Star Trek: 10 Episodes That Wasted An Incredible Premise

WhatCulture

Sometimes, despite their best efforts, these ideas in Star Trek don't stick the landing.

Transcript

00:00All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.

00:04In essence...

00:05That's the incredible premise at the heart of Star Trek which has kept us watching week

00:09after week for over...

00:1050 years.

00:11Star Trek is a great idea.

00:13The rest is making the most-

00:15Such is the nature of the creative process and of television that even some of Star Trek

00:20now most celebrated episodes didn't go from concept to screen unchanged.

00:25For what is the best of the best of both worlds?

00:28Writer Michael Piller admitted in Captain's Law-

00:30The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages that we had no idea it was really a Riker-

00:35story when we started out and that it took a while to think up Locutus.

00:38The reverse then is also true-

00:40Sometimes the most extraordinary premises failed to come to fruition in the episodes

00:45they've been given.

00:46Worse, there are those ideas that should have shaken the galaxy and the franchi-

00:50that have been recognized to its core but were never spoken of again.

00:53The mystery of the preservers was wasted-

00:55on whatever the Paradise Syndrome turned out to be.

00:57And the mind-blowing revelation from perhaps-

01:00Perhaps the same species in The Chase were relegated to archaeological curiosity.

01:04None of-

01:05the above makes for a bad episode either.

01:07Just-

01:08a lost opportunity.

01:09We should all just-

01:10be glad that a briefing with Neelix, or Good Morning Voyager, was apparently Axe.

01:15With-

01:15all that out of the way, I'm Bri from TrekCulture, and here are 10 episodes that wasted an incredible-

01:20premise.

01:21Number 10-

01:22That Hope Is You Part 1 & 2

01:24From what had been-

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01:25pretty awesome second season, Star Trek Discovery took a jump to the 32nd century.

01:29It was a-

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01:30bold idea ripe for storytelling. The 32nd century was previously an unexplored century-

01:35and there were hundreds of years of largely unknown history to fill in before it. In the first-

01:40act of the first episode of the third season in this new century, we learned of an event called the bur-

01:45Basically, when all dilithium suddenly went inert around 3069, every-

01:50active warp core exploded causing death and destruction on a massive scale, radically off-

01:55altering the political and technological landscape of the space-faring galaxy. In hindsight-

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02:12investigation throughout Discovery's third season. During the wait for an answer, Theory's about-

02:17to say that the solution-

02:22given in that hope is you part two was disappointing would be putting it

02:27mildly with so many opportunities to link the burn to other parts of canon or

02:32to innovate with something new to match the stakes the lone kelpian option was truly a

02:37waste of a great premise number nine conspiracy we've said it before and we'll

02:42say it again until we're blue in the face bring back the butt bugs you'd think the invasion of

02:47starfleet into its upper echelons by a very non-humanoid species was too good of an

02:52idea to leave on a one and done however while events to come had been somewhat telegram

02:57in coming of age the epic bluegill premise was pretty much confined to conspiracy

03:02in drumhead we did find out that admiral nora sati had played a crucial role in a

03:07exposing the butt bug plot after that the little parasites had no further impact on canon

03:12than a slight uptick on subreddits on talgana4 that doesn't mean conspiracy was a waste

03:17of an episode by any means in fact it was one of the best of a rough season and it's

03:22certainly swung for the fences when it came to gruesome special effects it all comes down to budget

03:27and the episodic nature of star trek at the time but there could easily have been a whole miniseries about

03:32the bluegills depicting their discovery and schemes for galactic domination before the enterprise

03:37d even entered the frame in fact according to the star trek next generation companion the

03:42original idea for conspiracy didn't have any bluegills at all instead it was regular

03:47members of starfleet who are plotting against the prime directive and federation-wide complacency

03:52following the klingon detente that plot became central to star trek 6 the undiscovered country

03:57and in a more roundabout way to the next entry on this list number eight star trek

04:02insurrection at first you might be wondering what a movie is doing on this list about star trek ep

04:07episodes well we do like to keep you at red alert but more to the point as we've previously

04:12discussed on this channel star trek insurrection has always seemed more like an extended two-parter than a

04:17feature length for theaters it just didn't quite work but it probably would have made a strong enough out

04:22outing on television at the movies however insurrection was a bit bland whatever the morale

04:27telling it through the prism of an interstellar band of privileged wannabe neo-luddites made the whole

04:32thing a little difficult to care about insurrection was also not without similarities to an ep

04:37episode of star trek the next generation homeward at its core however the film did have quite

04:42the premise the rebellion against starfleet and the federation by one captain picard and crew

