Mama Robotnik
Member
I wrote this for GAF, and to start a discussion about Trek's weaker moments and anything I’ve missed.
15. Captain Archer takes his dog on a vital diplomatic mission, lets it piss on an ancient and hugely spiritual artifact of a highly-pious people, and gets angry at them when they are unhappy about it
For some reason the writers of Enterprise decide to write Captain Archer as a petulant and petty child for one particular episode, regarded as being one of the stupidest in the entire franchise. The website Agony Booth describes the treatment of Archer's character in this episode as the product of "active, aggressive hatred for your own creations to annihilate them to this degree.".
Its really, embarrassingly stupid. The episode seems to be trying to portray the Captain as being in the right, when his actions are absolutely, completely idiotic.
14. Gul Dukat becomes Satan, only to be stopped by Space Jesus
Deep Space Nine’s Gul Dukat was one of the series’ best-developed recurring characters. He was introduced as a tyrant who oversaw the brutal Cardassian occupation of the innocent Bajor. Under his watch, the inhabitants of Bajor were tortured, enslaved and exterminated, and the planet was ransacked for its wealth and natural resources. The character often explains that he could not stop the occupation, so he tried to make it less intolerable to the victims by abolishing child labour and taking actions to prevent slaves from being worked to death. It is unclear how much of this is true, and how much is a positive revision of history.
The series shows this complex character as being initially an ambiguous adversary, and soonafter a desperate ally. He is shown to have a conscience (in choosing not to murder his illegitimate daughter and accept the shame her existence brings) and a respect for our heroes. He eventually betrays the entire Alpha Quadrant for the power of The Dominion and, when his victory is all but assured, his entire world comes crashing down. His beloved daughter is murdered by his best friend. His Dominion allies abandon him. His chance to finally earn the respect of the Bajorans is stolen from him. He suffers a complete mental breakdown, and becomes a gibbering wreck rocking back and forth in a dark cell. Gul Dukat’s story seemed to be at its end.
And yet...
The writers decided there was more for Dukat to do, and reintroduced him to the show as a religious lunatic, now aligned to the diabolical Pah-Wraiths – the hellish evil beings sealed beneath Bajor. He develops demonic powers such as immolation, telekinesis and control of fire. The ever self-serving Dukat becomes a loyal and boring servant of his new devilish masters.
He became a completely different character, following an arc completely disconnected to his development through the show. The conclusion of the final episode is significantly tainted by a battle between this cackling, pointless madman, and Captain Benjamin Space Jesus Sisko. The whole thing is an uncomfortable, tacked on story that adds nothing to the series and greatly diminishes all the brilliant development the character had.
13. Voyager’s shuttles
When Star Trek Voyager came out, it was an exciting premise for the franchise. A lone starship trapped in deep space, struggling with no resources, no allies, no repairs and no hope! A crew of direct enemies whose opposing philosophies would undoubtedly lead to tension and conflict! A continuing saga of survival and desperation in the untamed wilderness beyond known space!
What we got was the safest, dullest, most boring show of the entire franchise, that didn’t use its premise in the slightest. Nearly all plot developments were deleted by the infamous metaphorical “Voyager reset button” by the end of each episode. In seven years, not a single brave decision had been made regarding anything. Deep Space Nine’s Ronald D Moore offered his scathing view on the shallowness of the show:
The best observation that the writers of Voyager didn’t give a shit about their premise and were likely in it just for the money, was the infamous Voyager shuttlecraft count. The series bible (apparently) said something like this:
And there is dialogue explaining that the crew simply do not have the resources to rebuild photon torpedoes or shuttles. As this website will tell you, Voyager destroyed about seventeen of its two shuttlecraft during the show. The writers of Voyager seemed to have nothing but contempt for the unique scenario they created in their own show.
12. Kirk versus God.
The infamous Star Trek V : The Final Frontier. The William Shatner written and directed bombsite, in which the run down Enterprise is taken over by Spock’s magic brother, to fly to a magical planet where they can meet “God”. Shatner’s original script was even worse than the final product, in which all of the Enterprise crew betray him and he is forced to fight “God” on his own.
