Favorites - Favorite Star Trek Episodes Involving Time Travel

Well, this didn’t take long to put together. As I said in my last list, Star Trek made time travel into a fine art. All of the series (even Discovery) have conducted in some time travel. While most of the episodes tend to be good, some of them tend to be the best the franchise ever produced. Trek has pretty much run the gamut with these stories, so finding 15 of them would be hard to do. I was going to try and rank them, but that ain’t happening. I will put my favorite up top though. If I leave one off, just know that it’s just my opinion.

1. TNG’s “All Good Things…”

I might as well start the list off with one of the best last episodes ever. It’s also a good time travel episode. In the episode, Captain Picard is somehow being transported between the past, present, and future. While the past sequence should be familiar to fans of the first season, the future is something else. It is the future, after all. I won’t spoil anything here but he does find out who caused it and why it’s happening. It ties into someone he met during the first season. It’s truly one of the best.

2. Star Trek: DS9’s “Trials and Tribble-lations”

It’s the meeting of two crews, sort of. The episode takes place during the fifth season of the show. In it, Someone uses an orb of the Prophets to send The USS Defiant to the 23rd century during TOS’s “The Trouble With Tribbles.” In order to find out who is behind it and keep the timeline safe, the crew has to integrate itself into the crew of the 23rd century. They literally go all out on this. The scenes where the DS9 crew interacts with the TOS crew are pretty cool and still hold up now. It’s an episode that honors both eras of Trek.

3. Star Trek’s “City on the Edge of Forever”

This is considered to be one of the best episodes from franchise and it’s easy to see why. In the episode, the Enterprise finds the Guardian of Forever, a sentient time portal. When a crazed McCoy goes back in time and changes history, Kirk and Spock must go back and set things right. Things get a little complicated when they find out what they need to do, though. It’s an episode that has both Kirk and Spock at their best. It also has a nice but tragic romance. It’s definitely one of the best from the series and the franchise as a whole.

4. Star Trek: First Contact

This was the 8th movie from the franchise and the second one involving the TNG crew. In the movie, the Borg try to take over Earth by going back into the year 2063. The Enterprise-E follows them and does what it can to stop them. Not only does the crew have to stop the Borg, they need to help Earth achieve first contact with aliens. It’s part “Borg Shoot ‘Em Up” mixed with running into “great” men from history. It revamps the Borg in good ways and bad (The Borg Queen is okay). The crew itself and the folk from the past also make it a good watch.

5. TNG’s “Tapestry”

“Tapestry” is from TNG's 6th season. In it, Captain Picard dies… hey, it happens in the prologue. What happens afterwards is that Q comes to him and asks him if he wants to change his past. Since Picard actually has regrets about things he did when he was younger, he takes him up on it. This is a good episode for a few reasons. Instead of traveling back in time to stop some threat, the trope is used for something personal and it only affects Picard in this instance. It also shows that even some of the dumbest stuff we’ve done in the past can define you in ways you don’t even realize.

6. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

This was the fourth movie from the franchise. Its other name is “The One With the Whales.” In the movie, the crew of the Enterprise (on a stolen Klingon vessel) must travel back in time to save Earth from a probe. In order to stop the probe, the crew needs a pair of humpback whales. It’s considered to be one of the best Trek movies for a multitude of reasons. It’s got a good story, good moments from the crew, some of the best comedy in sci-fi,  and an interesting message about the environment. Yeah, it doesn’t take itself too seriously at times, but I feel like that’s needed here. The original show even knew how to have fun with itself.

7. Star Trek: Voyager’s “Year of Hell”

This is from Voyager’s 4th season and it was something hinted at in the 3rd season (“Before and After”). In it, an alien race called the Krenim is using a temporal device in order to bring their people back. Voyager gets involved with this race and heavily damaged. Some really bad stuff goes down during their battles. It was all handled in pretty interesting way. While the ending itself is a bit of a disappointment (it’s Voyager, folks), what we got was a two-parter that tried to go there. At least the creators actually went there with Enterprise's 3rd season.