04:47the idea of the usually by the books captain forced to turn against starfleet and the federation

04:52has already played out in the now admiral's eponymous tv show to a lesser extent

04:57we've also seen jean-luc picard defying starfleet orders at the start of star trek first contact

05:02so a full-on rebellion in the next film made a degree of sense insurrection could

05:07have been the next generation search for spock but instead of starfleet just being in the way they

05:12would have been thoroughly up to no good who knows maybe we'll see this movie on a dumbest things list

05:17in the future but until then saddle up lock and load number seven

05:22once more this is not a bad episode of star trek it is however

05:27emblematic of a larger issue star trek voyager faced in its focus on a group of errant

05:32maquis crew members and on a problem with the bioneural gel packs learning curve the last

05:37episode of voyager's first season is perhaps the ultimate example of the waste of not one

05:42but two premises that were in theory supposed to be central to the series itself

05:47learning curve does its best to broach the subject of maquis starfleet relations but by that

05:52time only four of the former maquis that we knew of were apparently having difficulties

05:57with their new working arrangements the two crews had begun as enemies or at least as a

06:02conflict but in the delta quadrant they rapidly became friends and colleagues

06:07it wouldn't be entirely smooth sailing after but learning curve does feel like one

06:12last bump in the road for a topic that could have been explored in far greater depth and then

06:17there was the cheese it was with a sense of urgency that captain janeway described the

06:22risk of running out of bio neural gel packs when one was found in need of replacement they had

06:2747 left in reserve and that was it after that it would be bye bye most of

06:32voyager's critical systems even with some isolinear switchovers however like for

06:37photon torpedoes and shuttles lack was never really an issue ever again

06:42number six fury in cine fantastic volume 33 number

06:47number five brian fuller who co-wrote the teleplay for fury explained how he started on

06:52star trek voyager actually the reason i got brought into voyager in the first place was to come up

06:57with a way to kill kess off i came up with the story for the gift her whole evolution into a different

07:13you

07:02a different phase of ocump in life was my idea nonetheless fuller was equally happy with the twist

07:07that he helped devise for kes's return in the sin of fantastic piece he also pointed out

07:21you

07:12most fans had been looking forward to a comeback for kes but the way in which it was done was

07:17surprising to say the least kes's angry vengeful persona always struck a little

07:22odd it jarred with her still entirely affable self of the gift of

07:27of course people do change that might be especially true for the ocumpa a species

07:32whose average lifespan was only about eight to nine years in fury kes was barely reckoned

07:37recognizable however seeming like an almost entirely different character even by the

07:42of the episode's end fury also stumbled somewhat over an explanation for such a dramatic

07:47shift in personality merely stating that kes wasn't ready for her transformation and

07:52got lost along the way ultimately for a character we'd known for three seasons her fun

07:57final appearance could have been better spent than in trying to deliver voyager to the nearest organ

08:01harvest

08:02number five assignment earth the original premise for assignment earth is more

08:07unique than most on this list the episode was meant to produce a spinoff series starring robert lans

08:12dancing as gary seven we'll never know what the quality of the show would have been but the fact that it was

08:17never made leaves us with an episode of star trek the original series that can only ever

08:22feel like the beginning of something better the supervisor watcher storyline did get in a

08:27in a fandom in the second season of star trek picard in that orla brady's to lynn had been chosen

08:39you

08:32a person for service as a supervisor and picard made a comparison between her and gary seven

08:37who was recruited by superior beings to protect the tapestry of history at the end of

08:42the season it was revealed that wesley crusher and his colleagues aka the travelers were the

08:47ones who sent out the supervisors we know so very little about the travelers that they're

08:52revealed as the heretofore mysterious alien abductors of gary seven's ancestors from

08:57assignment earth seemed almost anecdotal the brief traveler recruitment pitch

09:02scene in farewell was also the last we saw of wesley chronologically speaking or

09:07as close to that as he can be making it a waste of two premises there's still hope how

09:12we're not going to be getting a gary and wesley traveling detective agency the assignment earth

09:17spinoff anytime soon but both characters could show up anywhere anytime

09:29you

09:22and especially in star trek discovery number four threshold

09:27in the 24th century edition of the dictionary of federation standard under the entry for

09:39you

09:32incredible meaning too extraordinary to be believed tom paris's warp 10 record and

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09:37the silliness that followed will be cited as an example nonetheless deep down in the

09:42weirdness of threshold there is somewhere a fantastic premise go fast

09:47it made perfect sense that the crew of voyager would begin experimenting with even the craziest ideas

09:59you

09:52in their effort to get back home just so long as it was all in line with the starfleet and federation prin-