The whole thing is a travesty, and manages to soundly outcrap even Star Trek Nemesis, in which Captain Picard must fight evil young Captain Picard who is inexplicably in charge of the Romulans.
11. Janeway laughs off assimilation.
When Picard was assimilated by The Borg, he was forced to ensure an agonising technological rape of his mind and body. His flesh was hijacked and mutilated, and his mind was absorbed and used to kill thousands of people. The incident traumatised one of The Federation’s strongest men, haunting him for the rest of his life and leading to an eventual sobbing breakdown in a muddy field in France. Picard had been instrumental in the defeat of The Borg, but they had utterly, completely broken him.
When Captain Janeway was forced to endure the same agony:
She is rescued, immediately healed, and working and drinking coffee a couple of hours after surgery. She is laughing and joking with her crew about the incident, and it is never spoke of again.
Yeah. Clearly everyone who has been horrifically traumatised and violated by The Borg has nothing on Janeway's iron will.
10. Spock’s brain gets stolen.
The profoundly idiotic episode in which some aliens steal Spock’s brain, leading to McCoy controlling his body with a control pad. It is even more stupid than it sounds. It is even more stupid than that time the crew of the Enterprise found Abraham Lincoln floating in space in his presidential chair. It is even more stupid than the hippy episodes. Its shite.
9. That racist episode.
Its best you just read about it. The Enterprise goes to a planet where the “aliens” are all inexplicably played by African-American actors, and act like some sort of bizarre parody of offensively stereotyped African culture. The lead alien kidnaps Tasha Yar and makes her fight his prospective wife to the death, for the honour of marrying him.
It’s not just offensive, it’s stupid. The plot is stupid, and everyone is wrote to be an idiot, even Picard. Possibly the lowest point of The Next Generation. Garbage.
8. Quark’s breasts.
The Dominion War. The galaxy is plunged into a conflict the likes of which has never been seen. Millions are killed, planets are invaded, allies turn on each other and the enemies of humanity grow more powerful every day. It is a dark time for the human race and the United Federation of Planets, and Ragnarok is looming over everything.
Under these dire, desperate circumstances, Quark gets breasts.
In a utterly pointless episode, Quark’s new boob powers save Ferengi civilisation from the evil Nagus Brunt. Quark’s boobs eventually lead to a revolution on Ferenginar, in which his brother becomes the Emperor of the planet and institutes reforms enabling equal rights and a welfare revolution.
All thanks to Quark’s boobs.
7. Under no circumstances is a starship captain allowed to be female.
In a bizarre twist, the original series of Star Trek shows that the advanced human race is actually profoundly sexist.
It’s a really bad story called “Turnabout Intruder”, in which Kirk’s ex-girlfriend kidnaps his body, leaving poor William Shatner having to act out the role of a highly-emotional unstable woman for most of the episode. The whole thing comes across as offensive and stupid.
Of course, the whole thing is rightfully ignored by the time of The Next Generation.
6. Enterprise’s “sexy” decon chamber.
For no logical reason whatsoever, the pilot of Enterprise had a blue room called “decon”, in which the actors must stand in their skimpy underwear slowly rubbing oil onto each other from different angles. The room was retained and the “sexy” was toned down as the series went on, but the whole thing comes across as a desperate attempt to inject sex appeal in some incredibly out of place scenes.
5. The crew of the Starship Voyager defeats the entire Q Continuum and the Borg collective.
The Q Continuum – the omnipresent Gods of the Star Trek universe. They appear to humanity as tricksters with hidden agendas, gently provoking the human race into a higher understanding of reality. They think in ways we cannot imagine, and sometimes act in ways we wish they wouldn’t. The Next Generation teaches us that these advanced, unfathomable aliens are really, probably looking out for our own good.
Here is the bit where the Starship Voyager flies into the Q Continuum.
Here is the bit where Tom Paris single handedly defeats and disarms one of the oldest and most powerful Q in the multiverse.
Here is the bit in which Q and Mrs Q orgasm in front of Captain Janeway.
Well done, Voyager.
