Episodes that are generally considered "bad" that you actually like

I love "The Man Trap"!

 

Funny thing: I've written exactly two ST fanfic short stories, both in the course of taking four semesters (the maximum) of "Short Story Workshop" at a local junior college, a few years ago.

One of them is a sequel to "The Man Trap," framed as an interview with the Craters' son. The other is a Borg origin story.

The funny thing is that I don't care for "The Man Trap." And neither do I care for ANY Borg stories.

 

(gasp) Not even Destiny?

 

spider Barclay is awesome, both in the episode and in Timelines

 

I really like the shot of the E-D adrift too. Just unsettling to see our ship like that.

 

I was in 5th grade when "Genesis" aired. Me & all my classmates loved it. At the time, I ranked it as my 2nd favorite episode of the season (after "Parallels").

Whenever I think of Commander Riker, that's one of the first things I think of!

I have a tendency to enjoy episodes that other people don't like because they're too silly. "Move Along Home" is definitely in that category, as is "The Royale" and "Take Me out to the Holosuite." As a kid, I enjoyed all the cartoonish Irish people in "Up the Long Ladder." (That was long before society tried to pound into me that I should feel guilty for enjoying politically incorrect entertainment.)

"Spock's Brain" isn't the best episode ever but it's a decent gimmick. At least it has a gimmick, unlike, say, "That Which Survives," which feels like both visually and story-wise consists of 100% recycled material.

I've also heard that a lot of DS9 fans tend to hate Ferengi comedies and Vic Fontaine. Those are actually 2 of my favorite elements of the series.

People who hate on "Tsunkatse" are just people who wanted to hate it from the beginning. The results are a perfectly serviceable episode. The Rock only has a small role in it and the rest of it is standard genre fare. (Angel did a similar episode that same season called "The Ring.")

 

Are you saying that you didn't enjoy "The Man Trap?"

 

Funny. I love both of those episodes. I know the wrestling tie in was kind of on the nose, but I recall enjoying the episode quite a bit, and I generally don't like Seven of Nine centric episodes. But, her interaction with the Hirogen trainer was really good.

 

Wasn't he played by the actor who played Martok?

 

Always liked "Man Trap." A tense situation, a cool monster, and a touch of moral ambiguity at the end. What's not to love?

Plus, for a lot of us, it was the very first STAR TREK episode we ever saw, way back in 1966.

 

Let's see: an almost cliched monster that, even though clearly capable of communication, is killed in the end (compare that with the Mother Horta). The monster in question is nightmare-provokingly hideous in its natural form, yet capable of assuming the appearance of anybody (the "young Nancy" guise looking remarkably like the music teacher at the elementary school I was attending at the time) at will, and its mode of attack is apparently excruciatingly painful (as well as probably violating a few laws of physics).

What's to like?

(Incidentally, in my fanfic, the answer to the age-old question of whether this ability to assume the appearance of anybody is shapeshifting or telepathic projection is "Yes.")

Thankfully, my introductions to Star Trek were (1) the end of "A Taste of Armageddon," (2) the beginning of "Space Seed," and (3) "The Devil in the Dark," the first episode I saw all the way through.

 

Context possibly matters here. "Man Trap" felt like a good, scary episode of THE OUTER LIMITS, which is what I was looking for in sf TV back then. . . .

One of STAR TREK's strengths is that its format is broad enough to support lots of different kinds of stories: sense-of-wonder SF, courtroom dramas, murder mysteries, war stories, morality plays, love stories, even the occasional out-and-out farce. "Man Trap," like "What are Little Girls Made Of?," succeeds as a horror story, with the added benefit of fleshing out McCoy's backstory and being a STAR TREK episode.

And the Salt Vampire is a great-looking monster. To my mind, "nightmare-provoking" is a good thing.

There's always been a fine line between horror and science fiction, going all the way back to FRANKENSTEIN and THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU, not to mention the Monster from the Id in FORBIDDEN PLANET, which helped inspire STAR TREK in the first place.

 

I might add that it was probably because of those introductions that, not long after, when I saw "Operation: Annihilate," I watched it straight through.

If "The Man Trap" were my first direct experience with Star Trek, it probably would have been my last. And my library would probably look very different.

 

ENT Regeneration. I hear people hate on this episode because Picard was supposedly the first to encounter the Borg but I thought it was actually pretty scary that the crew and archer never figured out exactly what the “cybernetic creatures from the future” were

 

The El-Aurians encountered the Borg before Picard did. As did researchers Magnus and Erin Hansen.

And likewise, the Hansens could very well have had access to Archer's records, and made the connection with the El-Aurians.

 

In retrospect, I've assumed that Q expedited hostilities between the Borg and the Federation, but that they would have occurred at some point down the line anyway.

It's even possible that the Federation owes Q a debt for what he did, though I wouldn't expect Picard to thank him anytime soon.

 

Spirit Folk, definitely. Skin of Evil is another. Sub Rosa wasn’t that good, but I was fun for what it was imo.

 

Killed in the end because it couldn't control its basic urges.

 

I sort of like "Spirit Folk" but I am ashamed of that at the same time.