09:57principles ish at some point they were bound to try and beef up their maximum warp speed

10:09you

10:02the problem with threshold is that they went straight to warp 10 which as the episode it's

10:14you

10:07itself states is a theoretical impossibility between star trek the original series and star

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10:12trek the next generation changes were made to the warp scale to put in place an upper speed limit

10:17as the star trek next generation technical manual states our solution was to redraw the

10:22warp curve so the exponent of the warp factor increases gradually then sharply after

10:27warp 9 as you approach warp 10. at warp 10 the exponent and the speed would

10:32be infinite so you could never reach this value however if we do assume warp

10:3710 is achievable but has side effects why didn't voyager just use the new form of dial

10:42lithium they found to supercharge the warp engines you don't need warp 10 if you're actually capable

10:47of it every decimal point you can add past warp 9 already represents a vast in

10:52increase in speed and warp that being said warp 9.9999

10:579.9999 reoccurring would have had them back to earth in a jiffy of

11:02course the power requirements would have been enormous and they'd probably just have run out

11:06of the new dilithium

11:07back to the salamander babies after all number three these are the voyages

11:12we've previously called these the voyages weird and now we're going with wasted

11:16it's

11:17really not looking great for the series finale of enterprise to agree with brandon braga when he

11:22said that it was a cool concept but it was languid the core premise of the episode was actually

11:36you

11:27quite a good one it was only the application and execution that let it down

11:39you

11:32we all love a crossover and that was the basic idea a future starfleet gazing up

11:46you

11:37ponett's past self or vice versa was not a new concept nor one that had gone

11:41actually

11:42out of fashion it was done most recently with panache and just a bit of time travel in those old

11:54movies Miller prize was

11:56reminder that this Germany вместо about the increase iniyup mBill quiz

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11:59holodeck could have worked, just not as the end to the series. It did provide for a

12:04different perspective on the characters from both eras, reminding us that the events of Enterprise

12:09we were-

12:09watching were also a piece of history. Writer Aaron Waltke took the idea and ran with it to-

12:14to create the brilliantly clever short trek, Holograms All the Way Down.

12:18Speaking of the very sh-

12:19short treks. Number 2. All the very short treks. Bar 1.

12:24The premise? A celebration of animation and Star Trek for the 50th anniversary of Star Trek

12:29the-

12:29animated series. The result? 5. To quote the teaser trailer, anything but canon-

12:34exceedingly short non-episodes that seriously missed the point. In amongst them-

12:39only one, perhaps two, was doing any celebrating, and that's Hologram-

12:44all the way down. It appears that there were tonal problems from the start. Casper Kelly,

12:49the series-

12:49showrunner and creative consultant, brought on by Alex Kurtzman, has described the very

12:54short tre-

12:54effects as both a sort of experimental low-pressure bet, and even a little more-

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13:52of us are, understandably, a bit bored out by now. Seasons 1-3 have started

13:57Trek-Picard all had the cybernetically enhanced assimilators as a focus, often the-

14:02primary. Collective fatigue or no, there is still one Borg, or Borg Adjacent.

14:07story from Picard that has been left dangling. It's often difficult to choose just one-

14:12episode with serialized television, so we've picked two, which encapsulate the matter at hand-

14:17end the season. The premise that began Picard's season outing in The Stargazer was to-

14:22summarize heavily, galaxy-threatening anomaly. Borg and Queen appear, then they're-

14:27explosions, and Q. By the second season, Farewell, Q had died-

14:32for a bit. The Borg Queen had been revealed to be a benevolent Jurati spinoff, and-

14:37the anomaly had become a humongous transwarp conduit. Aside from the odd oblique reference

14:42such as-

14:42Captain Shaw's Forget About The Weird Shit On The Stargazer, these events have never been-

14:47many-

14:47mentioned again. Of course, this could all be deliberate- there's still more Star Trek

14:51to come after all.

14:52But for now, it feels more like a waste of a great premise. As far as we know-

14:57Jurati and her collective are still waiting at the gates for whoever or whatever super-

15:02power might come through. And those were 10 Star Trek episodes that wasted an incredible pre-

15:07premise. If you liked the video, then make sure to give it a thumbs up, and subscribe if you aren't already-

15:12can you think of any episodes that we missed? If so, then leave them in the comments section below.

15:17If you want to keep up with us on social media, we're on Twitter and Blue Sky at Trek Culture, and-

15:22on Instagram at TrekCultureYT. If you want to find me across various social medias-

15:27simply search Trekky Bree. With all that being said, I hope you all have a great rest of your day, and-

15:32don't forget to live long and prosper.

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