• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Most unjustly hated episode

I have a soft spot for "Catspaw," which gets maligned a lot. Hey, it's a special Halloween episode by the author of PSYCHO. What's not to love?

(I think people overlook that fact that the ep, which originally on October 27, 1967, was just intended to be a fun Halloween treat, and works perfectly well in that respect.)
 
"Spock's Brain." for all it's campiness, it's still more entertaining than most of 1980's- 2000's Trek.
 
One of the things I remember about the Royale aside from it being a poor episode is it quoting a tempature lower than absolute zero.
 
Threshold. Three quarters of the way through a standard sci fi tech story the whole episode drops some acid. What's not to love?

I will grant that "Threshold," as goofy and nonsensical as it is, is actually more entertaining that plenty of dull, forgettable, middle-of-the-road type episodes. "Threshold" is jaw-droppingly insane--like a good episode of AMERICAN HORROR STORY.

Then again, I like the TNG ep where Barclay turns into a giant spider-monster, too. :)
 
"Masks". For some reason it gets a lot of hate around here. Maybe some think Bret Spiner was overacting? I don't know.
 
I don't much like TNG and can't bear Masks but The Royale reminded me a little of Spectre Of The Gun. I have a bizarre fondness for Spock's Brain and don't mind Move Along... and If Wishes... as much as many DS9 fans. I find many praised episodes are highly overrated.
 
my three have already been mentioned.

"masks," "the royale," and "threshold."


All are much better than unwatchable crap like "the fight," "spirit folk," "a night in sickbay," "the alternative factor," etc. etc.
 
I agree about "Masks." It may be odd, but I definitely have a soft spot for it.

"Move Along Home" is another one that I constantly see trashed, but to me it's the good kind of campy, not the bad kind. And it's doubly ironic that the kind of people who flip out over this episode are exactly the kind of people that the Wadi are rolling their eyes at at the end, for taking everything with deadly seriousness.

The last one for me is "Descent." I was surprised to see how much hate this episode gets, when I joined this forum. It will always be a favorite of mine. (It also explains why I hate Seven of Nine. Seven's robot personality is completely contradicted by Hugh's character arc--there's no doubt Hugh is a highly emotional being...sometimes immature, but certainly not inhibited emotionally in any way.)
 
Spectre of the Gun. I can't fathom why this episode is disliked. HAD they in fact gone to a "Western Planet" ("Archons" was close), like they went to a Nazi Planet, Gangster Planet, Rome PLanet, then yes, this would simply have been the "Western Planet" one.

But they spun straw into gold and made the super-cool, surreal, great character-acting, interesting premise, great soundtrack episode.
 
The Omega Glory. People get so wrapped up in the flag that they miss a great performance by Morgan Woodward and a compelling story.
 
My vote is "The Royale". I think it's one of the funniest episodes in the series.

Same here - though more for the reason that it has a real Sapphire & Steel vibe to me.

In TOS it'd be Spectre Of The Gun, which makes the fake looking sets into a cool part of the episode
 
I'll second Move Along Home. I think that's a cool episode, back when I DMed I based an adventure off it.

Seven's robotic personality can be explained by the age at which she was assimilated.

Might also add Sacred Ground.
 
I'm surprised Spectre Of The Gun is hated. Don't like Westerns but I always thought it was intriguing and striking. Other episodes I can understand the hate.
 
Glad to see I'm not the only one to like "Move Along Home." :)

Now on to my point of disagreement with you:

Seven's robotic personality can be explained by the age at which she was assimilated.

Yet Hugh was either assimilated so young that he remembers nothing else (even Seven has some memories), or he was born into the Collective.

This fact would seem to help my argument rather than yours. Seven had some vague memory of humanity to draw upon and that should've informed at least a few of her responses. Yet she was robotic in personality.

Hugh had no such resources in evidence, and may not have ever had a personality of his own at any point in the past. Yet he exhibited much greater depth of emotion than Seven. Not always mature (much as I love the character, it was pretty immature when he went off on Riker in "Descent"), but I would say he was much further along emotionally than Seven.

And this without any of the resources Seven had, that should've put her even further ahead of Hugh. It would've made sense to see her with emotions like a child's (much as Hugh does demonstrate some immaturity), but with strong emotions. As it was, VOY basically ignored the precedent "Descent" had made clear.
 
Glad to see I'm not the only one to like "Move Along Home." :)

Now on to my point of disagreement with you:

Seven's robotic personality can be explained by the age at which she was assimilated.

Yet Hugh was either assimilated so young that he remembers nothing else (even Seven has some memories), or he was born into the Collective.

This fact would seem to help my argument rather than yours. Seven had some vague memory of humanity to draw upon and that should've informed at least a few of her responses. Yet she was robotic in personality.

Hugh had no such resources in evidence, and may not have ever had a personality of his own at any point in the past. Yet he exhibited much greater depth of emotion than Seven. Not always mature (much as I love the character, it was pretty immature when he went off on Riker in "Descent"), but I would say he was much further along emotionally than Seven.

And this without any of the resources Seven had, that should've put her even further ahead of Hugh. It would've made sense to see her with emotions like a child's (much as Hugh does demonstrate some immaturity), but with strong emotions. As it was, VOY basically ignored the precedent "Descent" had made clear.

It's pretty clear Voyager's writer's were going for a Borg-holm Syndrome type thing. She's retreating into the security her Borg-ness gives her. If it had been thought of by the time of I, Borg you can bet your jimmies Hugh would have been more like that too. The real problem with Seven was that the writers hit the reset button on her character whenever possible.

Anyways, I dig Samaritan Snare. We look for things. I'll also echo previous sentiments about Masks and The Royale.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top