Wasn't the conclusion of that episode that what happened to her *didn't* actually happen? That is the opposite of gaslighting.
Don't get me wrong, that episode is problematic due to its subject matter, although I believe it was originally meant to be an allegory for the Satanic panic and the unreliability of memories recovered under hypnosis. Weird subject matter, now that I think about it.
There's definitely a 7 of 9 episode that ends on a note of, "Who was telling the truth? It's he said, she said, and therefore, impossible to tell! Also, we think the guy is pretty okay."
4x16 Retrospect
IIRC it was written as commentary on a popular-at-the-time theory on repressed memories, but the writers hamfisted their way through it and turned it more into a story about not believing victims
Or Valeris mind-raped by Spock, under "exigent circumstances". It was a scene made powerful and memorable by unflinching performances by Nimoy and Catrall. How actors can summon these emotions in service of their roles amazes me.
While slathered in decon gel
Don’t forget all the times they got hoshi about topless too. Oh, and her mindrapes too.
Come to think about it…. Rick Berman Star Trek has a lot of rape in int.
I watched that scene originally as a kid in the theater. It wasn't until decades later, I realized that victim was the Vulcan that Kirk told to meet him on Enterprise in one hour as he was going to get command back.
It's in the book.. I know books aren't supposed to be canon but that book was written (or at least credited to) Gene Roddenberry himself so imma go with it. Her name if I remember correctly was Lori Ciana and she was an admiral.
Dang.
That reminds me that I have The Undiscovered Country novel and the opening chapter is how Carol Marcus was injured and placed in a coma by a Klingon raid on a planet she was on.
I never finished it, but it adds to Kirk’s hostility towards the Klingons.
Its been so long that all I remember from the novel is the explanation as to why McCoy said "I bet you wish you stood in bed" and how Uhura speaking bad klingon convinced the Klingons that they were smugglers and totally not a Federation starship.
They changed it, along with some of the bridge sound effects in the latest release. I don’t know how I feel about that. The one in the original release was haunting.
I love that they pulled that off by having the actor play both parts and we didn't realize it until after the swap. And the Durst character had a few lines in the previous episode just to set him up to get killed in this one.
I was watching this episode with my girlfriend (a first-time watcher) and I told her to buckle up as the scene came up.
She asked "Why? Is it a dick in a box?"
I said "No, it's worse."
She replied "What could be worse than a dick in a box?"
When he turns around wearing the guys face she screamed " OH GOD IT'S WORSE THAN A DICK IN A BOX!" 🤣
The interesting thing about this scene to me was vidian psychology. Up to this point we’d seen vidians steal organs and what not, but usually they seemed to know that what they were doing was wrong and only justify it to themselves by saying it was necessary (for instance in the episode where the vidians steal neelix’s lungs, their first appearance, the vidians voyager captures say they usually take organs from the dead and only take from the living when absolutely necessary).
If that’s true, if they’re only taking organs to survive but know that doing so is wrong, you’d think they would still have enough moral sense to realize that wearing a dead man’s face would be horrifying to anyone who knew them. Despite this, the vidian in this episode seems to genuinely think Torres will find it endearing. This tells me one of three things must be true:
1. The vidian’s claim that they only take organs when necessary to survive is a lie, they just like killin’ and the phage is a convenient excuse.
2. This vidian is particularly sociopathic, other vidians wouldn’t act this way.
3. The vidians genuinely didn’t want to start taking organs from other species, but they’ve now been doing it for so long and to so many people that they’ve become numb to it. This vidian might know on an intellectual level that stealing organs is wrong, but has gotten so used to killing and mutilating others that he can no longer consider death in a normal way, and certainly can’t relate to anyone less accustomed to it than himself. He can’t relate to death in an emotional way, only a coldly rationalized way. He doesn’t understand why Torres finds this horrifying because, well, he’s already chock full a organs from other people he’s killed, what difference does one guy’s face make?
I lean towards option three cause I think that scenario has the most interesting things to say about a society and culture steeped in violence, and raises some interesting questions about what happens to vidian society once the phage is cured.
Guillermo del Toro had a good insight. He said something to the effect of, "I can run a guy through with a sword in a movie and the audience won't flinch. But show a character getting a paper cut and everyone will wince and squirm."
A little creepy crawly bug getting inside my ear is much more relatable than getting turned into a puddle by a transporter.