Oh, and I know this was somewhat covered in another thread, but in Voyager, The Borg went from this:
To this:
4. Lieutenant Tom Paris turns into a salamander and fucks Captain Janeway
The dumbest episode of Voyager, which had more than its fair share of dumb episodes. Tom Paris travels at Warp 10, which means he occupies every point in the universe simultaneously. This causes him to transform into a salamander and makes him have sex with Captain Janeway. They produce some lovely salamander children, and the Star Trek Voyager Reset Button is pressed, everything goes back to normal, and they never speak of it again.
I don’t need to go into details here, it’s been done by people far smarter than myself. See:
The Agony Booth looks at “Threshold”
Chuck Sonnerberg’s full video on the horror that is “Threshold”.
Trek Wiki - Threshold
That someone with a working brain could have made this episode just beggars belief.
3. The last episode of Star Trek, ever.
Enterprise series four. After a pretty terrible first two seasons, and a passable third, a new showrunner brought some fresh blood to the franchise. An enthusiastic and eager man called Manny Coto took over the show, and after a poor opening that had to wrap up the drek from the last season, things started getting considerably better. Multi-arc stories with actual continuity, genuine attempts to link our present with Trek’s future, energy, excitement and even some intelligence was finding its way back into the franchise. For the first time since Deep Space Nine’s conclusion, good televised Trek was starting to emerge.
Then the show was cancelled. Rather than allowing Coto to conclude his successful season, the dipshits from Voyager - Rick Berman and Brannon Braga – returned to write what they considered “a love letter to the fans”. They decided that they should be the ones to conclude a show just managing to escape their toxic influence.
With the show’s fanbase hopeful for a resolution to certain themes that had underpinned the entire four seasons, they were more than a little surprised when they got this instead:
The entire finale was part of a holodeck simulation during Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which Riker and Troi watch pivotal Enterprise characters get killed for no purposeful reason. The whole thing is a meandering mess, concluding little from the actual four seasons of Enterprise. The primary focus on characters not from the actual series, was a sore point for fans. Everyone who watches this piece of shit hates it.
It appears that Berman and Braga could not resist one last opportunity to piss on the corpse of the franchise.
2. The post-TOS interpretation of “The Prime Directive”.
In the original Star Trek series, the Prime Directive is in place to prevent interference in the natural development of alien cultures. If such cultures were in danger of extinction or extermination, Kirk would often save them from their terrible fate, with the idea that slight involvement in resolving the disaster is better than the unnecessary extinction of an innocent people.
In all future series, this Prime Directive was revised. Now, absolutely no involvement is to occur. The crew of the Enterprise routinely watch planets with millions of people on them, die in natural disasters that the ship could have easily and discretely prevented. In a statement of grand arrogance, Commander Riker once said that all these deaths could be “part of a cosmic plan” and that it would be the “height of hubris” to use a tachyon beam to save a civilisation.
Notably, Commander Riker chooses to break the Prime Directive himself only when his latest love-interest is in danger (The Outcast), proving that for him, interference is only allowed when his cock says so.
There are literally scenes on the bridge of the Enterprise D in which they watch planets destroy themselves, with no concern for any of the pre-warp civilisations being made extinct and no attempt to help when they confirm they clearly are able.
The Enterprise episode Dear Doctor has our heroes withholding a cure for a horrible fatal disease from an alien race, for absolutely no logical or plot reason whatsoever. It makes them, and the future human race, come across as tyrannical cold-hearted bastards.
1. There are no gay humans in Star Trek, anywhere, under any circumstances.
There is a very big article on this on Wikipedia, and it’s an interesting and surprising read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_in_Star_Trek
In short, all humans in the 24th Century appear to be straight. There is not, in any of the series, a single gay human at any time. Deep Space Nine’s Ronald D Moore has this to say on it:
Moore goes on to say that it was not Paramount blocking a gay character from appearing on the how. Kate Mulgrew (who plays Captain Janeway) seems to give us a clearer idea who was at the root of this:
Whoopi Goldberg tried to adjust one of her scenes to include possibly gay humans, but was quickly stopped by the powers that be.
This closed-minded approach to human sexuality is by far the most embarrassing and shameful thing about Star Trek. To end the OP on a positive note however:
I'm done
Trek-GAF – What moments have I missed? And of the above, which is the most embarrassing?
