The episodes are being presented in order of numbering. The airdates are in a slightly different order.

Episode Title: 'The Menagerie'
'Part One'
Synopsis: "Spock takes over the Enterprise and faces the death penalty to take his former Captain, who has been horribly disfigured in an accident, to a planet where an alien race has learned to turn thoughts into reality."
'Part Two'
Synopsis: "During Spock's court martial, Kirk learns of his predecessor Captain Pike's encounter with the illusions created by a race desperate for breeding stock to help them rebuild their planet."

Episode Title: 'Shore Leave'
Synopsis: "The crew takes shore leave on an idyllic planet, but when people's fantasies begin to come true - deadly as well as benign - Kirk must evade his own demons to solve the mystery."

Episode Title: 'The Squire of Gothos'
Synopsis: "A powerful alien named Trelane abducts crewmembers for his amusement, but when Kirk refuses to play his games, Trelane puts him on trial and prepares to execute him."

Episode Title: 'Arena'
Synopsis: "When the Enterprise encroaches on alien space in pursuit of a ship that apparently helped to destroy a Federation outpost, Kirk finds himself and the leader of the alien vessel, the Gorn, stranded on a planet where they are forced to fight for supremacy."

Episode Title: 'The Alternative Factor'
Synopsis: "The crew meets two nearly-identical men named Lazarus, one from their universe and one from an antimatter universe with the potential to destroy both universes should they come together. Kirk must work with the Lazarus not of his own universe to trap the other, a madman, in a void between the universes with his twin, thus keeping everyone else safe."

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

Let me see, four (or all five) stories involving god-like aliens. That is a theme that Star Trek used WAY too often.

Shore Leave and Menagerie are interesting stories.
Squire had potential, but the story just went downhill in the last act.
Arena--how many times did these god-like aliens arrange some sort of fight between Kirk and someone else?
The Alternative Factor really didn't seem to take off.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

I don't consider the Talosians godlike. They had mental trickery, but major defects as well. They had trapped themselves into a dead end and needed help. They could manipulate, but ultimately they needed cooperation from humans for that help. And the hinted aliens in "Shore Leave" had advanced technology, but it wasn't clear they were all that much different from humans. The planet wasn't that much different from a large Next Gen holodeck with the safeties disabled.

I liked "The Menagerie" for the same reason as "The Cage." It was the only way you could see the original pilot until it was brought out separately on videotape. I also liked "Shore Leave." I have some fondness for "Arena" but it isn't one of my favorites. I didn't much care for the other two.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Arena was a pretty fair adaption of the Fredirck Brown story of the same name

"Doomsday Machine" for Me

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Oops, I meant to vote for "Shore Leave" instead of "The Alternative Factor".

Noted

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

Thank you!

I see that "The Squire of Gothos" is pretty low on most people's lists, but I liked it. For some reason, I found the idea of an enormously powerful but very immature entity to be both interesting and humorous.

It's a fun episode, just not a classic.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

When were the holodeck safeties ever engaged?

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

The holodeck safeties crashed after a crewmember asked the computer to simulate a late 20th century office. The holodeck security systems overloaded and burned out trying to protect the ship from the simulated Windows '95 computer.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.