The worst episodes of Star Trek
Ranked by viewer rating, lows first. Lit marks on the season rail place this list across the run. Vote on a placement to back it or contest it.
- 01
Dr. Leighton calls Enterprise to his home on Planet Q with the promise of a new food source that could end hunger. But this is a ruse: Leighton is one of the few remaining survivors of Kodos the Executioner, who used a planetary famine to apply his own ideas of eugenics on Tarsus IV years earlier. A burned body convinced authorities that Kodos had died then, but Leighton is certain that actor Anton Karidian is Kodos. Kirk is less than amused at the deception - and then someone murders Leighton. It's not enough to accuse, but it is enough for suspicion, so Kirk arranges to strand the acting troupe, and then offers them a ride on Enterprise where he hopes to ascertain whether Leighton's accusation is true.
- 02
The Enterprise recovers Harcourt Fenton Mudd from within an asteroid belt. His crew is also his cargo - wives for settlers on Ophiuchus III. These women are very beautiful, and have oddly compulsive effects on the male crewmembers. Having burned out most of her dilithium crystals protecting Mudd's ship, Kirk detours to a Rigel mining colony to secure more. But Mudd's women secure a communicator for him, enabling him to strike his own deal with chief miner Ben Childress and his associates. To obtain the crystals, Kirk must bring down Mudd's women, and must agree to dismiss charges against Mudd. Added to the mix is that the women may not be all they appear to be...
- 03
An alien which feeds on violence traps Klingons and Enterprise crewman together.
- 04
Enterprise is en route to the New Paris colony to deliver much needed medical supplies, needed to counter a plague. It passes Murasaki 312, a quasar-like system. Since there is time, Kirk's standing orders require him to dispatch a scientific team to study the phenomenon. The expedition immediately runs into trouble when it is pulled off course and forced to an emergency landing on Taurus II, then beset by the hulking, homicidal natives of that planet. Can Spock's purely logical approach to leadership save the expedition and reunite its members with Enterprise?
- 05
Kirk, Uhura and Chekov are set to beam down to examine and maintain a communications relay station, when they vanish from the transporter room in a way inconsistent with normal transport! They have been whisked across planetary systems by the mysterious Providers, who gather "inferior" beings from all over the galaxy and pit them against each other in blood contests. This activity is the only thing that stimulates the Providers. As the three begin their involuntary training, Enterprise begins following the scant evidence their abductors left behind, trying to locate them.
- 06
Enterprise discovers her sister ship, Exeter in orbit around a planet, unresponsive. Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam aboard and discover only empty uniforms mixed with a handful of crystals. Then they find a log - the ship is infected with a deadly plague! Their only chance is to beam down to the planet's surface immediately. There, they discover heartbreaking evidence that Exeter's captain Ronald Tracy has violated the prime directive, up to and including mass murder. But he has what he believes is a good reason - and it depends on McCoy's research into a long ago bacteriological war.
- 07
A group of orphaned children under an alien's control take over the minds of the Enterprise crew.
- 08
After arriving at a outpost to pick up the two members of a science team, Kirk, McCoy and Spock find the team missing. They are then transported to another location by alien beings who use them in a torturous experiment involving a young girl who does not speak.
- 09
A mysterious storm has inflicted heavy - perhaps irreparable - damage on the library planetoid Memory Alpha. And it seems to have a curious affiliation with new crewmember Myra Romaine. As the Enterprise pursues the hazard, Romaine falls more under its influence, and the crew learns is is not a storm at all, but a form of life that means to survive at ANY cost.
- 10
The Enterprise intercepts a stolen space yacht, whose thieves destroy it rather than face capture. But they are captured, and revealed as "counterculture" individuals looking for a mysterious planet they call Eden. Led by an insane genius, they manage to capture the Enterprise long enough to direct it to Eden, which is located in the Romulan Neutral Zone! And to make their escape, they create a lethal trap for the crew.
- 11
Janice Lester, a lover from Kirk's past, uses alien technology to switch her consciousness into his body and vice versa, so that she can take command of the Enterprise and become a Starfleet captain as she always wanted.
- 12
Enterprise visits an idyllic planet, where McCoy encounters a large white rabbit that is "very late". And shortly afterwards, a little girl who is following him. McCoy isn't becoming insane; it soon becomes apparent that thinking about a thing will cause it to materialize, as everyone encounters people and things from their past or their fantasies. But something on the planet's surface is draining power from Enterprise. And then McCoy, convinced that what he sees is a harmless illusion, confronts a charging knight - and dies, pierced through the heart! What kind of odd world is this, and how can the ship and crew escape it?
