Although every single book about Star Trek does say City of the Edge of Forever is the best episode ever, I have never liked it. Time travel plots are almost always among the worst of any TV series, comic book, or sci-fi novel. There are notable exceptions (a couple of ST:TNG episodes come to mind and the TV series Quantum Leap), but this episode is not among them. Harlan Ellison is completely overrated. The guy doesn’t even like Star Trek!

Amok Time does give a glimpse of Vulcan society, but depends on the premise that Spock miscalculates his ability to withstand the biological mating drives of his people. That’s right, Spock MISCALCULATES. So, to see into his culture, Spock is forced to very artificially act out of character.

I can live with the other two choices, but there were still better episodes.

And I totally agree with Space Seed, which is perhaps the best of the entire series.

I am not good with the episode names, but the one where Kirk gets split in two by the transporter, The Enemy Within (I think) was also one of the best and had the first Vulcan Neck Pinch, which was much more intrinsic to the character of Spock than much of the Amok Time episode.

And people knock it, but the Salt Sucker episode was fantastic for a sci-fi adventure. It had everything, a monster, ray guns, the whole shape shifting shtick, and without it, McCoy would never have gotten those nifty medical scanner thingies which were designed to be salt shakers for that episode.

And my personal fav… Charlie X. I think most of us started watching Trek as kids and here was a teenager with the ability to do anything and he got live on the Enterprise.