Game The Most Disliked Comedic/Light-Hearted Episode

[Replica Picard]

I'll save TAS Season 2: "The Practical Joker", mainly because I get a chuckle out of the computer telling Spock, "That is for me to know and you to find out", every time I've seen it. Call me simple, but some of the slapstick works for me, too.

TAS Season 1: “Once Upon A Planet”
TAS Season 2: “Bem”
VOY Season 6: “Spirit Folk”
VOY Season 7: “Q2”

 

[Farscape One]

My final save for this game is "BEM". It's the least bad of what remains.

Good luck figuring out the 'winner', folks.

TAS Season 1: “Once Upon A Planet”
VOY Season 6: “Spirit Folk”
VOY Season 7: “Q2”

 

[eschaton]

Saving Once Upon a Planet. Its not a good episode, but it's a mediocre one, not a bad one. The concept was good - if poorly executed - and the Queen of Hearts trying to decapitate McCoy was pretty funny.

VOY Season 6: “Spirit Folk”
VOY Season 7: “Q2”

 

[Replica Picard]

Let's finish this. I'll save VOY Season 7: “Q2”, strictly on the strength of it always being nice to see John de Lancie.

VOY Season 6: “Spirit Folk”, you SUCK.

 

[Orphalesion]

I mean Spirit Folk does suck. Hard.
This whole parody Irish village stuff on Voyager was just painful.

 

[Seven of Five]

Another win for Spirit Folk. It is positively terrible.

 

[Xhiandra]

As terrible Spirit Folk is, I wonder how "Profit and Lace" didn't win this.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The only case I would have ever saved Spirit Folk is if the other remaining episode was False Profits or Profit and Lace.

 

[Replica Picard]

As terrible Spirit Folk is, I wonder how "Profit and Lace" didn't win this.

As goofy and sexist as it is, it is an important character development episode for Quark, and pretty fun. I'd have definitely saved it before anything to do with Fair Haven.

 

[Sakonna]

I could see myself saving "Profit & Lace" before the other finalists as well. It is terribly offensive in multiple ways and is definitely on any shortlist of the worst Star Trek episodes ever produced, but it also has occasional moments that work and there's at least some energy and vitality to it. It also features heroically committed acting, which I always respond to -- the actors valiantly go down fighting on this one!

In the middle of something right now, but I'll post the full winners list later tonight, and I'll have the next list up tomorrow. As always, thanks to everyone who played! This was a particularly satisfying one, I like how this game turned out.

 

[Xhiandra]

As goofy and sexist as it is, it is an important character development episode for Quark, and pretty fun. I'd have definitely saved it before anything to do with Fair Haven.

It's not only misogynistic and transphobic, but IMO, painfully unfunny. The "jokes" in that episode wouldn't look out of place in a Carry On movie.

 

[Soong-type Android]

I mean Spirit Folk does suck. Hard.
This whole parody Irish village stuff on Voyager was just painful.

Pretty much all the Voyager holodeck episodes are terrible. But particularly Spirit Folk.

 

[eschaton]

Pretty much all the Voyager holodeck episodes are terrible. But particularly Spirit Folk.

Voyager was basically only good when it did low-stakes character focus episodes IMHO.

 

[Seven of Five]

VOY's best use of the holodeck was simply seeing the crew unwind in whatever crazy holodeck program they were using that season, and I always enjoyed seeing what they would come up with next.

I mean, I guess they shouldn't have been using holodecks at all being as they were having to conserve energy. That's beside the point though.

 

[Farscape One]

Ironically, I actually feel out of all the STAR TREK shows, VOYAGER was the one that SHOULD have used the holodeck fairly frequently.

The crew are alone. They never know when they will get to a friendly planet. Or even a Class M planet, period. Being cooped up in a relatively small ship for years at a time will make a LOT of people crazy. And frankly, they need some form of a getaway or relaxation because when in survival mode or work mode all the time, you become less productive. Or worse, you make mistakes that can hurt or even kill the few people on your ship.

If TNG didn't use the holodeck so much, it wouldn't have become a trope and gotten the eye rolls it did on VOYAGER.

There's a lot of VOYAGER that I think needed fixing, but the holodeck usage is actually something I think they used at just about the right level.

Hell, one of the leads is a hologram.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Ironically, I actually feel out of all the STAR TREK shows, VOYAGER was the one that SHOULD have used the holodeck fairly frequently.

The crew are alone. They never know when they will get to a friendly planet. Or even a Class M planet, period. Being cooped up in a relatively small ship for years at a time will make a LOT of people crazy. And frankly, they need some form of a getaway or relaxation because when in survival mode or work mode all the time, you become less productive. Or worse, you make mistakes that can hurt or even kill the few people on your ship.

If TNG didn't use the holodeck so much, it wouldn't have become a trope and gotten the eye rolls it did on VOYAGER.

