Plan B Forum

It's been fifty years since "Star Trek" first beamed into our living rooms and directed us "... to boldly go where no man has gone before".  But seriously, there were some places where we only kind of tip-toed, or should maybe have never gone at all.....

Without further ado, I give you THE TEN WORST EPISODES FROM THE STAR TREK FRANCHISE, as selected by attendees to a panel hosted by the official 'Star Trek' blogsite "One Trek Mind" at the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas last month.

-"BB"-

I only watched the original series (and a little of Voyager), but I will agree the original series episodes cited were among the worst (I'd add the Chicago gangster one (Shatner at his worst) and the Nazi one (as Dales posted). the picture, however, is from one of my better ones, I think The Paradise Syndrome (although with a terrible ending demanded by the censors--the Smithsonian had an exhibit on it with marked up scripts, etc.)

I call it shatner at his best.

(I'd add the Chicago gangster one (Shatner at his worst) and the Nazi one

I liked those...

I think the best of the worst was when Kirk encountered Mr. Lizard and killed it with a makeshift black powder hand cannon.

You can almost smell the latex. Gorn in sixty seconds...

There were good Star trek episodes?

Most of them were. Only a few can't be salvaged by unintentional camp. Only the hippie episode and the black/white faced alien one are hard for me to watch. The later may have better at the time but it is so hamfisted in its attempt especially in the view of the obvious racism/sexism rampant in the show is a bit too much for me.

Thus, the saying, "They can't all be City on Edge of Forever".

Crackpot wrote: the black/white faced alien one are hard for me to watch.

The Riddler!

Anothers bad one, the lanet of the yangs (Yankees) and coms (communists).

That's another one I liked...

I like those too, but they are pretty bad, plots that are implausible even in the Star Trek world, and acting that can be cringe worthy. "Miramanee!!"

Remember, the key to good theatre is the willing suspension of disbelief. Sci-fi and "Broadway" would be dead without it.

I found all StarTrek episodes to be watchable... some more so than others.

Don't be dissin' Star Trek.

Lord Jim wrote:That's another one I liked...

jim--I'm batting 1000 with you.


RayThom--suspension of disbelief is always required, but sometimes this is harder than others. But I will agree (at least with the original series, I haven't watched much of the others) all the episodes are watchable (I've seen them each several times), but some are harder to watch than others.

Well, I saw the new Star Trek movie (in 3D) last weekend and I have to say it was pretty lame, as far as storytelling goes; it was primarily driven by explosions and fairly average CGI graphics crazy-glued to a paper-thin plot. The "best" parts were a bunch of winking references to original series dialog and memes, and a cute shoutout to George Takei. It was very much like the TV show but with a bigger budget and more time to fill; rather unsatisfying as a movie, where I'd expect more thought and a broader vision. Oh well, at least the popcorn was free.

Sue--I was kind of afraid of that when I saw the director, a guy who seems to specialize in comic book style action films.

Was the 3D done well?

jim--I'm batting 1000 with you.

I think the "theme planet" episodes are something you either liked or you didn't...

I also liked the "Roman Planet" episode...

I'm betting you probably didn't...

Well, I just thought the Nazi one was stupid (I want the planet to do well so I'll make it into WW2 Germany), and I hated Shatner's hamming it up on the Chicago mob one. The Roman one was OK (except for that sun/son thing at the end), as was the planet of the people who acted like ancient Greeks but had telekinetic powers.

The yangs and coms has a special place IMHO because of its heavy handed, hamfisted preaching (even worse than the black and white guys or the one where the federation has to supply weapons to the other side of a conflict to balance out what the Klingons are doing).