Most gruesome/disturbing death scenes?

Yeoman Thompson getting turned into a cube and crushed in "By Any Other Name" was messed up...

 

The two grup deaths in Miri terrified me, especially the tricycle one.

The old man's dead body in The Deadly Years scared me senseless. I couldn't watch the pre-titles teaser for years. Chekhov scrambling in the dark, the light switching on, then the abrupt music from Catspaw, added to Chekhov's own sheer horror, freaked me out for years.

Ultimately, however, it has to be Lights of Zetar. The technician changing colours, aided by the eerie Man Trap cue, was pure nightmare for me. Plus, the repeated Where No Man Has Gone Before cue throughout, is a horrifying enough cue. A rare occasion when a cue is used far better and more effectively in a subsequent episode in library form.

 

Any discussion of disturbing deaths begins and ends with poor Yeoman Thompson.

And I'm not sure the sadly unfortunate lady at MA was still alive, but regardless, that is the scariest scene in all of Star Trek.

 

Being turned inside-out via transporter (TMP and DS9) were a gruesome way to go.

 

got to be the various vampire deaths in Obsession

(and in the movies the Trek II screaming phaser disintegration)

 

Latimer getting a LARGE spear in his back then falling down a cliff with the spear still in his back to his death! Jackson in transporter chamber falls like a log to the ground, (catspaw), the dude didn't flinch! Captain Merrick getting knifed in the back!

 

Although it was mostly left to the imagination, the 2 redshirts who were accidentally beamed into space in ATCSL.

 

I think people being disintegrated by phaser like they never existed is pretty horrific.

 

Which makes Kodos and the Eminians that much more monstrous, when you think about it.

 

There were a lot of scary things happening in this show and we as children were pretty freaked out by them! For me it was Mitchell's eyes (sorry, Gary) the faceless woman in Charlie X, the real Balok, the Talosians, the Gorn, the Amoeba creatures and that was just in the first season!
JB

 

Absolutely.

Also, ninja'd in the OP about Yeoman Thompson.

 

The bicycle scene was the first scene I ever saw as a ten year old in 1974. I remember how it scared me but when I watched the show, I was hooked.

 

Agreed! Actually the planetside scenes in OA with Aurelan screaming are still pretty chilling.

Yes, that scene is both scary and heartbreaking. I particularly like the way McCoy offers comfort to the sadly doomed teenager, saying that of course someone will fix his tricycle. Kirk and even Spock also look appropriately sad and compassionate.

 

The Faceless Woman in "Charlie X."

And, honestly, being burned to a crisp by the Horta seems like a pretty horrific way to go . . . even if the Mamma Horta had her reasons.

 

Not TOS, but getting that Ceti eel in the ear is frightening as hell.

 

At least there were the crispy bits to bury and memorialize.

The whole being phasered out of existence, or put into a disintegrator, reminds me of when a friend at church's dad was helping to clean up an old mining site in Alaska. He was carrying a case of weeping dynamite and tripped, landing on the box. It exploded. His mother, my friend's grandmother, spent the rest of her life in emotional agony because there wasn't enough of him left to scrape into a teaspoon, so there was no body to bury. My friend had emotional problems of her own for several years, as well. That's what I find so disturbing and monstrous about the disintegration thing.

 

You mean the fake vomit pancakes?

 

Most disturbing death?

When Billy Mumy turned that whiny guy into a Jack in the box.

Oops, wait, wrong TV series.

Actually, one death that stands out in my memory was the first crewman's death in "The Man Trap", the very first TOs episode I ever saw. I'm sure I saw it when it was first broadcast in September 1966. The image of the dead guy with the circles on his face is so strong, I can still see it's in black and white; we didn't get a color TV until the summer of 1968.

I otherwise didn't see much of TOs in it's original run because no one else in my family except one sister liked the show so I mostly saw it in the early 70s reruns.

However,I did see more of the third season in its original run because my elder siblings were old enough for it to be more cool to go out on Friday nights than to stay at home and watch TV so I mostly had it to my self on that particular night. I was happily looking forward to watching the third season opening episode on our brand new color TV in glorious living color and it was... "Spock's Brain".

Oh well.

Robert

 

Yeah, that was pretty horrific. Apparently, though, she got better, as per the assurances of the Thasian at the end that everybody has been returned and that everything was as it was.

Plus, I always imagined that Charlie's power kept her alive to wander around the ship, until the intervention by the Thasians, without any possibility of finding... her face.