Paris and Janeway, as lizards, doing the space sex, because they went too fast.
I actually thought this was the best episode. Not enough lizard sex scenes in star trek.
Strange New Worlds has you covered.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
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My vote goes to that episode in season 1 of TNG where they’re fighting black people on like a jungle gym.
Either that or just…all of Sub Rosa.
Ah yes the African planet. Real TOS reject episode vibes.
What’s hilarious is the same writer got away with the same episode in SG1s first season just with Asians rather than Black people.
Shut up Wesley!
I have tried watching TNG and just can’t. I keep being told to bear it for like 3 seasons till it gets better, but I’m not gonna slog through entire seasons, hoping it improves
Honestly, don’t put up with the slog. Just skip the first 2 seasons, with the exception of a handful of episodes that are big on context or are just really, really good.
- Encounter at Farpoint: probably worth watching as it’s the pilot and introduces Q.
- S02E08 A Matter of Honor: a great introduction to the Klingon Empire in the 24th century.
- S02E16 Q Who?: the episode that introduces the Borg.
- S02E19 Measure of a Man: one of the best episodes not just of TNG, but in all of Trek.
Other than those, I’d suggest skipping seasons 1 and 2 entirely. The show gets much better and really does put out some of the best Star Trek has to offer. It’s not a serialised show at all so you can skip episodes with impunity. A few minor threads and general character growth happen, but they’re not significant and the episodes listed above give you enough context.
Measure of a Man is an incredible episode of TV, and it’s more relevant today than ever before.
If I could only save one Trek episode that would be it.
More importantly, if you’ve watched the great ones they give you a framework from which to really appreciate those minor threads and character growth from the less amazing episodes.
Many of us experienced star trek TNG like that anyway, because in the 90s you saw what was on when you had time to watch it. By the time we had the show on DVD or streaming and could watch it all the way through, we’d already seen and bonded with the characters and universe enough that it was worth it to watch all the episodes in order.
Incidentally, something similar to this is why I would never recommend The Inner Light as someone’s first Star Trek episode. It’s probably one of the best they’ve produced, but it’s a terrible introduction. It relies far too much on you having a pre-established understanding of and feelings about the character. It’s also structurally so different from normal Trek. Something like Measure of a Man feels much closer to normal Trek, and it contains enough in the episode itself to endear you to the characters even if you don’t already know them.
I recommend starting with season 4. Then if you end up liking it, loop back to seasons 1-3. This is old TV where each episode is made to stand on its own.
In that case, you could skip the first two seasons. Season 3 is really where it starts to get better. It’s where the phrase “grow its beard” came from.
Riker grows his beard in season 2. Season 2 might not be quite as strong as the show would go on to be, but it did bring us a handful of excellent episodes, including Q Who? and one of the best episodes of all Trek: Measure of a Man.
With anything made when 20+ episode season was the norm, I’d recommend just searching for a skip list. I remember the /r/DaystromInstitute skip lists being pretty good: https://old.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/wiki/index#wiki_episode_guides
I’d recommend the same with more modern stuff, because the ratio of good episodes to bad sure as hell hasn’t gotten better despite shorter seasons, but the death of episodic story telling makes it pretty hard to skip episodes.
I’m currently getting into the Treks. Over the last year, I’ve slowly watched TOS twice, the animated series, and the first 6 movies. TNG was real hard to get into at first. I was coming off Undiscovered Country and had high hopes for TNG, but those first two seasons were a slog, especially in comparison to TOS which I loved immediately despite its age.
Third season is where it started to really find its voice. I’m up to the 5th season and I’m enjoying it. I think the biggest hiccups with the first couple seasons are the attempts to tie back to TOS and then Wesley. Once they reduced Wesley, stopped trying to force relationships within the ensemble, and stopped trying to be more of TOS but actually different from TOS, it really started to shine.
I recommend pushing through it. It’s the same advice given for TV shows like The Office and Parks & Rec. Those first couple seasons are harder to watch, but you are well-rewarded if you hang on for a bit longer.
I get this is a contrarian opinion and you are feeding off of downvotes, but one of the strengths of Star Trek is that the episodes and even seasons don’t matter at all. Watch the best ones, if you like them watch some more, if you don’t, then don’t. The shitty netflix idea of low-effort serialized content with cliffhangers every episode sucks and I’m so glad that Start Trek didn’t do that.
Data’s Day The Drumhead, Measure of a Man Q Who? Qpid (silly but good) The First Duty Relics (if you liked TOS.) Tapestry.
