"Good Episodes" you think are bad?

[Citiprime]

What I'm saying is, Section 31 didn't think of it and didn't come up with a plan, Sisko did. He wouldn't call them up for their help because he hates them and wants them shut down, and he didn't need them.

Also:

"SLOAN: We don't submit reports or ask for approval for specific operations, if that's what you mean. We're an autonomous department. "

"SISKO: Starfleet Command had given the plan their blessing and I thought that would make things easier. But I was the one who had to make it happen."

Bit of an important distinction.

I always wondered to what extent Sisko confessed to being party to the senator’s murder and Garak’s involvement to Starfleet?

Did he file a confidential report explaining the entire thing?

Or did he just report back the senator left the station not convinced of the forgery, and the entire situation was ambiguous enough that no one in Starfleet could know for a certainty Sisko and Garak had engineered the bombing?

I always felt like the confession into his personal log is him trying to work through it himself to figure out what it means for his character as a person and whether it was worth it. It doesn’t feel like a guy who’s talked to anyone beyond Garak about it, in the way he shows shame and bursts of anger when he’s talking to the audience.

And in trying to justify it, at the end when he says “I can live with it,” it’s him realizing that for the murder to have any meaning and to live with it means living with the lie. In my head, that’s the reason he deletes the log and probably never tells another soul beyond Garak the full extent of what happened.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

There are only 22

Exactly!

I always wondered to what extent Sisko confessed to being party to the senator’s murder and Garak’s involvement to Starfleet?

I think he'd probably already told Starfleet enough for them to connect the dots when the shuttle exploded and I doubt he would've lied just to protect his own skin. But we don't know.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

TAS: I was shocked to see some people put The Counter-Clock Incident on some top 10 lists, as it wouldn't even make my top 25.

TNG: Cause and Effect really didn't hold up for me on my last rewatch. I was bored out of my mind watching them repeat the same scenes over and over to get to an outcome I already knew.

DS9: I don't like Little Green Men much, I find it too absurd. Same with The Magnificent Ferengi and Our Man Bashir. (And honestly I thought The Visitor was only 'pretty decent').

Voyager: I didn't like Message in a Bottle or Distant Origin all that much, but Someone to Watch Over Me in particular is an episode I never need to see again.

Enterprise: Dear Doctor jumps to mind, but I think the winner here is Carbon Creek because I tuned out of that story early on and spent the rest of the time just waiting for it to be over. Waiting and waiting and waiting.

Lower Decks: Hear All, Trust Nothing didn't work for me for whatever reason. It might be the uncanny valley effect, where it got so close to DS9 that all I could see were the flaws. On the other hand, A Mathematically Perfect Redemption is one of my absolute favourites, so maybe I just had my wires crossed that fortnight.

Prodigy: Cracked Mirror was too ridiculous for me.

Strange New Worlds: The easy answer would be Subspace Rhapsody, but the episode is DISQUALIFIED on the grounds that other people don't rate it too highly either! It's one of the lowest ranked SNW episodes both on IMDb and right here as well.

Instead I'm going to pick A Quality of Mercy, which was like they decided to see what would happen if they took Trials and Tribble-ations and made all the opposite choices. The answer is: they got the opposite results. For me anyway. I would've quit Strange New Worlds right here if it wasn't for the Lower Decks crossover.

Wait, people think the episode where Vulcans invented Velcro is good?

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Carbon Creek is:

#3 on IMDb
#2 on Den of Geek
#7 on Digital Trends
#4 on TrekNews
#3 on CBR
#3 on Looper
#1 on Ranker

It didn't make it onto Screen Rant's top 20 though. I got bored scrolling through sites after that.

 

[ananta]

TNG “Tapestry”.

So many things bug me about this episode. Usually when a TV series rolls out the old “It’s a Wonderful Life” trope you can be sure the writers are running out of ideas, and I think that was true for TNG given the season and a half that followed.

The story is fine in principle, but the message is so, SO muddled and frankly a bit offensive. If you look at it from a certain angle, it might be saying, “you should accept your past because it makes the person you are today” which is a fine, Stoic message. But the execution is so crack-handed, the episode almost strikes me as anti-Trek, for basically it's showing us that it was violence and a barroom brawl rather than diplomacy and restraint that made Picard who he was. Yeah, you could argue that it was a lesson how NOT to be, only that gets lost somehow and you'd be forgiven for thinking the episode glorified retaliation and thuggish violence.

