Top 5 Worst Episodes of Entire Franchise

[Admiral Shran]

Well, if we go worst by individual series, then it's....

TOS - And the Children Shall Lead
TNG - Shades of Grey
DS9 - Let He Who Is Without Sin...
VOY - The Fight
ENT - TATV

 

[Trek Survivor]

2, Shades of Gray (Season 2 finale): This was arguably the worst season in the entire franchise but this episode is by far one of the most awful. Two words: Clip show. I know there was the writers' strike but come on... a clip show after 2 seasons? At least this is the only Star Trek clip show I can remember unlike Stargate which did like 30 of them.

Whoa there, some of us crazy nuts here happen to like season 2 of TNG. Worst season in the entire franchise? Not even close.

"Shades Of Gray" would not make my top 5 worst list, not by a long shot. Sure, it's a clip show, but at least (as I've said many times before) it's not just Riker and Troi sitting round saying "hey, remember when we encountered those crazy Edo guys..." (cue dream music), like most American TV show clip shows seem to do.

I'm in the UK, but it seems to me that EVERY American show seems to do a clip show at some point. "Friends" had - three or four? - and "The Simpsons" have definitely done more than one.

Yes, it was early to do one (though "The A-Team" did one at the end of their second season too, after just 35 episodes!), but the situation necessitated it. The framing sequence was at least a little inventive compared to most; and I rather liked the Riker/Troi interaction.

Not even in my top 5 worst TNG, never mind top 5 worst of the franchise! "Code of Honour" and "Justice" are far worse!

 

[Gov Kodos]

1 Alternative Factor (TOS)
2 Alternative Factor (TOS)
3 Alternative Factor (TOS)
4 Alternative Factor (TOS)
5 Alternative Factor (TOS)

From TNG
Anything featuring either of the Crusher family.

From DS9
Not my favorite series, but it never offered up anything as bad as the other series.

From Voyager
Threshold for the whole story
End Game for the whole 7of9 plot alone
Can't think of anything else off the top of my head, unless it would be anything featuring Harry Kim.

From Enterprise
Anything featuring the Temporal Cold War.

 

[Disruptor]

5. TNG "Code of Honor"

4. VOY "11:59"

3. VOY "Fair Haven"

2. TOS "And the Children Shall Lead"

1. TOS "Miri"

 

[You_Will_Fail]

5) probably "Threshold" but since that's been said a million times before, I'll add "Time and Again" (granted it was VOY's third episode) but I can't get over the fact that the aliens spoke English w/o the communicators and Tom was able to read the alien clock since it used Arabic numerals.

The aliens only seemed to speak English because of the universal translator...and the communicators don't act as them.

 

[stj]

Star Trek and the other Treks have far too many failed episodes to pick just five. It's the good ones that justify the series (or fail too, according to your judgment,) especially if you agree that SF can treat more effectively treat certain themes that realism can't. But if your standards of artistic success insist on consistent excellence, neither Star Trek nor any of its spin offs was ever a good series.

 

[Tiberius]

I'm going to go out there and say that Shades of Grey could have been excellent. The only reason it failed was because it was a clip show. But if they'd actually filmed things we'd never seen before, it would have been great.

Just imagine seeing Kyle telling a young Will that his mother's dead. The episode had so much of a chance to explore Riker's character, and it was wasted.

 

[Greg Cox]

Just to be contrarian, I'd argue that eps like "Threshold" or "Sub Rosa" or "Spock's Brain," jaw-dropping as they are, have more entertainment value than any number of safer, middle-of-road, less memorable eps. ("Janeway turned into a newt and is having lizard babies with Paris? Okay, I'm never seen that before . . . .")

To my mind, the worst Trek episodes are the boring, forgettable ones . . . like the one where Chakotay and Seven of Nine get stranded on a jungle planet and nothing happens, or the one where Voyager's decks get scrambled by a spatial anomaly and everybody wanders around lost and confused for what feels like forever. (If I wanted to watch people trying to navigate twisty floors and corridors, I'd just go to Lunacon . . . .)

