Intriguing Episodes With Disappointing Endings

[Oddish]

Operation: Annihilate

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the episode disappointed as such - on the contrary, I think it's a great episode. It's just that the ending, when it turns out that these dangerous parasites are so vulnerable to something so basic as UV light is slightly disappointing, after seeing an entire episode with these horrific creatures, and how even phaser fire had almost no effect on them.

Whoever wrote that one might have been familiar with "War of the Worlds", which had a similar unstoppable enemy with a surprise vulnerability.

 

[Commander Troi]

What's an episode of "Star Trek"--any series--that had you on on the edge of your seat, trying to guess what was going on, only for the answer to be a complete let-down?

For me personally though, the most infuriating cop-out ending to an episode is TNG's "Remember Me." One by one, people on the Enterprise are vanishing out of existence, and out of all history, as if they had never been there. Dr. Crusher is the only one that seems to notice this, while everyone else insists that the missing people never existed, and Crusher is off her rocker. Crusher eventually concludes that the entire universe might be shrinking! And then..........it turns out she's just in a fake balloon universe that's deflating. My interest also deflated.

"Frame of Mind" (TNG): Riker keeps shifting between his life on the Enterprise, and being a mental patient in an alien asylums. As he tries to figure out which life is real, we the audience try to figure out what's causing the duel realities. Has Riker's consciousness been merged somehow with someone else's? Is he simply shifting between universes? Nope. Turns out...some bad guys kidnapped him and put him to sleep, and both realities are just his dreaming brain trying to kill time for an hour until 5 minutes before the credits roll.

"Future Imperfect:" (TNG) Riker has a knack for finding himself in intriguing mysterious realities, that turn out to be lame gaslights by lame aliens. In this one, he seemingly awakens 15 years into the future, having suffered some kind of amnesia that erased the last 15 years of his memory. He tries to adjust to being captain of the Enterprise, having a son named Jean-Luc (even though Jean-Luc Picard is still alive), Jean-Luc the First sporting a ludicrous billy-goat beard, and Geordie having normal eyes. After realizing things don't add up, Riker demands that this trickery end. Then, seemingly, it turns out to be a holo-program, controlled by Romulans! But for what purpose? And then...........the Romulans are fake too. Turns out, it was all one big hallucination caused by a lonely bug alien, who didn't want Riker to leave him friendless again. Riker cheerfully tells the alien that they can totally be bestest-best friends for the next 3 minutes until the credits roll, after which the bug-boy is never mentioned again.

What are some episodes that you felt began very intriguing, and had terrible cop-out endings?

"Remember Me" is definitely one that annoyed me to no end. I had completely forgotten about "Future Imperfect" - very annoying. But I actually liked "Frame of Mind" - perhaps because of Frakes' performance (and directing IIRC).

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The most disappointing endings for me are the ones where they raise an interesting ethical or legal dilemma then avoid giving it a definitive answer or the implied lasting consequences.

Dax (The episode) for example. We never get a legal ruling on Trill transferred culpability. Just “Curzon didn’t do it nvm”.

Alliances also felt like it should have led to more of an arc and a bigger conversation about to what extent the situation called for compromising and it just ends with the takeaway “Nope, Starfleet ethics are still infallible”.

Also never mentioning the surviving Equinox crew again.

I liked Remember Me’s twist. It made more sense than “Universe changing magic that somehow only misses one person”. For Future Imperfect I liked the first twist but think the Romulans should have been real.

 

[Oddish]

Agreed about "Dax". That ending was a load of crap.

 

[at Quark's]

Also never mentioning the surviving Equinox crew again.

Why would anyone expect to ever hear from them again? Most probably, they were dumped in the shuttle / photon torpedo production slave pits.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Why would anyone expect to ever hear from them again? Most probably, they were dumped in the shuttle / photon torpedo production slave pits.

The last scene of Equinox for one made it look like them being added to the crew was a thing. But also, why shouldn't they do a redemption story?

 

[Brobdingnag]

The 37's: The fact that there wasn't a single one of the crew that wanted to stay when they told us how wonderful and Earth-like the cities were... It's just unbelievable, literally, I just can't believe it.

 

[Oddish]

The 37's: The fact that there wasn't a single one of the crew that wanted to stay when they told us how wonderful and Earth-like the cities were... It's just unbelievable, literally, I just can't believe it.

Agreed. I personally think that Carey should have led the group (maybe 5-10 people) who jumped ship. Passed over for the Starfleet dropout who should have been brigged for assaulting him... what a bunch of crap.

 

[XCV330]

deus ex-machina endings, like the end of Picard Season 1 "Hi it's Admiral Pizza Chef with 200 cloned ships. The day is saved"

 

[F. King Daniel]

deus ex-machina endings, like the end of Picard Season 1 "Hi it's Admiral Pizza Chef with 200 cloned ships. The day is saved"

They set up rhat ending saying Starfleet were sending ships, so it's not a deus ex machina.