10 Most Frustrating Star Trek Moments
10 Most Frustrating Star Trek Moments
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00:00Frustration can be a really nice feeling like you can be teased with something to
00:04the point where the payoff is worth it but it's actually the build that made it
00:08even more fun. So when you have moments of Star Trek that frustrate you but the
00:13payoff is wonderful it can be great. This is not that list. These frustrating
00:18moments are such that they built and they built and they just left us
00:23wanting more. So with that in mind I'm Sean Farrick for Trek Culture and here
00:27are the 10 most frustrating Star Trek moments. Number 10. Dukat kills Jadzia.
00:33This entry's our jumping-off point as it was so utterly unnecessary for Deep
00:37Space Nine to lose Terry Farrell the way that it did. While the shocking nature of
00:40Gul Dukat transporting into the Bajoran shrine, remorselessly killing Dax and
00:44beaming away has still yet to properly fade from our minds, it's long since been
00:48overtaken by the stories that came out of the way it came to be. Farrell had
00:52after six years of more than 20 episodes a season approached the producers with
00:56the request to be reduced to a recurring character. The response was that it was
01:00all or nothing. Either she was going to be in every episode like the other
01:03seasons or none at all. Presented with such a choice she elected to leave. It
01:07was an unworthy exit for one of the main cast. To add further insult to injury the
01:11seventh season saw both a Mirror Universe episode and a montage of
01:15previous episodes neither of which featured Farrell. Both sides at one point
01:18or another stated that there was contract and permission issues yet it
01:21boils down to a deeply unsatisfying exit for one of our most popular characters
01:25in Deep Space Nine. Number 9. Warp Restrictions. While the Next Generation
01:287 season is certainly not its strongest there are still many truly great
01:32episodes. One such episode is the Pegasus. It opens with Captain Picard Day, a
01:35celebration on board the Enterprise D to honor Picard. This draws the amusement of
01:39the Admiral tasked with sending the Enterprise to meet with Pressman,
01:42Commander Riker's former captain. Warp restrictions are lifted for the duration
01:45of this mission. Ah yes, there it is. The only other mention of there being any
01:49sort of restrictions on warp travel outside of the episode Force of Nature.
01:53The latter episode, arriving earlier in the season, saw the explanation that warp
01:57travel was doing damage to subspace and an alternative was badly needed. The
02:01Soliton Wave was suggested instead, a method by which starships would ride the
02:05current of an artificial phenomenon, dragging them along at warp speed. It was
02:08an exciting, if slightly impractical idea, but one sure to address this hugely
02:13important development that warp was harming the galaxy. Then outside of that
02:16single mention in the Pegasus was never alluded to again. This feels less like
02:20Starfleet managed to fix the problem and more so the writers simply weren't
02:23interested in continuing to explore this idea. To this writer, it was less
02:26frustrating that the idea was scrapped and more that it was such a massive deal
02:29in one episode and then it was gone. Number 8. Her life could have been as
02:33rich as any woman's. The final episode of the original series, Turnabout Intruder,
02:37has the sad honor of finishing the show with a line that suggests women are
02:41looking at a pretty grim version of the future. This would come after three years
02:45of many, many missteps. A concerted effort to show that in the future, equality
02:50really was possible. This is something that would be fixed in future series.
02:53Here, it is suggested that Janice Lester was unable to become a starship captain
02:57and thus lost her sanity owing simply to the fact that she was a woman. In a show
03:01set in a future of equality and enlightenment, female starship captains
03:04were considered too risque. While Star Trek would quickly work to brush this
03:07aside, as early as the animated series with Uhura taking command of the ship
03:11and Star Trek IV the voyage home with Madge Sinclair appearing as the captain
03:14of the USS Saratoga, it is a deeply annoying stain on the show's history. It
03:19is compounded by the fact that the final words spoken seem to confirm that Star
03:23Trek of the 23rd century had a less than enlightened view towards women in
03:27general. Bad enough that the idea is there, but that it's the last idea offered by
03:30the original series to boot. Number seven, Leland dies before Discovery enters the
03:36wormhole. Star Trek Discovery's second season finale, Such Sweet Sorrow, sees the
03:40ship catapulted into the far future. The data in the ship's computer banks, full of
03:43the information dunked there by a being hundreds of thousands of years old, has
03:47the power to offer sentience to a computer virus that is not dissimilar to
03:50the Borg. While there are several issues with the time travel plot in Discovery's
03:53second season, it is the fact that they didn't really need to go to the future
03:57in the end. Leland, who by this stage was the embodiment of Control, is killed by
04:01Georgiou. This causes the rest of Control to die. Control was the only being
04:04chasing the sphere data. Control is dead. Discovery goes anyway. Now, it is
