10 Times Star Trek Should Have Known Better

Star Trek has a reputation for progression and for being aware of the injustices in society

This was earned in the original series even if some of the episodes may seem dated today

The fact is Star Trek was pushing the envelope in the 60s in ways that were as shocking then

as anything it's doing today. A black woman on the bridge and she isn't a maid? What bizarre

world do we wake up in? This reputation comes with scrutiny and Star Trek is no stranger to

dropping the ball. If it is held to a higher standard today that is simply because it is

that franchise that continually tried to get it right yesterday. Did it always succeed? Well no

not always. For every Balance of Terror there were episodes like Turnabout Intruder. For every Doomsday

Machine there was a Spock's brain. This has been true of every Star Trek iteration from the beginning

but which of those times when Star Trek really did let us down? There can be any number of reasons

as to why and how. Sometimes a script just slips through that should never have been greenlit

Some episodes fall apart in the filming stage while others were always hoping for the best

though suffering from a lack of planning for the worst. There are examples across every iteration

of Trek of episodes that simply dropped the ball for one reason or another. Does that make them all

terrible? Of course not. Does it make them unwatchable? We actually have a list of unwatchable

episodes which you can check out. There are the episodes that just left a bad taste in the mouth

suffering from a lack of subtlety, shoddy delivery or a combination thereof. Brace yourself, this isn't

a list of the better moments from this finest of franchises. I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture and

here is 10 times Star Trek should have known better. Number 10, The Omega Glory. The Omega

Glory was one of the early contenders for Star Trek's first season of stories. Along with Mudd's

Women and Where No Man Has Gone Before, it was one of Gene's earliest ideas for Trek. Thank goodness

it didn't end up becoming the pilot for who knows if there ever would have been a Star Trek in that

case. Captain Ron Tracy loses his entire crew, believes a planet holds the key to

the Fountain of Youth, and Captain Kirk saves the day by quoting the American Constitution. There's lack of subtlety and then there's forgetting the mission

that Starfleet was supposed to be on. George Takei has spoken many times about

Gene's wish for the bridge of the Enterprise to represent Starship Earth

Nichelle Nichols was there representing people of color while George was there

representing Japanese people and indeed Asian people as well. Walter Koenig was there to show that in the future the superpowers would be at peace with each other

While there was certainly an American focus, the captain was played by a Canadian. The Omega Glory

seemingly abandons the idea of Starship Earth and instead lifts the United States Constitution up as

an example of a better way of governing. It was a bit of a stark reminder that the writers were

unsurprisingly, predominantly Americans. This example was an early slip in the attempt for a

unified earth. The Yangs and the Combs may have attempted to find peace through a we the people

lens but Star Trek needed to do better if it was to truly show a unified future. Thankfully much of

the original series stuck to that initial premise. Number nine, the naked now. The next generation was

the first live action spin-off for Star Trek spurred on by the success of the original series

movie franchise. Specifically Star Trek 4 The Voyage Home was so successful at the box office

that Paramount gave the thumbs up for the new show, though there had been plans brewing

before that official notice. The registry of the Enterprise A directly affected the registry

of the Enterprise D, for example. While it makes perfect sense that any show would seek

to encourage existing viewers to give the new series a chance, remaking one of the seminal

Star Trek episodes, The Naked Time, as the second episode of The Next Generation was a

poor decision, one that earned derision from George Takei specifically. He described watching

the episode as seeing children dressing up in their parents clothes playing imitation

Introducing a comedic episode so early on, as well as including that scene between Data and Yar

we're still not sure how Data was infected with the virus in the first place

combined to give the impression that no one was really taking this new show spin-off seriously

Crusher and Picard can barely control themselves, while almost everything that fuels

anti-Wesley statements are present in this episode. Add to this the reused plot

of the Enterprise being unable to escape collision with an astral body, this time

it's an asteroid, and this was a straight-up retread of the earlier episode

Thankfully the next generation would begin telling its own stories not long

after this Perhaps it best to skip the following episode though as it called Code of Honor Number 8 Shades of Grey Full disclosure the Writers Guild of America strike in 1988 was the direct reason for this episode inception so there were other

factors at play. However, was there no other thing that they could have done? Television was no

stranger to the clip show in the 80s, and even the 90s continued the trend with shows like The

