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selenakFirst, I must specify that „Top Ten“ means „my favourite top ten“, not „the objectively top ten most important/best written/acted friendships“. For example, as I recall Ira Behr in one of the specials for the s7 of DS9 dvds declares the friendship between O’Brien and Bashir to be the best in Star Trek, and this, he adds defiantly, includes Kirk/Spock. Leaving writerly pride (since he took part in developing said relationship) aside, he’s got a point in as much as it’s one of the best and most consistently developed friendships, from the moment O’Brien is appalled by eager young puppy Bashir when they meet to the mutual love declaration near the end of s7. However, as this particular relationship never meant much to me, personally, you won’t find it on this list.
So: my entirely subjective top ten, in no particular order, excluding Star Trek: Discovery, since half a season of material isn’t enough to make such a judgment, and Star Trek: Enterprise because I only saw part of canon and don’t remember enough of what I saw.
TOS: Kirk-Spock-McCoy. Yes, I could list „Kirk and Spock“, „Kirk and McCoy“, and „McCoy and Spock“ all individually, but one of the things which made the original triad so compelling was that really each member cared about each of the others, had a strong relationship with each of the others, and no one was an also ran. And I resent fanfic which doesn’t consider that.
Reboot movies: Pike & Kirk. It pushed each of my fatherly mentor buttons, and I will forever regret Abrams & Co didn’t have the courage to end the first movie with Pike in command of the Enterprise and Kirk and Spock both serving as his officers, which would have made so much more sense. Anyway, Pike & Kirk: loved each of their scenes.
(I wanted to list Spock & Saavik here as well, but I’m a „only the movies and tv shows are canon“ person, and me falling for the Saavik and Spock relationship was mostly due to the combination of Vonda McIntyre’s ST II novelization and Carolyn Cowles‘ novel „The Pandora Principle“, which gave us the background of Saavik being half Romulan and raised by Spock. Now I adored their relationship in those novels, but on screen they only have a few lines of dialogue in STII and some scenes where Spock is literally out of his mind in ST III, which would not have done the trick on their own. Moreover, subsequent novels made the appalling decision of letting Saavik and Spock become a couple, which I hated.)
TNG: Guinan & Picard: It was mysterious and ambiguous and we only ever got hints how their deep mutual trust was established, but it made for powerful scenes. (I mean, Picard risked the lives of his entire crew simply on Guinan’s feeling they were in the wrong time line!)
Riker & Troi: the first exes in ST who successfully managed both a good professional relationship and a strong friendship post romance, being there for each other in a crisis (as when Troi temporarilly lost her powers in „Loss“), and not interfering with each other’s love lives. Yes, they got together again romantically post show, but that doesn’t exclude the relationship from the „friendship“ category for the entire TNG run. Look, I’m fond of my share of dysfunctional can’t live with, can’t live without relationships, I’ll not deny it, but every now and then I’m truly grateful fiction offers me adult exes as friends as well.
Data & Geordi: just had each other’s backs, and possibly the most uncomplicated relationship in their lives. (Except when Geordi had to look after Data’s cat.) Can’t imagine TNG without them.
(Couldn’t list: Sarek & Picard, because intense mind sharing in two episodes does not a friendship make, but despite the lack of screentime, their scenes are a big reason why I started to love TNG.)
DS9: Quark & Jadzia Dax, to no one’s surprise who has read my DS9 stuff. This started in s2 with Jadzia beginning to hang out with Quark and continued to Quark joining an insane quest for her sake after she’d died. Yes, it became love on his side, but it was friendship first, and arguably the strongest relationship he had with a non-Ferengi in his life. As for Dax, I believe her when she tells Pel she (Jadzia) loves Quark.
Dax (any of them) & Benjamin Sisko: through three incarnations (and a half, if you count the symbiont thief from early s2 who got distracted by the symbiont not coping with rejection by Sisko), this was a delightful friendship, with both oft hem at different times playing the role of advisor and advised. I have some other problems with the storyline in question, but Sisko getting into his existential crisis by mainly by losing one Dax and being pulled out of it mainly by another always struck me as entirely plausible.
Jake & Nog: Talk about friendship with Ferengi. The kids literally grew up on the show, and if their early scenes were both comic relief and a chance to confront Sisko with his own bias, they later had plausible teenage fallouts and reconciliations, partly due to choosing different paths (and I’ll always love that it’s Nog who starts a Starfleet career, while Jake remains a civilian and sticks to his writing, heartrendering AU episode aside), yet the affection remained. I think poor old Wesley got too harsh a deal in terms of fan hatred on TNG, but it’s undeniable that by the time DS9 came along, the writing for teenagers and the awareness of how to integrate them in the overall story had impoved.
Garak & Bashir: I feel a bit like cheating when listing them because they were my earliest slash ship and I ship them still. But then again, I listed Riker & Troi. So. From their first encounter in early s1 till the s4 episode „Our Man Bashir“ (after which the show infamously got gunshy and hardly gave them any scenes anymore for the remainder of the show, with a very few exceptions), this was and remains one of my favourite ST relationships, full stop. On one level, it was the cynicism/idealism combination, but it was also that they were learning from each other; I think Garak needed Julian Bashir not to give up on his ideals as much as Bashir needed to figure out where his own lines were.