And, yeah, "The Alternative Factor." Just because it's a mess.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

In no particular order:

Sub Rosa--Dr. Crusher falls in love with a ghost aka Star Trek: The Bad Romance Novel

Caretaker--Janeyway violates the Prime Directive and strands the crew to save the alien of the week aka Star Trek: The Crazy Lady Gets them Stuck Because She Can't Program a Timebomb

Author, Author--Computer programs left running for too long acquire rights for some reason aka Voyager Rips Off the Measure of a Man (and yes I know I might catch flack for this one--but to me a computer program isn't a person and doesn't deserve rights. Data is different because he was built to be alive and found essentially alone. If he was built by Starfleet I would consider him Starfleet property.)

Memorial--Janeway decides that an alien device should be able to mindrape people so that bad things aren't forgotten aka Star Trek: The Crazy Lady Wants to Eat Your Brain So You Can Feel Bad About the Alien of the Week Too

Let He Who is Without Sin--Terrorists don't like the beach for some reason aka Star Trek: Environmentalism is Good, Except When It's Bad

 

[Tiberius]

And, yeah, "The Alternative Factor." Just because it's a mess.

I still have no idea what that episode is about...

 

[gomtuu20]

Shades of Gray - TNG. A clip show!

 

[Tiberius]

As I said in post 27, SoG could have been really good.

 

[gomtuu20]

#1 Shades of Gray - TNG Worst episode ever!
#2 And the Children Shall Lead- TOS Even the music was aweful.
#3 through #5 - Pretty much any of the Voyager episodes, with the exception of "Tuvix".

 

[antiquityscion]

Here are the ones I always skip when I re-watch my DVDs:

For TNG, its Sub Rosa, Genesis, Justice, Shades of Gray, Journey's end, Angel 1, and pretty much any "trapped in the Holodeck episode."

Dor DS9 it's Meridian, Field of Fire, Profit and Lace, Let He who is without Sin, The Muse.

For VOY, its Fair Haven, Spirit Folk, 1159, The fight, and pretty much 3/4s of season 7.

ENT it's A Night in the sickbay, Terra Nova,These are the Voyages, Unexpected, Shuttlepod 1, Dear Doctor.

But all you TNG era haters, or people who cry and cry how B&B "screwed Trek up," the truth is you all can't handle the fact that some of the worst episodes came from TOS. 1960s or not, that's no excuse for bad TV.

Sure, it was the first. Sure it is the template for all that followed. Sure it had some pretty awesome episodes and movies that followed. Sure, maybe they have the best main characters, but as a whole, if you are really honest about it, TOS was the most uneven series and also had the most amount of bad episodes by percentage of total episodes, especially when you take into consideration it was the shortest show, with the highest percentage of crap. It even beats Enterprise, percentage wise.

Namely:
The alternative Factor
And the Children Shall Lead
Charlie X
Miri
Turnabout Intruder
Cat's Paw
Spocks Brain
Shore Leave
Return of the Archons
Mudd's Women
Wolf in the Fold
The Apple
Return to Tomorrow
By Any Other Name
A Piece of the Action
A Private little War
Omega Glory
Spectre of the Gun
Plato's Stepchildren
Lights of Zetar
Requiem for Methuselah
The Cloud Minders
Wink of an Eye
The Mark of Gideon
The Savage Curtain

That is over 1/3 of total TOS episodes, that are completely unwatchable, folks.

 

[gomtuu20]

Here are the ones I always skip when I re-watch my DVDs:

For TNG, its Sub Rosa, Genesis, Justice, Shades of Gray, Journey's end, Angel 1, and pretty much any "trapped in the Holodeck episode."

Dor DS9 it's Meridian, Field of Fire, Profit and Lace, Let He who is without Sin, The Muse.

For VOY, its Fair Haven, Spirit Folk, 1159, The fight, and pretty much 3/4s of season 7.

ENT it's A Night in the sickbay, Terra Nova,These are the Voyages, Unexpected, Shuttlepod 1, Dear Doctor.

But all you TNG era haters, or people who cry and cry how B&B "screwed Trek up," the truth is you all can't handle the fact that some of the worst episodes came from TOS. 1960s or not, that's no excuse for bad TV.

Sure, it was the first. Sure it is the template for all that followed. Sure it had some pretty awesome episodes and movies that followed. Sure, maybe they have the best main characters, but as a whole, if you are really honest about it, TOS was the most uneven series and also had the most amount of bad episodes by percentage of total episodes, especially when you take into consideration it was the shortest show, with the highest percentage of crap. It even beats Enterprise, percentage wise.

