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Have you ever given up on a Trek series? If so, what was the last straw for you?

JonnyQuest037

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Seeing this clip from the VOY episode "Flashback" again on the BBS today reminded me that it played a big part in me giving up on watching VOY regularly:

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The scripting of the scene STILL bugs the hell out of me. The "Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today" line is SO condescending and smug, and a pretty disrespectful thing to put into an episode celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Trek.

That, and me not liking the Sulu episode in general, made me realize that I wasn't really enjoying VOY very much and was mainly watching it because it had the words "Star Trek" in the title. I finally decided that two words being in the title was a pretty silly reason to watch a show I wasn't enjoying, so I stopped cold turkey.

(Later on, I went back and saw a lot of the VOY episodes I missed when they were airing late nights on H&I, and the show massively improved after Seven of Nine came on. So while VOY has definitely grown on me, but it's still not one of my favorites.)

So I started thinking about the other times I've gotten a bit fed up with Trek in the past & stopped watching:

I gave up on ENT somewhere in S3 as I just didn't find the 9/1 metaphor Xindi arc very interesting, or at the very least, not what I was looking for on a Trek series. But I soon came back for the more TOS-prequel-y S4, as that was more what I wanted from the show. So it was more a five-minute retirement than anything. :lol:

More recently, I decided to quit watching DSC at the end of S2. I found that both seasons 1 and 2 started out pretty strongly and had really disappointing endings, so the leap to the future of the 32nd Century seemed like a good jumping off point. Maybe I'll eventually come back to it.

And honestly, this 3rd season of SNW has been trying my patience. I just watched "Terrarium," the 9th episode of the season as I write this, and it's been lots of disappointing episodes with no really great ones (IMO). I'll probably stick it out until the very end of the series, though, since there's only 17 episodes left now.

What about you folks? Have you had a last straw with any Star Trek series that got you to stop watching?

(To clarify: I'm not looking for an encyclopedic litany of everything you've ever hated about any ST series here. That will become very dull to read very quickly. More some little thing that made you say, "...Yeah, I think I'm done here." I think that is much more interesting. And if you're discussing recent episodes of SNW, please remember to use SPOILER code! :))
 
First-run only:

I stopped watching VOY in 1999 after "Barge of the Dead". The third episode of the sixth season. Nothing to do with the episode in particular. I'd decided to stop watching after the fifth season but wanted to stick around for the three episodes where Ron Moore was on staff.

I stopped watching ENT in 2001 after "The Andorian Incident". I was against the idea of a TOS Prequel, I still don't like Star Trek prequels in general (the first two seasons of DSC don't count, because it never felt like a prequel even when it was a prequel). But, more importantly, I'd transferred to a new college that school year, met a whole bunch of new lifelong friends, and I was working a full-time job at night. I programmed the VCR to record some episodes, but the series felt so bland, I decided it wasn't worth it to continue and stopped.

I stopped watching Lower Decks after the second season in 2021. It wasn't my thing. I stopped watching weekly towards the beginning of that season, then binged the rest of it at the end. Then I never watched Lower Decks again until the end of the fifth season. I heard about the whole Disco Klingon thing, the Bashir/Garak pairing up, and I had to check it out for myself.

I stopped watching SNW in 2023, after the second season. I didn't even watch the entirety of the second season. I haven't seen any of the third season at all.

So, yeah, I'm an old pro at "Just don't watch!" I've done it four times.

I'll give the first episode of SFA a shot. But since I'm not in the thick of Kurtzman Trek anymore, if the first episode doesn't grab me, then that's it. That's all it gets.

EDITED TO ADD: So, looking back on it, what made me stop watching a series didn't have to do with any one particular episode. It had to do with my not liking the direction a series was going in overall and no longer being willing to make time for it.

Every series has less-than-stellar episodes in places. It's more about the Big Picture.
 
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I think I stopped watching ENTERPRISE just after the pilot as it may have seemed TOO retro. Perhaps the theme song put me off. But I also had serious 2001 ''life concerns'' then which cut down on my TV watching.

I've only seen two ENTERPRISE episodes, and the second was at a Shore Leave convention.
 