15. Captain Archer takes his dog on a vital diplomatic mission, lets it piss on an ancient and hugely spiritual artifact of a highly-pious people, and gets angry at them when they are unhappy about it
For some reason the writers of Enterprise decide to write Captain Archer as a petulant and petty child for one particular episode, regarded as being one of the stupidest in the entire franchise. The website Agony Booth describes the treatment of Archer's character in this episode as the product of "active, aggressive hatred for your own creations to annihilate them to this degree.".
Its really, embarrassingly stupid. The episode seems to be trying to portray the Captain as being in the right, when his actions are absolutely, completely idiotic.
14. Gul Dukat becomes Satan, only to be stopped by Space Jesus
Deep Space Nine’s Gul Dukat was one of the series’ best-developed recurring characters. He was introduced as a tyrant who oversaw the brutal Cardassian occupation of the innocent Bajor. Under his watch, the inhabitants of Bajor were tortured, enslaved and exterminated, and the planet was ransacked for its wealth and natural resources. The character often explains that he could not stop the occupation, so he tried to make it less intolerable to the victims by abolishing child labour and taking actions to prevent slaves from being worked to death. It is unclear how much of this is true, and how much is a positive revision of history.
Gul Dukat said:
The series shows this complex character as being initially an ambiguous adversary, and soonafter a desperate ally. He is shown to have a conscience (in choosing not to murder his illegitimate daughter and accept the shame her existence brings) and a respect for our heroes. He eventually betrays the entire Alpha Quadrant for the power of The Dominion and, when his victory is all but assured, his entire world comes crashing down. His beloved daughter is murdered by his best friend. His Dominion allies abandon him. His chance to finally earn the respect of the Bajorans is stolen from him. He suffers a complete mental breakdown, and becomes a gibbering wreck rocking back and forth in a dark cell. Gul Dukat’s story seemed to be at its end.
And yet...
The writers decided there was more for Dukat to do, and reintroduced him to the show as a religious lunatic, now aligned to the diabolical Pah-Wraiths – the hellish evil beings sealed beneath Bajor. He develops demonic powers such as immolation, telekinesis and control of fire. The ever self-serving Dukat becomes a loyal and boring servant of his new devilish masters.
He became a completely different character, following an arc completely disconnected to his development through the show. The conclusion of the final episode is significantly tainted by a battle between this cackling, pointless madman, and Captain Benjamin Space Jesus Sisko. The whole thing is an uncomfortable, tacked on story that adds nothing to the series and greatly diminishes all the brilliant development the character had.
13. Voyager’s shuttles
When Star Trek Voyager came out, it was an exciting premise for the franchise. A lone starship trapped in deep space, struggling with no resources, no allies, no repairs and no hope! A crew of direct enemies whose opposing philosophies would undoubtedly lead to tension and conflict! A continuing saga of survival and desperation in the untamed wilderness beyond known space!
What we got was the safest, dullest, most boring show of the entire franchise, that didn’t use its premise in the slightest. Nearly all plot developments were deleted by the infamous metaphorical “Voyager reset button” by the end of each episode. In seven years, not a single brave decision had been made regarding anything. Deep Space Nine’s Ronald D Moore offered his scathing view on the shallowness of the show:
Ronald D Moore said:
The best observation that the writers of Voyager didn’t give a shit about their premise and were likely in it just for the money, was the infamous Voyager shuttlecraft count. The series bible (apparently) said something like this:
And there is dialogue explaining that the crew simply do not have the resources to rebuild photon torpedoes or shuttles. As this website will tell you, Voyager destroyed about seventeen of its two shuttlecraft during the show. The writers of Voyager seemed to have nothing but contempt for the unique scenario they created in their own show.
12. Kirk versus God.
The infamous Star Trek V : The Final Frontier. The William Shatner written and directed bombsite, in which the run down Enterprise is taken over by Spock’s magic brother, to fly to a magical planet where they can meet “God”. Shatner’s original script was even worse than the final product, in which all of the Enterprise crew betray him and he is forced to fight “God” on his own.
The whole thing is a travesty, and manages to soundly outcrap even Star Trek Nemesis, in which Captain Picard must fight evil young Captain Picard who is inexplicably in charge of the Romulans.
