Scenes that make you cringe....

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I mean, at least make the ones with regular speaking roles have a consistently rough look (that softens perhaps as time goes on), if you can't dress every extra consistently with a tough look. Seven of Nine looked more Borg after becoming human again than they looked ex-terrorist after joining the good guys.

Although, there is an episode in which some former Maquis with non-uniform compliant looks were asked to remove them.

 

[Paul755]

Alot of the Maquis were ex-Starfleet like Chakotay, Eddington, Belanna, etc… so they are gonna be a little more clean cut.

as far as cringy goes, all the decon scenes in Enterprise were bad. But none top the one with Phlox and T’Pol when she starts going thru the virus triggered Pon Farr. That one is so bad I felt embarrassed for the actress, she was basically grinding on the floor. And I think that ended up being one of, if not the final decon scene like that where they had to rub the gel on each other.

 

[Oddish]

Although, there is an episode in which some former Maquis with non-uniform compliant looks were asked to remove them.

And one, why should they have to, and two, what if they refuse? If I'm a Maquis member and I like my mullet, or my scruffy beard, or my pirate style headscarf... are you going to brig me for refusing to dispense with them?

 

[Farscape One]

I definitely understand not holding people to such standards. However, if you allow for one, you have to allow for all, which would include the pure Starfleet crew.

In leadership, it becomes a real slippery slope if you allow a few people to get away with one thing but come down on others for the same thing.

 

[StarMan]

One cringe moment I recall never made it to film. In Nemesis's original script, Picard utters the line "SAVAGE THEM!" during the climatic battle - I wish it had made it onto film, as it would have been the subject of many piss takes over the years.

Speaking of Picard, the French Pirate nonsense in Stardust City Rag has to rate right up there on the cringe scale.

And Pike's argh, me matey bit he did at the end of whatever episode it was. I know it was played to be cringe. Still. . . probably best to steer clear of the pirate-y stuff, Star Trek.

Last but not least:

"What can I say - we're Starfleet."

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I don't give a fat flying you know what whether they were terrorists, freedom fighters, insurgents, renegades, nationalists, guerillas, thugs, muggers, buggerers, outlaws, in-laws, lawbreakers, leg-breakers, or people who thought "Threshold" was a good episode. Whatever bunch of bad citizens they were supposed to be, they looked about as scary as a class of third-graders at a school with a uniform policy.

My wife has seen Star Trek, but never seen Voyager. I guarantee you if I put a random episode of Voyager on she would never guess that half the crew are ex-terrorists. It certainly needed more than a different set of badges.

 

[dupersuper]

The American constitution showing up at the end of Omega Glory, the "son of God" line at the end of Bread & Circuses, the "We find the one quite sufficient" line in Who Mourns for Adonais, the "creator of all things" and "gender is universal" lines in Metamorphosis, Bem, the casting choices in Code of Honor, pretty much all of Profit & Lace, Dear Doctor and Threshold, the holo-slaves at the end of Author Author, the silly Insurrection premise, the apparently non-existent lighting director on Nemesis, the Khan shout and magic blood in Into Darkness, the bridge crew of Discovery in season two including Burnham in a meeting about how to capture who they at the time thought was her future self, Picard season one, any time while around Earth/Sol or other inner Federation system that the Enterprise was "the only ship in range"...I'm sure there's more...

For me the ultimate on is the whole "I hope I haven't jeopardised our friendship" discussion between Data and Worf, I mean who the hell talks like that??

...An android...?

Janeway's diss of Kirk in "Flashback". She is a Saint apparently. "Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today".

Yeah: I'll add that one to my list as well.

 

[Dee1891]

Whenever a Starfleet or Federation character gets on his or her soapbox about the glory of humanity. This happened a lot on TNG.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Kirk's threatening the computer with the scrap heap, and Spock's commenting on its newly acquired tendency to giggle in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday". I hear stories of lonely men who've proposed marriage to Google Assistant, for crying out loud.

