One cannot completely celebrate Star Trek’s greatness – or fully appreciate that greatness – without acknowledging those instances when it most seriously fell short of its immense potential. A rough corollary is when one watches figure skating on television. All too often, one only gets to watch the top finishers – but it’s only when you watch the skaters that finish 18th, 19th and 20th (and see all of their struggles) that you can better understand the greatness of those who finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Likewise, a frank look at the worst Star Trek episodes helps one more fully appreciate the best that Star Trek has to offer. Here are the five episodes that I like the least/ dislike the most:
Spock’s Brain. In a nutshell, the Enterprise is boarded by an alien woman who- at the simple press of a button- instantly renders the entire crew unconscious. When the crew finally reawakens, it is discovered that the brain of Mr. Spock has somehow been stolen right out of his skull. Kirk, McCoy and Scott are eventually able to track down the race of women who have stolen Spock’s brain in order to insert it into the computer unit that controls and regulates the underground complex where they live. And I almost forgot: the women are quite stupid – but by utilizing a special electronic tool called ‘The Teacher,’ they can gain enormous knowledge. And when McCoy uses the unit on himself, it gives him the knowledge and skill to reinsert Spock’s brain back where it belongs.
This is the episode that kicked off the show’s third season, and I can’t imagine how crestfallen the show’s fans must have been to see Star Trek return from near-cancelation with this truly embarrassing episode.I’m not sure it’s even worth the time to spell out everything that is ridiculous about this story. Suffice to say that it aptly represents the show’s dramatic decline in its third and final season. It’s also marks the moment when the show veered most dangerously into “Lost in Space” territory.
The Way to Eden. The Enterprise plays host to a group of hippies who are determined to follow their leader to the mythical planet of Eden – and they manage to take over the ship and pilot it there. Eden, however, turns out to be a pretty place but not the paradise that these hippies envisioned. This third season episode would have been written sometime in 1968, at the height of the original hippie movement. and perhaps at the time it was regarded as a cutting edge, highly relevant story. But now, it feels corny, contrived and dated.
The Mark of Gideon. Captain Kirk is beaming down to the planet Gideon- but instead of materializing on Gideon, he seems to be still in the Enterprise transporter room- except that no one is there. And he quickly discovers that nobody is aboard the entire ship. It turns out that Kirk has been beamed on to a complete, perfect replica of the Enterprise that is down on the planet’s surface- and he is been brought there for the oddest possible reason. The planet Gideon is suffering from terrible overpopulation because its inhabitants are essentially too healthy, too impregnable to illness or disease. Their leader (as is so often the case on Star Trek, an entire planet will seem to have one race, one nation, and one leader) believes the only solution is for his daughter to pick up a ‘bug’ from Kirk- which will in turn make her sick (perhaps terminally so) and allow her to spread that same sickness and death among the population of her planet. So the duplicate Enterprise is simply a set up for Kirk and this woman from Gideon to meet- fall in love- etc.
Overpopulation was becoming a pressing concern in the late 1960s, so this made sense as a theme for Star Trek to tackle- but why did it have to be handled so foolishly? First of all, how would the people of Gideon manage to construct a perfect replica of the Enterprise- not just of its bridge but of every single nook and cranny? And on a planet where overpopulation is a matter of life and death, where in the world would you even put a replica of the Enterprise? And how come Kirk never does figure out that he is on a fake vessel – but Spock figures it out almost from the moment he beams aboard it in search of the captain? This seems to be one of those episodes where someone came up with the kernel of an interesting idea – but the episode that was constructed around it simply made little or no sense. And basically no serious attempt is made to illustrate the planet’s crippling overpopulation problem except for one laughable attempt- when Kirk has been taken prisoner and is being interrogated by the planet’s leader and his council. As Kirk speaks, you can see in the background- through a window- the sight of people in a crowded room, jostling around, bumping into each other, in what is supposed to be a glance at disastrous overpopulation. It looks more like nervous and clumsy teenagers at a crowded dance. Star Trek didn’t get much more ludicrous than this.
The Enterprise Incident. Captain Kirk orders the Enterprise to travel into the Romulan neutral zone – where they are quickly surrounded by Romulan warships and forced to surrender. Has Kirk lost his mind? Perhaps. Then while being interrogated by the Romulan commander, Spock seems to turn on Kirk, condemning him for the orders he has given- and when Kirk charges him, Spock responds instinctively with the Vulcan Death Grip – and kills him. Or did he? It turns out that it was all a ruse- and that by Kirk appearing to have been killed, it allows him to go into disguise as a Romulan and engage in some risky espionage in order to steal their cloaking device.
There are a few touches to the script that I appreciate- including the fact that the Romulan commander is a woman …. and that at the end, when she is brought aboard the Enterprise as their prisoner, she is shown to her quarters rather than to the brig. That kind of humane treatment of the enemy is stirring. But a few stirring moments cannot possibly undo all of the stupidity that has come before. It is an insane plot- carried out in insane fashion. And if Starfleet command is this foolish, then they deserve to be defeated by the Romulans.
A Piece of the Action. All four of the previous episodes come from Star Trek’s third season – and I could have made it a Royal Flush by making this last choice “Spectre of the Gun.” But I had to choose “A Piece of the Action” because it’s a good representative of two things I truly despise in Star Trek lore: 1) I hate shows with farfetched Earth parallels (in which planets that are many light years away from earth nevertheless have uncanny parallels to earth.) I watch Star Trek to experience truly alien worlds, not worlds that look like ancient Rome, ancient Greece, Nazi Germany or Chicago in the Roaring 20’s. Those kind of episodes leave me feeling cheated and irritated – as though it’s being done mostly to save money on costumes, props and sets. And 2) I hate the shows take Star Trek and seem bound and determined to turn it into Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. It’s not that I object to humor altogether; it has its place, and when used well it tends to be a valuable, humanizing element. But when it flavors nearly every scene and nearly every interaction in the episode, then I feel like my favorite television show has been highjacked and turned into something it was never intended to be.
I will also say that this episode bothers me so deeply that I can’t bring myself to watch it- so I have watched this episode less than any other …. probably only twice in the 44 years that I have been a faithful Star Trek viewer. And because of that, I could only describe the plot to you if I looked it up. And I just won’t do it. Suffice to say that the Kirk, Spock and McCoy (why is it always the three of them) are down on an alien planet which appears for all the world like Chicago in the 20’s- and the people there talk like gangsters of that era as well! Why? I don’t even want to know.
Why did Star Trek sometimes fail miserably to live up to its potential? As one reads Marc Cushman’s definitive three-volume history These are the Voyages, you get a sense that the creative team behind Star Trek was incredibly talented and able, but they were operating against terrible budget and time constraints that only became more crippling over time – plus meddling from a network that did not seem to grasp the essential greatness of the show. Couple with that the departures of certain key figures from the creative team (like Robert Justman, Gene Coon and even Gene Roddenberry himself) and you’re left with a scenario in which the show could not possibly sustain its early brilliance, at least not consistently. In some ways, it’s a minor miracle that Star Trek achieved the excellence that it did, against such odds. And I think the more you understand that, the more you love this show. There was nothing easy whatsoever about creating Star Trek, getting it on the air, and then mounting episode after episode over the course of three seasons. I tip my hat to everyone who had anything to do with making such an amazing thing happen.
Moreover, I need to state for the record that the worst episode of Star Trek is still better than the best episode of Lost in Space.
It’s a fact. You can look it up.