What do people think are the best and worst cliffhangers that have been done in Star Trek? And of course, why? Obviously SPOILERS lie ahead.
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Here's a recap of all of 'em in case anyone is a bit foggy on them, like viewers of one or two but not all series.
* "The Best of Both Worlds" (1990)- The Borg return and they are on course for Earth. A hotshot first officer guest stars to create uncertainty as a mission to stop the Borg leads to Captain Picard being captured. Ends with the crew being confronted by an assimilated Picard and the decision to attack the Borg Cube despite that their beloved captain is on it. "Mr. Worf... fire!"
* "Redemption" (1991)- What's a Klingon story without a Duras to make trouble? Chancellor Gowron and the House of Duras fight over the results of the 2000 election and Picard's the guy with the big magnifying glass examining all the hanging chads. Picard rules in favor of Gowron and so starts the Klingon civil war. Worf gets some honor restored. Worf resigns and the cliffhanger reveals suspicion of Romulan backing behind the Duras family was true in the form of Lt. Tasha Yar, err, Sela.
* "Time's Arrow" (1992)- Data's severed head is found on an archaeological dig in San Francisco. A fossil indicates the Branch Devidians are the ones time traveling to 1892. They're eating the souls of old timey Earthlings! Data is pulled into the time portal and finds himself back in 1955 Hill Valley, err, 1892 San Francisco making the acquaintance of Mark Twain. To stop this invasion, an away team follows some Devidians back in time for the cliffhanger.
* "Descent" (1993)- angry individualistic Borg attack an outpost. Data feels anger and pleasure in killing. In chasing the Borg's lopsided ship, the Enterprise gets pulled into the transwarp conduit. Picard decides to take the entire ship except Beverly and a few others who drew short straws on a giant vacation on the first planet he sees to "search" for the Borg. The cliffhanger is Lore exposes himself in the citadel ("Please! There are ladies present") and Data switches sides.
DS9 "In the Hands of the Prophets" is a standalone. Creationist vedek Kai Winn throws a fit over the teaching of evolution, err, wormholes, to children on DS9 and fundamentalists bomb the school house. The whole controversy was cover for arranging an assassination of a rival vedek, Bareil, in anticipation of the coming Kai election.
* "The Jem 'Hadar" (1994)- DS9 had the format of an action-packed episode that had a more general ambience kind of cliffhanger as opposed to an actual event.
A camping trip with Sisko, Quark, and the boys leads to first contact with the Jem 'Hadar, who show they are not to be trifled with by destroying in kamikaze fashion an Enterprise-D stand-in, complete with older balding captain.
The cliffhanger is the Dominion revealing their presence in the Gamma Quadrant to DS9, which would led to the fact-finding mission at the start of the next season.
* "The Adversary" (1995)- The Defiant is deceptively lured out away from the station by a Changeling in disguise to start a war as opposed to preventing a war. It's a hunt around the ship for the Changeling, a ship which he controls and has locked them out of.
The cliffhanger is the Changeling's last words, "You are too late. We are everywhere...". Of course, a Klingon detour forces the follow-up to this to be in the midseason.
* "Basics" (1996)- a Kazon scheme to stealthily weaken Voyager's defenses and sabotage the ship from within succeeds and Maje Cullah's sponge-headed kilt clan manages to take over the ship. He decided to exile the entire crew on the primitive world Hanon IV.
The cliffhanger shows Voyager taking off with Cullah in the captain's chair, leaving the crew in the California, err, Hanon desert. Also some Seska who's the father baby drama (and Maury Povich nowhere to be seen).
* "Broken Link" (1996)- Odo has a mysterious condition that can only be cured by a visit to the reclusive Founders, who agree only if Odo can be tried for murder. His sentence, to live as a human (AKA the space battle budget is eating into the changeling transformation budget).
The cliffhanger is Odo remembering a memory from the link... "Gowron, the head of the Klingon Empire, is a Changeling", meaning the Klingons are puppets of the Dominion. Cue an undercover mission deep into Klingon space.