Voyager: Janeway & Seven of Nine. I was starting to go off ST during the early Voy seasons (though now in retrospect I see the show and what it did especially with the female roles somewhat differently), but s4 made me for a while a dedicated viewer, and the Janeway-Seven relationship was a big reason why. It was hard to categorize, and I like that the show never tried to make it just one thing or the other, that it remained prickly and intense, supportive and argumentative, throughout the time I was watching.
The other days
So: my entirely subjective top ten, in no particular order, excluding Star Trek: Discovery, since half a season of material isn’t enough to make such a judgment, and Star Trek: Enterprise because I only saw part of canon and don’t remember enough of what I saw.
TOS: Kirk-Spock-McCoy. Yes, I could list „Kirk and Spock“, „Kirk and McCoy“, and „McCoy and Spock“ all individually, but one of the things which made the original triad so compelling was that really each member cared about each of the others, had a strong relationship with each of the others, and no one was an also ran. And I resent fanfic which doesn’t consider that.
Reboot movies: Pike & Kirk. It pushed each of my fatherly mentor buttons, and I will forever regret Abrams & Co didn’t have the courage to end the first movie with Pike in command of the Enterprise and Kirk and Spock both serving as his officers, which would have made so much more sense. Anyway, Pike & Kirk: loved each of their scenes.
(I wanted to list Spock & Saavik here as well, but I’m a „only the movies and tv shows are canon“ person, and me falling for the Saavik and Spock relationship was mostly due to the combination of Vonda McIntyre’s ST II novelization and Carolyn Cowles‘ novel „The Pandora Principle“, which gave us the background of Saavik being half Romulan and raised by Spock. Now I adored their relationship in those novels, but on screen they only have a few lines of dialogue in STII and some scenes where Spock is literally out of his mind in ST III, which would not have done the trick on their own. Moreover, subsequent novels made the appalling decision of letting Saavik and Spock become a couple, which I hated.)
TNG: Guinan & Picard: It was mysterious and ambiguous and we only ever got hints how their deep mutual trust was established, but it made for powerful scenes. (I mean, Picard risked the lives of his entire crew simply on Guinan’s feeling they were in the wrong time line!)
Riker & Troi: the first exes in ST who successfully managed both a good professional relationship and a strong friendship post romance, being there for each other in a crisis (as when Troi temporarilly lost her powers in „Loss“), and not interfering with each other’s love lives. Yes, they got together again romantically post show, but that doesn’t exclude the relationship from the „friendship“ category for the entire TNG run. Look, I’m fond of my share of dysfunctional can’t live with, can’t live without relationships, I’ll not deny it, but every now and then I’m truly grateful fiction offers me adult exes as friends as well.
Data & Geordi: just had each other’s backs, and possibly the most uncomplicated relationship in their lives. (Except when Geordi had to look after Data’s cat.) Can’t imagine TNG without them.
(Couldn’t list: Sarek & Picard, because intense mind sharing in two episodes does not a friendship make, but despite the lack of screentime, their scenes are a big reason why I started to love TNG.)
DS9: Quark & Jadzia Dax, to no one’s surprise who has read my DS9 stuff. This started in s2 with Jadzia beginning to hang out with Quark and continued to Quark joining an insane quest for her sake after she’d died. Yes, it became love on his side, but it was friendship first, and arguably the strongest relationship he had with a non-Ferengi in his life. As for Dax, I believe her when she tells Pel she (Jadzia) loves Quark.
Dax (any of them) & Benjamin Sisko: through three incarnations (and a half, if you count the symbiont thief from early s2 who got distracted by the symbiont not coping with rejection by Sisko), this was a delightful friendship, with both oft hem at different times playing the role of advisor and advised. I have some other problems with the storyline in question, but Sisko getting into his existential crisis by mainly by losing one Dax and being pulled out of it mainly by another always struck me as entirely plausible.
Jake & Nog: Talk about friendship with Ferengi. The kids literally grew up on the show, and if their early scenes were both comic relief and a chance to confront Sisko with his own bias, they later had plausible teenage fallouts and reconciliations, partly due to choosing different paths (and I’ll always love that it’s Nog who starts a Starfleet career, while Jake remains a civilian and sticks to his writing, heartrendering AU episode aside), yet the affection remained. I think poor old Wesley got too harsh a deal in terms of fan hatred on TNG, but it’s undeniable that by the time DS9 came along, the writing for teenagers and the awareness of how to integrate them in the overall story had impoved.
Garak & Bashir: I feel a bit like cheating when listing them because they were my earliest slash ship and I ship them still. But then again, I listed Riker & Troi. So. From their first encounter in early s1 till the s4 episode „Our Man Bashir“ (after which the show infamously got gunshy and hardly gave them any scenes anymore for the remainder of the show, with a very few exceptions), this was and remains one of my favourite ST relationships, full stop. On one level, it was the cynicism/idealism combination, but it was also that they were learning from each other; I think Garak needed Julian Bashir not to give up on his ideals as much as Bashir needed to figure out where his own lines were.
Voyager: Janeway & Seven of Nine. I was starting to go off ST during the early Voy seasons (though now in retrospect I see the show and what it did especially with the female roles somewhat differently), but s4 made me for a while a dedicated viewer, and the Janeway-Seven relationship was a big reason why. It was hard to categorize, and I like that the show never tried to make it just one thing or the other, that it remained prickly and intense, supportive and argumentative, throughout the time I was watching.
The other days