11. Janeway laughs off assimilation.
Admiral Hanson said:
Jean Luc Picard said:
When Picard was assimilated by The Borg, he was forced to ensure an agonising technological rape of his mind and body. His flesh was hijacked and mutilated, and his mind was absorbed and used to kill thousands of people. The incident traumatised one of The Federation’s strongest men, haunting him for the rest of his life and leading to an eventual sobbing breakdown in a muddy field in France. Picard had been instrumental in the defeat of The Borg, but they had utterly, completely broken him.
When Captain Janeway was forced to endure the same agony:
She is rescued, immediately healed, and working and drinking coffee a couple of hours after surgery. She is laughing and joking with her crew about the incident, and it is never spoke of again.
Yeah. Clearly everyone who has been horrifically traumatised and violated by The Borg has nothing on Janeway's iron will.
10. Spock’s brain gets stolen.
The profoundly idiotic episode in which some aliens steal Spock’s brain, leading to McCoy controlling his body with a control pad. It is even more stupid than it sounds. It is even more stupid than that time the crew of the Enterprise found Abraham Lincoln floating in space in his presidential chair. It is even more stupid than the hippy episodes. Its shite.
9. That racist episode.
Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker) said:
Brent Spiner (Data) said:
Its best you just read about it. The Enterprise goes to a planet where the “aliens” are all inexplicably played by African-American actors, and act like some sort of bizarre parody of offensively stereotyped African culture. The lead alien kidnaps Tasha Yar and makes her fight his prospective wife to the death, for the honour of marrying him.
It’s not just offensive, it’s stupid. The plot is stupid, and everyone is wrote to be an idiot, even Picard. Possibly the lowest point of The Next Generation. Garbage.
8. Quark’s breasts.
The Dominion War. The galaxy is plunged into a conflict the likes of which has never been seen. Millions are killed, planets are invaded, allies turn on each other and the enemies of humanity grow more powerful every day. It is a dark time for the human race and the United Federation of Planets, and Ragnarok is looming over everything.
Under these dire, desperate circumstances, Quark gets breasts.
In a utterly pointless episode, Quark’s new boob powers save Ferengi civilisation from the evil Nagus Brunt. Quark’s boobs eventually lead to a revolution on Ferenginar, in which his brother becomes the Emperor of the planet and institutes reforms enabling equal rights and a welfare revolution.
All thanks to Quark’s boobs.
7. Under no circumstances is a starship captain allowed to be female.
In a bizarre twist, the original series of Star Trek shows that the advanced human race is actually profoundly sexist.
Janice Lester said:
It’s a really bad story called “Turnabout Intruder”, in which Kirk’s ex-girlfriend kidnaps his body, leaving poor William Shatner having to act out the role of a highly-emotional unstable woman for most of the episode. The whole thing comes across as offensive and stupid.
Of course, the whole thing is rightfully ignored by the time of The Next Generation.
6. Enterprise’s “sexy” decon chamber.
For no logical reason whatsoever, the pilot of Enterprise had a blue room called “decon”, in which the actors must stand in their skimpy underwear slowly rubbing oil onto each other from different angles. The room was retained and the “sexy” was toned down as the series went on, but the whole thing comes across as a desperate attempt to inject sex appeal in some incredibly out of place scenes.
5. The crew of the Starship Voyager defeats the entire Q Continuum and the Borg collective.
The Q Continuum – the omnipresent Gods of the Star Trek universe. They appear to humanity as tricksters with hidden agendas, gently provoking the human race into a higher understanding of reality. They think in ways we cannot imagine, and sometimes act in ways we wish they wouldn’t. The Next Generation teaches us that these advanced, unfathomable aliens are really, probably looking out for our own good.
Here is the bit where the Starship Voyager flies into the Q Continuum.
Here is the bit where Tom Paris single handedly defeats and disarms one of the oldest and most powerful Q in the multiverse.
Here is the bit in which Q and Mrs Q orgasm in front of Captain Janeway.
Well done, Voyager.