 

[Vger23]

Cringe moments: About 90 min from Star Trek Insurrection-

• "A British Tar"
• "Have you noticed your boobs"
• Manual Steering Column
• Everything between Data and the kid
• F. Murray Abraham
• The camera slowly panning from face to face of the Enterprise crew while they stare-down the drones (absolutely ridiculous)
• Picard dancing in his quarters
• Worf's purple space bazooka
• Anij swooning over Picard awkwardly
• Zit jokes

OMG what a mess.

Yet Janeway acted very much like Kirk most of the time.

More like "discount store Kirk"

 

[Paul755]

Something else from Voyager, every time Neelix called Kes “sweetie” when they were together in the early seasons. To me he always came off so much older, more like an adopted father not a lover. So sweetie in the lover context is just ewww.

 

[at Quark's]

Whenever a Starfleet or Federation character gets on his or her soapbox about the glory of humanity. This happened a lot on TNG.

I thought the emotional outburst of Yar in Encounter at Farpoint

TASHA: I must! Because I grew up on a world that allowed things like this court. And it was people like these that saved me from it. This so-called court should get down on its knees to what Starfleet is, what it represents..

was cringeworthy. Even though I agree with her that this wouldn't have been a fair trial by our standards.

Also I always found the following line of Picard particularly cringeworthy, too, even though it is from a famous literary source:

PICARD: Oh, no. I know Hamlet. And what he might said with irony, I say with conviction. What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god.

I don't even think it is the text itself, but the arrogance with which Picard delivers it. Even though it is against Q, who seems as least as conceited.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Roga Danar breaking free from a ****ing transporter beam!!!

WTF???

 

[DonIago]

Roga Danar breaking free from a ****ing transporter beam!!!

WTF???

I might be okay with the notion that an augmented individual trying to break the annular confinement beam could succeed in doing so.

I'm a bit less okay with the notion that that wouldn't end badly for the individual doing so.

 

[Farscape One]

I thought the emotional outburst of Yar in Encounter at Farpoint

TASHA: I must! Because I grew up on a world that allowed things like this court. And it was people like these that saved me from it. This so-called court should get down on its knees to what Starfleet is, what it represents..

was cringeworthy. Even though I agree with her that this wouldn't have been a fair trial by our standards.

Also I always found the following line of Picard particularly cringeworthy, too, even though it is from a famous literary source:

PICARD: Oh, no. I know Hamlet. And what he might said with irony, I say with conviction. What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god.

I don't even think it is the text itself, but the arrogance with which Picard delivers it. Even though it is against Q, who seems as least as conceited.

I can never find Sir Patrick Stewart reciting Shakespeare cringeworthy. Quite the opposite.

 

[at Quark's]

^ Not saying his performance is bad there- it isn't. I just can't stomach the attitude of the Picard character in that scene (which I assume the script or the screening directions called for).

It's scenes like those that make me almost understand why Q flew the enterprise into Borg space next time they met.

 

[Trekker09]

Insurrection was pretty much one long cringeworthy moment.

In "The Game" TNG -- Picard orders Wesley's eyelids to be forced open, which Riker and Worf do, with Beverly standing right there. They were all under the influence, but still- ugh.

 

[flandry84]

Worf’s purple space bazooka.
I’d form a band just to call it this!

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Whenever "Faith of the Heart" starts up at the beginning of an Enterprise episode.

Janeway's diss of Kirk in "Flashback". She is a Saint apparently. "Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today".

That doesn't inspire so much cringe as blind rage in me. It's so damn smug.

For that matter, any scene where the TNG crew smugly talks about how they're so much more advanced and enlightened than the poor dumb clods of the 20th Century.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Honestly, I reached a point in my viewing experience that if I watched one more Klingon discourse on honor my eyeballs would implode. It began on TNG and carried over into DS9.

Oh. And Data doing a Vulcan nerve-pinch in "Unification Part II".