The writers are still on strike. The actors might join them soon. The writers reasonably want a bigger piece of the streaming pie, which they certainly deserve, and they’re also concerned about being replaced by “generative artificial intelligence” like ChatGPT.
Although I have been impressed by some of what ChatGPT has come up, it’s still got a long way to go before coming anywhere near the kinds of artificial intelligence that human writers imagine for franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars.
An artificial intelligence that can create a Moriarty capable of defeating Lt. Commander Data as Sherlock Holmes? I don’t think so. Or an artificial intelligence like Data who can write an ode to his cat that puts Commander Riker to sleep? Well, that might be more the level of artificial intelligence these days.
My preference for human writers doesn’t preclude my criticizing human writers for writing scripts that are boring, confusing or in some other way bad. But the difference between human learning and machine learning is that the humans can genuinely learn from their mistakes. Human writers grow after failure in ways that are difficult to quantify for an algorithm.
There’s this thing called “growing the beard,” said of a show like Star Trek: The Next Generation which becomes better at some point after several so-so episodes, or even a couple of seasons.
In the case of Next Generation, this happened at about the same time as Jonathan Frakes, who played Commander Riker (and came back as Captain Riker for Star Trek: Picard), started to grow a beard. By the seventh season of Next Generation season finale, Frakes had a neatly trimmed beard with full volume (the picture at right notwithstanding), and the show went out on a high note.
Somehow, I doubt that artificial intelligence can create a show and then “grow the beard” of the show.
In this open thread, let’s celebrate the worst first season episodes in the Star Trek franchise. So as to avoid spoilers for those of you who want to avoid them, let’s try to limit the discussion to only the first season of the show, at least for the newer shows that are still in production.
Star Trek
“Spock’s Brain” doesn’t count for this open thread. That’s a Season 3 clunker. I nominate “The Alternate Factor” as the worst episode of Star Trek’s first season. Due to scheduling coincidences, I’ve seen it more frequently than “What Are Little Girls Made of?” or “Miri,” which don’t impress me too much either.
There’s this guy Lazarus in “The Alternate Factor,” who seems a tiny bit scattered, but I don’t really understand or care why. Maybe he could destroy two universes, and there’s not much the crew of the Enterprise can do about it one way or the other.
EDIT: Oops, I got the title wrong, it’s “The Alternative Factor.” This correction actually makes me think even less of the episode. Sometimes writers spend too much time on titles, but in this case, it might have helped.
Star Trek: The Animated Series
In “The Infinite Vulcan,” there’s a gigantic Spock. The episode is notable mostly because it was written by Walter Koenig, who was not hired as a voice actor to reprise his rôle as Ensign Chekhov.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
I nominate “The Naked Now,” a bland rehash of “The Naked Time” from the first season of the original series. It would take several episodes for Next Generation to come out of the shadow of the original series.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Move Along Home” is widely panned by fans, but I prefer it to “Dramatis Personae,” in which the station’s command crew are behaving weirdly, and it isn’t until nearly the end of the episode that we understand why, and I personally don’t really care.
Star Trek: Voyager
“Jetrel” tried to repeat the emotional impact of Deep Space Nine’s “Duet” but instead just bores the viewers with a story of an atrocity that had never been mentioned in any prior episode and was only very occasionally alluded to in much later episodes.
Although “Parallax,” the second episode of the series, was clearly a relatively inexpensive bottle show to compensate for the major expenditures of the 2-hour series premiere, I still find it way more interesting than “Jetrel.”
By the way, “Threshold” doesn’t count, it’s from Season 2, and in any case it’s redeemed, in my opinion, by a charming animated parody.
Star Trek: Enterprise
I watched the first few episodes of this show when they first aired but then lost interest. I didn’t watch “Fortunate Son” until many years later in a rerun on the Heroes & Icons digital TV channel. The writers presumably like Anthony Montgomery and wanted to give his character, Ensign Mayweather, a little more depth.
However, the additional backstory for Mayweather established in “Fortunate Son” has very little impact on the character’s arc or the overall story of the show. Enterprise did eventually get much better, but Mayweather was hardly developed as a character.
Or maybe I’m being too hard on “Fortunate Son,” it’s much more memorable than “Strange New World” (not to be confused with “Strange New Worlds” from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), which might have been the last Enterprise episode I watched on first run.
I vaguely remembered an episode in which Crewman Cutler wanted to find a planet for a slug and that was the most interesting thing that happened in the whole episode.
Star Trek: Discovery
Although the episodes of Season 1 were released roughly one a week, Discovery was really meant for binge streaming, to keep people hooked through the whole season, and then eagerly looking forward to the second season. Who cares if none of the episodes stand on their own?
Season 1 is a blur to me. There was something interesting and mysterious going on, but the interesting and mysterious thing was being dragged out through the whole season. When I got to the sixth episode, “Lethe,” I was getting very bored.
I started to watch the seventh episode, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” and I almost thought about ejecting the DVD and returning it to the library (it was overdue, though no late fees were accruing).
And then Harry Mudd showed up. Mudd had shown up earlier in Discovery, and Rainn Wilson seemed to have an extremely serious and dull take take on the character. But then in this seventh episode, the fun and mischievous Mudd from the original series is back.
So yeah, the sixth episode, “Lethe,” almost lost me.
Star Trek: Picard
I’ve actually only seen the second season of Picard, so I don’t know anything about the first season.
Star Trek: Lower Decks
I haven’t seen any episodes of this show yet.
Star Trek: Prodigy
I’ve only seen one episode of this show.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Marc Kyle commented that Strange New Worlds has a very good first season with no clunkers, making it unique among Star Trek series. That was the motivation for this open thread. At that point, I had only watched two or three episodes on YouTube (not sure if those episodes will still be available on YouTube by the time you read this, or if they were only going to be on there long enough to hook a few more people on paying for Paramount+).
I’m liking Strange New Worlds much, much better than Discovery or Picard, and I’m inclined to agree with Marc Kyle’s assessment. However, “All Those Who Wander,” in which the Enterprise crew battle the Gorn, did start to bore me.
The Gorn are utterly relentless monsters that must be killed at any cost. So Star Trek becomes even less science fiction and a lot more horror. No thanks.
The open thread question: Of the Star Trek series of which you’ve seen the whole first season, what is the worst episode of that first season? And even so, you still prefer human writers, right?