Namely:
The alternative Factor
And the Children Shall Lead
Charlie X
Miri
Turnabout Intruder
Cat's Paw
Spocks Brain
Shore Leave
Return of the Archons
Mudd's Women
Wolf in the Fold
The Apple
Return to Tomorrow
By Any Other Name
A Piece of the Action
A Private little War
Omega Glory
Spectre of the Gun
Plato's Stepchildren
Lights of Zetar
Requiem for Methuselah
The Cloud Minders
Wink of an Eye
The Mark of Gideon
The Savage Curtain

That is over 1/3 of total TOS episodes, that are completely unwatchable, folks.

Hmmm, there's some good episodes in there. Wolf in the fold, in particular is a pretty good episode. Return of the Archons, Charlie X, Spectre, Requium, and some of the others aren't bad. I agree that And the Children Shall Lead is unwatchable, but most of the others are watchable. TOS tried to do some pretty daring things. Sometimes, the concept didn't work out all that well. With TOS though, even the episodes that didn't really work that well are still watchable because of the strong characters and character moments. TNG sometimes had that to a lesser degree, but the characters in Voyager and Enterprise just weren't stong enough to carry a mediocre script.

 

[antiquityscion]

Hmmm, there's some good episodes in there. Wolf in the fold, in particular is a pretty good episode. Return of the Archons, Charlie X, Spectre, Requium, and some of the others aren't bad. I agree that And the Children Shall Lead is unwatchable, but most of the others are watchable. TOS tried to do some pretty daring things. Sometimes, the concept didn't work out all that well. With TOS though, even the episodes that didn't really work that well are still watchable because of the strong characters and character moments. TNG sometimes had that to a lesser degree, but the characters in Voyager and Enterprise just weren't stong enough to carry a mediocre script.

I am not talking about daring, because spin offs can't be more "daring" than the original by their very nature of being a spin off in many ways, but I am talking about watch-ability. If you like Return of the Archons, Charlie X, Spectre, Requium, and Wolf in the fold, I suppose that is a matter of opinion, but I find all of them pretty bad and pretty unwatchable. My point is that while maybe TOS was daring as a whole (I agree with you there), there were also a lot of stinker episodes, and I might add, in higher proportion to the amount of TOS episodes produced over all, compared to the other shows. Maybe it is a bit unfair considering TOS was on the shortest amount of time, but I am tired of reading thread after thread of people bashing the TNG\DS9\VOY era. After all, the vast majority of that era was excellent, not to mention we are talking about 21 seasons combined: the vast majority of trek.

 

[gomtuu20]

I understand your point and I don't necessarily disagree that TOS had a higher percentage of stinkers. I'm just saying that many episodes you mentioned don't fit into that category (in my humble opinion). Many of the stinkers are still watchable because of the characters and because of the actors who played them. I certainly am not a TNG hater and am certainly not "bashing the TNG\DS9\VOY era"(even though I really only like one Voyager episode). In fact, it I see TNG as a continuation of TOS.

If you get rid of, say, the first two seasons and about 1/3 of the final season, TNG had a large percentage of outstanding episodes. Of course, if you disregard season 3 of TOS, the same thing could pretty much be said of it.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Sub Rosa is totally brilliant - You have Beverly Crusher sexing it up and fog on the bridge of the Enterprise

It was the only time I ever found Crusher interesting, I'm quite fond of it.

Worst is kind of hard, I'd have to list the really dull, bland ones. But I can't always remember them, instead I remember the ones I truly hated.

1. TATV, may it burn in infamy

2. The Omega Glory, most embarrassing Trek ep ever.

3. Profit and Lace, second most embarrassing Trek ep ever.

I'm sure if I was more familiar with TNG I would have a few more, but it's my least favorite so I've only seen it through twice. I don't hate much though.. even my least favorite VOY's I don't hate. Memorial is vile and I completely disagree with Janeway's decision and yet is a classic Trek ethical dilemma and not boring. Same for Dear Doctor.

 

[Harvey]

Star Trek: "The Alternative Factor"

Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Shades of Gray"

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: "Profit and Lace"

Star Trek: Voyager: I have to pick just one?

Enterprise: "Precious Cargo"

 

[ambessalion]

a lot of VOY and ENT.......

the TNG with the 3 crazy ambassadors (i don't remember the name) and the one where the guy makes Troi bitchy....