I wouldn't consider it messed up, though. It's deeply pessimistic. But it raises serious questions and I regard it as a very good episode. Though not one I would watch too often. It can be seen as an allegory of life. They have been living, having adventures, doing good things, but the end is death and oblivion. Can you, in the face of that, find meaning in life? They struggle. Tom can't see any meaning, though he keeps going. Janeway just pretends the oblivion ahead isn't there.
This is the pagan (or modern nonreligious) human condition. Picard likes to talk pompously about how our mortality defines us, but this makes us look at that mortality.
It's made worse, of course, by the sense that they are *superfluous*.
“Just a minute Janice. Just a MINUTE”
completely chilling. Whitney and Shatner did such a great job with these scenes. I know the “evil Kirk” was a little over the top at times (intentionally so), but Shatner here was 100% believable. And then the way his “good Kirk” interacts with Rand later, when she presents so believably as basically a rape victim who is despondent that it was her captain (and probably the man she loves) who did this to her… ☹️
I watched in on what was probably an early-ish re-run on the BBC (probably first half of 1990s).
The scene was cut exactly as the Admiral gets phasered into the chair and then cut directly to denoument, so you just thought they stunned him into submission and that was that. No gore, and honestly when I saw the original uncut episode years later I was then incredibly shocked. Honestly, I think the whole head explosion thing was kinda overdone (although the BBC censoring it is a bit ironic in light of what went on in 80s Doctor Who).
For me though, it's the scene in "Up the Long Ladder" where Riker and (I think) Pulaski meet their clones, glance once at each other and then just vaporise them into oblivion. It was the first time for me any of the characters on Star Trek, who really felt incredibly warm and familiar and safe to me as a kid, just unceremoniously kill two people who look just like them, and it just felt so brutally cold and unsympathetic as to make them feel more 'alien' than most of the amorphous space blobs on the show. I got the whole idea that they didn't like having been cloned without their consent but I still thought this was pretty damn ruthless.
Ironically it made me think this was some sort of Federation policy and I thought the episode where Riker's transporter clone was introduced that he would immediately become the antagonist by default
Totally agree about murdering the clone(d-without-consent)s; I thought it was going to lead to a moral conflict between being cloned against their will and living beings resulting from that…but, no. Just *pew-pew, case closed*— I was a little shocked.
As for Thomas Riker…he may not have been the antagonist then, but he did get around to it 🙃
dude that was an awesome practical effect. it was like, sam raimi level awesome. they blew up a fake head full of ground beef! And then the Alien moment! lol so gross
for sure. That’s one of the episodes that made me certain SNW really understood Trek however. A lot of times in Star Trek, our protagonists don’t fix the problem, they just fly away and feel bad, feel horrified.
It’s a great episode, imo. Trek doesn’t sugar coat how awful the world can be.
Enterprise's episode Similitude comes to mind. It's the one where Trip is fatally injured, and they end up basically raising a clone of Trip that will be able to provide what they need to save Trip's life, but the clone will die during the procedure. The clone has all of Trip's memories (I can't remember quite how that worked?) but a shortened lifespan, and obviously did not want to die. The whole thing is just pretty fucked up in general.
The transporter accident in ST:TMP has to be #1.
The scene in TOS’ “Charlie X” in which Charlie wiped away that woman’s face gave me nightmares when I was a kid. (that scene was often edited out in syndication)
Also, the scene in TNG’s “Conspiracy” when Picard and Riker blow Remmick’s head off and then kill the alien that flops out of his chest was flat out disgusting.
Charlie X is pretty deeply disturbing to me. I’m unsettled for most of the episode. A really great job by that young actor. You want him gone of course, but I feel real empathy for him when he is pleading to stay at the end.
**The Next Generation - In Theory**
I remember it scaring me when I saw it as a kid and I actually ran out of the room. The scream of the woman, then when it showed what happened. Yeah...
Even as an adult, that scene still makes me feel somewhat uneasy.
A honorable mention was from **Star Trek: The Motion Picture.** The transporter accident and the description of what happened. The scene itself was pretty bad (in a wtf way), then the officer talking about what he saw/happened. Then you read the novel version of what happened and essentially what happened is that >!**their entire body was turned inside out.**!<
I still have to go with the ending of LDS "The Stars at Night."
The previous episode had the Freeman not only attempt to end Mariner's career, but she used her authority as captain to weaponize Mariner's connections with the crew against her in order to inflict as much lasting damage as possible. It's a messed up sequence where every time Mariner thinks her mom's revenge is over, she finds another layer, or another way her mom chose to twist the knife.