* "Scorpion" (1997)- Voyager has arrived on the edge of Borg space and find a conveniently open route through Borg space, the Northwest Passage, only it's the territory of a species that is wiping the floor with the Borg, Species 8472 (not Species 8675309 or Species 5882300.
To make way for a bodacious Borg babe, one cast member must be killed! Will it be the annoying marmot-mullet wearing Neelix? Will it be sweet, quiet shrinking violet Kes? Or will it be green Ensign Kim with a green tentacle reaching up his nose?
Janeway makes a deal with the duotronic devil over Chakotay's objections, told in a parable of a wolf and a scorpion. The cliffhanger is 8472 ships destroying a Borg planet and the debris hitting the Borg ship tractoring Voyager.
* "Call to Arms" (1997)- the Dominion sets their sights on DS9, Starfleet puts a minefield by the wormhole and all Federation personnel evacuate DS9 as Dominion bigwigs make DS9 their base. Start of the Dominion War with the attack on DS9.
The open cliffhanger is the obvious need to retake the station because Star Trek: Starbase 375 doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
* "Tears of the Prophets" (1998)- war strategizing, an Allied strike on the Chintoka system and its array of orbital platforms, Jadzia doesn't renew her contract and so is killed off, all Bajoran Orbs go dark and Sisko, the Emissary, ends up washing clams in a New Orleans back alley.
The cliffhanger is how will the tides of battle turn, and how would the disillusioned Emissary find a way to restore the connection to the Prophets (AKA Ben & Jake's Excellent Adventure to Veridian III).
Voyager "Hope and Fear" was not a cliffhanger, but had a DS9-style finale, action-packed, only without an open cliffhanger. A friendly linguistic alien, Arturis, deciphers the scrambled message that leads to a gift horse (the Dauntless), but will the crew look in its mouth? Of course! He wants revenge on Voyager for defeating Species 8472 in the "Scorpion" conflict because a lot of assimilated peoples were rooting for 8472 and the Dauntless is set not for Earth but Arturis' assimilated homeworld deep in Borg space.
* "Equinox" (1999)- Hey look, another Starfleet ship! Finally, true friends in the Delta Quadrant. Wait a minute... something smells fishy here. What do you mean this isn't dolphin-safe tuna, err, fuel? Turns out they've been calling death dolphins (dessicating death-dealing dolphins from different dimensions) to use as fuel to propel their little ship of horrors and now they're reallly mad.
* "Unimatrix Zero" (2000)- If androids dream of electric sheep, what do cyborgs dream of? Seven enters the minus world of the Borg collective, the dream world Unimatrix Zero and Janeway schemes to form a resistance out of the dreaming Borg. Janeway decides to infiltrate a Borg ship with Tuvok & Janeway & Torres to deliver the individuality virus into the collective as assimilation bait. Their assimilation is the cliffhanger, ending on showing them as drones. Of course Commando Kate had to be bait, Tuvok and 2 nameless goldshirts wouldn't have the same impact
.
* "Shockwave" (2002)- The NX-01's mission ends when they seemingly kill a colony of miners we never see. They were set up, but alas, even being a prequel, they are too many centuries ahead for Perry Mason to defend them. Shifty-eyed time traveler Daniels tries his best but he does the bone-headed thing, pulls Archer into the future, and destroys Earth civilization and the Federation with it. The cliffhanger is they are stuck in the future (with no Delorean). The only way back... to Macgyver a time portal out of junk and the only way to save the Enterprise's mission... a gazelle speech!
* "The Expanse" (2003)- Someone attacked Earth. The NX-01 is recalled back to investigate the matter. Who was behind it? They could have blamed it on Iraq, but get the answer from a surprising source, Mr. Silhouette, who says it was the Xindi and they're in the Delphic Expanse. They set off on a new mission. Toss in a corrupt Klingon named Duras for a little action too.
The cliffhanger is the NX-01 entering a region likened to the Bermuda Triangle, an area where the laws of physics go wonky and Vulcans go mad, a giant area which seems to improbably large to have existed in the TNG era Star Trek.
* "Zero Hour" (2004)- You've just stopped the Xindi world-destroyer and have returned to Earth after a grueling season. Pass Go, collect $200 space bucks and go to... Space Nazis?
The year is 1944, the place... Enterprise (cue dramatic music).
---------------
Here's a recap of all of 'em in case anyone is a bit foggy on them, like viewers of one or two but not all series.
* "The Best of Both Worlds" (1990)- The Borg return and they are on course for Earth. A hotshot first officer guest stars to create uncertainty as a mission to stop the Borg leads to Captain Picard being captured. Ends with the crew being confronted by an assimilated Picard and the decision to attack the Borg Cube despite that their beloved captain is on it. "Mr. Worf... fire!"
* "Redemption" (1991)- What's a Klingon story without a Duras to make trouble? Chancellor Gowron and the House of Duras fight over the results of the 2000 election and Picard's the guy with the big magnifying glass examining all the hanging chads. Picard rules in favor of Gowron and so starts the Klingon civil war. Worf gets some honor restored. Worf resigns and the cliffhanger reveals suspicion of Romulan backing behind the Duras family was true in the form of Lt. Tasha Yar, err, Sela.
* "Time's Arrow" (1992)- Data's severed head is found on an archaeological dig in San Francisco. A fossil indicates the Branch Devidians are the ones time traveling to 1892. They're eating the souls of old timey Earthlings! Data is pulled into the time portal and finds himself back in 1955 Hill Valley, err, 1892 San Francisco making the acquaintance of Mark Twain. To stop this invasion, an away team follows some Devidians back in time for the cliffhanger.
* "Descent" (1993)- angry individualistic Borg attack an outpost. Data feels anger and pleasure in killing. In chasing the Borg's lopsided ship, the Enterprise gets pulled into the transwarp conduit. Picard decides to take the entire ship except Beverly and a few others who drew short straws on a giant vacation on the first planet he sees to "search" for the Borg. The cliffhanger is Lore exposes himself in the citadel ("Please! There are ladies present") and Data switches sides.
DS9 "In the Hands of the Prophets" is a standalone. Creationist vedek Kai Winn throws a fit over the teaching of evolution, err, wormholes, to children on DS9 and fundamentalists bomb the school house. The whole controversy was cover for arranging an assassination of a rival vedek, Bareil, in anticipation of the coming Kai election.
* "The Jem 'Hadar" (1994)- DS9 had the format of an action-packed episode that had a more general ambience kind of cliffhanger as opposed to an actual event.
A camping trip with Sisko, Quark, and the boys leads to first contact with the Jem 'Hadar, who show they are not to be trifled with by destroying in kamikaze fashion an Enterprise-D stand-in, complete with older balding captain.
The cliffhanger is the Dominion revealing their presence in the Gamma Quadrant to DS9, which would led to the fact-finding mission at the start of the next season.
* "The Adversary" (1995)- The Defiant is deceptively lured out away from the station by a Changeling in disguise to start a war as opposed to preventing a war. It's a hunt around the ship for the Changeling, a ship which he controls and has locked them out of.
The cliffhanger is the Changeling's last words, "You are too late. We are everywhere...". Of course, a Klingon detour forces the follow-up to this to be in the midseason.
* "Basics" (1996)- a Kazon scheme to stealthily weaken Voyager's defenses and sabotage the ship from within succeeds and Maje Cullah's sponge-headed kilt clan manages to take over the ship. He decided to exile the entire crew on the primitive world Hanon IV.
The cliffhanger shows Voyager taking off with Cullah in the captain's chair, leaving the crew in the California, err, Hanon desert. Also some Seska who's the father baby drama (and Maury Povich nowhere to be seen).
* "Broken Link" (1996)- Odo has a mysterious condition that can only be cured by a visit to the reclusive Founders, who agree only if Odo can be tried for murder. His sentence, to live as a human (AKA the space battle budget is eating into the changeling transformation budget).
The cliffhanger is Odo remembering a memory from the link... "Gowron, the head of the Klingon Empire, is a Changeling", meaning the Klingons are puppets of the Dominion. Cue an undercover mission deep into Klingon space.
* "Scorpion" (1997)- Voyager has arrived on the edge of Borg space and find a conveniently open route through Borg space, the Northwest Passage, only it's the territory of a species that is wiping the floor with the Borg, Species 8472 (not Species 8675309 or Species 5882300.
