Star Trek - Longest Unbroken Chain of Above Average Episodes

[Paul Walker]

I was having a thought while watching Voyager, that occasionally it comes up with streaks of notably better episodes.

For example, from near the end of season 3 to early season 4 you have:

Before and After
Real Life
Distant Origin
Displaced
Worst Case Scenario
Scorpion Part I
Scorpion Part II
The Gift
Day of Honour

I'm wondering what else people consider to be a strong continuous list of episodes from the various series?

[The Romulan Republic]

I expect you'd get some good runs from DS9.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I've noticed that same run of episodes in Voyager before. There's also Year of Hell and Message in a Bottle coming out shortly later. It feels like almost half the show's top ten episodes come in about a half-season span.

Season 1 of TOS is arguably still the single best season in Trek, and while I know some would disagree, I think there's only a very small handful of episodes that aren't at least good (and it's the longest season in Trek). Here's probably the longest streak from TOS season 1, in airdate order-

The Corbomite Maneuver
The Menagerie I
The Menagerie II
The Conscience of the King
Balance of Terror
Shore Leave
The Galileo Seven
The Squire of Gothos
Arena
Tomorrow is Yesterday

Of course your mileage may very, and that streak could very well be a few episodes longer or be cut short.

[Durandal_1707]

I expect you'd get some good runs from DS9.

The trouble with DS9 is that there's often going to be a Ferengi episode or a Dax episode in there mucking it all up.

With that said, there are a few. Here are my votes:

"Blood Oath"
"The Maquis, Part I"
"The Maquis, Part II"
"The Wire"
"Crossover"
"The Collaborator" <- this one may be debatable
"Tribunal"
"The Jem'Hadar"
"The Search, Part I"

"The Adversary"
"The Way of the Warrior, Part I"
"The Way of the Warrior, Part II"
"The Visitor"
"Hippocratic Oath"
"Indiscretion"

"Starship Down"
"Little Green Men"
"The Sword of Kahless"
"Our Man Bashir"
"Homefront"
"Paradise Lost"

"For the Cause"
"To the Death"
"The Quickening"
"Body Parts"
"Broken Link"
"Apocalypse Rising"
"The Ship"

"Soldiers of the Empire"
"Children of Time"
"Blaze of Glory"
"Empok Nor"
"In the Cards"
"Call to Arms"
"A Time to Stand"
"Rocks and Shoals"

After that, we're in the late seasons that I don't care for much. :/

[Rocketboy1313]

If you want to use IMDB scoring as a guide here is a online system that graphs TV show episodes.
http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/

Thing is, almost all episodes of TNG are above a 6, so you have a period from the premier of season 3 up to the 3rd episode of season 6 where no episode was below a 6. So you have to use some stringent criteria to get this going.

[PerrySimm]

Longest contiguous set of episodes (excluding season breaks) with rating >= the average rating for that series
(Data: Spoiler-free Opinion Survey)

Voyager - 15 ("Before and After" to "Year of Hell")
TOS - 12 ("Dagger of the Mind" to "Court Martial")
DS9 - 8 ("Soldiers of the Empire" to "Rocks and Shoals")
Enterprise - 7 (two such runs, "Azati Prime" to "Zero Hour" and "Home" to "Kir'Shara")
TNG - 6 ("Redemption" to "Disaster")

The instincts of the board seem to match up well with the data. And yes, the initially suggested period where Voyager was pretty good for a while is part of the longest such run in the entirety of Star Trek!

The metric is kind to shows that have lower average ratings (i.e., were not all that good) like VOY, TOS, and ENT. ENT might even have topped this list with a score of 16liflStormfrontlhadlbeenlany good.

If you look at where other runs of good episodes accumulate, TNG is sort of a bell curve. DS9 spikes during its major arcs. TOS is good at the start and ENT is good at the end. Voyager's performance... is... erratic...

[Paul Walker]

Of course your mileage may very, and that streak could very well be a few episodes longer or be cut short.

Yeah, for me it would be cut short by both Shore Leave and Arena.

Longest contiguous set of episodes (excluding season breaks) with rating >= the average rating for that series
(Data: Spoiler-free Opinion Survey)

Voyager - 15 ("Before and After" to "Year of Hell")
TOS - 12 ("Dagger of the Mind" to "Court Martial")
DS9 - 8 ("Soldiers of the Empire" to "Rocks and Shoals")
Enterprise - 7 (two such runs, "Azati Prime" to "Zero Hour" and "Home" to "Kir'Shara")
TNG - 6 ("Redemption" to "Disaster")

...

If you look at where other runs of good episodes accumulate, TNG is sort of a bell curve. DS9 spikes during its major arcs. TOS is good at the start and ENT is good at the end. Voyager's performance... is... erratic...

That's a really good way of doing it.

It's not really surprising if you think about the distributions:

TOS lost loads of funding and creative talent for season 3.
TNG started poorly, got its steam, then ran out of ideas.
DS9 was all about arcs.
Voyager was constantly changing show runners and so had lots of mini peaks as the various people hit their strides and then had to hand over to the next person. I mean, even the latter parts of season 2 were starting to suggest that if they had kept going, they might well have 'hit their stride' and been a good show, without falling prey to 'alien of the week' as happened in its later seasons.
And Enterprise only had a vision for season 3 & 4.

Kinda curious as to the longest 'bad' runs now too....

[Rocketboy1313]

Kinda curious as to the longest 'bad' runs now too....

It is called four seasons of "Enterprise".

[Durandal_1707]

Kinda curious as to the longest 'bad' runs now too....

It is called four seasons of "Enterprise".

Nah, it's TNG Season 1, for sure. How many episodes did that whole season have that weren't terrible? 3? 4?

[nebagram]

Kinda curious as to the longest 'bad' runs now too....

It is called four seasons of "Enterprise".

Nah, it's TNG Season 1, for sure. How many episodes did that whole season have that weren't terrible? 3? 4?

Beat me to it.

And (as we're on his site and everything) I'd love to see this question answered using Chuck's scores (incomplete as they are). Hell, I'm sure someone out there has a spreadsheet with them, right?