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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 the point
00:05where the payoff is worth it but it's actually the build that made it even more fun. So when
00:10you have moments of Star Trek that frustrate you but the payoff is wonderful it can be great.
00:16This is not that list. These frustrating moments are such that they built and they built and they
00:21just left us wanting more. So with that in mind I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture and here are
00:28the 10 most frustrating Star Trek moments. Number 10. Dukat kills Jadzia. This entries are jumping
00:34off point as it was so utterly unnecessary for Deep Space Nine to lose Terry Farrell the way that it
00:39did. While the shocking nature of Gul Dukat transporting into the Bajoran Shrine, remorselessly killing Dax
00:43and beaming away has still yet to properly fade from our minds, it's long since been overtaken
00:48by the stories that came out of the way it came to be. Farrell had after six years of more than 20
00:54episodes a season, approached the producers with the request to be reduced to a recurring character.
00:59Their response was that it was all or nothing. Either she was going to be in every episode,
01:03like the other seasons, or none at all. Presented with such a choice, she elected to leave.
01:07It was an unworthy exit for one of the main cast. To add further insult to injury,
01:11the seventh season saw both a Mirror Universe episode and a montage of previous episodes,
01:16neither of which featured Farrell. Both sides at one point or another stated that there was contract
01:20and permission issues, yet it boils down to a deeply unsatisfying exit for one of our most
01:24popular characters in Deep Space Nine. Number 9, Warp Restrictions. While the Next Generation 7
01:29season is certainly not its strongest, there are still many truly great episodes. One such episode
01:33is the Pegasus. It opens with Captain Picard Day, a celebration on board the Enterprise D to honor
01:37Picard. This draws the amusement of the Admiral tasked with sending the Enterprise to meet with
01:41Pressman, Commander Ryker's former Captain. Warp Restrictions are lifted for the duration of this
01:46mission. Ah yes, there it is. The only other mention of there being any sort of restrictions
01:50on warp travel outside of the episode Force of Nature. The latter episode, arriving earlier in
01:55the season, saw the explanation that warp travel was doing damage to subspace and an alternative was
02:00badly needed. The soliton wave was suggested instead, a method by which starships would ride
02:05the current of an artificial phenomenon, dragging them along at warp speed. It was an exciting,
02:09if slightly impractical idea, but one sure to address this hugely important development that warp
02:14was harming the galaxy. Then outside of that single mention in the Pegasus, it was never alluded to
02:18again. This feels less like Starfleet managed to fix the problem, and more as though the writers
02:22simply weren't interested in continuing to explore this idea. To this writer, it was less frustrating
02:27that the idea was scrapped, and more that it was such a massive deal in one episode, and then it was
02:31gone. Number 8. Her life could have been as rich as any woman's. The final episode of the original
02:35series, Turnabout Intruder, has the sad honor of finishing the show with a line that suggests
02:40women are looking at a pretty grim version of the future. This would come after three years of many,
02:46many missteps, a concerted effort to show that in the future equality really was possible. This is
02:51something that would be fixed in future series. Here, it is suggested that Janice Lester was unable
02:56to become a starship captain, and thus lost her sanity owing simply to the fact that she was a woman.
03:00In a show set in a future of equality and enlightenment, female starship captains were considered
03:05too risque. While Star Trek would quickly work to brush this aside, as early as the animated series,
03:09with Uhura taking command of the ship, and Star Trek IV the voyage home, with Madge Sinclair appearing
03:14as the captain of the USS Saratoga, it is a deeply annoying stain on the show's history. It is compounded
03:19by the fact that the final words spoken seem to confirm that Star Trek of the 23rd century had a
03:25less than enlightened view towards women in general. Bad enough that the idea is there, but that it's the
03:29last idea offered by the original series to boot. Number 7. Leland dies before Discovery enters the
03:35wormhole. Star Trek II Discovery's second season finale, Such Sweet Sorrow, sees the ship catapulted
03:40into the far future. The data in the ship's computer banks, full of the information dumped there by a
03:45being hundreds of thousands of years old, has the power to offer sentience to a computer virus that
03:49is not dissimilar to the 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 in the end. Leland,
03:58who by this stage was the embodiment of Control, is killed by Georgiou. This causes the rest of
04:03Control to die. Control was the only being chasing the sphere data. Control is dead. Discovery goes
04:07anyway. Now it is explained that sending them into the future negated the risk of there ever being
04:11a similar situation like that again, but it unfortunately felt more like a desperate attempt
04:16to get Discovery into its own time period, something which has absolutely benefited the show to be fair,
04:21rather than a climax that 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 much to be accepted. This
04:30coupled with the slightly ham-fisted explanation that Discovery must never be mentioned again,
04:34for reasons, as a way to explain why Spock never spoke about Michael Burnham, was simply a little
04:39too underwhelming for such a large storyline. Number 6. Why are the locks only on one side of
04:44the doorway? Honestly, did Admiral Cornwell have to die? And if so, was it really necessary to kill
04:49her simply to highlight the need for locks on both sides of a blast door? When a torpedo impacts the
04:54saucer section of the Enterprise in Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2, Cornwell volunteers to go down in an
04:58attempt to disarm it. She's joined by Una, then later by Pike. None of them are able to disarm the
05:03warhead, so they need to seal the blast door in order to contain the explosion. Now, wouldn't you
05:06know it, the only access to the locking mechanism is on the explodey side of the door. Cornwell pulls
05:11rank and orders Pike to leave 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 Starfleet. While Such
05:20Sweet Sorrow Part 2 has appeared on this list twice, it's not a truly bad episode by any means,
05:25but both of these gaps in logic stuck out awkwardly. If the crew at the front of the saucer section were
05:30able to evacuate with 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 blast doors installed?