I stopped watching Prodigy after the first two episodes because I clearly wasn’t the target audience. Was nothing negative—just didn’t hold my interest.
Yeah, I still haven't seen any of Prodigy. Nothing against it, but since it was more of kids' show, I wasn't dying to see it. Then it left Paramount+ before I could ever check it out.

I'll give the first episode of SFA a shot. But since I'm not in the thick of Kurtzman Trek anymore, if the first episode doesn't grab me, then that's it. That's all it gets.
Yeah, I'm the same. I give TV shows a LOT less leeway & time to impress me than I used to. There are just too many other entertainment options out there. Hit the ground running or GTFO.
 
Stopped watching several: TNG, VOY, ENT and Prodigy.

TV shows get one episode to impress me after a less than stellar outing then I'm done and I move on. Life is too short to continue on "because Star Trek."
 
A Klingon boy band…:rolleyes:
was excellent. for people with no sense of humor, not so much.



What about you folks? Have you had a last straw with any Star Trek series that got you to stop watching?
I never finished Section31. probably never will.

I don't think I have seen every episode of Voyager and I'm not really upset about it.

Picard I kept foolishly thinking would bet better. It didn't. It started strong each time, and ended in a new kind of disappointment each season. But I did watch them all.

I don't have Netflix so Prodigy Season 2 just never happened for me. If I ever get a chance to watch it, I probably will. Its just not a priority.
 
I stopped watching Prodigy after the first two episodes because I clearly wasn’t the target audience. Was nothing negative—just didn’t hold my interest. Have watched all the rest, though.

This is my story too.

I’ve seen everything else but gave up on Prodigy after a few episodes.
 
I gave up on ENT after the second season because I felt it was a TOS prequel in name only. My position on that eventually changed 180 and I came back for the fourth season (and now, I wished it had gone on longer).

Although I really liked it, I gave up on PROD after the first season solely because it moved from Paramount+, and I wasn't going to pay for another streaming service.
 
I never finished Section31. probably never will.
This is a healthy life choice. :) OOH, did I hate Section 31.

I don't think I have seen every episode of Voyager and I'm not really upset about it.
There are probably a few I've missed here & there, but I'm not opposed to seeing them the way I used to be back in the 90s & early 2000s. (I consider this growth.) :)

Picard I kept foolishly thinking would bet better. It didn't. It started strong each time, and ended in a new kind of disappointment each season. But I did watch them all.
This is pretty much my story, too. I watched all of PIC, but like DSC, I felt it usually started strong and then flubbed the ending. Which makes the whole season an exercise in frustration.
 
The only one I flat out stopped watching was Discovery, just couldn't take it anymore for a whole slew of reasons.

Otherwise, I was getting kind of burnt out on Trek around '97 or '98, so I started drifting in and out of DS9 and Voyager. The Voyager thing was pushed forward because the local UPN affiliate was dropped by my cable company sometime in the 4th season, and realized it didn't really bother me, wasn't missing it at all.

I haven't seen any of Prodigy or much of Lower Decks, but I plan to fix my error with Lower Decks soon.
 
Nope. Slap the name Star Trek to something, and I'll watch it.

Are there some shows I like more than others? Absolutely.

Are there some shows that felt like a chore to watch? Definitely.

I've been a fan of the franchise for as long as I can remember, through good times and bad. I can generally find something to enjoy in every series or film.
 
With some non-trek shows I can point to a specific scene or episode that made me give up. Or at least point towards a scene that made me stop enjoying the show and made me give up soon afterwards (usually at the end of a given season)

With Trek shows not so much. I can't really point to a specific episode or scene or any element that was the "last straw" for me with ENT, for example. I just never liked that show. PIC was dead on arrival for me because of what we already knew of the show beforehand, so the last straw had already happened for me before the first episode aired.

The one exception might be DISC. The first time I gave up on it was the scene where the captain from Season 1 (forgot his name) broadcast the transmission of those colonists being bombed through the ship, and I was like "I don't come to Trek for this Battlestar Galactica crap"
I started watching again when Pike came in, and the second "last straw" was when they went to the far future and the reason for warp travel becoming difficult was presented as the new mystery for the season and I had already grown tired of the "mystery box" format and assumed the resolution would be lame and unsatisfying (from what I hear I was right)
 
Think I stopped watching early TNG a couple of times back in the day, mostly from early-stuff cringe. Came back quickly each time, though. That’s about it.
 
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