Even the best show ever written is bound to have one or two bad episodes, and with a total of over four hundred episodes between all four series, Star Trek has certainly seen some total turkeys over its run. Here I'll be presenting a few; I had intended originally to make a toplist, but sure I can't tell if "Spirit Folk" is worse than "The Omega Glory", or if "Fascination" trumps "Masks" in absurdity and bad writing, so I'll just list them in no order. I will however rate them, the usual one to five, with in this instance five being the worst possible and one being mildly bad. To illustrate this, I'll be using icons of one of the most disliked Star Trek characters ever.
Title: "Starship Mine"
Series: TNG
Season: Six
Writer(s): Morgan Grendel
Main character(s): Picard
Plot: Picard has to go all Die-Hard to save his ship from terrorists. No, really.
There's nothing terribly wrong about this episode, compared to many of the others that will populate this section, but at its heart this is "Die Hard" in space. Well, spacedock. While the rest of the crew are attending a lavish reception (sound familiar?) Picard returns to his ship, which is being decontaminated, and finds that a group of terrorists are using the opportunity to harvest the chemical from the ship's engines to make into bombs and sell to the highest bidder.
Lord preserve us! It's an all-action episode to be sure, but really, it's far below what TNG was capable of and with a few tweaks it could have been on
Criminal Minds, NCIS or any other action cop show. It does give Picard a central role, which he did not always have, and a chance to action-hero it up, but the rest of the crew being held hostage while he does his thing is just way too close to every Bruce Willis movie you've ever seen to be forgiven.
It's odd, too, because the episode was written by Morgan Grendel, who penned the superlative "The inner light" for the previous season. Maybe working on
Nash Bridges, 21 Jump Street and
Law and Order affected him more than he would like to admit!
The episode is marked by the first ever appearance of Tim Russ as one of the terrorists, who would go on to become Tuvok later in VOY. But nobody cares about that.
Rating:
Title: “Explorers”
Series: DS9
Season: Three
Writer(s): Rene Echevarria and Hilary J. Bader
Main character(s): Sisko and Jake
Plot: Sisko decides to see if the ancient Bajorans were able to harness the energy of solar wind power to YAWWWNNNN (sorry, sorry) um, sail across the stars.
Yeah, the above says it all really. Wanting to bond with his son, believing they aren’t spending enough time together Sisko works on an exact duplicate of the solar ship the ancient Bajorans apparently used to sail between planets. He wants to see if it’s possible, and Jake, having a brain and something of a life, is reluctant to accompany him. It’s very much a character-driven episode, but whereas these can be really well written and deep, this is, well, not. It’s like that one where Wesley has to spend hours inside a shuttlecraft with Picard, and they get to know each other better. Really, who gives a ****? We want conflict, space battle, aliens, political upheaval, not two boring bastards having a family moment as they drift across space.
Nothing happens in the episode. Literally. Nothing. Whereas they could have been attacked, or discovered a new moon, or contacted some alien lifeform who became interested in their ship (**** it, I don’t know: they could!
Something could have happened) none of the above happens and the most interesting and exciting part of the episode is when they start to slightly drift off course and Jake has to main the sails. Jesus Christ on toast! Is this
The Onedin Line in space or what? Bo-
ring. I mean, come on, let’s be honest: who gives a rat’s ass what the ancient Bajorans did? The current ones are boring enough.
Written by (well the teleplay anyway) Rene Echevarria, who also penned the drivel that is “I, Borg” for TNG, demystifying and emasculating the most badass aliens ever to threaten a Federation starship. He did however create the series
The 4400, though on the other side of the coin he was also showrunner on Spielberg’s borefest
Terra Nova.
Rating:
Title: “Turnabout Intruder”
Series: TOS
Season: Three
Writer(s): Gene Roddenberry and Arthur H. Singer
Main character(s): Kirk
Plot: After she uses an alien machine to bodyswap with Kirk, Dr. Janice Lester attempts to take over the Enterprise and have Kirk committed or killed.
Could there be a more misogynistic episode of any series? It gets something of a pass, being the final episode of the series but still. The idea of this woman taking over Kirk’s body and then “betraying herself” by her “emotional and irrational” behaviour --- typical woman! --- is both ludicrous and offensive. What Roddenberry was saying, basically, here, or at least the message that came across from it was that women are highly-strung, emotional creatures not fit for command. Now that may have flown and been acceptable in the sixties, but really, could you be more insulting to fifty percent of the world’s population? No wonder early
Trek had few female viewers! Mind you, Roddenberry’s chauvinistic view of women has already been well explored, not least in the attire of the female crew and the lack of any women in positions of command, but even for him this is a new low, and a terrible way to sign off.
It does afford Kirk the chance to indulge himself, playing essentially two people, as he had in “Mirror, mirror” and “The enemy within”. and though he hams it up he’s not bad. Lester, played by Sandra Smith, is actually the better actor here, keeping calm (though of course she is meant to be Kirk) until she is transferred back (with very little scientific explanation) at the end, whereupon she goes totally mad. Her insane decree that Kirk, Spock and Scotty are to be executed --- yes, you read that right:
executed --- is the final straw that tips the balance, but it’s ridiculous that the crew go along with such a wild and un-Kirklike order. Very little to save this episode, and as I said, it’s an awful end to a superb series.
Rating:
Title: “Skin of Evil”
Series: TNG
Season: One
Writer(s): Hannah Louise Shearer and Joseph L. Scanlan
Main character(s): Troi, Picard
Plot: After crashlanding on a remote asteroid, Troi is trapped in the wreckage of a shuttlecraft, but when the Enterprise crew come to rescue her they are stopped by an alien being. Why? Why not…
Oh there are some awful episodes in season one, and I could have chosen any of half a dozen or more, some of which will feature here in due course. But this one takes the proto-biscuit for just being a case of “why the ****?” There’s no explanation given for where Armus, the alien who looks like a cross between liquid Terminator II and a jawa, came from, why it behaves as it does, or even how the crew, who appear trapped by it, escape in the end. Sirtis puts in a decent performance in her limited role, but the bulk of the episode goes to Picard really, as he tries to reason with, and then sneers at Armus. Riker’s drowning-in-a-pool-of-oil is a well done scene but ultimately pointless, as indeed is the whole episode.
Of course, if this episode is remarkable or memorable for anything, it is the sudden, unexpected and pointless death of security chief Tasha Yar, a shamelessly lazy device to have the actress released from her contract at her request. I didn’t particularly like Yar, but we had grown accustomed to her, and for her to die in this grossly “Redshirt” manner was a bit of a kick in the teeth to we fans, I feel. There is at least the touching eulogy and funeral ceremony at the end, which does its best to save the episode but it is well beyond salvation from the moment we meet Armus, and the fact that Picard literally just shrugs his shoulders and says “**** you” to the alien and leaves, when the whole idea has been built up that he can
not leave, is being restrained here, just makes me roll my eyes. Awful, awful episode.
Rating: