Episodes where the entire plot fundamentally doesn't work

[Dukhat]

Making space aside, they clearly have advanced replicator technology. It's the only way they could scan the Enterprise and duplicate it so precisely. They could also do it fast with a giant replicator. If I remember correctly all the equipment didn't work. They only need the inside of the ship, no nacelles or working reactors or weapons.

Also replicators would allow them to feed everyone, preventing starvation from solving their problem for them.

But that is not what the episode implies or even downright states. For all intents and purposes, they created a 1:1 replica of the ship on the planet. Kirk even states that everything is the same, implying he searched the entire ship. Could the Gideonites have skipped duplicating areas on the ship inaccessible to humans, such as the nacelles? Possibly. But they would not know ahead of time how thorough Kirk would be about searching the ship, and any scrimping on the duplicate would have foiled their plan.

 

[TommyR01D]

The transporter taking out a few chunks of someone's genome causes them to physically revert to children, but be otherwise perfectly formed and in full retention of their memory and cognitive capability - and apparently allows their clothes to shrink to match...

They look pretty baggy to me.

Don't forget 5) The whole concept basically means that people can use the transporter to gain effective immortality. When you start to get old, take a trip through the transporter and rewind the clock back to age 12. Repeat indefinitely.

That was already done for Pulaski in Unnatural Selection.

 

[Oddish]

Yeah... if you just kept the relevant data in the pattern buffer, you could even "bring back" casualties by dematerializing the corpse and rematerializing the person in their prior state; all they would lose is the memory of the event. Marla Aster could have gone home to Jeremy that night. Tasha could have reunited with her sister in "Legacy". And Dax and Worf could have continued to BSDM the crap out of each other for another 50 years.

 

[Unicron]

TNG - Symbiosis. Yes, the story has some good themes. Yes, as a microcosm the episode just about works. On any practical level? No, it's fundamentally flawed. Even for sci-fi, this story is making things waaaaaay too narrow and parochial in scope for the sake of the plot. The plant can only grow on one planet. Nowhere else? Not even via controlled, hydroponic greenhouses? Granted, the dialogue almost manages to sell the idea of the one planet selling the dope to the other that's doing all the work for them, on top of getting high - especially with the Ornarans not knowing how to fix their shuttles... really, nothing else grows on Brekka except the drug plant? No industries where they can build their own ships?! Amazing they didn't take notes while the doped-up Ornarans were getting the latest crop. And Ornara has everything else, including working comm systems, and nobody there knows how to maintain diddlysquishles?

For my part, I feel like "Symbiosis" had some good potential but the execution is pretty terrible. It seems way too simplistic for the Brekkians to literally have only a single industry (felicium) and not other essentials, even if they get a lot of benefits from the one-sided trade with the Onarans.

It's also a prime example (for me anyway) of what's wrong with early TNG Prime Directive episodes. Picard ultimately decides not to give repair parts for the ships, knowing that stopping the drug trade will have a severe impact on both worlds, yet earlier he flat out rejects Crusher's offer to make non-addictive felicium on the grounds that it's too much interference? How is choosing to wash their proverbial hands of at least one side losing spacefaring ships (as well as being addicted to a narcotic) not considered both interference on a higher scale and interference that's more potentially destructive? There's a lot of consequences that the script simply glosses over.

Diddlysquishles is now my favorite word.

For my part, I think TNG's "Justice" is a good example of a plot that fails on many levels. The final version is kind of like an update on "The Apple" but the Edosians come across looking much sillier and there's no logical reason for having a death penalty for justice, not least over trivial things like Wesley falling into a garden. And even less so for visitors.

It would have been far more interesting if the earlier drafts by John D.F. Black (who was credited with pseudonym Ralph Willis in the final version, because of how much the script had drifted from his original concept) had been worked on, IMO.

In an earlier version, the setting would have been a more dystopian world (Llarof) that had been wracked by chaos and violence, and the "death penalty for everything" policy was created to finally instill a measure of order. It was successful, but the governments that followed have become a bit too reliant on its enforcement. Picard would have become involved when one of the security personnel is accidentally killed, and he learns that a rebel faction is seeking to overthrow the existing regime.

In one draft, they would have succeeded but then kept the death penalty as a form of justice (as well as power), and the central question would be whether having such power can ever be used to create real peace and justice, or whether it's mainly just a trap.

 

[1001001]

For my part, I think TNG's "Justice" is a good example of a plot that fails on many levels. The final version is kind of like an update on "The Apple" but the Edosians come across looking much sillier and there's no logical reason for having a death penalty for justice, not least over trivial things like Wesley falling into a garden. And even less so for visitors.

 

[Vger23]

Court Martial fundamentally makes no sense. And I love the episode...but...

1. The whole scheme would have taken some considerable planning to pull off. How would Finney have known the Enterprise would encounter the ion storm with enough time to execute on the plan?
2. How could Finney have even known the storm would get bad enough to necessitate ejecting the ion pod?
3. Given the turmoil and friction between the two officers, why would Finney even be assigned to the Enterprise under Kirk? Out of all the possible assignments he could have been given, this makes no sense.
4. What was Finney's end game? Was he just going to hang out in Engineering forever in hiding? I know he's likely "mentally compromised," but nothing about his plan really makes any sense.
5. What if Finney wasn't coincidentally the "next officer on the list" for ion pod duty?" Did he have other cockamamie revenge schemes up his sleeve?

 

[Deks]

Yeah... if you just kept the relevant data in the pattern buffer, you could even "bring back" casualties by dematerializing the corpse and rematerializing the person in their prior state; all they would lose is the memory of the event. Marla Aster could have gone home to Jeremy that night. Tasha could have reunited with her sister in "Legacy". And Dax and Worf could have continued to BSDM the crap out of each other for another 50 years.

One small problem.
I don't think we have evidence the transporter could do that with a dead individual (but otherwise, it could would work with live people) - at least... the 24th century version can't seem to do that.

I think for that to be successful, the subject in question would need to be alive (not dead).
Even in the case of the Metreon cascade and Jetrel's experiment, he himself posited the Cascade effectively vaporized the victims via bio-molecular disintegration.
In fact, the cascade even kept the victims in a state of suspension of sorts... acting like a giant transporter buffer which preserved the disassembled Talaxians - sure, the info was scrambled, but it was still there.

Would reanimating a dead body with a previous pattern even work?
The transporter has biofilters to remove potential contaminants, etc... but it was never used to reanimate a dead person or fix phaser wounds - though technically, it would be possible to repair a body that's already alive with a previous pattern - but it would need to be calibrated NOT to override the existing consciousness (so, like Pulaski and later Picard and the gang, their physical bodies would be regenerated, but consciousness would have to remain intact - which requires... modifications).

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Court Martial fundamentally makes no sense.

I just see Finney as an opportunist. No real plan, other than maybe hiding his resentment of Kirk (maybe even from himself) to put himself (consciousy or not) in a position to seize whatever opportunity for revenge presented itself. He just saw getting sent to the ion pod as one more imposition on him.

 

[Richard Baker]

Was it ever mentioned why somebody had to be stationed in the Ion Pod if the first place?
Don't see why, any equipment or controls could have been located just outside the ejectable pod, just use longer wires...

 

[dupersuper]

Was it ever mentioned why somebody had to be stationed in the Ion Pod if the first place?
Don't see why, any equipment or controls could have been located just outside the ejectable pod, just use longer wires...

The Ion storm may wreak havok with electronics, thus requiring a mechanical release...?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Was it ever mentioned why somebody had to be stationed in the Ion Pod if the first place?
Don't see why, any equipment or controls could have been located just outside the ejectable pod, just use longer wires...

My issue is with Finney hiding in engineering, and the search for him consisting of going around those big transformer boxes over and over and trying to convince everyone the set was bigger

 

[TommyR01D]

Timeless
Why would they ever need to assimilate new technology in the first place? They'd just be able to think it up, and way more efficiently than a biological species.

Unless, of course, perfection also means that it's more efficient to steal it from a species that has developed the stuff already....

Without any other information, I would assume that the Borg either invented or acquired the nanoprobe technology somewhere between 2366 and 2373, and that this lead to a profound change in strategy.

Previously their primary goal was to find, scan and replicate other species technology. The assimilation of people was a cumbersome surgical process which they only undertook when they needed an increase in troop numbers during a fight. Afterwards it became trivially fast and easy to assimilate vast numbers of people and their ships, which meant that the old process was redundant - just jab your tubules at them and you'll have all their species knowledge and resources in seconds.

 

[at Quark's]

Without any other information, I would assume that the Borg either invented or acquired the nanoprobe technology somewhere between 2366 and 2373, and that this lead to a profound change in strategy.

Previously their primary goal was to find, scan and replicate other species technology. The assimilation of people was a cumbersome surgical process which they only undertook when they needed an increase in troop numbers during a fight. Afterwards it became trivially fast and easy to assimilate vast numbers of people and their ships, which meant that the old process was redundant - just jab your tubules at them and you'll have all their species knowledge and resources in seconds.

Let's hope they never acquire the Vidiian tricorder/transporter technology - it'd be even more trivially easy to assimilate species just by beaming nanoprobes into their bloodstream from a distance without even the physical contact of tubules.

 

[Jedman67]

Code of Honor

 

[Jedman67]

Thought of another:
Chain of Command was flawed on like 5 levels. Or 4 levels
1. The decoy mission to trap Picard was like, wtf?
2. Jellico being a pain in the ass - He's the goddamn captain, Master after God on this puny vessel. He doesn't NEED to explain himself, the crew should be grateful that he's not showing them the door.
3. Jellico should have said "We may be at war with the Cardassians tomorrow, get your asses in gear and get my ship ready!"
4. Picards torture is literally the only redeeming part of this episode. It was a great performance.
5. Rikers blue shirt, wtf?