04:08explained that sending them into the future negated the risk of there ever
04:11being a similar situation like that again, but it unfortunately felt more
04:15like a desperate attempt to get Discovery into its own time period,
04:18something which has absolutely benefited the show to be fair, rather than a climax
04:22that was simply inevitable. None of this is to say that the episode itself isn't
04:25fun and thrilling to watch, but that moment with Leland just sticks out too
04:29much to be accepted. This, coupled with the slightly ham-fisted explanation that
04:32Discovery must never be mentioned again for reasons as a way to explain why
04:36Spock never spoke about Michael Burnham, was simply a little too underwhelming
04:40for such a large storyline. Number six, why are the locks only on one side of
04:44the doorway? Honestly, did Admiral Cornwell have to die? And if so, was it
04:48really necessary to kill her simply to highlight the need for locks on both
04:52sides of a blast door? When a torpedo impacts the saucer section of the
04:55Enterprise in Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2, Cornwell volunteers to go down in an
04:59attempt to disarm it. She's joined by Una, then later by Pike. None of them are able
05:02to disarm the warhead, so they need to seal the blast door in order to contain
05:05the explosion. Now, wouldn't you know it, the only access to the locking mechanism
05:09is on the explodey side of the door. Cornwell pulls rank and orders Pike to
05:12leave the room. She locks the blast door and, as the torpedo detonates, Pike
05:16watches from behind one of the sturdiest pieces of transparent aluminum known to
05:19Starfleet. While Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2 has appeared on this list twice, it's
05:23not a truly bad episode by any means, but both of these gaps in logic stuck out
05:28awkwardly. If the crew at the front of the saucer section were able to evacuate
05:31with enough time, why not simply pull back a deck or two, then try a different
05:34blast door? Or was this torpedo sitting in the only room on the Enterprise with
05:38blast doors installed? If so, handy. Much like the blatant decision that
05:41Discovery needed to jump to the future, this feels awfully like it was decided
05:45early on that someone recognisable had to die in this episode. Cornwell was well
05:49known enough for this to hit the right emotional beats, sure, but it still felt
05:53completely unnecessary. A nod in the good, oh no, their pointless death has affected
05:57me greatly kind of way. This felt like, so that happened, right so. Number five,
06:01Admiral Forrest deserved better. Star Trek Enterprise, in its fourth season,
06:06delivers an excellent three-part story that's set on Vulcan. The Forge trilogy
06:09sees the reintroduction of T'Pau to the Star Trek universe, along with the
06:12gradual lessening of restrictions around mind melds. This, in turn, leads to T'Pol
06:16being cured of Panar Syndrome. So far, so good. So, what's wrong with the story? The
06:21opening chapter kicks into life with the bombing of the Starfleet embassy on
06:24Vulcan. In the course of saving Ambassador Soval's life, Admiral Maxwell
06:28Forrest is killed, a heroic death for one of Archer and Enterprise's greatest
06:32supporters. However, the way that it is handled is far from heroic, or even
06:36barely satisfactory. For a start, though we see Forrest dive to protect Soval, we
06:40don't actually find out his fate until it is discussed by Archer. That's right,
06:44this character, who had been, from the beginning, was given an ignoble off-screen
06:48death. Adding insult to this, there's no memorial service for the man. Though Von
06:51Armstrong would thankfully return later in the season as a mirror universe
06:54version of the character, that was it for Admiral Forrest. It just felt so rushed,
06:57and the emotional beats are missing entirely. Rather than feeling grief for
07:01this character, there is instead only a deep frustration to have removed a
07:04character so quickly and coldly from the show without giving them anything
07:07like the appropriate respect or honours. While that other death from These are
07:12the Voyages might seem like a sure bet for an entry here, this one occurred
07:15within the established timeline of Enterprise. That is not to say, much as we
07:19don't want to say it, that Voyages isn't canon, but those events took place on a
07:23holodeck recreation that was being watched back. There's even a scene with
07:26Trip after he dies. There's no such moment with Forrest. He is simply a
07:30semi-core player for three and a half years, and then he's gone.
07:33Number four, the copy-and-paste fleet. The finale of Picard's first season was
07:38meant to offer a fist-pumping, cheer-inducing moment toward the climax.
07:41Unknown to the Romulan fleet, which has apparently been hiding just over there,
07:45Picard has requested that the planet Julianne 4 be given Federation
07:48protection. Having done this, acting Captain Riker arrives to save the day.
07:52The groans were heard around the world. The fun part of the episode is of course
07:56seeing Riker in uniform, totally in control, storming to his former captain's
08:00aid. The ship that he's on, the Inquiry-class Zhang He, isn't even a bad
08:04design at all, depending on how you feel about deflector dishes. It's the fact
08:07that there are hundreds of them, almost all identical, dotted through the scene.