By far the worst thing, however, is Picard's horrendously condescending attitude toward the idea that he might end up just a lowly lieutenant on the ship. He basically says "I'd rather DIE than be this MEDIOCRE MAN!" Geez, Jean-Luc, is that what you secretly think about ALL your junior officers? How friggin' elitist. What's wrong with being an "average" person working an "average" job? Career isn't a number one priority for a lot of people, who maybe don't have the most high-powered, prestigious jobs, but who live their lives by other values, such as the love of family, friends, contribution to the community, intellectual or spiritual pursuits. The way "Lieutenant Picard" is treated by "our" Picard and by the senior officers makes me pretty uncomfortable. In the seventh season we see again in "Lower Decks" what a snobbish and elitist bunch the senior crew are.

In some ways, this is the anti-"It's a Wonderful Life". IAWL celebrated George Bailey who was just a regular guy, somebody who wasn't particularly celebrated or wealthy, but who was just a darn good guy and that was enough. "Tapestry" has the polar opposite message and I think it's the fault of the writers. I don't think they really had a clear idea of exactly what message they were trying to convey.

It would be interesting to know what Patrick Stewart thought of the script, because this is one of the very rare times when he clearly phoned in his performance. It's as though he's not quite engaged with the material and he really just goes through the motions in a rare, low-energy performance. There are some good moments scattered here and there, mainly involving Q, but it's a pretty weak episode. The pace is languid, it moves from scene to scene and kind of lacks dramatic punch.

 

[1001001]

Wait, people think the episode where Vulcans invented Velcro is good?

There are people who I think it isn't good?

 

[CaptainCalvinCat]

There are people who I think it isn't good?

I thought, it was quite a cute idea.

 

[Oddish]

The story is fine in principle, but the message is so, SO muddled and frankly a bit offensive. If you look at it from a certain angle, it might be saying, “you should accept your past because it makes the person you are today” which is a fine, Stoic message. But the execution is so crack-handed, the episode almost strikes me as anti-Trek, for basically it's showing us that it was violence and a barroom brawl rather than diplomacy and restraint that made Picard who he was. Yeah, you could argue that it was a lesson how NOT to be, only that gets lost somehow and you'd be forgiven for thinking the episode glorified retaliation and thuggish violence.

You definitely have a point there. But, I don't think it's the first (or worst) time a Trek episode sent a message it didn't intend to.

By far the worst thing, however, is Picard's horrendously condescending attitude toward the idea that he might end up just a lowly lieutenant on the ship. He basically says "I'd rather DIE than be this MEDIOCRE MAN!" Geez, Jean-Luc, is that what you secretly think about ALL your junior officers? How friggin' elitist. What's wrong with being an "average" person working an "average" job?

And here's a question... why was Picard, a low-ranking officer, on the Enterprise? The flagship is a place for up and coming officers, not 50-something JG's. Maybe in this timeline, he married Beverly after Jack's death, raised Wes as his own, and had a few more kids. So his low rank came from putting family before career.

It could be argued that Picard pulled the plug on his alternate life awfully quickly.

In some ways, this is the anti-"It's a Wonderful Life". IAWL celebrated George Bailey who was just a regular guy, somebody who wasn't particularly celebrated or wealthy, but who was just a darn good guy and that was enough.

IAWL was about one decent person repeatedly sacrificing himself to save Bedford Falls from Mr. Potter's evil plans, and (metaphorically) going through the meat grinder in the process.

There are people who I think it isn't good?

I've seen people who like "Threshold" and dislike "The Visitor". Shows that there really is no accounting for taste.

 

[BillJ]

“The Inner Light”

45 minutes of me watching Picard watch a movie. Pass.

 

[Farscape One]

TNG “Tapestry”.

So many things bug me about this episode. Usually when a TV series rolls out the old “It’s a Wonderful Life” trope you can be sure the writers are running out of ideas, and I think that was true for TNG given the season and a half that followed.

The story is fine in principle, but the message is so, SO muddled and frankly a bit offensive. If you look at it from a certain angle, it might be saying, “you should accept your past because it makes the person you are today” which is a fine, Stoic message. But the execution is so crack-handed, the episode almost strikes me as anti-Trek, for basically it's showing us that it was violence and a barroom brawl rather than diplomacy and restraint that made Picard who he was. Yeah, you could argue that it was a lesson how NOT to be, only that gets lost somehow and you'd be forgiven for thinking the episode glorified retaliation and thuggish violence.