05:39If so, handy. Much like the blatant decision that Discovery needed to jump to the future,
05:43this feels awfully like it was decided early on that someone recognisable had to die in this episode.
05:48Cornwell was well known enough for this to hit the right emotional beats, sure, but it still felt
05:53completely unnecessary. And not in the good, oh no their pointless death has affected me greatly
05:57kind of way. This felt like, so that happened. Right so. Number 5. Admiral Forrest deserved better.
06:04Star Trek Enterprise in its fourth season delivers an excellent three-part story that's set on Vulcan.
06:08The Forge trilogy sees the reintroduction of T'Pau to the Star Trek universe along with the gradual
06:13lessening of restrictions around mind melds. This in turn leads to T'Pau being cured of Panar
06:17syndrome. So far so good. So, what's wrong with the story? The opening chapter kicks into life with
06:22the bombing of the Starfleet embassy on Vulcan. In the course of saving Ambassador Soval's life,
06:27Admiral Maxwell Forrest 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 barely satisfactory.
06:37For a start, though we see Forrest dive to protect Soval, we don't actually find out his
06:41fate until it is discussed by Archer. That's right, this character who had been from the beginning,
06:46was given an ignoble off-screen death. Adding insult to this, there's no memorial service for
06:50the man. Though Von Armstrong 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 and the emotional
06:58beats are missing entirely. Rather than feeling grief for this character, there is instead only a
07:02deep frustration to have removed a character so quickly and coldly from the show without giving
07:07them anything like the appropriate respect or honors. While that other death from These Are The Voyages
07:12might seem like a sure bet for an entry here, this one occurred within the established timeline
07:17of Enterprise. That is not to say, much as we don't want to say it, that Voyages isn't canon,
07:21but those events took place on a holodeck recreation that was being watched back. There's even a scene
07:26with Trip after he dies. There's no such moment with Forrest, he is simply a semi-core player for
07:31three and a half years and then he's gone. Number 4, the copy and paste fleet. The finale of Picard's
07:37first season was meant to offer a fist-pumping, cheer-inducing moment toward the climax. Unknown to the
07:41Romulan fleet, which has apparently been hiding just, erm, over there. Picard has requested that
07:46the planet Julian IV be given Federation protection. Having done this, acting Captain Riker arrives to
07:51save the day. The 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 aid. The ship that he's on,
08:02the inquiry class Zhang He, isn't even a bad design at all, depending on how you feel about deflector dishes.
08:06It's the fact that there are hundreds of them, almost all identical, dotted through the scene. This is
08:11coupled with a similar situation on the Romulan side. To put it simply, there were absolutely
08:16no stakes to this face-off at all. As the title suggests, it really does feel like the copy and
08:20paste buttons were used a lot while putting this together. Now while we must acknowledge that there
08:24were four distinct versions of the inquiry class, best identified by the length of their nacelles,
08:28that really does seem like a bit of a pointless change. The second season of Picard saw an immediate
08:32addressing of this problem. The very first episode, the Stargazer, introduced the new Sagan
08:37class ship, with ships like 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 first time on screen.
08:46It was quite frankly bloody obvious what they were doing, and considering how the copy and paste
08:50scene was received was very, very much appreciated. Number 3. Admiral Necheyev underestimates the Maquis.
