What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Tosk]

Controversial Opinion:

The "legendary worst episodes" of Trek almost never are.

Spock's Brain is not the worst episode of TOS.
Shades of Gray is not the worst episode of TNG.
Move Along Home is not the worst episode of DS9.
Threshold is not the worst episode of VOY.

Not a hard and fast rule. Note that I said "almost never".

 

[drt]

You could be right, I don't know. I only have the testimonies of those who said they went into STEM fields (partially under the influence of Star Trek), including myself.

However, to actually convince me otherwise, I'll need somewhat more substantive arguments than 'I think ...'.

Yeah, I also went into STEM, but was I inspired by Trek or have a predisposition to science that made scifi stuff like Star Trek more attractive to me as a kid?

I think the Cardassians turn to the Dominion a LOT sooner. And with the Federation at war with the Cardassians from the beginning of DS9 S4, the Cardassians and Dominion retake control of DS9 immediately instead of waiting.

In early DS9 Season 4, Rom is still one of Quark's employees, which means he doesn't help to create the minefield, which means that the Dominion can travel through the Wormhole without anything blocking it.

Basically, if the Federation backs the Klingons, they'll get wiped out after Cardassia joins the Dominion in early-2372 (instead of mid-2373).

It's funny, i never really noticed it before, but when you actually start putting dates to all of the different conflicts and shifting alliances in DS9, it starts to become a little unbelievable all of that could happen over such a short time frame (my controversial opinion for the day).

 

[fireproof78]

I'm with you on preferring a solid phaser beam vs. STAR WARS-like shots. I'm fine with some aliens doing the SW shots, though, as a way of differentiating them from Starfleet.

I don't mind the ship weapons having beams but hand weapons I prefer bolts, like the Jem'Hadar weapons.

Spock's Brain is not the worst episode of TOS.

I can't think of another one, but I would agree.

Shades of Gray is not the worst episode of TNG.

No. That's Sub Rosa.

Move Along Home is not the worst episode of DS9.

Definitely not. That's Profit and Lace, but Move Along Home is top 5 worst.

Threshold is not the worst episode of VOY.

No, that's "Fair Haven."

 

[drt]

Spock's Brain is not the worst episode of TOS.

I can't think of another one, but I would agree.

'Spock's Brain" might be super dumb, but it's fun and entertaining. I think "And the Children Shall Lead" is terrible on almost every level.

 

[Lord Garth]

The worst, IMO:

TOS - "And the Children Shall Lead"
TNG - "Justice"
DS9 - "Let He Who Is Without Sin"
VOY - "Threshold"
ENT - "Precious Cargo"
DSC - "Unification III" (it pains me to say this)
PIC - "Monsters" (I don't mind it, but something has to come in last)
SNW - N/A. I haven't seen every episode.

 

[Farscape One]

Controversial Opinion:

The "legendary worst episodes" of Trek almost never are.

Spock's Brain is not the worst episode of TOS.
Shades of Gray is not the worst episode of TNG.
Move Along Home is not the worst episode of DS9.
Threshold is not the worst episode of VOY.

Not a hard and fast rule. Note that I said "almost never".

Agreed.

TOS - "AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD"... almost no competition, really.

TNG - probably "Sub Rosa", but several others can easily take the spot. "Shades Of Gray" is not one of them.

DS9 - "PROFIT AND LACE", though I am leaning toward "THE RECKONING" taking the spot.

VOY - "FURY", though multiple episodes can easily compete for the title. "THRESHOLD" most certainly isn't one of them.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Controversial Opinion:

The "legendary worst episodes" of Trek almost never are.

Spock's Brain is not the worst episode of TOS.
Shades of Gray is not the worst episode of TNG.
Move Along Home is not the worst episode of DS9.
Threshold is not the worst episode of VOY.

Not a hard and fast rule. Note that I said "almost never".

Agreed with all of the above.

My worsts:

TOS: Turnabout Intruder
TNG: Code of Honour
DS9: Profit and Lace
VOY: Fury

 

[cooleddie74]

"Precious Cargo(ENT)" is so bottom-of-the-barrel that even the writer later admitted it was crap and submitted just to meet an airdate deadline from UPN for a new episode. "ANiS" is mediocre but the Porthos subplot is cute and heartwarming and Phlox chasing his Pyrithean bat around Sickbay with a huge net is funny, so that episode has a couple of redeeming factors. Even "TATV..." has that absolutely gorgeous final pair of scenes that, while they don't make up for the panorama of vapid tripe that preceded them at least send that sorry excuse for a finale out on a visceral high note.

"Precious Cargo" is just dumb garbage from start to finish.

 

[eschaton]

"Precious Cargo(ENT)" is so bottom-of-the-barrel that even the writer later admitted it was crap and submitted just to meet an airdate deadline from UPN for a new episode. "ANiS" is mediocre but the Porthos subplot is cute and heartwarming and Phlox chasing his Pyrithean bat around Sickbay with a huge net is funny, so that episode has a couple of redeeming factors. Even "TATV..." has that absolutely gorgeous final pair of scenes that, while they don't make up for the panorama of vapid tripe that preceded them at least send that sorry excuse for a finale out on a visceral high note.