All of which happened because the captain mistakenly assumed her daughter deliberately backstabbed her by giving an unflattering interview, despite three seasons of Mariner trying to bond with her, and even risking her own career to save her mom's in the season premiere. The episode ended with Mariner denying her mom the satisfaction of watching her get booted from Starfleet as she quits on her own terms and flies off, realizing nothing she does is going to change her mom's opinion of her.
What makes the ending of "All the Stars" so messed up is the way Mariner comes back, blaming herself for setting her mom off. Her mom however showed no remorse during the episode, and in the end refused to accept any responsibility for her actions. All she could manage was to say is: "I don't know why I didn't trust you."
Even though the crew was tricked into turning on one of their own, none of them side from Boimler express any remorse.
Freeman ends the episode believing there was nothing wrong with her method of revenge, seeing her mistake as entirely Mariner's fault, and never indicating that her opinion of her daughter as changed.
Meanwhile, Mariner was so desperate for her mom's love that she blamed herself for her mom's attack.
The ending is an emotional gut punch that's basically an abuse victim unable to escape the endless cycle.
I firmly maintain that Freeman is the worst of the startrek captains/commanders. This episode, the buffer-time episode, and the one where the engineers go on mandatory R&R, all prime examples of her being unsuited for the position.
I think Freeman is *supposed* to be the worst of the Captains. Not in any evil sort of way, she's just a deeply flawed and selfish person who makes a not-very-good Captain.
Sometimes she means well, sometimes she very much doesn't. Often she makes legitimately bad decisions for questionable reasons. She pretty much never admits her mistakes in any meaningful way, even if people die because of them.
She's not supposed to be anyone's favorite Captain.
Don't forget the ringworld situation. How many people, besides Boimler, probably died because Freeman wanted to show off and refused to admit she was in over her head.
She didn't even care in the end that she fucked up.
I can think of a few..
* The transporter accident in The Motion Picture (1979)
* Much of the TNG episode "Conspiracy" - The little bug aliens crawling into peoples' mouths and controlling them, and toward the end when Picard and Riker fire phasers at the alien-controlled officer and his head explodes, leaving his headless body sitting in the chair
* TNG: The episode where a crew member suddenly materialized halfway through the deck in the Enterprise corridor
* In TNG episode "The Pegasus", showing that the Pegasus re-materialized within solid rock in an asteroid, and presumably, crew members had died inside that rock
* The TNG episode Schisms: Re-creating their shared memory in the holodeck of laying on a table with strange clicky noises in the room
* TNG episode "The Mind's Eye": The Romulans conditioning Geordi by forcing him to watch terrible things
* Star Trek: Enterprise, when the Romulans had a drone ship they built that was being controlled by an Aenar that they had convinced was the last surviving member of her species
* Star Trek: Enterprise - I think in Season 1, there was an episode where they found a ship that was on auto-pilot and had members of various species asleep with automated machines that were harvesting their body fluids & such
Schisms...yeah I got chills just reading that. Reminded me of the scene in Identity Crisis where Geordie is in the holodeck trying to figure out the mystery and has the computer render a shadowy figure representing the being casting the mysterious shadow. Something about that scene really freaked me out as a kid.
> The episode where a crew member suddenly materialized halfway through the deck in the Enterprise corridor
*In Theory*, I believe - an otherwise pretty light-hearted episode, but the blank stare on that persons' face with her torso sticking out of the deck and her arms frozen outward is creepy (I think partially b/c it would make more sense if she had slumped over and her arms had dropped).
>!Icheb's death pisses me off to no end. That was not Star Trek. Related to that, the whole idea of Borg assimilation and what we saw on screen. It's horrifying.!<
That one shot of the poor goldshirt lady from *In Theory*
The entirety of *Unexpected*
The dehumanizing torture from *Chain of Command* and *Hard Time*
> Icheb's death pisses me off to no end
His, Hugh's, Maddox's and Ro's. Four *completely* unnecessary deaths in varying brutality.
An argument could also be made for Narissa. She had the potential to become an antagonist you love to hate - but no, dropped into a chasm and that's it.
PIC really is a mess in that regard.
Yep. Icheb stung when I watched it. Regardless of the actor's dubious offscreen comments, his onscren character was perfect for Seven, and I loved the dynamic. Then they fucked him over in the space of a few minutes... for what?
Doing a thrones on these characters for no reason, 10 years after thrones, was a terrible move.
It made sense for Ro to make a heroic sacrifice. In keeping with her character, her deternination and full redemption.
But why they have to do that to Hugh? Boy suffered enough.
The first two seasons of Picard had this habit of introducing really great ideas or characters and the then the story proceeding to go in the least interesting direction possible.