Simpsons and Stargate SG-1. However this clip was a rushed affair with a

wraparound story so dull that it's hard to sit through. It's also the last

appearance to date of Dr. Katherine Pulaski. She deserved far better a send-off

than to be relegated to a few lines in a clip show. Ryker is stung by a plant

Good feelings make it grow faster, bad feelings make it fade. This equates to

memories and so the clip show begins. To be fair as we've said clip shows

themselves were nothing new at the time and reusing footage was hardly new in

Star Trek at all so one can understand the simple drive to do a clip show, pad

out the season and hope that the writers strike would end before the third season began. Unfortunately the lack of true engagement with any kind of plot

line in this episode makes it a slog to get through. It really is a reminder that

rather than an enjoyable 45 minutes of television with Riker lying on a bed

one should simply seek out the episodes that it draws its footage from quickly

so that everyone has a chance to do better the following season. Thankfully the third season of The Next Generation largely ironed out the issues that plagued its first and

second years, proving that Shrek could learn from past mistakes, though we are only on the third

entry of this list. Number seven, Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country. Though the sixth theatrical

Star Trek film was mostly a triumph of storytelling and direction, director Nicholas Meyer has spoken

in recent years about his regret for one scene in the film. That scene, tough to watch at the time

is the forced mind meld on the bridge. Though the scene has an undeniable power

pushing Spock into territory we had never seen him venture before, the events of the real world have only compounded Meyer's feelings on the matter

Though he couldn't have known this at the time, the revelations of the torture by the US military

of Afghan citizens in the years following 9-11 have contributed to the scene aging badly

If we put that aside for the moment, as indeed these events happened after the film's release

The scene is given a deeply uncomfortable edge when one remembers that a Vulcan mind meld is meant to be an intimate

personal act. Though it is not inherently sexual by nature, there is both a romance and a bond that comes with it, one that is usurped in this scene

Spock, by forcing Valeris into revealing her mind's secrets by use of this technique, is betraying the sanctity of the mind meld and

also showing how something so meaningful can be so easily corrupted. Meyer included a moment

immediately prior to this where Kirk orders Spock to do something, thus taking

some of the responsibility from the man, but the damage is done. Every mind-melt

scene on screen after this scene carries the weight of the possibility for the

act to do serious harm to the recipient. The scene may be crucial to the plot and

tone of the film but the impact has shown that Meyer was right to have second

thoughts. Number 6. Tattoo. Truly this connects almost everything about the conception and execution of Chakotay's character arc on Star Trek Voyager, with Tattoo being the

symbol of the mistakes made here. In summary, the producers for Star Trek Voyager hired a known

fraud, Jumake Highwater, as their consultant for Chakotay's Native American heritage. They were

promised an accurate guide for how to portray him, and instead they were given a laundry list of

stereotypes, half-facts, and nonsense. Due diligence may have been slightly more difficult in the

pre-Google days but there is no excuse for not checking your sources when it comes to representation

Highwater had been outed as a fraud years before Voyager went into production

with that information on public record. When Chakotay was included in Voyager he quickly

slipped into native stereotypes that were already deemed harmful by 1995. Notice how quickly his

heritage stops playing a part in his storyline as they attempted to phase out its importance