By far the worst thing, however, is Picard's horrendously condescending attitude toward the idea that he might end up just a lowly lieutenant on the ship. He basically says "I'd rather DIE than be this MEDIOCRE MAN!" Geez, Jean-Luc, is that what you secretly think about ALL your junior officers? How friggin' elitist. What's wrong with being an "average" person working an "average" job? Career isn't a number one priority for a lot of people, who maybe don't have the most high-powered, prestigious jobs, but who live their lives by other values, such as the love of family, friends, contribution to the community, intellectual or spiritual pursuits. The way "Lieutenant Picard" is treated by "our" Picard and by the senior officers makes me pretty uncomfortable. In the seventh season we see again in "Lower Decks" what a snobbish and elitist bunch the senior crew are.

In some ways, this is the anti-"It's a Wonderful Life". IAWL celebrated George Bailey who was just a regular guy, somebody who wasn't particularly celebrated or wealthy, but who was just a darn good guy and that was enough. "Tapestry" has the polar opposite message and I think it's the fault of the writers. I don't think they really had a clear idea of exactly what message they were trying to convey.

It would be interesting to know what Patrick Stewart thought of the script, because this is one of the very rare times when he clearly phoned in his performance. It's as though he's not quite engaged with the material and he really just goes through the motions in a rare, low-energy performance. There are some good moments scattered here and there, mainly involving Q, but it's a pretty weak episode. The pace is languid, it moves from scene to scene and kind of lacks dramatic punch.

Picard didn't have a problem with lower ranks. He had a problem with WHY he was still a low rank. It was his conversation with Riker and Troi that made him realize that altering that fate was a bad idea because it meant he would never really live by, as Q said, seizing the opportunities when they presented themselves. He played life too safe, which is not who he was. (Picard said so to Rasmussen in "A Matter Of Time" a season before this.)

I have heard this argument before that it showed he had disdain for the lower decks, and while that may be true given other little things over the years, I don't think that was the case here. This was an episode about accepting who you are and where that path leads you. He made a mistake when young... a costly one. But it made him learn important lessons, and that shaped who he became. We've all made mistakes in our youth... some minor, some major. Ideally, we're all better people when we learn from them and become who we are now.

Do I have regrets about some things from my youth? Yes. Would I go back and change any of them? No, because then that would have started a domino affect of altering everything from that point on, and there are a lot of things that would be different now that I would not want changed.

 

[Oddish]

In a lot of cases, there are episodes that some might regard as good, but I don't like watching because they just plain piss me off. "The Outcast", "Half a Life", and "Repentance" are three examples. "Cogenitor" was pretty appalling as well, but at least Charles escaped from her hellish existence and made sure her tormenters didn't get what they wanted.

Also, "Duet" and "The Siege" both strike me as examples of the "convenient death" trope, which I tend to find annoying.

 

[Qonundrum]

TNG: Cause and Effect really didn't hold up for me on my last rewatch. I was bored out of my mind watching them repeat the same scenes over and over to get to an outcome I already knew.

Yeah, even after a few viewings, it loses too much because it's too familiar and repetitive. It's still a very clever idea, one that's really good to make it as rewatchable as often as it had or could do, but it's one of those where it eventually can't hold up due to its own time loop phenomenon. But the initial viewing is pretty fantastic and how they work their way out of it.

Strange New Worlds: The easy answer would be Subspace Rhapsody, but the episode is DISQUALIFIED on the grounds that other people don't rate it too highly either! It's one of the lowest ranked SNW episodes both on IMDb and right here as well.

Thank goodness!

Those song and dance numbers were fingers'on'chalkboard bad. Especially the Klingon one where they missed a number of opportunities, the easiest to point out being singing in the original Klingon with subtitles, and... ramping up autotune up to 270%?

 

[Oddish]

Cause and Effect is a great episode, but I can't rewatch it too much because it's so repetitive. Even though that's kind of the point.

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

On TNG, "Measure Of A Man" consistently leaves me cold. The device of Riker arguing for the prosecution, I just can't buy it, it's too forced for me to invest in anything else happening.

I liked the episode, but I was like twelve when I watched it for the first time, so my judgement of the quality of the episode is obscured by that.

For me, every single Borg episode after "Q Who" is a bit of a letdown. N

I liked the way they did Lore and Hugh. Those had reasonable explanations, at least in my opinion. I found BOBW to be a good episode provided you don't use too much thought on it, because the second you do it quickly ceases to make sense.

TNG “Tapestry”.

I liked Tapestry! You have a very interesting perspective, though, and those points are things I never considered before.

 

[Sakonna]

SNW's “Ad Astra per Aspera”

I know some people love the episode, and think it's a strong message. But I really, really, really don’t like SNW’s “Ad Astra per Aspera,” since it doesn't even acknowledge the argument put forward by DS9's "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" while trying to damn the Federation by tying the genetic engineering ban to an allegory about discrimination.

