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Your Favorite Alternate Universe Episodes! Poll Results

Earlier this summer, I ran a series of polls on the Fractured Time message board, in which you had your chance to vote on your favorite "Alternate Universe" episodes in each of seven categories of my own (very subjective) deviising, including time travel, illusions and hallucinations, and alternate/parallel timelines and universes. Here is the top choice in each poll, with percent of votes and actual number of votes out of the total for that poll:

• The Reset Button: The Visitor (DS9; 26%, 46/172)
• Illusions A: Far Beyond the Stars (DS9; 53%, 76/142)
• Illusions B: The Inner Light (TNG; 40%, 51/125)
• Fix the Timeline: Yesterday's Enterprise (TNG; 27%, 44/159)
• Parallels: Parallels (TNG; 34%, 38/110)
• Leave Well Enough Alone: Tapestry (TNG; 62%, 83/132)
• The Rest of Time: All Good Things (TNG; 29%, 27/92)

It was pretty clear that the percentages of votes couldn't be compared directly across polls, because each poll had varying numbers of choices, varying amounts of appeal overall, and different total numbers of votes. You couldn't even directly compare total vote numbers – there were several also-ran episodes that got more votes in their polls than the 27 garnered by All Good Things. So were they more or less popular than All Good Things? To find out, I ran two final polls, for your first and second favorite episodes.

I included in these polls 18 episodes -- the ones that got at least 20 votes in their "category" poll. I figured that indicated at least a moderate level of interest, and it allowed me to include at least the top two from each poll.

So how did the final counts turn out? Here they are – the "Best of the Best" Alternate Universe episodes, according to our message board users!

Top Five "#1 Favorites" (116 Total Votes)

1. All Good Things (TNG; 18 votes, 15%)
2. Star Trek: First Contact (movie; 17 votes, 14%)
3. The Visitor (DS9; 15 votes, 12%)
4. Yesterday's Enterprise (TNG; 14 votes, 12%)
5. The Inner Light (TNG; 13 votes, 11%)

Top Five "#2 Favorites" (83 Total Votes)

1. Yesterday's Enterprise (TNG; 17 votes, 20%)
2. All Good Things (TNG; 9 votes, 10%)
3. Tapestry (TNG; 9 votes, 10%)
4. Star Trek: First Contact (movie; 8 votes, 9%)
5. Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9; 7 votes, 8%)

All Good Things, Yesterday's Enterprise, and Star Trek: First Contact appear to be the big hits – and while All Good Things got the most votes for #1 favorite, Yesterday's Enterprise was picked as #1 or #2 by more people than chose All Good Things in both polls. So, I'm not sure that tells us definitively which one is really more popular – but it's a pretty safe bet that All Good things and Yesterday's Enterprise can be counted as the two favorite AU episodes of Star Trek.

Kathy McCracken (Major Rakal)
STCCG Intelligence Officer and Web Writer

September 20, 2004