 

[Qonundrum]

I'm getting the feeling that Kirk's Vegan choriomeningitis infection was a rare form of venereal disease transferral via sex. Space Syphilis.

Two affects:
1. People start dying within twenty four hours after having sex.
2. People stop having sex (and the resulting babies) for fear of getting the disease.
Both will decrease the population. Once the population is back down to a manageable level, then they introduce the cure.

No argument from me. While I've made all sorts of corny low-brow jokes in the past regarding the scale of Kirk's antics, the episode is vague enough to all but write in big letters flashing for 300 frames "Yes folks, we're really talking about space VD". Season 3 knew the show wasn't going to make a 4th so, despite a number of overall subpar stories, they went to town and had field day over field day in mentioning anything as much as they could.

Now imagine if Phase II actually got made; this episode would be disturbingly more timely, and far less funny because, unlike the 1960s and 70s for the most part, most forms of VD were easily treatable. No relation to planet Krypton, but look up "superbug" strains of the same infections that were formerly easily treatable (but thankfully still are, for now).

I wonder how Emperor Tiberius must have felt; back in his day he made a law against kissing because of the rampant spread of herpes, or if that's the influence behind Kirk's "T" getting an official name in Star Trek VI (or one of the comics or books, but was never said in any TV episode or movie until VI). Of course, back then, both variants of HSV didn't cross over to the other side, so to speak. That's no longer the case... it's just how that virus adapted over time and as it's in the same family as chickenpox and other forms of DNA-level viruses and at this point I'll just mention that South Park episode where the the kids made their own correlation due to the number of "chickenpox parties" all their parents threw, oh dear... Granted, this goes back even farther: Religions labeled syphilis, gonorrhea, and the rest as "sin" because nobody knew any better 5000 years ago due to lack of microscopes, engineers inventing them with, or biologists to use them to realize "Hey cool, so that's what it is and once we get to inventing penicillin, we can finally do something pragmatic... at least until that stops working!" Pico Fermi prevailing, this goes into too many tangents. Even then, most people aren't happy if they get something ,especially if they're already in a relationship and all of a sudden that peeing activity now hurts...

 

[Qonundrum]

Code of Honor

The plot point of getting Picard to be hollow with his prime directive, yet Lutan honoring his when defeated in this loose and partial remake of "Amok Time", has a lot of potential - but "fundamentally flawed" is an understatement. Also being early season 1, as with other clunkers like "Justice", some great ideas end up being underused, misused, or poorly scripted and thrown out by the end.

 

[Forbin]

Thought of another:
Chain of Command was flawed on like 5 levels. Or 4 levels
1. The decoy mission to trap Picard was like, wtf?
2. Jellico being a pain in the ass - He's the goddamn captain, Master after God on this puny vessel. He doesn't NEED to explain himself, the crew should be grateful that he's not showing them the door.
3. Jellico should have said "We may be at war with the Cardassians tomorrow, get your asses in gear and get my ship ready!"
4. Picards torture is literally the only redeeming part of this episode. It was a great performance.
5. Rikers blue shirt, wtf?

The biggest WTF for me in that ep was sending the capt and senior officers on a freakin' commando mission. Even if they had specific knowledge vital to the mission, the RIGHT thing to do is to brief some actual commandos with said knowledge, and keep the command staff safely back on the ship doing things they actually KNOW how to do.

 

[Jedman67]

The biggest WTF for me in that ep was sending the capt and senior officers on a freakin' commando mission. Even if they had specific knowledge vital to the mission, the RIGHT thing to do is to brief some actual commandos with said knowledge, and keep the command staff safely back on the ship doing things they actually KNOW how to do.

Rule of plot and all, the point was to torture Patrick Stewart.

 

[Shawnster]

New Ground. The whole crisis with the soliton wave is self contradictory.

According to Ja'Dar's presentation of the soliton wave rider experiment:

First step: "Twenty three field coils, working in concert, will generate the soliton wave from this point on the planet surface."
Second step: "We will have our test ship towed to a position approximately two million kilometers from Bilana III. If our theories are correct, the wave will envelop the ship and push it into warp."
Third step: "The wave will be directed toward Lemma II, about three light years distance. Our sister facility there which will generate a scattering field which will dissipate the wave..."
Fourth step: "...and bring the ship out of warp."

OK, so the test ship is destroyed. The ship, however, didbr control the soliton wave. It did not generate the wave, nor was it needed to dissipate the wave. It simply rode the wave. Yet the ship is destroyed and suddenly they can't stop the soliton wave? Why not dissipate the wave the way you planned on dissipating the wave in the first place?