SNW totally ignores the possibility genetic engineering technology robs children of their agency to be who they are, and instead allows parents (and others) to assign identity to children. It’s the reason Dr. Bashir resents his parents. They didn’t accept him for who he was, and instead basically did the 24th century equivalent of conversion therapy. Except instead of “praying the gay away,” they used science to create the child they wanted.

SNW wants us to cheer on Number One and see her as a victim of the Federation. But the episode stops short of questioning whether what her parents did was child abuse? What they're using the character to advocate as being acceptable is as antithetical to the idea of what minority groups have been fighting for in terms of acceptance and individual agency as I can imagine.

Oh yeah, I forgot this one! I also hate it. I really don't think Trek has ever done courtroom dramas well, and this one is possibly their most lifeless and drab attempt at that genre since TOS.

And this particular story is so ill-suited to a prequel, since they can't actually advance the Federation's position on any of this. I wish SNW had never even attempted it, and just gone a totally different way with Una.

DS9: I don't like Little Green Men much, I find it too absurd. Same with The Magnificent Ferengi

I also don't care for either one. "Little Green Men" I "get" a little bit more, and traveling to Earth's past is a favorite Trek trope of mine, so that gives me a little bit of enjoyment.

But "The Magnificent Ferengi" has always been baffling to me. I don't understand the appeal of that one at all. I find it so charmless and strained.

Instead I'm going to pick A Quality of Mercy, which was like they decided to see what would happen if they took Trials and Tribble-ations and made all the opposite choices. The answer is: they got the opposite results. For me anyway. I would've quit Strange New Worlds right here if it wasn't for the Lower Decks crossover.

Another dud I forgot. Well, half-dud. I think the production work is outstanding.

In service of a poor story that undermines core Trek values. I hate that the takeaway is that you should shoot first and not try to work it out.

One thing that's always bugged me about SNW is that it's the first Trek show to not believe in its main character above all others, and "Quality Of Mercy" is probably the most egregious example of that. Pike realizes his main function is to get out of the way of more important heroes. I hate that they undermine him in this way.

(The only Trek show that should have undermined it's lead was Enterprise. That series probably would have been much improved if they regarded Archer through a more skeptical lens.)

 

[Rahul]

DS9 - The siege of AR-558:

Nice atmosphere & Nog losing a leg was impactful.

But.

This is the episode, where Sisko, the Captain of a space station AND a warship, decides he much rather go into the mud & shoot with a rifle against some low-level mooks himself. You know, what a master strategist does.
Also all the weaponry & tactics make no sense. There is NO counter to the invisibility shields(?!), yet somehow the fight is still fair, they have phased drones, but no area of effect weapons?

This is the episode where "WW2 IN SPACE... On a tv budget... in the 90s..." really comes crashing down hard.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

You can admire something without wanting it for yourself. A child can love his father without desiring to go into the same line of work, or share his personality/approach to life.

Similarly, Picard doesn't want to be the man "Science Lt. Picard" wound up being. Let somebody else do that.

 

[CoveTom]

This is the episode, where Sisko, the Captain of a space station AND a warship, decides he much rather go into the mud & shoot with a rifle against some low-level mooks himself. You know, what a master strategist does.
Also all the weaponry & tactics make no sense. There is NO counter to the invisibility shields(?!), yet somehow the fight is still fair, they have phased drones, but no area of effect weapons?

In fairness, Sisko didn't go in planning to fight. They were there on a re-supply mission. They got trapped there. The Defiant came under attack, and had to leave orbit. What was Sisko supposed to do in that circumstance other than join the fight?

 

[Sakonna]

To weigh in briefly on the "Tapestry" question... I always used to be with the crowd that saw it as "Picard just doesn't want this life FOR HIMSELF." That's how it played in my memory. Not disrespecting the lower deckers, but it just was not his life.

Then I rewatched it for the first time in forever, and oh boy, did I immediately switch my allegiances. It really does feel like he's shitting all over the lives of regular people, and saying death is preferable to being one of them.

Weirdly, though, I think "Tapestry" has now been retroactively saved by the early seasons of "Picard", which really leaned into this viewpoint as one of Picard's fatal flaws, cementing it into the character and examining it at length. That's so much of the season one story... literally the second he could not be the great hero admiral anymore, he just quit and went home, leaving all the "little people" who depended on him feeling abandoned and left to pick up the pieces themselves.

 

[Rahul]

In fairness, Sisko didn't go in planning to fight. They were there on a re-supply mission. They got trapped there. The Defiant came under attack, and had to leave orbit. What was Sisko supposed to do in that circumstance other than join the fight?

I distinctly remember Sisko making to choice to stay when the Defiant was attacked. However it's also a long time ago I watched it...