[Nate the Great]

TrekCulture's list of ten Trek episodes that aren't the worst, but people ignore them, and they deserve a second chance.


Voyager: "Resistance". Yeah, I don't return to this one. Prostitution, torture, and terrorism are not my idea of a good time, and good acting performances can't cancel that out.
Voyager: "11:59". I enjoy this one, I just wish that they hadn't wasted time on Janeway's illusion of O'Donnell being shattered, instead spending more time on the rest of the crew's stories of their families.

TOS: "The Empath". Another one that I enjoy. My only complaint is that there's a bit too much talking (and the budget could've been a bit bigger, of course).
DS9: "The Reckoning". I'll come right out and say it-I don't like it when higher life forms use our heroes as puppets and chess pieces. Not in the slightest. Furthermore, the concept of the Prophets was never properly thought through. They claim to exist outside time, yet their interactions with our heroes always have "before" and "after" states. As Phil Farrand says in the DS9 Nitpicker's Guide, they should never have conversations with Sisko, instead giving the necessary information in one go.
DS9: "Hippocratic Oath." I can't cover this one briefly except to say that I don't like "O'Brien Must Suffer" episodes at all.

TAS: "How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth." I can't speak to the quality of TAS episodes, I haven't seen that many. I do hate the old chesnut of "aliens advanced a human society past what they could've done on their own" that cheap scifi keeps using. Frankly all of TAS deserves a second look in my opinion.
TNG: "We'll Always Have Paris." Too much technobabble but some good character work.

TNG: "Pen Pals." This one never worked because Data is supposed to be smarter than he's presented here AND the Prime Directive is presented as adaptable when it was specifically designed to not be. No contact with prewarp societies. Period, end of sentence. Not "a little contact", not "contact as long as we don't get caught", NONE.

ENT: "Acquisition". I don't care if the Ferengi never gave their names, this episode is still stupid. It's also another examples of the creators wanting to take the easy way out when writing episodes instead of, y'know, putting some work in.

TOS: "A Private Little War". IF the Prime Directive didn't exist I wouldn't mind seeing episodes like this more often. There are a lot of TOS episodes I wouldn't mind seeing variations of IF the Prime Directive didn't exist. But it does. Furthermore, TOS (and TNG for that matter) could've gotten a lot of mileage out of the galactic powers attempting to exploit prewarp societies without letting them know that they're being exploited by aliens. You know, continue the tradition of proxy wars that happened so often during the Cold War and even today. The Byrne comics told us how the Klingons and Romulans used EACH OTHER as proxies in the TOS era.