There's a lot of VOYAGER that I think needed fixing, but the holodeck usage is actually something I think they used at just about the right level.

Hell, one of the leads is a hologram.

Is not the sense of the holodeck being overused tied to the critique that Voyager ignored its premise? I would agree to some degree that the crew would be more concerned with their recreation. The use of the holodeck, though, seems to be another case where the limitations on supplying and maintaining the ship were ignored. Fewer working facilities could have sparked more creative use of the holodeck, but also might have brought about some exploration of relationships among the crew who could not find time to play on the holodeck and were forced to socialize with one another more.

 

[Farscape One]

I see your point and understand it. I stand by own view, though, particularly when there were creative uses of the holodeck in "HEROES AND DEMONS", "WORST CASE SCENARIO", "BRIDE OF CHAOTICA!", and "THE KILLING GAME" two-parter... though in that case, it was the Hirogen using it to hunt and maim the crew.

And Janeway made a great point about the holodeck in "WORST CASE SCENARIO"... with no access to the latest entertainment in the Federation, it's only natural the crew would start creating their own. And frankly, I think it's healthy to have people flex their imagination... it helps them come up with creative solutions to real problems when they occur.

 

[Sakonna]

Our third double-winner! Along with "Shockwave" and "These Are The Voyages..."

Now that we've done the light list, let's follow it with the dark: "The Most Disliked Trek Noir" going up later today. Hope to see you all there!

MOST DISLIKED "WINNER"LOSERS, 2020
"HEY, THIS PLANET IS JUST LIKE EARTH!": TOS, Season 1: "Miri"
WRITER GENE RODDENBERRY: TOS, Season 2: "The Omega Glory"
WRITER D.C. FONTANA: TNG, Season 1: "Too Short A Season"
DIRECTOR CLIFF BOLE: TNG, Season 6: "Aquiel"
SEASON PREMIERE: TNG, Season 7: "Descent, Part II"
PRIME DIRECTIVE: TNG, Season 7: "Homeward"
WRITER RONALD D. MOORE: TNG, Season 7: "Journey's End"
DIRECTOR LES LANDAU: TNG, Season 7: "Bloodlines"
LWAXANA: DS9, Season 1: "The Forsaken"
ROMANCE OF THE WEEK: DS9, Season 3: "Meridian"
FERENGI: DS9, Season 7: "The Emperor's New Cloak"
DIRECTOR WINRICH KOLBE: VOY, Season 2: "Elogium"
CARDASSIANS: VOY, Season 2: "Investigations"
HOLIDAY: VOY, Season 4: "Day Of Honor"
HOLODECK: VOY, Season 6: "Fair Haven"
DIRECTOR DAVID LIVINGSTON: VOY, Season 6: "Spirit Folk"
COMEDIC/LIGHT-HEARTED: VOY, Season 6: "Spirit Folk"
TIME TRAVEL/ANOMALY/LOOP: VOY, Season 6: “Fury”
MAQUIS: VOY, Season 7: "Repression"
BARCLAY: VOY, Season 7: "Inside Man"
Q: VOY, Season 7: "Q2"
LATIN TITLE: ENT, Season 1: "Terra Nova"
2-HOUR/2-PART: ENT, Season 1 & 2: "Shockwave"
VISIT TO EARTH'S "PRESENT": ENT, Season 2: "Shockwave, Part II"
KLINGONS: ENT, Season 2: "Marauders"
HALLUCINATION/ILLUSION: ENT, Season 3: "Extinction"
VISIT TO EARTH'S PAST: ENT, Season 4: "Storm Front, Part I"
THR'S 100 GREATEST TREK EPS: ENT, Season 4: "Home"
CAST CROSSOVER: ENT, Season 4: "These Are The Voyages..."
DIRECTOR ALLAN KROEKER: ENT, Season 4: "These Are The Voyages..."
MIRROR UNIVERSE: DIS, Season 1: "What's Past Is Prologue"
INTRODUCTION OF RECURRING ALIENS: DIS, Season 2: "An Obol For Charon" (the jahSepp)
SECTION 31: DIS, Season 2: "Perpetual Infinity"
RECYCLED TITLE: ST, Season 2: "Children Of Mars"
ROMULANS: PIC, Season 1: "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1"

TOTAL SHOW WINS
TAS & Movies - 0 wins
ST and PIC - 1 win each
TOS - 2 wins
DS9 and DIS - 3 wins each
TNG - 6 wins
ENT - 9 wins
VOY - 10 wins

 

[Farscape One]

I'm finding the end tally results quite interesting, particularly when you consider all of DISCOVERY has the same episode count as season 1 of TOS, vs. DS9 having 176 episodes.

 

[Sakonna]

I was SURE we were going to have a TAS winner this time! Is that show ever going to get on the board?