guy_in_oxford

The two worst Trek episodes of all-time are Tuvix from Voyager and Cogenitor from Enterprise. They are about condoning cold-blooded first-degree murder (done in collaboration with the ship's top-ranked staff) and condoning slavery (with a strong dose of sexism and heterosexism thrown in), respectively. So far, this series hasn't managed to unset those and I don't expect it to. What it does instead is torture the audience with cartoonish banality.

This series vies with Discovery and Enterprise for worst Trek series. The final season of Enterprise, with its brain-dead war game plot (featuring Insectoids! And a bunch of other oids) not only had so many bad episodes, it had the Cogenitor episode. So, it's strong competition. Discovery lacks one of the two worst episodes of all-time but is suffocatingly obsessed with its Mary Sue lead, her boyfriend, quick fixes, spelling everything out in capital letters (even more than Enterprise, possibly), predictability, and advertising for the psychotherapy business.

Picard is the least Trek-like series I've seen from the franchise, especially season 2. Discovery is so heavy-handed and predictable, especially in its latest season (I think it's season 3 but it's not important as all of the seasons are weak). Enterprise was mostly dull and disappointing throughout. Phaser fight? Check. Brawl? Check. Ship battle? Check. Boring speech? Okay. It also suffered from the cardinal sin of playing games with the personalities of the characters - not being true to character. The way Tripp's attitude was reset after the Cogenitor episode is a classic case of poor production.

Picard, as a series, is a pile of clichés, as is Discovery and as was Enterprise before them (for the most part, at least). It tries its hardest to rip off (regurgitate) all of the moments that were memorable in ye olde Trek and fails badly every time. Season 2 has the show especially floundering, not knowing what kind of show it even is in episodes like Monsters. I can't imagine things getting better and had to force myself through that episode.

One of the most irritating aspects of this series is its use of sword fighting. It's as if the production staff are intent on trying to siphon every unique aspect from popular franchises, dump them into a pot, stir, and see what floats up. Well, what is floating to the top isn't a great Trek series.

Firstly, this wasn't Star Trek; it was a hodgepodge of bad ideas thrown into a heap.

If goofy magic tricks, shattering windows, shattering glasses, shattering toys, shattering bottles, breaking boards, more of Discovery's OBSESSION with superficial psychobabble, corny fantasy-style exaggeration of Guinan's characer - complete with cheesy parlor tricks, more regurgitation of memorable old Trek bits handled in the most classless juvenile manner possible, completely idiotic handling of hospital drama and the time shock theme, more totally tedious "ABC Family" posturing about kids (Yes! Yes! We Know They're So Great And Precious! We Know You Will Protect Him! Yes! Okay! Yes!), more Agnes doing her best to be ridiculous, more inability of Patrick Stewart to deliver his lines with adequate smoothness, more "gotcha" twist endings that aren't interesting,

That paragraph is a lot like the episode. It's stuffed to the gills with stuff, none of which amounts to much in the end. All saccharine + aspartame + sucralose and no flavor.

I was very annoyed watching this and only finished it simply to be able to say I watched the entire thing. What a triumph.

Gene Roddenberry, never in a million years, would have allowed the resolution in this episode. His Trek was uplifting and moral, not ends-justify-the-means cold brutality.

Even Spock, who Bones always accused of having ice water for blood, would have shown more intelligence, morality, and compassion than the Voyager crew does in this one.

As someone else said, this is a very sick episode. Not only is it not Trek, it's not good sci-fi, considering the lengths to which the series goes to portray those involved as protagonists.