Author Topic: Worst Star Trek ep?  (Read 4668 times)

kibitzer

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on: November 04, 2009, 02:45:59 AM
Dunno if this has already been done; been done to death; is of no interest -- but anyway...

An offhand remark on the boards the other day left me thinking about bad Star Trek episodes. My least favourite episode -- ever -- would have to be "Shades of Gray". It's the final episode in Season 2 of Next Gen and is simply a clip show with a weak thread "holding" it together. There's others not so good but this one is absolutely appalling.

Anyone care to offer their opinion on least fave ep? (From any series, not the movies. I'd nominate most DS9 eps -- but I'm a die-hard TNG fan. Also quite like Enterprise).


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Reply #1 on: November 04, 2009, 03:08:24 AM
Anyone care to offer their opinion on least fave ep? (From any series, not the movies. I'd nominate most DS9 eps -- but I'm a die-hard TNG fan. Also quite like Enterprise).

In the original series, I'd say either "Spock's Brain" or "The Way to Eden".  Or that one where "parallel evolution" had the American pledge of allegiance to the flag, and the Constitution, on a distant alien world.

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Boggled Coriander

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Reply #2 on: November 04, 2009, 03:36:29 AM
There's also "The Alternative Factor", which may not have been as memorably rotten as "Spock's Brain," but was one heck of an ill-executed hour of television as Kirk and a wild-haired man use up a considerable chunk of the episode's running time chasing each other across the surface of a boring planet, for reasons that don't stand up under much scrutiny.

I'll say one thing in defense of "The Way to Eden".  It's a very, very rare Trek episode that gives us a glimpse of low-brow Federation pop culture, and prominently features Federation civilians who aren't some kind of specialists on the job (like scientists or engineers).  But I won't deny it failed gloriously and collapsed into a steaming pile of suck.

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Reply #3 on: November 04, 2009, 04:16:13 AM
I'll say one thing in defense of "The Way to Eden".  It's a very, very rare Trek episode that gives us a glimpse of low-brow Federation pop culture, and prominently features Federation civilians who aren't some kind of specialists on the job (like scientists or engineers).  But I won't deny it failed gloriously and collapsed into a steaming pile of suck.

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Reply #4 on: November 04, 2009, 11:41:39 AM
Original Series-Spock's Brain or  was it A Private Little War?  The one that at the time was I suspect a very well done Vietnam/Cold War allegory and now really doesn't stand up/

Next Gen-Pen Pals (Data gets a cute alien girl penfriend!  And that's about it!) was about as bad as it was possible to be.  Resolutely unfond of a couple of the Q episodes too.

Deep Space Nine-Brian Thompson.  As an alien.  Dressed in lycra.  With metal ball bearings stuck to his face paint covered forehead.  I can't remember the name of the episode but I can remember it being so unspeakably, relentlessly awful that I nearly gave up on the show.  Thankfully I didn't, because pretty much everything from Way of the Warrior onwards was rock solid.

Voyager-Threshold was an abomination and, whilst I'm all for giving people a fair shake and accepting that they can change?  I can understand why years later, a lot of Trek fans can't forgive Brannon Braga for this one.

Enterprise-Trip gets pregnant, wackiness UTTERLY fails to ensue springs to mind although the thumb in the eye that was the final episode again stands as a fairly high end piece of lousy.



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Reply #5 on: November 04, 2009, 11:55:25 AM
Original Series-Spock's Brain or  was it A Private Little War?  The one that at the time was I suspect a very well done Vietnam/Cold War allegory and now really doesn't stand up/

"A Private Little War" was the Vietnam allegory where the Federation and the Klingons arm and support rival warring factions on a primitive planet.  It was also the episode with the shrieking leaping albino gorilla thing.  I do not recall what the shrieking leaping albino gorilla thing was meant to represent.

Deep Space Nine-Brian Thompson.  As an alien.  Dressed in lycra.  With metal ball bearings stuck to his face paint covered forehead.  I can't remember the name of the episode but I can remember it being so unspeakably, relentlessly awful that I nearly gave up on the show.  Thankfully I didn't, because pretty much everything from Way of the Warrior onwards was rock solid.

Your description did not ring a bell for me, so I did some looking and I'm happy to report that a portrait of the gentleman in question can be found here.

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Reply #6 on: November 04, 2009, 07:54:50 PM
An offhand remark on the boards the other day left me thinking about bad Star Trek episodes. My least favourite episode -- ever -- would have to be "Shades of Gray". It's the final episode in Season 2 of Next Gen and is simply a clip show with a weak thread "holding" it together. There's others not so good but this one is absolutely appalling.

