Probably the DS9 episode where they give Quark a sex change operation and the Ferenghi liquidator tries to rape him.
They should delete that episode, there’s no value in watching it.
I had completely wiped that from my memory…thanks…I guess…
I find it quite funny in places in an old school farce kind of way. Like a Carry on Film in the Trek universe. Move Along Home can get deleted before Profit and Lace any day.
It wasn’t the liquidator, it was the CEO of Slug-O-Cola.
Right, it wasn’t Brunt, I thought he was another liquidator for some reason.
I did try to erase that episode from my brain, I guess it didn’t fully take.
DS9. The Dominion is about to come through the wormhole with hundreds or thousands of ships and the prophets are like “omg Sisco you can’t have a fucking war here, man, we need you later on” and Sisco was “fuck you, I do whatever I want, do your magic, I don’t care, it’s man’s business” so Sisco wont retreat.
and then what happened?
The whole fucking Dominion fleet just disappeared, poof! like Sisco used some kind of cheat code.
fuck that.
anyway, it’s not the scene itself that was bad, but man. that was so freaking cheap I think the whole show changed in me a little bit after that. still amazing series, tho
One of DS9s driving themes from the pilot was deconstructing the almost militant atheism of TNG, exploring the nature of faith and how far people will go for it. A mortal man refusing the divine plan and choosing free will despite it meaning his own death and forcing them to save the Alpha Quadrant via Deus Ex Machina is totally in keeping with that theme.
really good point
I mean, all they had to do was use a previously established device - they had the minefield in place that was preventing the fleet from comming through. Could’ve involved the wormhole aliens in that so that it doesn’t get destroyed when they think it has. Everything would’ve been the same, with Sisko unknowingly going into a minefield and the aliens trying to dissuade him from killing himself in a pointless fight
In Star Trek Online the fleet shows up years later and attack the station. They weren’t destroyed just relocated in time (no pun intended).
The prophets were legitly just as assholish as Q, but with less understanding of reality.
No wonder Bajorans worshipped them as gods.
That scene is a triumph of Federation ideology.
Finding the wormhole was a lucky accident, but everything else which lead to that apparent deus ex machina came about from Starfleet doing exactly what was needed to get the Prophets on their side: not with the intention or expectation of that ultimate result, but because it slotted right in with what the Federation wants to do anyway.
Sicko and his crew communicate with these strange life forms in they find, and make an effort to not only understand them but respect their wishes. They offer enormous practical support to Bajor and attempt to encourage them to join the Federation formally, but they respect the wishes of the Bajorans even when highly inconvenient (such as the abrupt pivot away from Federation membership that preceded the Dominion War). In short, Sisko and the government backing him legitimately earned the trust of both Bajor and the Prophets by being explorers, diplomats, and excellent allies. The military payoff they got is hardly the point, but they earned it.
Would any of the other races have earned the favor of the Prophets the way the Federation did? The Klingons, Romulans, and obviously the Cardassians would have taken over as brutal occupiers if they felt the need to get involved with Bajor at all. The Ferengi would have ruthlessly exploited Bajoran resources in their own way (which we know the Prophets were no fans of, see their temporary rewiring of Grand Nagus Zek), while the Borg would have simply consumed everything they found useful. Here, it’s the uniquely decent actions and values of the Federation that win out.
I mean, I’m not saying that part was a mistake or anything like that, it’s just when I first saw this whole “how do you turn this on” cobra car cheatcode like thing… only that scene was made me question for once that am I really watching Star Trek? it just felt off.
but granted, DS9 is a very different Star Trek. it’s an amazing one. that’s for sure.
and also granted I’m “just” at the 4th season of Voyager, not too much ago finished DS9.
When Spock fails to get laid because he’s a half-breed.
The “Allamaraine” song scene from DS9’s Move Along Home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FM6Xfs2ZoY
In fact that whole episode.
I like that episode actually… Lol.
Almost any scene in the decon chamber on the NX-01.