8. DS9’s “Past Tense”

This is from DS9’s 3rd season. In it, a transporter accident gets Sisko, Bashir, and Dax stuck in the year 2024. While Dax is put somewhere safe, Sisko and Bashir end up in fenced off area in San Francisco. At this time, Earth was going through tough times. When a man who will start what was known as the “Bell Riots” is unexpectedly killed, Sisko assumes his identity in order for timeline to stay right. It’s a two-parter that tries to address a variety of topics. It’s also an story that still feels pretty relevant. Crap, we’re six years away from 2024. Who knows what’ll happen?

9. TNG’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise”

As you’ve probably noticed, there are a lot of TNG episodes on here. There’s a reason for that since they did the concept so well. This episode is no exception. In “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” a time anomaly causes the Enterprise-C to end up in the present. Since it went missing in in the past, the present becomes darker and much more militaristic since the Federation is at war with the Klingons. It’s a great episode since we get to see another Enterprise and we get a better send-off for Tasha Yar, a character who was from TNG’s first season.

10. TNG’s “Cause and Effect”

This episode is from TNG’s 5^th season. The episode starts out with the Enterprise blowing up… that’ll definitely get you hooked. What ends up happening afterwards is a pretty messed up version of Groundhog Day. It’s revealed that the crew is stuck in a time loop that they die at the end of. It’s one that is definitely a mystery since we don’t know how they’ll get out of this one. Also, look out for a certain actor who doesn’t know what to do with tossed salad and scrambled eggs.

11. Star Trek: Voyager’s “Before And After”

In this 3rd season episode, Kes is somehow going backward in time. Each time her body starts to go out of whack, she goes further back in time. We end up seeing things that obviously didn’t happen, but it was interesting to see. It was also a nice Kes episode and it sucks that she wasn’t around longer after this. Yeah, I liked Kes.

12. Star Trek: The Animated Series’ “Yesteryear”

Yes, I’m including an animated episode on here. It’s considered to be the best from that show, after all. In it, the crew returns to the planet where the Guardian of Forever is located. When Spock comes back through the portal, he finds out that he’s been erased from history. It turns out that he died as a child on Vulcan. In order to set things right, he goes back in time to Vulcan and tries to fix what went wrong. While the episode has some shoddy animation and bad voice acting (that kid…why), the story is a good one. We get to see more of Vulcan society and how Spock had a rough time being a mixture of two species.

13. Star Trek: Enterprise’s “Twilight”

This is a different kind of time travel episode. This takes place during Enterprise’s 3^rd season. It plays with an alternate future where Earth was destroyed by the Xindi. Archer has been out of commission for years because of parasites in his brain. Somehow, Phlox tries to use his problem to their advantage and send him back in time. Enterprise’s time travel episodes weren’t all that great, but this was one that was pretty memorable. Also, we got Scott Bakula doing his Quantum Leap thing again and that’s always cool.

14. Star Trek: Voyager’s “Shattered”

This episode takes place during Voyager’s final season. In it, the ship encounters an anomaly that splits the ship into different time periods. The only one who can travel between them is Chakotay. He ends up running into past, present, and future versions of the crew. It’s not the best episode of the bunch, but it is a fun one. It was the last season and it was nice to see to see some folk for one last time.

15. Discovery’s “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”

Finally, we have another time loop episode. This time, it’s from the recent show, Discovery. In it, Harry Mudd uses a device in order to make the Discovery relive the same few hours over and over again. Only one person from the crew even realizes that its happening and he tries to get Burnham and the rest of the crew to stop Mudd. This was actually my favorite episode from that season. Even though it’s a pretty used trope, it’s done well here.

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Well, that was my list of favorite Trek Time Travel episodes. I did what I could with this one. If you have favorites of your own, let me know. Well, I’m off to bed. Also, I finally need to finish some novels. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and don’t change the timeline unless Q is around.