Anyway that is enough. If you don’t like those, then by all means don’t watch anymore. But sitting down and watching the first season of TNG then declaring that it sucks, is doing yourself a disservice.
This only counts for TOS and TNG I think. DS9 certianly needs to be watched in order and Voyager benefits too. By Enterprise S3, it’s pretty much serialised.
There’s episodes of ds9 you can skip. The baseball episode, anything focused on quark, anything where the entire plot is just O’Brien torture porn
The baseball episode is probably the best comedy/holodeck episode Trek have ever done so I disagree it should be skipped. All the Quark/Ferangi episodes set up the changes in Ferangi society we see by the end of the show and Roms ascention to Grand Naugus.
In 7 seasons of TNG they made about 3.5 really good seasons of TV, and yeah the first two seasons you’d be okay watching less than 6 episodes.
Hell even extremely serialized shows like Babylon 5, there are episodes that I skip on rewatch, especially in Season 1. The weird insectonazi episode (someone smuggles an artifact onto the station and it turns him into this weird super soldier who is concerned about being “PURE!” and they solve it by convincing him he’s not pure enough and he shoots himself) yeah skip that one. I also skip the religious parents kill their child because they think his soul leaked out during surgery episode too. Oh and that stupid boxing episode that shouldn’t have been made.
I totally get you about those episodes. They’re clunky and really really heavy handed. But I feel like the first time you watch through the show they drive home some important ideas really hard. Because of their cringeyness you just can’t get them out of your head, and they make sure you keep those ideas in your head as you watch.
B5 is obviously campy as hell and not as realistic as something like battlestar Galactica. I’ll always wonder if it could have been a timeless masterpiece if it had been made a few years later, but I also wonder if it would be as human and relatable if it was more real, less 90s idealistic. It’s definitely a show you have to view in the context of the time it was made.
Talking about the specific three episodes I mentioned of Babylon 5…
- “PURE!” my memory of the episode boils down to my above description, plus I think that’s the one at the beginning where Dr. Franklin’s archeologist friend walks in and talks to him over his shoulder like he’s on a really shitty soap opera. It…might add some subtle notes to the B5 aroma but it’s not that important. When I re-watch the series, I skip it. Maybe, if trying to preserve the impact of Season 2 when the actual story gets going, I’d play this episode for someone going in blind to kinda trick them into thinking they’re watching hokey old adventure-a-week, But someone who knows generally where this is going, skip it for time.
- Dumbass parents kill their healthy child…I guess it has some merit as a Star Trek TNG episode that TNG never filmed. Try mentally sliding Dr. Crusher into the role of Dr. Franklin in this episode. But…did this episode ever get a black and white flashback later on? I think you could safely remove it.
- The boxing episode is just plain filler. Most of the cast isn’t in it; it’s about Geribaldi’s father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate, competing in the sacred alien underground bare knuckle match that’s racist against humans because of course, he draws a long fight against an alien that doesn’t matter, and the credits roll. I’d rather have watched Vir fold his laundry.
You’re looking at them too literally.
Infection: We see a transformation of a human into a fighting machine capable of incredible destruction, and the human’s will is subverted. Meanwhile delenn and sinclair are both going to have their own radical transformations, and Sheridan is going to become that fighting machine. His will gets subverted as well ‘damn me for agreeing to it and damn you for asking’. We also see that this is a universe where humans are ripe for being taken advantage of by the enemy and their tech. It’s the 4th episode. We haven’t learned anything about earthgov or the technomages or anything at this point, but he’s giving us the context with which to understand what’s coming.
Believers: The child is terminally ill. Franklin saves him, but it doesn’t take. Even with the best intentions and the necessary tech he still fails. You can win and still lose, which is basically the whole setup for crusade. There are many reasons aliens don’t ask outsiders for help. We see it again with the Marcab, but the difference is how delenn and Lennier choose to accept that there will be loss. This is the lens JMS wants us to see the narn and the centauri through. They are both dying races and how they accept it or not is extremely important for everyone.
TKO: It’s about determination and acceptance, but it’s also about why we do things. This is the battle John goes through with the shadows and the vorlons. What Garibaldi’s friend is being asked is ‘what do you want’ and ‘who are you’. He starts out with the first question, and gets rebuffed. When he ultimately answers the second and things go better for him. But crucially, not because he obeys anything. It’s because he’s strong and independent and true to himself.