Anything involving time travel. It’s the sci-fi equivilent of jumping the shark. There needs to be a viewer warning at the beginning of such episodes stating:
Warning! Our writers are currently out of good ideas. So, we threw this lazy shit together, which is going to be completely unsatisfying and will leave you with a vague feeling that the show should just end and let the writers move on to something new. Viewer discretion is advised.
As an added warning, any episode which involves going back to the real present day should end the above warning with 20 minutes of Bobcat Goldwaith screaming.
The DS9 episode where it’s set in 1970’s Manhatten is the rare exception, because it tells a very good story about racism but it’s not “time travel” per se because there’s no temporal mechanics impact.
I really liked that episode.
I thought the two time travel episodes in the latest SNW series, Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow and Those Old Scientists handled it really well. They finally dealt with the sliding timeline issue for events that were supposed to be in the 90s during TOS.
I liked the strange new worlds time travel episode. It was tongue in cheek and a real fun episode with some character building.
What??? DS9 did time travel incredibly well. You know this month is the year of the Riots? August 2023!
Voyager laughs its ass off as it goes to present day LA to shoot a 2 parter minutes from the studio itself.
No way is it present day, it was like the 90’s and there were no homeless lol
It was shot in their present day in 96’ and the first episode prominently featured a 29th century homeless man.
Neelix and Kes when Kes is essentially in heat. That episode was so gross
Right, Kes is like 4 years old then
More like 2, actually. 4 would have been the normal time for her race, but some electrical storm nonsense kicked it off early for her temporarily.
I dont think that episode is that weird overall. They wanted to address the reproductive cycle of a very short lived race and also have a “what does it mean to be a parent” moral lesson.
“Hold hands with me to breed” is some pretty mild sex talk honestly, especially for the “go fast and have lizard sex” writers.
They seriously didn’t think it through, though.
Apparently Ocampa females go into heat exactly once in their lives, and have a typical litter size of one? Each generation should be less than half the size of the one before it.
Paris and Janeway, as lizards, doing the space sex, because they went too fast.
I actually thought this was the best episode. Not enough lizard sex scenes in star trek.
Strange New Worlds has you covered.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
This was definitely going to be my answer too
I’m going to say any space battle scene made since 2009.
From TOS up through Enterprise, you could follow the space battles. “This ship went this way and fired phasers but it only hit the ship’s shields, then they fired back…” Camera movements were smooth and comfortable, you could see and tell what is going on.
J. J. Abrams shows up and all of a sudden we’ve got panicky Saving Private Ryan cam and there’s just nine layers of beam spam on the screen. Everyone is machine gunning everyone from every which way. It’s got George Lucas syndrome. “Put more special effect bullshit on the screen. More. MORE. MOOOOOREEEEE!”
This is one of the many things that Strange New Worlds (and Lower Decks as well) have got right. Space battles in SNW are beautifully animated, but they aren’t overwhelmed with excess visual spectacles and they tend to be fundamentally simple: you shoot at us, we shoot back or try to find some helpful obstruction to hide behind, etc.
Even Prodigy’s big space battle in their finale manages the task to some degree, despite it’s scale. I remember watching it felt oddly sluggish, as the ratio of ships on screen to weapons being fired was surprisingly low, but it definitely made it easier to keep track of whatever specific event the camera was focussed on.
Space battles in The Expanse are the best I’ve seen in all sci-fi. Actually Physics-Informed; like firing the thrusters to counter the recoil of their rail guns.
I love Star Trek but the tech woowoo always kinda drives me crazy. Even if it was a inspiration to become an engineer in the first place (the NCC1701-D Technical Manual was one of my favorite books growing up lol).
I think this was beaten by that battle at the end of Discovery series 2 with the most over the top CG dog dogfight with far too many ships I’ve ever seen. It’s not like Trek can’t do big scale battles, DS9 proved that, but this was just a a mess.
Star Trek 2009 ended the franchise for me. At the end of Trek '09, I thought to myself Welp, it’s been a good run, but they’re making Hollywood budget fanfics now. The actual show is done.
09 was alright, Into Darkness was the low point for me, I think the first two series of Picard were down there with it, but in the last few years they’ve really pulled their socks up.
