10 Star Trek Captains' Best Episode

Star Trek gives its experienced starship captains a lot of times that are important and change them. These are the 10 best episodes of Captains.

Teenage human-augment-hybrid Dal R'El (Brett Grey) overcomes significant challenges and emotional upheaval in Star Trek: Prodigy's season 1 finale. Risking his life, Dal manually launches the USS Protostar's self-destruct to save Starfleet ships. 

1. Dal R'El's Best Episode

Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Captain Carol Freeman's daughter, hears Freeman gets promoted in the season 2 finale of Star Trek: Lower Decks. Upper deckers are uncomfortable and resentful because Freeman's senior officers loathe the news. 

2. Captain Carol Freeman's Best Episode 

This enlightening Star Trek: Discovery, season four episode covers Captain Saru's personal goal. Saru rescues the Khi'eth, a crashed spacecraft in the radioactive Verubin nebula, and encounters sensitive Kelpian survivor Su'Kal. 

3. Captain Saru's Best Episode 

When Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) searches for a powerful weapon, she meets Cleveland Booker (David Ajala) at a casino, where Booker abruptly ends their romance to steal the isolynium.

4. Captain Michael Burnham's Best Episode

Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) leads a landing mission to find survivors on Parnassus Beta in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 finale, defying Starfleet orders to halt fighting the Gorn. 

5. Captain Christopher Pike's Best Episode

Star Trek: Enterprise's Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) goes on a one-way mission to Xindi territory as the NX-01 Enterprise crew pursues the weapon. 

6. Captain Jonathan Archer's Best Episode

Over two terrific Star Trek: Voyager episodes, "Year of Hell" gives viewers a true look at Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). A character study and narrative of obsession, loyalty, and time conflict, the episode is psychologically enlightening.

7. Captain Kathryn Janeway's Best Episode

Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) explores the darkest sides of character, probity, and war in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's "In The Pale Moonlight." To win their loyalty, Sisko manipulates the volatile Romulans into joining the Federation-Dominion War.

8. Captain Benjamin Sisko's Best Episode

Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) becomes Kamin, a Ressik resident on Kataan, after an alien probe encounters the USS Enterprise-D. 

9. Captain Jean-Luc Picard's Best Episode

The Romulan ship assaulting Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Kirk argue intellectually. Kirk must secure Federation bases in the Neutral Zone since the Federation is ready to fight the Romulan Empire. 

10. Captain James T. Kirk's Best Episode

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