I get that you don’t need to rewatch them because you have the context. But I wonder if I wouldn’t have viewed the rest of the series the same way without these campy, heavy handed storied. He really slams home the message and I think that’s on purpose.
Neelix and Kes when Kes is essentially in heat. That episode was so gross
Right, Kes is like 4 years old then
More like 2, actually. 4 would have been the normal time for her race, but some electrical storm nonsense kicked it off early for her temporarily.
I dont think that episode is that weird overall. They wanted to address the reproductive cycle of a very short lived race and also have a “what does it mean to be a parent” moral lesson.
“Hold hands with me to breed” is some pretty mild sex talk honestly, especially for the “go fast and have lizard sex” writers.
They seriously didn’t think it through, though.
Apparently Ocampa females go into heat exactly once in their lives, and have a typical litter size of one? Each generation should be less than half the size of the one before it.
All Kess and/or Neelix episodes belong on that list. Can’t stand either character, although Kess is still way worse than Neelix
The hardest thing for me to come to terms with is that, while I hated Neelix while watching the show, I think if I’d actually been on Voyager, I would have really liked him. He’s super friendly, and just wants to help, and makes all these crazy foods that would be fun to try. (Kess stuff not withstanding)
He also gets progressively better through the show, just never near favorite territory
I hear your anguish, I present to you Tuvix!
Probably the DS9 episode where they give Quark a sex change operation and the Ferenghi liquidator tries to rape him.
They should delete that episode, there’s no value in watching it.
For me, it echoed real life, when someone with power over you wants something you shouldn’t have to and don’t want to give. It was uncomfortable, and I’m glad they did it.
I think the problem was it was treated as a comedy and not a serious issue which it could have been.
Maybe comedy was the way they got it on air at that time. I seem to remember an article about the size of the bosom they gave Quark–much bigger than Moogie’s. I also seem to remember the size of that bosom decreases during the episode.
That’s possible, on the wiki it says there was inconsistency with how different people wanted to do it, so I think we ended up with the mashup of styles.
It wasn’t the liquidator, it was the CEO of Slug-O-Cola.
Right, it wasn’t Brunt, I thought he was another liquidator for some reason.
I did try to erase that episode from my brain, I guess it didn’t fully take.
I had completely wiped that from my memory…thanks…I guess…
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Star Trek: Picard, when the Borg wake up and the Romulans just vacuum them out. In that moment the Cube should have automatically teleported them back inside. If the teleporters were down for some reason, the remaining Drones would just happily continue working in hard vacuum and proceed to assimilate the shit out of the Romulans. What happened was an uncalled for nerf of the Borg.
The whole idea of “let’s make Seven be a miniqueen for a second, without consequences for her psyche, and without letting her make sane choices like rescuing the XBs” was completely idiotic.
I mean, I feel like Star Trek plays it fast and loose with baddie strength a lot.
You mean like the Klingon warbird that could fire torpedoes while cloaked and that tech just got hand waved away in all Star Trek after that?
Also, and maybe this is just me, but wouldn’t it be relatively easy to just “drop” torpedoes while cloaked and have them do a delayed launch thing? And nobody thought to cloak a torpedo, or at least give it some stealthy coatings? Complete amateur hour.
I guess you could assume that any substantial piece of matter will disrupt the cloaking field, but if you’re thinking about autonomous weapons there’s all kinds of other plot holes, too. It’s pretty rare anyone has to deal with drones or mines of any kind in Star Trek, even though you’d think it would be super convenient with mostly-unblockable communications over subspace.
I think they ran into the real problem with writer’s rooms in general, they suffer from a lack of knowledge in many areas. It’s why so many shows have “hammer noises” for Glocks, or the racking of a shotgun when people are about to kick in a door. They don’t know anything about weapons, and their ignorance is so complete they don’t even think to ask actual experts.
I think there’s a degree of “the audience loves it”, too. A realistic sword fight is rare in media because it’s not as fun to watch as twirls and beating multiple enemies at once.
I too watched Rey not get stabbed in the back.
There were cloaked mines in DS9 and in ENT. But, like the transporter, they are as burdensome to the writers’ room as they are useful.
Yeah, at this point, with Star Trek I pretty much just treat the “science” like magic. It would be a tall order to have consistent rules with no exceptions over decades, I get that. I don’t think it’s too much to ask the characters to have consistent motivations and abilities, though.
That’s the thing about fiction. Unlike in reality, the characters have to be believable.
