Small missed opportunities

[The Borgified Corpse]

What are those minor tweaks you think they could have made to episodes to have made them so much better? A couple immediately spring to mind...

"The Menagerie"
They passed up an easy opportunity to explain why Spock's characterization in "The Cage" was so different. While they're watching the replay of the Talos IV mission, Dr. McCoy should have teased Spock a little about how emotional he's acting, "Almost human." Spock would then give a mildly embarassed reply that this was in his uncontrolled youth and that he has since mellowed with age. It would have made an early pilot mistake seem like deliberate characterization.

"What You Leave Behind"
The last line of the series ("It's like I always say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.") should have been said by Morn.

 

[erastus25]

Spock could have used the spores from This Side of Paradise to heal Pike.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

That water from "Wink of an Eye", keep it on tap for emergencies. Similarly kironide from "Plato's Stepchildren".

 

[Forbin]

There was a moment at the end of DS9 when Kira was trapped on Cardassia helping the Cardy resistance from the shadows. I thought that was an amazing, wonderful full-circle twist to her character. But she should have STAYED trapped on Cardassia to enhance the irony (or symmetry, or whatever).

 

[Lilith]

I know it's pedantic, but in The Host there is a very sweet scene between Troi and Crusher, when Troi talks about her father and coaxes Crusher into accepting Odan in Riker's body, but at the end of the conversation, Deanna says "Beverly, if you can feel those things from the man we know as Will Riker, accept them,... accept the love." If they'd just left out the last part 'accept the love', it would've been so much better and so much less corny. Nothing screams 80s!!! to me as much as that single line

 

[RandyS]

^80's? Wasn't that episode made in 1990?

I don't want to start anything here, but I'd say not rewriting TATV into something coherent was a missed opportunity.

 

[T'Cal]

In ENT, there should've been a scene early on in which Archer explained that the NX-01's naming was suggested by Cochrane from when he worked with Jonathan's father, Henry, on the first warp 5 engine. Cochrane was so deeply affected by Picard and the others from the 24th century Enterprise that when the first deep-space vessel was launched, he wanted to pay homage for their vital assistance in his historic first warp flight and subsequent first contact with an alien species. A throw away line like this explains why the audience never heard of Archer's version of the Big-E; the events in FC produced an alternate universe from that point on and part of the difference is that in this timeline there is an Enterprise NX-01..

 

[Lilith]

^80's? Wasn't that episode made in 1990?

I don't want to start anything here, but I'd say not rewriting TATV into something coherent was a missed opportunity.

Yup, but I always say it as a leftover from the 80s mentality Who knows, maybe it was more 90s mentality, I was barely out of my diapers, so I'll let someone else decide, hehe

 

[ChristopherPike]

The Chef aboard the NX-01 should've been Shatner. Failing that any other TOS cast member... certainly not a TNG regular like Frakes.

The series would have been better ending with a TOS love-fest like IaMD. Possibly Bakula in old age make-up at the launch ceremony for the NCC-1701.

 

[captcalhoun]

they shoulda mentioned what the E-E was up to in the one where Worf and Dax marry to explain why tehy weren't there.

 

[erastus25]

they shoulda mentioned what the E-E was up to in the one where Worf and Dax marry to explain why tehy weren't there.

Huh? Why would Worf and Dax be on the E-E?

Another one I just thought of:
The CONSPIRACY parasites could have come back! They also could have visited Sigma Iotia again.

On the flipside, I thought it was awesome that they followed up on the stranded Ferengi from The Price.

 

[Forbin]

^80's? Wasn't that episode made in 1990?

I don't want to start anything here, but I'd say not rewriting TATV into something coherent was a missed opportunity.

The 80s didn't end when the ball dropped. It takes a little while for a decade's fashions and mores to peter out, and the new decade to find its own style. IMHO, the 50s didn't end till 1962, and the 60s lasted till around 1974.

 

[T'Cal]

they shoulda mentioned what the E-E was up to in the one where Worf and Dax marry to explain why tehy weren't there.

I think the original poster meant that Worf's long-time friends on the E-E didn't make it to his wedding ceremony and that that should have been explained.

 

[captcalhoun]

yes.

 

[Anthony Sabre]

Kobayashi Maru episode during ENT. I know there is a book now but this really should have been an episode about the unbeatable scenario and how it came to be.

 

[erastus25]

they shoulda mentioned what the E-E was up to in the one where Worf and Dax marry to explain why tehy weren't there.

I think the original poster meant that Worf's long-time friends on the E-E didn't make it to his wedding ceremony and that that should have been explained.

Ah. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Delta Belle]

In hindsight, TNG: "Legacy" should have given more screen time to Troi's sensing Ishara's divided loyalties.

As Picard said at the end, the crew let their affection for Tasha blind them to seeing Ishara as she truly was. This would have been a perfect chance to show Troi's empathy working against her, in a way. Emotionally, she wanted to believe in Ishara like everyone else. But logically, she knew they shouldn't.

 

[Nardpuncher]

^80's? Wasn't that episode made in 1990?

I don't want to start anything here, but I'd say not rewriting TATV into something coherent was a missed opportunity.

The 80s didn't end when the ball dropped. It takes a little while for a decade's fashions and mores to peter out, and the new decade to find its own style. IMHO, the 50s didn't end till 1962, and the 60s lasted till around 1974.

For something that may sound strange (The 60s ending in 1974) it is also so very true...well said.

 

[HIj'Qa]

All of ENT should have been a Tom Paris holosuite program.
He shows it to B'Elanna and she goes, "Eh." So he deletes the whole thing.

K'mtar/Alexander should have been the Klingon Adm Janeway was dealing with to go back in time in Endgame.

Seska should have turned out to be the Cardassian Ilana Ghemor

Tasha Yar should have been in one of the parallel universes Worf experienced in Parallels

I also wish the producers had taken the risk and made Henry Archer gay, and Jonathan Archer his child by a surrogate female.

Similarly, Ezri never mentioned her father, and I think it would have been futuristic, alien, and characterisitic of predatory business woman Yanas to have contracted her offspring with Professional Paternity Services Inc, LLC. for tax write-offs and business assets!

 

[erastus25]

Seska should have turned out to be the Cardassian Ilana Ghemor

Ooohhh...I like that! It would have been an awesome touch! I always hoped DS9 would do a followup.