It's funny you mention that; "Peak Performance" was just on Peachtree TV here in Atlanta and I told my wife (who is a big TNG fan) that it would've been a much better season finale than the one they actually used.

TNG Season 2 had some crap in it...

* "The Outrageous Okona" -- Data's a comedian with Joe Piscopo
* "Shades of Grey" -- Talk about a bottle show... everyone just sits in Sickbay
* "Up the Long Ladder" -- Could've been a great commentary on cloning but was weakened by the Irish stereotypes
* That one where Pulaski got older and they solved it with her hairbrush but then why don't they just do that to everyone to make them young forever? She remembered everything that happened on the shuttle, but they reformed her pattern from old DNA? WTF?
* "Pen Pals" -- At least Nikki Cox grew up to be hot enough that she can pretend no one remembers THAT role
* "Samaritan Snare" -- Another good Picard/Wesley episode that was shattered by the Pakleds -- by the way I once watched that episode with, I think, Swedish subtitles... it was HILARIOUS
* "Manhunt" -- the WORST Mrs. Troi episode ever, where she casually solves the mystery at the end... WTF?

It also had some good ones, but that's like 33% of the second season that was horrible. How did the show ever get renewed?

I would have to say that "Manhunt" is my least favorite TNG episode. I also didn't like "Bloodlines", where Daimon Bok returned (late in the series) and brought Picard's "son" with him. That one was pretty lame.

TOS: I know "Space Seed" was a great episode, but it's been in EVERY TOS marathon and I'm so sick of it.

I haven't watched the others enough times to form an opinion, but for Voyager, any episode with the town of Fair Haven instantly went on my crap list. Janeway falling in love with a hologram? Okay, the Doctor became sentient, but the other guy's just a... a toy! You're a damn starship captain! Grow up! Have sex with Chakotay already! The entire audience can smell the sexual tension from 75,000 light years away!

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kibitzer

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Reply #7 on: November 04, 2009, 10:01:40 PM
Enterprise-Trip gets pregnant, wackiness UTTERLY fails to ensue springs to mind although the thumb in the eye that was the final episode again stands as a fairly high end piece of lousy.

I kinda didn't mind the Trip pregnant one (having watched it just last week) but I agree it wasn't the best. And the last ep? What a cheap, lousy way to kill a great show. And what an unforgivably trashy thing they did to Trip's character.


Boggled Coriander

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Reply #8 on: November 05, 2009, 03:21:30 AM
DS9 started severely testing my patience around the time we found out that people in the 24th century really really like 20th-century lounge music.  As far as I'm concerned, the less time they could have spent on Vic Fontaine, the better.

But when the original series tried to show us futuristic pop music, we got "The Way to Eden".  Maybe TNG was right to limit its supposedly Earth-based music to Bach and Mozart.

"The meteor formed a crater, vampires crawling out of the crater." -  The Lyttle Lytton contest


stePH

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Reply #9 on: November 05, 2009, 04:45:58 AM
DS9 started severely testing my patience around the time we found out that people in the 24th century really really like 20th-century lounge music.  As far as I'm concerned, the less time they could have spent on Vic Fontaine, the better.

But when the original series tried to show us futuristic pop music, we got "The Way to Eden".  Maybe TNG was right to limit its supposedly Earth-based music to Bach and Mozart.
Don't forget, Riker played jazz trombone.

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Riker: "It's better than music -- it's jazz."

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Reply #10 on: November 07, 2009, 05:07:08 PM
::quiet voice::  I like "Spock's Brain"...and "Way to Eden"...because they're so awful.

My personal stinker episode has to be "Miri," though...it just seems so skeevy.

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kibitzer

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Reply #11 on: November 07, 2009, 09:53:52 PM
Remembered one other TNG crap-fest -- the one where they devolve into primitive versions of themselves. The fish-troi, the beast-Worf, the spider-Barclay... just awful. The only redeeming feature was Riker devolving into the primitive ape-man that he is.


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Reply #12 on: November 07, 2009, 10:47:50 PM
DS9 started severely testing my patience around the time we found out that people in the 24th century really really like 20th-century lounge music.  As far as I'm concerned, the less time they could have spent on Vic Fontaine, the better.

But when the original series tried to show us futuristic pop music, we got "The Way to Eden".  Maybe TNG was right to limit its supposedly Earth-based music to Bach and Mozart.
Don't forget, Riker played jazz trombone.

Worf: "It is not music!"
Riker: "It's better than music -- it's jazz."

That is better than music.

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