Most hated plot device

[dougkeenan]

What's so wrong with time travel? It's not like they named the show after traveling through space or something.

/sarcasm

 

[Wonderlust King]

Time travel is sort of beaten to death, but i think trek pulls it off well.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I dont know if its been said yet but whenever a shuttle or runabout or any ship for that matter was under attack at warp they would drop out of warp and magically be in range of an asteroid field or nebula with which they could hide in.

I MEAN COME ON!!!!!!!!

 

[CommanderRaytas]

Time Travel is a plot device I still find interesting and cool. Sorry, just do.

All Aliens Have One Culture is much, much worse and annoying.

 

[By-Product]

I'm sure this is included in the "Technobable fix" but the "Compensate and divert power from secondary systems" all ways bugged me.

Red Shirt: Uhhh Sir, the big bad guy is shooting at us, are shields are crap today and the engines are failing ... we cant take much more
Captain: Compensate, divert power from secondary systems
Red Shirt: Good call sir, we just won the day. Its a good job your here because the other hundred crew members wouldn't have thought of that ... thats why your the captain.

 

[Triskelion]

I see no reason why TV shows should avoid human cultures in a show of enlightened open-mindedness of "alien" cultures.

It's disingenuous. It presupposes one can actually be "value-free"; when in fact, it fails to recognize one's own values and biases and humanity.

Not recognizing or asserting one's own culture hardly puts one in any position to understand other cultures. A good scientist understands his or her biases. A good human values his or her own culture, too. Pretense to "objectivity and egalitarianism" is well, a conceit. Please give me more human-centric stories. Not human-free stories. That's why I like Kirk. He values being a human. I think it's a little closer to the truth of individuality & IDIC. IDIC is not, "IDIC-except for we who are above a quaint cultural value system". Sorry, does any of this make sense, not sure.

 

[PsychoDan]

I see no reason why TV shows should avoid human cultures in a show of enlightened open-mindedness of "alien" cultures. [...] Pretense to "objectivity and egalitarianism" is well, a conceit. [...] Sorry, does any of this make sense, not sure.

It makes perfect sense. You can't really be for anything without being against its opposite. That's the boundary that "tolerance" eventually runs up against. And with rare exceptions, Trek was very careful to never push it too far; indeed, sometimes its so-called "diversity" ventured into silliness -- "gee, you put milk in your scrambled eggs and I don't, yet we can respect and accept each other, aren't we just wonderful!"

Not recognizing or asserting one's own culture hardly puts one in any position to understand other cultures. A good scientist understands his or her biases.

I'm not an anthropologist, but I've worked with a couple of them, and I think I can safely say "that's putting it mildly." Not attempting to recognize ones own culture leaves a person with enormous blind spots. But recognizing ones own culture isn't a simple process in which you sit back for a while, think things through, then you're done (and I know you weren't saying that it is) ... it takes continual effort, reevaluation, etc. and it's never entirely successful.

I'll throw out another weak plot device -- the captain's log. Actually, it started out as a good idea. As drama, it made sense because TOS had to tell stories in about 48 minutes of air time, every second counted, and it got the viewers up to speed on the situation very quickly. And it made sense for the character, Kirk, to do this, because presumably a captain would be required to keep careful records of why he made every decision so that those decisions could be evaluated later.

But "logs" went out of control later. Now it seems like every ordinary schmuck in the Federation fancies himself or herself to be the next Samuel Pepys. Everyone keeps detailed diaries of their work, plus diaries for their private lives ... apparently in the full knowledge that these documents can be examined by authorities at the drop of a hat. Weird ...

 

[Triskelion]

I see no reason why TV shows should avoid human cultures in a show of enlightened open-mindedness of "alien" cultures. [...] Pretense to "objectivity and egalitarianism" is well, a conceit. [...] Sorry, does any of this make sense, not sure.

It makes perfect sense. You can't really be for anything without being against its opposite. That's the boundary that "tolerance" eventually runs up against. And with rare exceptions, Trek was very careful to never push it too far; indeed, sometimes its so-called "diversity" ventured into silliness -- "gee, you put milk in your scrambled eggs and I don't, yet we can respect and accept each other, aren't we just wonderful!"

Not recognizing or asserting one's own culture hardly puts one in any position to understand other cultures. A good scientist understands his or her biases.

I'm not an anthropologist, but I've worked with a couple of them, and I think I can safely say "that's putting it mildly." Not attempting to recognize ones own culture leaves a person with enormous blind spots. But recognizing ones own culture isn't a simple process in which you sit back for a while, think things through, then you're done (and I know you weren't saying that it is) ... it takes continual effort, reevaluation, etc. and it's never entirely successful.

I'll throw out another weak plot device -- the captain's log. Actually, it started out as a good idea. As drama, it made sense because TOS had to tell stories in about 48 minutes of air time, every second counted, and it got the viewers up to speed on the situation very quickly. And it made sense for the character, Kirk, to do this, because presumably a captain would be required to keep careful records of why he made every decision so that those decisions could be evaluated later.

But "logs" went out of control later. Now it seems like every ordinary schmuck in the Federation fancies himself or herself to be the next Samuel Pepys. Everyone keeps detailed diaries of their work, plus diaries for their private lives ... apparently in the full knowledge that these documents can be examined by authorities at the drop of a hat. Weird ...

Thanks PsychoDan for making it clearer in your thoughtful post!

 

[exalted one]

The one I hate most all would be the "it-was-just-a-dream" plot device. One or more crewmembers are halucinating / dreaming while we are forced to watch their delirious concoctions and pretend that we do care. DS9: "Things Past", for example.

 

[cultcross]

Random stuff being alive (Emergence is probably the worst example of this.)

"It's a life form!"