- 13
An alien named Lazarus is somehow responsible for a kind of "winking out" effect - all of reality seems on the verge of collapse. He is fleeing a monster whose intent is nothing less than the destruction of reality. But through a mishap, Kirk is transported to the home of that monster. And he looks exactly like Lazarus! Kirk must decide which of them - if either - is the monster. If he guesses wrong, it's the end of everything.
- 14
Enterprise nears the planet Pollux IV, when an immense humanoid hand appears and seizes the ship! It is not actually living tissue, but a complex field of energy. And it belongs to a being who claims that he and his kind visited Earth long ago, and were then revered as gods - in this particular case, the Greek god Apollo. His request is a simple one: the crew of the Enterprise will depart the ship and establish a colony of worshippers. Of course, Kirk has no intention of doing this; he must make "Apollo" understand that humans have moved past him.
- 15
The Enterprise follows the wreckage of the S.S. Beagle to a planet where they discover an Earth-like civilization, except that Rome never fell, and rules a world much like twentieth century America. Intercepted radio transmissions suggest deeper mysteries, so Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to investigate, and then find themselves caught between the Roman government and a group of "sun worshippers". Proconsul Claudius wants Kirk to beam down his entire crew; the Proconsul is determined that no one will leave this world!
- 16
Only a jealous scientist can save Spock when he goes mad after seeing a hideous Medusan.
- 17
Inmates gain control of an insane asylum, taking visiting Kirk and Spock prisoner.
- 18
Professor Robert Crater and his wife Nancy are archeologists, investigating the ruins of a civilization on M-113. Enterprise visits for the annual physical examination required by regulations, but the professor seems oddly reluctant. He insists all he and his wife need is salt to cope with the heat. Then Crewman Green dies, his face marked by odd red rings. Crater says he ate the borgia plant which contains toxic chemicals. But its symptoms do not include the red mottling. Kirk and Spock are determined to discover what's going on, and doubly so when a crewman on the ship dies the same way as Green.
- 19
Enterprise discovers a planet identical to Earth, with a very important exception: a few centuries earlier, a devasting plague struck. All of the adults were killed, but the children somehow survived - and still survive, hundreds of years later, feral and deeply distrustful of "grups". And there are monsters: insane, covered with scab-like plaques, they attack on sight. The disease is still active; the plaques appear on the landing party. If McCoy cannot discover a cure in the week they have left, all will die. Even Spock, now a carrier, cannot return to the ship.
- 20
Six thousand years ago, the planet Beta III was torn apart by war, crime, and corruption. Then a visionary leader arose, Landru, who became a benevolent autocrat. He has maintained a simple, stable society that has survived since then without those "ancient evils". Enterprise is there to investigate the disappearance of the starship Archon in the vicinity a century earlier. It seems that Landru dislikes those who display individuality; they must be absorbed into "The Body" or destroyed. So it was with the "Archons" and so it will be with the Enterprise unless Kirk can defeat Landru. But will unseating him destabilize the society? Will it be a violation of the Prime Directive?
- 21
On an obscure planet, Kirk smells something that reminds him of the past. And then two crewman die, their ghastly pallor betraying the fact that every red blood cell in their bodies has been destroyed, the hemoglobin neatly removed. A long time ago, very far from here, Kirk was a young Lieutenant about the Farragut when that ship encountered the cause: a mysterious, gaseous cloud that feeds on blood. Now, Kirk is obsessed with destroying the monster that killed his then mentor, the Farragut's captain Garrovik. Perhaps to an unhealthy degree. Or, given what Spock discovers, perhaps not.
- 22
The Horizon visited the planet Iotia a hundred years ago, long before the Prime Directive forbid interference in pre-warp alien cultures. Beaming down to investigate the damage, Kirk, Spock and McCoy discover a culture run by mobsters! It seems that Horizon left behind a book, "Chicago Mobs of the Twenties", and the highly imitative people of Iotia patterned their society after the groups described in its pages. How can Enterprise undo the grievous harm Horizon did to this civilization?
- 23
Powerful aliens transport the Enterprise officers into an illusionary re-creation of the gunfight at the OK Corral.
- 24
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
A thousand-year feud between sworn enemies threatens to destroy the Enterprise.
- 25
A small ship, the Antares, transfers a passenger to Enterprise. He is Charles Evans, recently recovered from the lifeless planet Thasus, having survived there since he was marooned by the crash that killed his parents. Oddness seems to accompany Charlie. Antares calls, with a warning her captain does not finish delivering before his ship explodes. Soon enough it becomes clear that Charlie is a young man of extraordinary powers, able to cause things to happen merely by willing them to. Kirk must regain control of his ship from a troubled, dangerously powerful teenager.
Shows like Star Trek
The closest matches on shared genres, ranked by match strength and popularity.
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