MLB September 8, 2026 0 Comments

San Francisco Giants Reveal Their Surprising Top Star Trek Episodes—You Won’t Believe Their Picks!

Is it any good? Nope. More sexist dreck. Women are too emotional to be a starship captain is the episode’s central premise. It’s also got William Shatner acting to the extreme by playing a woman inside Kirk’s body.

It’s a genuine shame that this revolutionary and progressive television show ends with such a thud and one that betrays a lot of the message from the prior 78 episodes and three seasons. No need to watch this one.

But the Giants? The Giants went 9-16 in May and that seems to be what sunk their season, as they finished (90-72) just 3 games behind Atlanta (93-69) for the second playoff spot. The Mets were 100-62. Mays and McCovey homered (593 and 285, respectively), Ray Sadecki struck out 8 (but walked 4) in 7.2 IP.

3. “Charlie X” (9/15/66) | Giants 10, Mets 4 (+6)

Star Trek’s premiere episode, “The Man Trap” aired a week earlier on an off day. A week later, the Giants kicked off a 3-game set against the Mets that ended on a Saturday with a new series against the Pirates beginning on Sunday. Odd. About as odd as this episode.

Summary: In it, the crew of the Enterprise pick up a teenaged boy who has unfathomable mind powers that he uses to control and torment the crew. But he respects Captain Kirk. Can Captain Kirk teach him how to be a good man in a cruel universe or will a deus ex machina be needed to bail out the crew?

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Is it actually good? We’ll play Trek Marry Kill with it next week on the podcast, but this episode doesn’t typically land on a “best of” list. Robert Walker gives a strong performance as “Charles Evans” / “Charlie X,” but the show is still figuring itself out, and Charlie’s primary focus is on a Yeoman Janice Rand, played by Grace Lee Whitney (who was the focus of a lascivious producer in a rather sad backstory that led to her being booted off the show). It became the second episode two air for the simple reason that the episodes producers had intended to run earlier still had yet to be completed due to their then-state-of-the-art visual FX.

How about the Giants? In their 10-4 win, shortstop Tito Fuentes hit 2 home runs including a leadoff home run and went 2-5 with 3 RBI. Willie Mays went 3-for-4 with a a pair of RBI and Jim Ray Hart hit a 2-run home run in the third inning. Bobby Bolin pitched a complete game to make him 10-10 on the season. He allowed 8 hits, 4 earned runs, 3 walks, and 4 K.

2. “The Pirates of Orion” (9/7/74) | Giants 6, Atlanta 0 (+6)

Summary: Spock is sick! But Orion pirates have stolen the antidote!

It is any good? It’s not terrible. However, for various reasons, Orion is pronounced ORE-EE-on and the aliens, who are supposed to be green, are a shade of blue. This continuity conflict was parodied in the recent series Star Trek: Lower Decks. Trivia: this episode was written by a teenager. He was just 19 when he sold the script.

What about the Giants? The 1974 Giants were big stinky losers (72-90) thanks in large part to a 7-20 June record. They went just 12-17 in the final month. This was 1 of 11 shutouts they recorded this season, however. Jim Barr pitched the 5th shutout of his career (he’d wind up with 20) beating Phil Niekro. Steve Ontiveros was 3-for-4 with 3 RBI. Gary Matthews was 3-for-4 with an RBI.

1. “Spock’s Brain” (9/20/68) | Giants 8, Atlanta 1 (+7)

This episode is pretty famous just for the title alone.

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I first encountered it in the TV show The Wonder Years which parodied it back in the 1980s.

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The parody gets the aesthetic right but the message of the episode entirely wrong.

Summary: A group of aliens who have give their lives over to a master computer steal Spock’s brain in order to fix their deteriorating master computer. When Kirk & the Enterprise find these aliens, they discover that the men are like cavemen, dumb idiots who’ve been banished to the surface. While the women live below in relative paradise. Eventually, they find Spock’s brain (they’d had his body the whole time and Dr. McCoy has rigged him so that he walks like a zombie) and figure out how to reconnect it to his body. It is very dumb and awfully stupid.

Is it actually good? No, not even in a campy way. The stuff about men and women? That’s some pure, uncut Gene Roddenberry misogyny in there. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the show, a visionary by TV producer standards, and someone who was once scolded by L. Ron Hubbard for not turning Star Trek into a religion, had a lot of sexual hang-ups. Or, just really liked sex. But in the 1960s, he was about 10-15 years older than all the hot young hippies and so this episode sounds like somebody who’d been going to parties in the Hollywood Hills and finding himself lacking next to the young celebs of the time. Your Jim Browns or Steve McQueens or Burt Reynolds. There’s a lot of “women only want big dumb strong guys in this one,” and it’s not fun to watch. And the brain stuff is stupid.

Also, this was the third season premiere of Star Trek. Fans had bombarded NBC with a letter writing campaign to prevent cancellation and the network had acquiesced — with one wrinkle: the show was banished to the Friday night death slot. Still, “Spock’s Brain?” This is how the show rewarded fans? And after the Civil Rights Movement coming to a head in 1968, this is the turd laid at the feet of people hoping to escape the terrible history and bad news they saw everywhere else? Yeesh.

So, there you have it. A completely terrible process has led to a mostly terrible outcome. Of course my favorite baseball team would make it so that one of the worst episodes of my favorite TV show wound up on top. That’s just the way the San Francisco Giants work these days.