"Precious Cargo" is just dumb garbage from start to finish.

The only way to watch Precious Cargo is to mute the episode and ogle Padma Lakshmi.

 

[Arpy]

Controversial Opinion:

The "legendary worst episodes" of Trek almost never are.

Spock's Brain is not the worst episode of TOS.
Shades of Gray is not the worst episode of TNG.
Move Along Home is not the worst episode of DS9.
Threshold is not the worst episode of VOY.

Not a hard and fast rule. Note that I said "almost never".

Prove it. Which ones are worse in each series? I'd still watch any of them and find something I like. Doesn't mean that they (the ones that match with my own list anyway) aren't the worst of each series. So which ones are yours?

 

[BillJ]

I don’t think there can be any argument about “Code of Honor” being the worst episode of TNG.

 

[cooleddie74]

Oh, it's the bottom of a deep barrel alright. "Shades of Grey" is lazy and tedious and numerous other offerings from "Code of Honor"'s season are awkwardly bad but the Ligon II episode is just cringe-inducing awfulness that even in 1987 was nothing to be proud of.

 

[Lord Garth]

I don’t think there can be any argument about “Code of Honor” being the worst episode of TNG.

I won't argue with anyone who thinks "Code of Honor" is the worst TNG episode. I agree with what everyone says about why.

I only went with "Justice" because as bad as "Code of Honor" is, I can still watch it from start-to-finish. Whereas in "Justice", once Wesley hits the flowers, that's it. I've never been able to sit through it. It took as much willpower as I could muster to soldier my way through it when I re-watched every episode of TNG before the beginning of Picard.

 

[cooleddie74]

"Justice" is just offensively dumb. Scantily-clad people on an alien planet who seem like dollar store Eloi from The Time Machine are overseen by a giant orbital spaceship that serves as their deity and sentence perpetrators of simple, random accidents to death for upsetting the perfect order.

It's one of the Season 1 episodes that makes me wish a gem like "The Neutral Zone" wasn't the final episode of that year.

 

[Farscape One]

I get why "Code of Honor" is always at the bottom of the list of TNG episodes. The way it was cast was a HUGE problem, and will never really redeem itself.

But take out the casting decisions, and it's not as bad as others such as "Sub Rosa", "Force of Nature", or "Up The Long Ladder".

 

[cooleddie74]

"Liaisons" in Season 7 bores me no end. It's not intrinsically inept. The production values are solid, and Patrick Stewart gives one of his usual good if not great performances. But man, when the best thing about an episode from 1993 or 1994 is the alien ambassador who gets hooked on chocolate and pesters Troi about it that's not saying much for the writing.

 

[Citiprime]

Somehow I feel the bad later season episodes are worse, because I think by then they should know better and understood how to do a good Star Trek episode. The season 1 episodes are really bad, but part of it is I think they were still trying to figure out the format and the characters.

But there’s episodes in seasons 6 and 7 of TNG where it feels like they’re either phoning it in or, because they were stuck having to crank out 20+ episodes, they were grasping for ideas at that point. “Masks” feels like basically the writing staff threw up their hands and said “Hey, let’s just get Brent Spiner to improv for 40 minutes with a mask on.”

 

[fireproof78]

I always love this idea of "people should know better."

Listening to various podcasts and writer's discussions and one of the biggest things that creatives can struggle with is what actually works. Not all writers and producers see the problems that fans do, nor should they. They look at art far differently that the consumer does and that leads to them going, "Well, we think this works so lets do more of this, be it Klingons, Borg, Khan, or whatever." The idea that they go "Oh, that's how to make good Star Trek" assumes they are learning what we think makes good Star Trek.

 

[Lord Garth]

The whole "trying to figure things out" during the first season of TNG never should've happened. They had the entirety of TOS to look back to so they could see what worked, what didn't, and what they could improve upon. Gene Roddenberry, in theory, should've had ideas for stories he wanted to tell that had built up in the back of his mind that he never got a chance to do.

Theoretically, TNG Season 1 should've been the ultimate version of Star Trek, with all the flaws shaken off. Instead of looking at Star Trek wtihout the flaws, he looked at Humanity without the flaws, and then that led to all the writers trying to figure out, "How do we write these types of stories?" And then there was Gene Roddenberry's asshole lawyer, Leonard Maizlish (I don't care if I mispelled that). He drove away all the veteran writers, like DC Fontana and David Gerrold, who could've helped the newer writers with learning to write Star Trek.

 

[Farscape One]

I wouldn't go so far as saying season 7 was bad (and it was, overall) because the producers should have known better.

I think part of the problem was burnout. Especially for Moore and Braga (that's 1/3 of TNG's season 7 writing staff right there), who were working on GENERATIONS at the same time.

At the same time, Piller was busy with season 2 of DS9 and starting up VOY with Taylor (she was head writer for TNG season 7, and honestly, I think she's a good writer but not a showrunner) and Berman, so all the bosses were stretching themselves out pretty thin.