The most disliked episode of Star Trek - Part Two

[BlueStuff]

I like The Dauphin because of that unintentionally hilarious scene where Worf gets his ass kicked by the old woman morphing into some huge beast. Then tries to backhand her after she's changed back.

Up the Long Ladder
Shades of Gray

I distinctly recall eliminating this one in "least disliked", so it's weird that I'm now saving The Outrageous Okona. Terrible, but when I compare it to the other two.. I could live with watching it.

 

[Geck]

Shades of Gray

And I'll save Up the Long Ladder. The Irish stereotypes are awful, but the planet of clones and discussion of replicative fading are at least mildly interesting. If that had been the basis for the whole episode, rather than just the second half, it could have been a decent ep.

Plus the "tell me, is your entire population made up of clones?" "Clones?" "Clones?" "Clones!" scene cracks me up every time.

Shades of Gray, on the other hand, has very very few redeeming features...

 

[BlueStuff]

I certainly have no problem with Shades of Gray taking the dubious honor.

I love that some of the clips don't even feature Riker, despite being in his "memory".


I think that this version of the game will result in much less rage than the opposite. I can't see, for example "What?! You saved New Ground?! Die!!" happening. Unlike the whole Duet disaster.

 

[Admiral Shran]

^ Alright, let's not start a Holy War here again.

 

[Tiberius]

Shades of Gray, on the other hand, has very very few redeeming features...

Actually, I firmly believe that if the flashbacks were back to things we had never seen (such as Riker's childhood, his time at the academy, etc), then Shades of Grey would have been infinitely better.

 

[Harvey]

Having recently re-watched "Shades of Grey," I feel safe saying that its problems go far beyond being a clip show (sometimes, of clips Riker didn't experience!). What kills it completely is that the framing device is a disaster that drags out 10 minutes of material into 25 minutes. The crew behaves like morons solving Riker's infection, for no other reason than to fill airtime. The finale would have been better spent listening to Maurice Hurley apologize for 45 minutes than this garbage.

 

[Santa of Five]

Yeah, it was a flimsy episode all round. I tend to dislike clip shows anyway as the new material is never engaging, which is what happened here. The clips themselves are very hit and miss, as they're from TNG's first two seasons.

I realise the episode was a big rush job done to save money, but it's very telling that nothing like this was produced again.

 

[Fang66]

Holy crap! I missed all of Season One. Though, maybe that was a blessing.

Also, it looks like Fang66's elimination of The Schizoid Man got skipped. I fixed it.

Thanks Admiral.

 

[DevilEyes]

Shades of Gray

And I'll save Up the Long Ladder. The Irish stereotypes are awful, but the planet of clones and discussion of replicative fading are at least mildly interesting. If that had been the basis for the whole episode, rather than just the second half, it could have been a decent ep.

Disagree. The clone thing is almost as awful as the dumb Irish immigrants stuff. Riker kills his clone like he's not a person. That's murder. Weirder than that, the writer said it was supposed to be an abortion metaphor (?!) and that it was a pro-choice message?!?! If she said it was pro-life, it would just be a very dishonest, skewed plot, this way it also seems really stupid. If that was an abortion metaphor, then it likened it to a mother killing a child who's in an incubator rather than her own body, which completely invalidates the very argument that pro-choice is based on. Or to a father killing a child that he didn't knew he had and justifying it by saying that his sperm was used against his will.

And then comes the ending, which is the worst of all: our heroes come to the wonderful solution to play matchmaker and suggest a eugenics-driven hookup between the two societies, with the dumb but healthy immigrants as breeding stock for the weak sickly smart scientists.

Having recently re-watched "Shades of Grey," I feel safe saying that its problems go far beyond being a clip show (sometimes, of clips Riker didn't experience!). What kills it completely is that the framing device is a disaster that drags out 10 minutes of material into 25 minutes. The crew behaves like morons solving Riker's infection, for no other reason than to fill airtime. The finale would have been better spent listening to Maurice Hurley apologize for 45 minutes than this garbage.

I think it would be best if Shades of Gray didn't exist, and the finale consisted of Maurice Hurley and Melinda Snodgrass apologizing for 45 minutes for Up the Long Ladder.

 

[Harvey]

I still think "Shades of Grey" is more offensive than "Up the Long Ladder." The latter (no pun intended) might have a premise that is dishonest and stupid, as well as a healthy does of insensitive racial stereotypes, but at least it was trying to do something (even though it fails rather dismally). "Shades of Grey," on the other hand, doesn't try to do anything, and yet somehow manages to fail at that, too. It's such a worthless nothing of an episode.

 

[Admiral Shran]

^ Agreed. Up the Long Ladder is a failure as a story and offensive on many levels, but Shades of Grey is slightly worse because it's essentially nothing, IMO.

It's like John Goodman said in The Big Lebowski - "Say what you will about the tenants of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos."

 

[tighr]

On my recent Netflix runthrough, I completely skipped Shades of Grey. Didn't even bother watching it. And I watched EVERY other episode.