To make way for a bodacious Borg babe, one cast member must be killed! Will it be the annoying marmot-mullet wearing Neelix? Will it be sweet, quiet shrinking violet Kes? Or will it be green Ensign Kim with a green tentacle reaching up his nose?
Janeway makes a deal with the duotronic devil over Chakotay's objections, told in a parable of a wolf and a scorpion. The cliffhanger is 8472 ships destroying a Borg planet and the debris hitting the Borg ship tractoring Voyager.
* "Call to Arms" (1997)- the Dominion sets their sights on DS9, Starfleet puts a minefield by the wormhole and all Federation personnel evacuate DS9 as Dominion bigwigs make DS9 their base. Start of the Dominion War with the attack on DS9.
The open cliffhanger is the obvious need to retake the station because Star Trek: Starbase 375 doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
* "Tears of the Prophets" (1998)- war strategizing, an Allied strike on the Chintoka system and its array of orbital platforms, Jadzia doesn't renew her contract and so is killed off, all Bajoran Orbs go dark and Sisko, the Emissary, ends up washing clams in a New Orleans back alley.
The cliffhanger is how will the tides of battle turn, and how would the disillusioned Emissary find a way to restore the connection to the Prophets (AKA Ben & Jake's Excellent Adventure to Veridian III).
Voyager "Hope and Fear" was not a cliffhanger, but had a DS9-style finale, action-packed, only without an open cliffhanger. A friendly linguistic alien, Arturis, deciphers the scrambled message that leads to a gift horse (the Dauntless), but will the crew look in its mouth? Of course! He wants revenge on Voyager for defeating Species 8472 in the "Scorpion" conflict because a lot of assimilated peoples were rooting for 8472 and the Dauntless is set not for Earth but Arturis' assimilated homeworld deep in Borg space.
* "Equinox" (1999)- Hey look, another Starfleet ship! Finally, true friends in the Delta Quadrant. Wait a minute... something smells fishy here. What do you mean this isn't dolphin-safe tuna, err, fuel? Turns out they've been calling death dolphins (dessicating death-dealing dolphins from different dimensions) to use as fuel to propel their little ship of horrors and now they're reallly mad.
* "Unimatrix Zero" (2000)- If androids dream of electric sheep, what do cyborgs dream of? Seven enters the minus world of the Borg collective, the dream world Unimatrix Zero and Janeway schemes to form a resistance out of the dreaming Borg. Janeway decides to infiltrate a Borg ship with Tuvok & Janeway & Torres to deliver the individuality virus into the collective as assimilation bait. Their assimilation is the cliffhanger, ending on showing them as drones. Of course Commando Kate had to be bait, Tuvok and 2 nameless goldshirts wouldn't have the same impact
. * "Shockwave" (2002)- The NX-01's mission ends when they seemingly kill a colony of miners we never see. They were set up, but alas, even being a prequel, they are too many centuries ahead for Perry Mason to defend them. Shifty-eyed time traveler Daniels tries his best but he does the bone-headed thing, pulls Archer into the future, and destroys Earth civilization and the Federation with it. The cliffhanger is they are stuck in the future (with no Delorean). The only way back... to Macgyver a time portal out of junk and the only way to save the Enterprise's mission... a gazelle speech!
* "The Expanse" (2003)- Someone attacked Earth. The NX-01 is recalled back to investigate the matter. Who was behind it? They could have blamed it on Iraq, but get the answer from a surprising source, Mr. Silhouette, who says it was the Xindi and they're in the Delphic Expanse. They set off on a new mission. Toss in a corrupt Klingon named Duras for a little action too.
The cliffhanger is the NX-01 entering a region likened to the Bermuda Triangle, an area where the laws of physics go wonky and Vulcans go mad, a giant area which seems to improbably large to have existed in the TNG era Star Trek.
* "Zero Hour" (2004)- You've just stopped the Xindi world-destroyer and have returned to Earth after a grueling season. Pass Go, collect $200 space bucks and go to... Space Nazis?
The year is 1944, the place... Enterprise (cue dramatic music).