08:11This is coupled with a similar situation on the Romulan side. To put it simply,
08:14there were absolutely no stakes to this face-off at all. As the title suggests, it
08:19really does feel like the copy-and-paste buttons were used a lot while putting
08:22this together. Now, while we must acknowledge that there were four
08:24distinct versions of the Inquiry-class, best identified by the length of their
08:27nacelles, that really does seem like a bit of a pointless change. The second
08:31season of Picard saw an immediate addressing of this problem. The very
08:34first episode, The Stargazer, introduced the new Sagan-class ship, with ships
08:38like the Sovereign and Akira returning and the Luna making its live-action
08:41debut, and several ships previously seen in Star Trek Online appearing for the
08:45first time on screen. It was, quite frankly, bloody obvious what they were
08:48doing, and considering how the copy-and-paste scene was received, very,
08:51very much appreciated. Number three, Admiral Nechayev underestimates the
08:56Maquis. This one stings because of the character of Nechayev overall. While she
09:00was presented initially as a thorn in Picard's side, not to mention Riker's, she
09:04slowly was shown to be a bit more than simply a Starfleet badass, ready to slap
09:08our favourite characters down to size. This is best evidenced in Journey's End,
09:12where she reacts positively to Picard's attempts to make her feel comfortable by
09:16providing her favourite food. Though barely an icebreaker, it offers the
09:19slightest warming of the character, thus allowing the audience to see her as more
09:22than one note. This is then undone in Deep Space Nine. While the Maquis is one
09:27of the strongest stories of the show's early years, it unfortunately just
09:30deposits an intransigent Nechayev back to us. She arrives at the station, ready to
09:34address the Maquis threat, then effectively barks at Sisko that he just
09:37needs to try harder. She clearly is only there because she has to be, badly
09:40underestimates the Maquis, and then leaves. It's so frustrating as Journey's End
09:44should have been a lesson to her character about just how far the Maquis
09:47were willing to go to protect their homes. Whatever growth had been shown in
09:50that episode was washed away in one short scene. While it sets up a fabulous
09:54exchange between Sisko and Kira, it comes at the expense of a character who had,
09:57for better or worse, started to melt away the icy exterior, only to have that
10:01suddenly freeze up again. Number two, Janeway destroys the Array. Now, for the
10:06most part, Caretaker is a strong pilot episode of Star Trek Voyager, and to be
10:10very clear, we know that Janeway had to destroy the Array. Otherwise, the show
10:14doesn't have a catalyst to keep it stranded, so we're not suggesting that
10:17it shouldn't have happened. Or are we? With the Kazon closing in around them,
10:20and their sights set firmly on the Caretaker's technology, Janeway orders Tuvok to
10:23fire two tricobalt devices directly at the Array. This serves to keep the
10:27technology out of the hands of the Kazon, but strands the Starfleet ship in the
10:30Delta Quadrant. First, as is later mentioned by Seven of Nine in the
10:33Voyager conspiracy, tricobalt devices are not standard issue on Starfleet vessels.
10:37Why would Janeway fire the only two in their arsenal at the Array? Next, despite
10:41the fact that they were outnumbered, Voyager could have turned the tide
10:44against the Kazon by firing tricobalt devices at them. Now, the real frustration
10:48here is the pitfalls of Caretaker itself. The Array had to go, sure, but did it have
10:52to go in such a way? Did the Valjean have to be destroyed? Did the Maquis have to
10:56suddenly put all of their uniforms into the Replicators and then adopt Starfleet
10:59field commissions? As has been stated about Voyager before, the second the
11:03Maquis members put those uniforms on, the most interesting part of Voyager's
11:06premise, two crews learning to work together, died. There was a version of
11:10Star Trek Voyager that would see the ship face struggles, take a beating, learn to
11:13overcome, and have genuine peril. It's called Year of Hell. The toothless way in
11:17which Voyager is stranded, while also looking like it's been to a space dock
11:20every week, is one of the most frustrating things in all of Star Trek's
11:24history. Number one, forgive my friend, he's a... The City on the Edge of Forever is
11:29regarded as one of the greatest episodes of Star Trek, one that keeps its premise
11:32throughout the story, one that shows off strong performances from all, and one
11:36that ends on such a dark note that it was honestly quite a shock for Trek at
11:39the time. It also contains the line, you'll have to forgive my friend, he's a
11:42Chinaman. This is Kirk's attempt to explain Spock's strange appearance to a
11:46contemporary police officer. The story of the making of this episode is as
11:49interesting as the show itself, though in any version of the episode, this ill-thought
11:52racist attempt at humour leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Another version of the
11:56story would have seen a crewman selling drugs to Starfleet officers, then
11:59escaping through the Guardian of Forever. Roddenberry absolutely vetoed this idea,
12:03along with several others, leading writer Harlan Ellison to remove his name from
12:07the episode altogether. While the episode is one of the all-time great one-episode
12:10love stories in Star Trek, with Joan Collins playing the doomed Edith Keillor,
12:14it's just impossible not to notice something as overtly racist as the
12:18assumption that one's perceived oddness could be explained away as them simply
12:22being Asian. Star Trek has addressed its own past many times through the years.
12:26This is not to say that they've shied away from problematic portrayals. Perhaps
12:29this one hits much harder because, there but for the grace of a line, the city on
12:33the edge of forever could be one of the greatest pieces of television in history.
12:37That's everything for our list today, folks. Did we include everything that you
12:39found most frustrating in Star Trek? Let us know in the comments below. You can
12:42reach out to us over on Twitter, at Trek Culture. You can catch myself, at Sean
12:45Ferrick, on all the various socials as well. Until I see you again, make sure that
12:48you live long and prosper, make sure that you stay well. Our friends in Ukraine,
12:51keep fighting, stay strong, we love you. Everyone, have a wonderful week. Make it so.