact with alien species. She was, however, only 22 years old when she joined the crew of the Enterprise and, like the rest of the crew, had no deep space experience. Ensign Sato was...

Since its inception in 1966, Star Trek has looked to the works of William Shakespeare for inspiration, and many episodes have titles borrowed from his works. Following the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his crew aboard the USS Enterprise, Star Trek: The Original Series has the most episodes titled after Shakespeare's works. Throughout the many other Star Trek properties, characters often quote Shakespeare, perform his plays, or otherwise reference the works of the Bard.

Many storylines, as well as episode titles, across the Star Trek shows and movies have been adapted from the works of Shakespeare. As one of the world's most popular and enduring writers, it makes sense that modern minds continue to be inspired by his plays and poems. Little did Shakespeare know that over 400 years after his death, his words would become so closely associated with one of the most popular science fiction franchises of all time.

One of Star Trek: Enterprise's main characters, Lt. Commander Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), has a surprising link to a tragedy in the past of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek: The Original Series. Hoshi was the Communications Officer of the Nx-01 Enterprise commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula). Sato served on the first starship named Enterprise for a decade, but her death has a potential tie to James T. Kirk and the massacre on Tarsus IV.

In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Conscience of the King," Captain Kirk learned that Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss), a famous actor, was secretly Kodos, the former Governor of Tarsus IV. James T. Kirk lived on Tarsus IV as a teenager, and he was one of the survivors of a mass murder by the planet's Governor, Kodos the Executioner. Kodos killed one-half of Tarsus IV's 8,000 residents...

One of Star Trek: Enterprise's main characters, Lt. Commander Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), has a surprising link to a tragedy in the past of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek: The Original Series. Hoshi was the Communications Officer of the Nx-01 Enterprise commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula). Sato served on the first starship named Enterprise for a decade, but her death has a potential tie to James T. Kirk and the massacre on Tarsus IV.

In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Conscience of the King," Captain Kirk learned that Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss), a famous actor, was secretly Kodos, the former Governor of Tarsus IV. James T. Kirk lived on Tarsus IV as a teenager, and he was one of the survivors of a mass murder by the planet's Governor, Kodos the Executioner. Kodos killed one-half of Tarsus IV's 8,000 residents...

When J.J. Abrams' feature film "Star Trek" was released in theaters in 2009, there seemed to be a clear creative mandate at work. "Star Trek" was set prior to the events of the 1966 TV series on which it was based, telling an alternate timeline version of how the well-known "Trek" characters all first met. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and the rest of the crew were all depicted as younger, hotter versions of themselves, each one more youthful and impulsive than their adult counterparts from 1966.

Given the hot-headedness of the Enterprise crew and the entire 2009 film's "action-packed" vibe, the mandate mentioned above seems to have demanded the filmmakers kick everything into Overdrive. It's as if they wanted critics to respond with the phrase, "This ain't your grandpa's 'Star Trek.'" 

It's worth noting that the writers of "Star Trek" -- Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman -- were basing...

An underrated episode of Star Trek: The Original Series featured one of Captain James T. Kirk's (William Shatner) most questionable romances. The Tos version of Kirk was very much a product of 1960s TV storytelling conventions; he was the Captain and thus, the hero of the TV series, which means Kirk gets to punch out the bad guy, and he always gets the girl (until the next week's episode). But the introduction of Lenore Karidian (Barbara Anderson), Kirk's love interest in "The Conscience of the King," was problematic in several ways.

"The Conscience of the King" established a tragic aspect of Captain Kirk's Star Trek backstory. As a teenager, Kirk lived on Tarsus IV, where he was one of the survivors of a mass murder by the planet's governor, Kodos the Executioner. Kodos killed one-half of Tarsus IV's 8,000 residents to preserve dwindling food supplies before supposedly dying in a fire.

Adapted by John Mantley from his own novel, The 27th Day is an ideas-driven sci-fi thriller conceived and executed by idiots. What's interesting is how close its plot comes to the genuinely intelligent Arrival. One could imagine Arrival being back-engineered by taking The 27th Day and reversing all its stupidities.Things start off with promise: five disparate stereotypes (American newspaperman, English girl in swimsuit, Chinese woman, German scientist, Russian soldier) are snatched from their lives by a UFO. But already there are problems apparent: the movie doesn't give any of these characters a compelling narrative to be interrupted by the main plot, except the Chinese woman, whose narrative is ending, as we'll see. In the novel, perhaps access to the characters' thoughts would have enlivened them, and this may be one reason authors don't usually get invited to adapt their books: faithfully reproducing the incidents onscreen doesn't necessarily give you the same effect.

More long hidden horrors are now available as part of Warner's made-to-order Archive Collection. Oh, the classic terrors that await you, dearest reader! Dig it!

Head on over to the Warner Archives and order yours today!

The Awakening

Director: Mike Newell

Cast: Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, Stephanie Zimbalist

Synopsis

Mention Bram Stoker’s name, and literature and movie buffs will conjure up Count Dracula. But there was more blood in Stoker’s pen. He also wrote The Jewel of the Seven Stars, later filmed with chilling effect as The Awakening, grippingly directed by Mike Newell (Dance with a Stranger, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and sensuously shot on Egyptian locations by veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Charlton Heston stars as an Egyptologist with a passion that will trigger several mysterious deaths. He’s obsessed with a sorceress whose return has been prophesied – and whose tomb he opened...