Oh, and I know this was somewhat covered in another thread, but in Voyager, The Borg went from this:
To this:
4. Lieutenant Tom Paris turns into a salamander and fucks Captain Janeway
SFDebris said:
Trek Wiki said:
Branon Braga (The writer of the episode) said:
The dumbest episode of Voyager, which had more than its fair share of dumb episodes. Tom Paris travels at Warp 10, which means he occupies every point in the universe simultaneously. This causes him to transform into a salamander and makes him have sex with Captain Janeway. They produce some lovely salamander children, and the Star Trek Voyager Reset Button is pressed, everything goes back to normal, and they never speak of it again.
I don’t need to go into details here, it’s been done by people far smarter than myself. See:
The Agony Booth looks at “Threshold”
Chuck Sonnerberg’s full video on the horror that is “Threshold”.
Trek Wiki - Threshold
That someone with a working brain could have made this episode just beggars belief.
3. The last episode of Star Trek, ever.
Enterprise series four. After a pretty terrible first two seasons, and a passable third, a new showrunner brought some fresh blood to the franchise. An enthusiastic and eager man called Manny Coto took over the show, and after a poor opening that had to wrap up the drek from the last season, things started getting considerably better. Multi-arc stories with actual continuity, genuine attempts to link our present with Trek’s future, energy, excitement and even some intelligence was finding its way back into the franchise. For the first time since Deep Space Nine’s conclusion, good televised Trek was starting to emerge.
Then the show was cancelled. Rather than allowing Coto to conclude his successful season, the dipshits from Voyager - Rick Berman and Brannon Braga – returned to write what they considered “a love letter to the fans”. They decided that they should be the ones to conclude a show just managing to escape their toxic influence.
With the show’s fanbase hopeful for a resolution to certain themes that had underpinned the entire four seasons, they were more than a little surprised when they got this instead:
The entire finale was part of a holodeck simulation during Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which Riker and Troi watch pivotal Enterprise characters get killed for no purposeful reason. The whole thing is a meandering mess, concluding little from the actual four seasons of Enterprise. The primary focus on characters not from the actual series, was a sore point for fans. Everyone who watches this piece of shit hates it.
It appears that Berman and Braga could not resist one last opportunity to piss on the corpse of the franchise.
2. The post-TOS interpretation of “The Prime Directive”.
In the original Star Trek series, the Prime Directive is in place to prevent interference in the natural development of alien cultures. If such cultures were in danger of extinction or extermination, Kirk would often save them from their terrible fate, with the idea that slight involvement in resolving the disaster is better than the unnecessary extinction of an innocent people.
In all future series, this Prime Directive was revised. Now, absolutely no involvement is to occur. The crew of the Enterprise routinely watch planets with millions of people on them, die in natural disasters that the ship could have easily and discretely prevented. In a statement of grand arrogance, Commander Riker once said that all these deaths could be “part of a cosmic plan” and that it would be the “height of hubris” to use a tachyon beam to save a civilisation.
Notably, Commander Riker chooses to break the Prime Directive himself only when his latest love-interest is in danger (The Outcast), proving that for him, interference is only allowed when his cock says so.
There are literally scenes on the bridge of the Enterprise D in which they watch planets destroy themselves, with no concern for any of the pre-warp civilisations being made extinct and no attempt to help when they confirm they clearly are able.
The Enterprise episode Dear Doctor has our heroes withholding a cure for a horrible fatal disease from an alien race, for absolutely no logical or plot reason whatsoever. It makes them, and the future human race, come across as tyrannical cold-hearted bastards.
1. There are no gay humans in Star Trek, anywhere, under any circumstances.
There is a very big article on this on Wikipedia, and it’s an interesting and surprising read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_in_Star_Trek
In short, all humans in the 24th Century appear to be straight. There is not, in any of the series, a single gay human at any time. Deep Space Nine’s Ronald D Moore has this to say on it:
Moore goes on to say that it was not Paramount blocking a gay character from appearing on the how. Kate Mulgrew (who plays Captain Janeway) seems to give us a clearer idea who was at the root of this:
Whoopi Goldberg tried to adjust one of her scenes to include possibly gay humans, but was quickly stopped by the powers that be.
This closed-minded approach to human sexuality is by far the most embarrassing and shameful thing about Star Trek. To end the OP on a positive note however:
I'm done
Trek-GAF – What moments have I missed? And of the above, which is the most embarrassing?