 

[jimbtnp2]

How many times has the Enterprise been the only ship in interception range? What does the federation have, like three ships? I especially hated when they used this in ST:TMP I mean the dang thing was at Earth, in drydock, there wasn't another starship nearby? At Earth? The capital of the federation? You'd think there would be a few ships in Earth orbit at all times.


Whats yours?

Technobabble
Holodeck
replicator

all horrible for storytelling

 

[PhoenixIreland]

It didn't form the core of a plot but...every time the ship/station was in a siutation where it needed emergency or backup systems, they were "offline" or "not responding"....

....I remember the episode with O'Brian and the Cardassian scientist when he told her starfleet systems require two backup systems....

BUT THEY NEVER WORK!

The whole point of a backup system is that it's supposed to be your last resort, absoloute secure rock.

Emergency forcefields, ejection systems, fire supression etc...always goes "offline" just as they need it.

I liked the story of TMP but "the only ship in range"...in "sector 001"...the centre of the federation?

Utopia Plantia? The HUGE earth spacedock with 4 HUGE bays that could probably each fit 4-5 ships? McKinley? Jupitor station? all empty?
...and have they no taskforce assigned to protect the capital of the federation?

Imagine NORAD picking up a hijacked airliner heading for the white house, and they pick it up over California and the Chairman of the Joint Cheifs telling the president "sorry sir/mam we've no fighter jets in range of Wasington"

 

[clint g]

Time travel. Bleh

 

[erastus25]

Random stuff being alive (Emergence is probably the worst example of this.)

"It's a life form!"

Agreed. That TNG episode in which the drilling machines become "alive" and Data has to disobey orders to save them is even worse. This concept was cool in The Measure of a Man, and to a lesser extent with the Doctor in Voy, but some of the other episodes were just lame.

It was mentioned above but I really really hated the "redundant organ" ploy that saved Spock and Worf. Super lame. It was even worse in Mortal Coil when we learned that 7 could revive people hours after they had died. Gee, I wonder why that technicality was quickly forgotten and never seen again? It was even worse in that case because the whole effing episode was based around it.

 

[Natural]

Holodeck. Almost every episode centered around it is terrible.

 

[hellsgate]

I have to agree with Navaros. BUT...

- Love Interests. Create them, keep them. Even if they're only cameo appearances. Classic case - Kassidy Yates & Ben Sisko...nuff said!

- I prefer scientific "unforeseen side effects" to holodecks gone awry.

Romulan, Tholian, Tzinkethi, or A.Q. Alliance experiments with stuff like something I've heard of before, (a "genesis device"-type weapon called The Shiva Device.)

A device specifically created to wipe out Dominion / Borg planetary outposts, breaking-down & consuming/converting everything on a planet's surface but leave the planet itself capable of being terraformed to Romulan (or whomsoever)'s climate preferences.

- No starships in range of Earth...no kidding. I'm so in agreement with that! Christ, even the NX-01 managed to be met by warp-capable cruise-ships upon getting back from the Delphic Expanse.

- I like the idea of energy beings, BUT, let's keep them to intriguing possibilities that they're at least partially biological, such as massive egg-laying creatures that have deposited their embryo into the core of a developing world & then hatch, chaos ensues.

 

[hellsgate]

[*] "All alien races have one culture" ...yeah, pretty stupid. The Federation & Starfleet have rules against First Contact with such societies that haven't achieved a certain measure of global homogenization, don't they?

[*] "Starfleet good, aliens bad." ... Dumb, dumb, dumb.

The alien parasites from 'Conspiracy' however are the only reasonable exception. The TOS version of space amoebas & flying plastic jellyfish that attach themselves to the redshirts, resulting in driving an away team nuts...ugh!


[*] "Time travel"....I'd say it depends on the skill of the writer. I'd say it offers some intriguing possibilities as a result of short-lived, self-annihilated alternate universes / alternate timelines.

 

[Mistral]

I still don't like the sensor enhancements-it never made sense.(see page 3 post) And those logs were often dictated as the action was unfolding in first-person, real time commentary. 'Cause in the middle of a firefight with the Klingons, Kirk's gonna dictate a log. Riiiiigghhht!

"Hang on a second, Kang. I want to record this for posterity! OK, now you can shoot."

 

[PsychoDan]

How about this TOS device ... the nakedly obvious deus ex machina. Scenes like this one:

(There are five minutes left in the episode, and the Enterprise is caught in some inescapable situation. They've tried everything, and nothing's worked -- they're headed for certain doom.)

KIRK: Mister Spock ... Am I correct in recalling that if fluorocarbons are bombarded with modulated and opposing subspace emissions, they resonate and amplify the energy, causing a distortion in the space-time continuum?

SPOCK: In theory, captain, but it has never been tested.

KIRK: So, it we beam a can of Lieutenant Uhura's hair spray into the middle of the Big Bad Alien Thing, then simultaneously hit it with a tractor and deflector beam, with just a little more power on the deflector, it will blast a hole through which we can escape?

SPOCK: That's very unlikely. In fact, the odds are 3,525,453,234 to 1 against.

KIRK: But it is theoretically possible?

SPOCK: Yes, it is theoretically possible. It is also theoretically possible that had you pulled downward on that zipper on the Gorn's back in "Arena," that you would have found Jimmy Hoffa inside. Both are theoretically possible, but neither one is bloody likely, and I certainly would never risk a five-hundred-gazillion dollar ship and four hundred lives on either of them. But that's just me. Perhaps you, with your human "intuition" ... (snickers) ... see things differently.

KIRK: All right, then -- Uhura, go grab the biggest can of VO5 you've got, and report to the transporter room ...

... and we all know what happens next.

 

[Yeffrey]

On that subject, are we really expected to believe that nobody in the 24th century is employed solely to mop wayward semen from holodeck floors?

BEST LINE EVER