08:57This one stings because of the character of Necheyev overall. While she was presented initially as a
09:01thorn in Picard's side, not to mention Riker's, she slowly was shown to be a bit more than simply a
09:06Starfleet badass, ready to slap our favourite characters down to size. This is best evidenced
09:11in Journey's End, where she reacts positively to Picard's attempts to make her feel comfortable
09:15by providing her favourite food. Though barely an icebreaker, it offers the slightest warming of
09:20the character, thus allowing the audience to see her as more than one note. This is then undone
09:24in Deep Space Nine. While the Maquis is one of the strongest stories of the show's early years,
09:29it unfortunately just deposits an intransigent Necheyev back to us. She arrives at the station,
09:33ready to address the Maquis threat, then effectively barks at Sisko that he just needs to try harder.
09:38She clearly is only there because she has to be, badly underestimates the Maquis, and then leaves.
09:42It's so frustrating as Journey's End should have been a lesson to her character about just how far
09:47the Maquis were willing to go to protect their homes. Whatever growth had been shown in that episode
09:51was washed away in one short scene. While it sets up a fabulous exchange between Sisko and Kira,
09:55it comes at the expense of a character who had, for better or worse, started to melt away the icy
10:00exterior, only to have that suddenly freeze up again. Number two, Janeway destroys the Array.
10:05Now for the most part, Caretaker is a strong pilot episode of Star Trek Voyager, and to be very clear,
10:10we know that Janeway had to destroy the Array. Otherwise the show doesn't have a catalyst to keep
10:15it stranded, so we're not suggesting that it shouldn't have happened. Or are we? With the Kazon closing
10:19in around them, and their sights set firmly on the Caretaker's technology, Janeway orders Tuvok to fire two
10:24tricobalt devices directly at the Array. This serves to keep the technology out of the hands
10:28of the Kazon, but strands the Starfleet ship in the Delta Quadrant. First, as is later mentioned by
10:32Seven of Nine in the Voyager 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 the fact that
10:42they were outnumbered, Voyager could have turned the tide against the Kazon by firing tricobalt devices
10:46at them. Now the real frustration here is the pitfalls of Caretaker itself. The Array had to go,
10:51sure, but did it had to go in such a way? Did the Valjean have to be destroyed? Did the
10:55Maquis have to suddenly put all of their uniforms into the replicators and then adopt Starfleet field
11:00commissions? As has been stated about Voyager before, the second the Maquis members put those
11:04uniforms on, the most interesting part of Voyager's premise, two crews learning to work together, died.
11:09There is a version of Star Trek Voyager that would see the shipface struggles, take a beating,
11:12learn to overcome and have genuine peril. It's called Year of Hell. The toothless way in which Voyager
11:17is stranded, while also looking like it's been to a space dock every week, is one of the most
11:22frustrating things in all of Star Trek's history. Number one, forgive my friend, he's a... The city
11:28on the edge of forever is regarded as one of the greatest episodes of Star Trek, one that keeps its
11:32premise throughout the story, one that shows off strong performances from all, and one that ends on
11:36such a dark note that it was honestly quite a shock for Trek at the time. It also contains the line,
11:40you'll have to forgive my friend, he's a Chinaman. This is Kirk's attempt to explain Spock's strange
11:45appearance to a contemporary 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 racist
11:53attempt at humour leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Another version of the story would have seen a crewman
11:57selling drugs to Starfleet officers, then escaping through the Guardian of Forever. Roddenberry absolutely
12:02vetoed this idea, along with several others, leading writer Harlan Ellison to remove his name from the
12:07episode altogether. While the episode is one of the all-time great one-episode love stories in Star
12:11Trek, with Joan Collins playing the doomed Edith Keillor, it's just impossible not to notice something
12:16as overtly racist as the assumption that one's perceived oddness could be explained away as them
12:21simply being Asian. Star Trek has addressed its own past many times through the years. This is not to
12:26say that they've shied away from problematic portrayals, perhaps this one hits much harder because
12:31there but for the grace of a line, The City on the Edge of Forever could be one of the greatest pieces of
12:36television in history. That's everything for our list today folks, did we include everything that
12:39you found most frustrating in Star Trek? Let us know in the comments below, you can reach out to us
12:43over on Twitter at TrekCulture, you can catch myself at Sean Ferrick on all the various socials as well.
12:47Until I see you again make sure that you live long and prosper, make sure that you stay well,
12:50our friends in Ukraine keep fighting, stay strong, we love you, everyone have a wonderful week, make it so!
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