Yes. But the idea is that the limitations of the technology enhance the story which is the whole point of Sci-fi that many people forget. The only requirement for technology (or magic) is that it has defined limits. torpedo’s have to be launched. The ship that could fire while cloaked was a plot point prototype, you don’t need to revisit it, or explain it beyond that.
Almost any scene in the decon chamber on the NX-01.
Haha, i have prepared you some gellllll put it on while I watch with my bats… Lol
Anything involving time travel. It’s the sci-fi equivilent of jumping the shark. There needs to be a viewer warning at the beginning of such episodes stating:
Warning! Our writers are currently out of good ideas. So, we threw this lazy shit together, which is going to be completely unsatisfying and will leave you with a vague feeling that the show should just end and let the writers move on to something new. Viewer discretion is advised.
As an added warning, any episode which involves going back to the real present day should end the above warning with 20 minutes of Bobcat Goldwaith screaming.
The DS9 episode where it’s set in 1970’s Manhatten is the rare exception, because it tells a very good story about racism but it’s not “time travel” per se because there’s no temporal mechanics impact.
I really liked that episode.
I liked the strange new worlds time travel episode. It was tongue in cheek and a real fun episode with some character building.
I thought DS9 had some great time travel episodes tbh. Past Tense and The Visitor I think are top tier episodes, plus some fun antics between Far Beyond Stars (if that counts as time travel) and Trials and Tribble-ations.
Voyager laughs its ass off as it goes to present day LA to shoot a 2 parter minutes from the studio itself.
No way is it present day, it was like the 90’s and there were no homeless lol
It was shot in their present day in 96’ and the first episode prominently featured a 29th century homeless man.
What??? DS9 did time travel incredibly well. You know this month is the year of the Riots? August 2023!
I thought the two time travel episodes in the latest SNW series, Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow and Those Old Scientists handled it really well. They finally dealt with the sliding timeline issue for events that were supposed to be in the 90s during TOS.
The “Allamaraine” song scene from DS9’s Move Along Home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FM6Xfs2ZoY
In fact that whole episode.
I just rewatched that one, and I disagree. It was uncomfortable at first, b/c it seemed so hoakey. The crew repeatedly hurt themselves trying to cross the room. Then the point was to observe the child closely. Dax was the one who finally got it. It was a commentary on observation/cognitive bias.
I like that episode actually… Lol.
As characters I hate all Crushers and episodes dedicated for them.
…but there are episodes worse than those.
“shut up Wesley” will always make me laugh
didnt Weaton get that so much in real life that he had a social media fit or something?
Someone made a tng Lego set where Wesley was crying, wil wheton got quite upset because Wesley never actually cried in the show and proceeded to cry about it a lot on the internet
Shut up, Wesley! :)
I agree with you, but there was Dr. Pulaski who was as bad as the two Crusher’s combined.
I’m okay with the Beverly episode where she’s trapped in a bubble and at first people start disappearing and then the universe collapses in on her. That was okay.
When Spock fails to get laid because he’s a half-breed.
The end of “Cogenitor”, where Archer blames Trip for the death of Charles.
Edit isn’t working, so here’s a second one https://gfycat.com/coolveneratedfrillneckedlizard That is all.
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People often say the Evil Spock episode was memorable, but why? I always thought it was so tropey. It just doesn’t strike me as thought-provoking if you can sum up something with “a parallel universe decided to release an evil version of me with an evil beard and nobody else to come from a parallel universe and frame me aboard my ship”. That would be more in line with Futurama, and ironically they handled the concept better.
I always thought it was so tropey. It just doesn’t strike me as thought-provoking if you can sum up something with “a parallel universe decided to release an evil version of me with an evil beard and nobody else to come from a parallel universe and frame me aboard my ship”.
My friend, where do you think the Beard of Evil trope came from?
That’s like saying Once More, With Feeling is tropey because it’s a Musical Episode.
Do people not watch Star Trek for the scientific concepts? Evil twins from a parallel universe just don’t fit into that.
Neither does Ba-by-GOD-do-DO-do-DO-do-DO
TIL there’s a baby shark religion. That’s impressive.
The Voyager episode Retrospect where Seven was, in her words, violated.
Holy shit that episode sucks so much!!! I read into it once, because it was shocking that it was even made, but apparently there was a recent discovery disproving the concept of repressed memories and so it was supposed to be an episode reflecting that scientific development, but instead it came across as “don’t necessarily trust women about sexual violence, sometimes they make shit up”
