One of my favorites, too. I liked the confrontation with Decker and the bridge crew. Kirk saying, "Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard" was great. I'm not the greatest fan of the Gorn episode. Another favorite is the Romulan bird of prey. Of course, "A Piece of the Action" was hilarious.
I watched a few of ST:TNG episodes and didn't like it. I can only think of a couple that were the slightest bit interesting: the one where they were caught in a time loop collision with an older ship, and the one where they thaw out people from the 20th century before confronting the Romulans. I thought the 20th century people were infinitely more interesting than Picard, et. al. Patrick Stewart is the worst actor and, IMHO, singlehandedly killed the series for me.
I haven't watched any of the other ST series. ST:TNG was too boring and I have no desire to see the others.
I haven't checked, but I thought "Doomsday Machine" won an award ... maybe for acting or sceeenplay. That episode used action/battle and intrigue, while giving a dose of Roddenberry social commentary. I'll have to look up who actually wrote the script.
The Next Generation was very "preachy" the first season, but got better when they increased the action and decreased the social commentary.
The series probably would have sucked just as much without him. Although, I won't watch anything with him in it. He's horrid, such a wimp.
That first Romulan episode was a direct rip-off of an old Robert Mitchum, Curd Jürgens, WW2 sub movie "The Enemy Below"
The famed “cloaking” was started a plot device to have a space ship emulate a sub so the could rip off and old (but good) WW2 movie story line.
It also ended up being one of the better Star Trek