Gimme That Star Trek Ep.31: The Villain Bracket

LET’S AGAIN GET READY TO RUMMMBLLLLLLLLE!!!!!! Gimme That Star Trek pits 64 Trek VILLAINS from across all series in a bracket fight decided by five panelists – Derek William Crabbe, Cory Drew, Ryan Blake, Andrew Leyland, and Siskoid! Their task: Decide each bracketed fight until the greatest Star Trek villain of all time stands alone! Who will it be? Grab your bracket sheet HERE to follow along, and may the best/worst villain win!

Listen to Episode 31 below!

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Credits:
"Star Trek Theme" by Alexander Courage, with the Irredeemable Shagg on vocals. End theme: "Deep Space Nine Theme" by Dennis McCarthy.

Bonus clips from: Star Trek's "The Savage Curtain", featuring Bart La Rue; Star Trek fight music; Star Trek Discovery season one, starring Michelle Yeoh and Jason Isaacs; Star Trek The Next Generation's "All Good Things...", starring John De Lancie; Star Trek Deep Space Nine's "What You Leave Behind", starring Marc Alaimo, Avery Brooks, and Andrew Robinson; and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" by Nicholas Meyer, starring Ricardo Montalban.

And thanks for leaving a comment!

16 responses to “Gimme That Star Trek Ep.31: The Villain Bracket

  1. Wonderful episode! I love these bracket shows. All five of you did a great job and offered really thought provoking insight into characters. I’d never heard Ryan on a podcast before and now think he should be a judge on all future brackets.

  2. Wonderfully fun show, even if you did come to the wrong conclusion.

    Cory picking Gary Mitchell over Khan in the first round rocks my view of him to its very core.

  3. I still have teeth left, so I didn’t gnash them as bad as the last time you did one of these, but I don’t even know who Kai Wynn (sp probably), so I guess I’m not as qualified to complain.

    And I have a LOT of love for Kruge (and I think it’s KROO-DJ, myself) and ST III, but if you follow the logic that Kruge kicked off the events of the rest of the TOS movie series (minus V), well, didn’t Khan detonating the Genesis device and creating the planet set Kruge on his course to get this “ultimate weapon”? Without ST II and Khan’s actions, there can be no III. So, Khan still should have beat out Kruge, in my humble opinion, but I love both, so I’ll let that one go. And I clearly need to watch more DS9.

    But, all kidding aside, fun show! I know it’s a joke among the F&W group that I hate these things because Shag ruined me on that bracket show, but I really did enjoy this episode very much!!!

    Chris

  4. Whoah, this zigged and zagged and ended up in a very thoughtful, but horribly wrong place.

    I’d have gone Dukat all the way. He was THE BIG BAD of an entire series. But I get and respect Leyland’s POV, as wrongheaded as it may be.

  5. Khan and the female Romulan commander from Enterprise Incident were my two favorites, so I knew they would eliminate each other early, if they made it out of the first round. I’m a bit surprised Khan didn’t even make the final four, although I didn’t expect him to win. I think he would have been too obvious of a choice. As far as my two picks being original series, I guess I’m still stuck in the bronze age. Wait that’s the wrong medium and decade…Oh, well.

  6. Ultimately, this was a very entertaining episode, but I did find myself confused on the question of whether or not panelists felt able to use whatever criteria they preferred to choose bracket winners, or if they felt they had to follow rules laid down by someone else (you, Siskoid? I’m honestly not sure). Several times, folks said something like “according to the rules you (unspecific) set,” and if there were indeed such rules, I hadn’t picked up on them at the beginning.

    That said, while folks certainly DID use different criteria than I did (I was 100% thinking only “who is the better *character* who happens to be in this ‘villains’ bracket?” rather than anything like “who is more evil?” or “who is the better *villain*?”), I felt that there were nearly always well-reasoned arguments behind each person’s selections, and that’s what I ultimately look for in this kind of a face-off. Well done, all!

    1. No rules from me. The “rules” were based on the growing consensus within the group. “You” in the phrase could mean anyone who set rules for themselves (like Ryan and his quest for the ultimate evil), and the participant referring to those.

  7. That is the best bracket fight yet I’ve listened to. It wasn’t the ending I expected, but it’s hard to fault the logic. A pleasant and enjoyable twist that kept it interesting.

    I think DS9 clearly should be the winner in the best villains, best anti-heroes, best morally ambiguous characters, and best flawed heroes categories.

    Any odd choices (Hoshi over Georgiou) seemed quirky and fun, and not total WTF (unlike Riker over Picard).

    Just got back from What We Left Behind. I think you’ll be very happy with it. The audience was extremely response, and we were all laughing at the great humour in it.

  8. At the risk of being an armchair quarterback, it’s interesting how many times Kruge was defended for destroying the Enterprise. But not once was it mentioned that the Enterprise D was destroyed by the Duras Sisters. I’m undecided if that alone would have moved them forward more in the bracket, but I would have liked more of a fight on their behalf. They’re the Cruella DeVil and Ursula of TNG.

    Locutus. I was out of college 1 year when Best of Both Worlds Part 1 aired. My friends and I talked about it a LOT that summer. We even had a party to watch Part 2 as a group. So count me among those that consider the mere existence of Locutus a “big deal”.

    Highly interesting and entertaining bracket fight. Here’s hoping we’re all still friends! Well done, Siskoid.

  9. This was fun. It had much better organization than the previous brackets you guys have done.

    I have to admit, I’m not current with all the prequel stuff. Eventually I’ll get to Discovery – maybe.

    I liked the logic on a lot of the villain decisions. And while there were a couple surprises, I didn’t find the final decision a surprise at all. Kudos to Louise Fletcher, queen of the insidious. But I didn’t here about the contest until the end of the episode.

    Nicely done gentlemen!

  10. I feel about Emperor Georgiou the way Siskoid feels about the Founder Leader. She’s definitely a top villain, but I hate the character for dragging Starfleet and the Federation down with her.

    She should be in the brig, she should be in maximum security prison, or she should be killed if that’s what it takes to prevent corrupt Admirals from giving her power. What greater evil is there in the Star Trek multiverse, than the Terran Empire? Going by the Enterprise and Discovery episodes, it’s basically Hell, and she’s Satan/God. Depending on who you think is the true villain of those two.

    Juxtaposed with Kai Winn, who is less evil, but is very self-serving, exploitative, and willing to sacrifice innocent people to get her way. The DS9 team show her no more respect than they have to, based on the status that the otherwise friendly Bajoran people have given her. There might be one or two episodes where I wonder why they (especially non-Starfleet Kira) don’t just expose her villainy to the public. But she in no way ruins DS9 the way the Emperor ruins Discovery for me.

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