Ten “Underrated Trek” Articles I Will Never Do

For a couple years now I have been doing a regular series called Underrated Trek, where I discuss episodes which, while not that popular if not hated outright, I like for some reason. But there are some episodes that even I can’t defend, they’re just bad for one reason or another. Not the worst ever, but bad enough that I can’t even find something positive in them. So as we wind up the year I decided it was time to give these episodes a little attention.




Here are ten episodes that I just can’t get behind.



The Omega Glory

I briefly mentioned this back on the 4th of July for its forced Patriotism.  But the truth is, the episode is just bad. This was one of Gene Roddenberry’s proposals for a pilot idea. Of course they went with “Where No Man..” Which was a good call because this episode is just boring. It’s all over the place and the American parallels are to much. So much that for once the parallel Earth setup fails, it just feels silly.




Spock’s Brain

There’s just no defending this one, it’s campy and silly. It feels closer to being a Lost in Space episode than a Star Trek episode. What in the world was Gene Coon thinking? I mean he was a talented guy he could have done something with this! Instead he half assed a bad script and put a pseudonym on it. The first ten minutes are good, setting up an interesting premise, but then t just gets dumber and dumber.




Code of Honor

There is so much to say about this one and very little of it is good. The one good thing is this is the only episode to focus on Tasha. Unless you count Skin of Evil. Or Yesterday’s Enterprise. That’s about where the good news ends with this one. It’s boring and definitely mired in 1st season goofiness. Did I mention it was also racist and just a bit offensive? Even the actors have come out over the year to admit this missed on almost every level.






The Dauphin

Three words:Wesley in Love. Do I need to go on? This episode is so bad they had to force conflict onto it, with awful CGI to boot! There really isn’t much to say here, pretty weak.






Force of Nature

One of, if not THE, strengths of Star Treks is dealing with a real life issue in a smart and intelligent way. But sometimes, it doesn’t work. This episode is about the environment which seems like a good subject to tackle, but it just wasn’t well written. It takes forever just to get the plot going and in the end it all feels so one sided and preachy.







Move Along Home

It’s been well documented that season 1 DS9 was not very strong. Despite the fact that this show was supposed to darker and tougher than TNG, it took a few episodes for the creators to understand what that meant. This is a great example, as the the crew is forced to play a game for real while aliens make Quark control  them on a chess board. I saw this kind of plot used in an old G.I.Joe cartoon, so you can guess how strong this script was. Even for TOS or TNG this would have been goofy, but in DS9 it’s just a FAIL.







Heart of Stone

This one is inexcusable. There was potential here with the idea, having Kira trapped and no way to be saved, but they botch it. They did it two ways, by having the special effects make the effects on TOS look good in comparison. And then with a cop out ending which nullified everything that happened in the episode. The B story is actually a lot better, but man was this episode terrible.







Fair Haven/Spirit Folk

This is Voyager at it’s worst. The best way to describe it is to explain that my wife, who hated Star Trek, loved this episode. Not only is it boring….yeah that’s about it. It’s boring! Did I mention the Irish stereotypes? How about the fact that Janeway has an affair with a hologram which got passionate? Wait if it’s a hologram that means she was…..Pass! The second episode takes the premise of holograms becoming self aware and just gets ridiculous with it. To be fair, Spirit Folk is a touch better but man is Fair Haven a snooze fest.







The Fight

Every series had to do a boxing episode. It seems to be a rule, though I don’t understand why. The episode forcing a character to box is usually clunky and awful. This is no exception. The boxing of stuff is beyond forced, even including Ray Walston reprising a character he’s played before on TNG because….of reason, I guess. The episode involves Chakotay and a dream quest and…. you know I really don’t care enough to relive this one. Even the creators are ashamed of this one. 







These are the Voyages…

As always I need at least one Enterprise episode. But I couldn’t think of one, because I mostly don’t remember the episodes from that show. So I settled for this this very obvious choice. Never mind that the episode is a slap in the face to Enterprise. Never mind that Riker and especially Troi are basically wasted here. Never mind that the episode actually harms a decent episode of TNG (The Pegasus). Never mind that the actors clearly put in as little effort as they could on it. But, this was the series finale? And you can’t argue “oh they didn’t know that at the time”, yeah they did! Rick Berman said it was a love letter to the fans. I think he wrote it angry and didn’t put much thought into it. This episode is one of Trek’s biggest blunders and even I am hard pressed to defend it. I’ve said before that the only cool thing is the last thirty seconds, and I stand by that.




Finally, what about the movies? Is there a bad one that I can’t defend? I guess that Star Trek Insurrection would be the one. At  least Star Trek V is fun to watch in a bad movie kind of way. And Generations is a major guilty pleasure for me. And Into Darkness certainly wasn’t all bad. But Insurrection is boring, dull, and stupid. I don’t think I’ve seen it more than once and that will probably never change.



NOTE FROM THE FUTURE-so far nine years later I have only changed my mind on two. I have a feeling the rest are staying. Oh and I have no idea why it's not listed but you will never EVER see me talk about the garbage that was SUB ROSA.