I would agree, '09 was alright. I enjoyed it. It is a fanfic. 'I’m gonna do MY thing with these characters." I haven’t seen any Trek made since, official first-party fanfics signal to me the end of a franchise. My understanding of the franchise since has been:
- Into Darkness: Attempt to redo Wrath of Kahn because Nemesis worked so well.
- A third Chris Pine TOS era movie: I think they made one?
- Discovery: What if Star Trek, but the crew are all immature adolescents who don’t deal with a single goddamn thing like mature adults?
- Below Decks: What if Star Trek, but it’s Rick and Morty?
- Picard: What if geriatrics?
Have I missed anything?
A third Chris Pine TOS era movie: I think they made one?
My favourite of the trilogy. Which is to say, I didn’t turn it off.
Discovery started really poorly, but after they abandoned the prequel idea and went to the far future in S3 it picked up but will never be great due to some fundamental choices in the writing and tone.
Lower Decks betrays how good Star Trek it actually is with it’s style. Yes it has humour, but it has heart rather than Rick and Mortys endless nihilism. It’s commitment to canon and Trek ethos is top notch.
Picard was two awful series, followed by an amazing one that felt like a fifth TNG film and capped off those characters and hanging threads from that era nicely.
Strange New Worlds has just been great from the start, Episodic Trek as it should be with a much more likable cast than Discovery and the bravery to push the boat out a bit creatively.
Prodigy, a solid gateway series for younger people to get into the franchise but not so watered down you can’t enjoy it as an adult. It’s like Star Wars Clone Wars or Rebels series in that way.
So yeah, I’m fairly happy with where the franchise is now as an old school fan, but there were some dark years there.
Tasha Yar dies due to the Exxon Valdez.
As characters I hate all Crushers and episodes dedicated for them.
…but there are episodes worse than those.
“shut up Wesley” will always make me laugh
didnt Weaton get that so much in real life that he had a social media fit or something?
Someone made a tng Lego set where Wesley was crying, wil wheton got quite upset because Wesley never actually cried in the show and proceeded to cry about it a lot on the internet
As much as we all hate Wesley, Elnor in Picard made him look like Shaft.
Seasons 1 & 2 of that show don’t exist for me. Elnor who?
I’m okay with the Beverly episode where she’s trapped in a bubble and at first people start disappearing and then the universe collapses in on her. That was okay.
Yea. I wached that a while back, when my wife asked after Picard season 2 “wtf is Wheaton (Wesley) now supposed to be?”
I admit, not a bad episode.
The scene where Riker slops some eggs on a hot plate and Pulaski swoons over his technique.
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There are a few scenes like this that I find really interesting. Especially in TNG, the cast are depicted as these hypercompetent omnitalented people. They’re all astronauts, scientists of some stripe or other, tacticians, diplomats, most are skilled at some kind of martial art, they publish research, and they put on plays and violin recitals in their spare time. But they have no domestic skills whatsoever. None of them can take care of a house cat, they can’t cook, etc.
The Voyager episode Retrospect where Seven was, in her words, violated.
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In the movies I would say when Worf went into Klingon puberty in Star Trek: Insurrection and got a giant pimple in his face that everybody was making fun of.
People often say the Evil Spock episode was memorable, but why? I always thought it was so tropey. It just doesn’t strike me as thought-provoking if you can sum up something with “a parallel universe decided to release an evil version of me with an evil beard and nobody else to come from a parallel universe and frame me aboard my ship”. That would be more in line with Futurama, and ironically they handled the concept better.
I always thought it was so tropey. It just doesn’t strike me as thought-provoking if you can sum up something with “a parallel universe decided to release an evil version of me with an evil beard and nobody else to come from a parallel universe and frame me aboard my ship”.
My friend, where do you think the Beard of Evil trope came from?
That’s like saying Once More, With Feeling is tropey because it’s a Musical Episode.
Do people not watch Star Trek for the scientific concepts? Evil twins from a parallel universe just don’t fit into that.
Neither does Ba-by-GOD-do-DO-do-DO-do-DO
TIL there’s a baby shark religion. That’s impressive.