Tattoo meant well with a story about Chakotay coming to terms with his differences with his

father. The tree spirits that his tribe were inspired to follow are revealed to

be aliens from the Delta Quadrant, periodically moving from planet to planet, inspiring the locals. When evidence of them is discovered on Voyager's

journey home, the audience is treated to an episode exposing the spirits from

Native American culture being portrayed as aliens, while Robert Beltran was given

a censored, then digitally painted scene, all while he remembers his dad. The

episode was one of a number of second season stories that didn't really work and though it was not the final time that Chakotay native heritage was mentioned it was probably the most overt The idea to include a native character in Star Trek was an excellent choice the execution was not Number five the disease There are many rules about being a Starfleet officer

one must represent the uniform with dignity, one must obey their duty to the

truth and one must ask their captain and doctors permissions before hopping into bed with an alien. Funnily enough while Harry Kim was being raked over the coals

for a violation of that last rule he must have been thinking loudly of the

names Kirk and Riker. The disease is a bizarre episode that seeks to slut shame Harry Kim for

having a physical relationship with Deron Tal, a member of the Varro species. While no one would

bat an eyelid if Riker got off with half the crew, Kim is dragged to Janeway's ready room

forced to recite the above rule, and held to a far, far higher standard than any other member of the

crew. This, according to Janeway, is because he is Harry Kim. She expected better of him. In this

episode, Harry is portrayed as both rightly indignant and also out of control, muddying the

message here. Is Janeway right to be angry at him? Is the Doctor right to report him for having his

encounter with Tal? Is he right for being a little confused when the book of Star Trek love written

by William T. Riker has a forward by James T. Kirk? The plot simply didn't make any sense. Star Trek had

already depicted a more sexually free future many times in the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and

even the original series. Why then is Harry Kim made to report to the captain and punished for

doing something that other characters had done many times before? Frankly no one comes out of

this one looking good, making it a strange episode overall especially so late in Voyager's run

If the episode's message was to engage in safe sex there is a plot point that suggests that Varro

imprint on their partners leaving Harry in a kind of withdrawal, it's lost in the righteousness of

the captain. Number four, Cogenitor. Trip helps an alien without status learn to read, form self-reliance

and even choose a name. The alien is then forced back into servitude, takes their own life and Trip

is held responsible. End of episode. The tone of Cogenitor is a wild swing for the fences and one

that makes Captain Archer seem obstinate to the point of pig-headedness. The Vissians require a

third participant to have children with mothers and fathers engaging a Cogenitor to produce a baby

These cogenitors are rare but also have no status in society. They simply exist

moving from couple to couple doing their job until they die. That is until one

Visian ship encounters Enterprise. Then after meeting Trip the cogenitor begins to want more from their life. They go so far as to choose a name, Charles, and

eventually ask for asylum. The Visian couple with whom they were paired are

furious from their point of view they did everything correctly and have now lost the ability to have a child until they can find another co-genitor. Rather

than grant Charles' asylum however, Archer sends them back to their people

With no options left they take their own life and Trip is called to Archer's

ready room. Archer berates him heavily telling him not to interfere in the

workings of other alien cultures. Trip is devastated feeling personally responsible for Charles' death, a notion that Archer does nothing to deny. It's a

deeply unsettling episode, one that is not helped by the slightly forced

reference to the Prime Directive thrown in as an easter egg toward the end. Playing around with

suicide for shock value is something that rarely lands the way the writers intend and using it to

send Tripp into a guilt spiral is hardly any better. Number three, Imposters. Our head cannon

is always this, nobody, no death. We even have lists on the topic so that we can live in our

land of make-believe. In that happy place, Commander Roe Lahren is alive and well, perhaps with a nice

cushy office job at Starfleet Security. If we are to take Star Trek Picard's third season as gospel

however, Roe is most certainly not in a comfy office chair. Instead, she was trapped aboard a

hijacked shuttle, sacrificing herself to help the Titan A get away from the USS Intrepid

However, Michelle Forbes' return to Star Trek was a wonderful moment in the show

though her exit left a sour taste in our mouths. The character had last been seen in Preemptive

Strike, one of the final episodes of The Next Generation, wherein she left Starfleet to join

the Maquis. In Imposters she says that she left them before the Dominion wiped them out

and earned her commission back. She rose through the ranks eventually starting to suspect

the changeling infiltration of Starfleet. Her arrival aboard the Titan A is to seemingly

investigate Jean-Luc Picard for his culpability in the rerouting of the ship to the Reiton system

as well as the rescue of Beverly Crusher However after some truly emotional scenes between the characters she leaves only to be immediately betrayed by her two aides revealed then to be changelings themselves There is a bomb placed aboard her shuttle but stopping to allow the Titan A to rescue her would put it at risk of destruction

She pilots the shuttle into the Bussard Collector of the Intrepid, exploding along with said shuttle

At which point, Riker immediately turns to Captain Shaw, using Roe's death as proof of their tale

Shaw relents and the Titan A warps out. To be clear, the term fridging, coined by comic book writer Gail Simone, originated after the release of the Green Lantern comic, in which Lantern Kyle Rayner's girlfriend Alexandra DeWitt was killed and folded inside a fridge as a warning to him

It has come to mean the deliberate killing of a female character so that a male character will understand the stakes

Roe deserved better, and no amount of she was in the original script for the finale can fix what was presented on screen

Number two, what is Starfleet? A recent example of Star Trek trying to sit on the fence and ending

up struggling to say anything is Strange New Worlds' third season episode What is Starfleet

Here a young documentary filmmaker, Beto Ortegas, has been working on a feature about Starfleet

told through the lens of life aboard the Enterprise. While the documentary is presented

as in-universe footage, edited and released via a Freedom of Information act, the result

is a very rough hit piece on Starfleet, though with enough evidence to seemingly justify some

of Beto's prejudices. He contends that Starfleet is a military, taking care to point out the heavy

armament of the Enterprise, as well as Mbenga's redacted military records. He questions the role

of security in Starfleet, and attempts to manipulate Uhura into going on the record

against Starfleet. His bias is exposed, though nothing happens. He's still allowed to complete

documentary which is given a somewhat hopeful ending despite the fact that we

the audience were apparently watching the finished piece. The background mission sees the Enterprise first ordered to escort a weapon of mass destruction to

one side of a warring people, then later engage in the self-destruction of that

weapon once it is discovered that it is sentient. It is described as being a

weapon only and that it wants to die rather than live to cause pain. This is

Starfleet, surely they will at least try to help? Nothing of the sort, they

communicate with the creature but that's all. Starfleet facilitating a war, then

simply taking away the weapon, seems to be a poor message to place in a show

that's supposed to be about a utopian future and one that is designed to show

that peace is the best option as opposed to the option forced on people without

their consent. It was not the only time that Star Trek was guilty of that crime

but it was particularly egregious in light of real-world comparisons. Number one, the Expanse. Star Trek did their take on 9-11 and the War on Terror mere months after the

terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Should they have waited a bit longer

before tackling the subject? Arguably, yes. What is now known about the War on Terror, the invasion

of Iraq and the torture at Abu Ghraib prison makes the entire campaign seem ill-conceived and

dangerous for all concerned. In Star Trek, the Zindi weapon arrives over Earth and fires a

concentrated energy beam at the east coast of the United States, resulting in

roughly 7 million deaths. The parallels are obvious, with the episode releasing

in 2003, long before the full extent of US involvement in the Middle East was

widely known, while the finger of blame was still moving from person to person

for the attacks. Enterprise flies off into the expanse cocked and ready to go

ready to rain vengeance down on the Zindi, while also hoping to try and avoid

the attacks in the first place. Time travels involved. There are many things

that came out of the third year of Enterprise that benefited the show and the franchise as a whole

One could easily say that from that initial idea the writers picked a strong storyline and developed

it whether or not the Nazi space vampires were truly necessary in the final shot of the season

However that first opening volley, the one that so clearly represents 9-11 barely two years after

the dust settled from the building's collapse, felt like they were trying to run before they could walk

The storyline was strong, but even another year may have benefited everyone concerned just a little bit better

And that's everything for our list today, folks. Thank you so much for watching along. You are awesome. You are wonderful

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Until I see you again, folks, make sure that you live long and prosper. Look after yourselves. Be kind

Take things one day at a time. Sometimes it's best to break down a big thing into small little pieces

and I will be here to help if I can. Thank you so much, everyone. Bye