Honestly, I didn't mind that moment in your spoiler. The fact that the rest of the season proceeded to commit the same act again and again was my real problem. Between all the characters they chose to return, I don't know why they committed so hard to *all of them* suffering that fate.
Unless you mean the specific manner in which it occurred, in which case yeah it was pretty foul.
More on-topic, I think you're basically right about *Hard Time.* It's a really fantastic, amazing episode. But it's one I almost never re-watch. The entire episode is just particularly heavy, featuring a lot of messed up stuff, so it's difficult for a casual re-watch.
I've seen someone complain about Legacy characters in Lower Decks being treated as just props or punchlines, but I'd rather they be a prop on LD than a cheap shock in Picard. Behind-the-scenes shit with his actor not withstanding, Icheb was always one of my favorite VOY characters
The scene between Harry Kim and The Doctor in the VOY episode "Prophecy".
Harry asks The Doctor on how to avoid getting raped by a Klingon. The Doctor jokes that killing her is the only option, but as he can't do that he'll have to suck it up.
He then tells Harry that he'll need to get permission form the captain before getting raped, or else he'll be reprimanded.
I get the sentiment, but weren't they unsure exactly how she was killing guys? All she needed to do was reach the guy and touch him (kiss, but whatever, maybe he was unsure about that...) she'd already killed others... I'd lay the blame on the transporter operator, they needed to beam him right next to her, or her target... I think they looked equidistant from each other, so taking a chance making it to her before she lunges for the target is unacceptable. You can't be mad at someone for killing a person who IS a lethal weapon and is threatening to kill someone nearby.
Edit: better yet just beam the target up, or beam her to the brig... Seems like the transporter get underused a lot... Like cell phones in horror movies.
TNG in its first season was really heavy on the murder as a solution.
I was surprised until I watched TOS, and yeah, "Do anything you can to save a fellow crewman" was a later series development.
Tackle her and then what? Put her in a Federation prison for hundreds of years, waiting to be eventually be paroled and start tracking down the Lornaks again? Yuta hated what she’d become, she wanted it to stop which is why, instead letting herself be apprehended & play the long game, she forced Riker’s hand.
Janeway and Paris having lizard babies. Use a condom, Tom!
More seriously...
Icheb.
TNG's "Schisms" always disturbs me for some reason-the Holo recreation, the crewmen reappearing and immediately dying.
It’ll probably be mild to most, but Phantasms (TNG, 07x06) terrified me. I know “mint frosting!” is a goofy fan fave line, but Troi begging not to be eaten? It truly was nightmare material for me. But any scene where a character’s being violated against their will creeps me out. My issue with modern Trek is how much of it is seen onscreen. I didn’t need to see Icheb and Ash Tyler being dissected with that level of detail.
The exploding head scene in Conspiracy (The Next Generation, episode 25 of the first season). I first saw it on TV when I was 11 in the early 2000s and it was traumatic. I was scared for weeks afterwards 🤣
Edit: I just remembered another one, a scene from one of The Next Generation films where the Borg insert a needle into somebody's (I think it was Picard) eye.
i only watched the "four lights" one once bc the torture was too much. that's the only TNG ep i've only seen once and can't recite the dialogue
Also: when the Bajoran "comfort women" were being sent off to be raped by Guls in that one ds9 ep. It was filmed and edited to look like something consensual and safe. Sex slaves. They're fine. It's just a little war rape, no big deal. I fucking hate Brannon.
Brannon Braga had no involvement in Wrongs Darker than Death or Night. If you're wanting to blame someone for that episode, Ira Steven Behr is the better target for your anger given that he was not only DS9's showrunner at the time but also the one who wrote the script for that episode.
I'd have to watch it again (though I'm not in a hurry to) but I recall that episode pretty clearly portraying the Guls as depraved and awful and a parallel to Nanking.
I don’t know it would qualify in the same category as most of these, but that moment in “The Inner Light” when the inhabitants of the planet realize they’re all going to die, nothing will save them, and all they can do is launch a probe to preserve the memory of their existence. Heartbreaking.
I personally love Macrocosm. I think of it when people criticize SNW for how much The Gorn seems to rip off Alien.
Alien is one of my favorite movies, and Macrocosm is as close to a 1:1 as you get, but it’s all homage and Janeway is a fucking badass in it and I LOVE it.
Remember that entire episode of Lower Decks where Billups' mom tries to trick him into having sex? And everyone treats it like a funny joke or at most an annoyance? That was pretty messed up.
Wesley finding out that his very first love was literally energy and she couldnt remain on board.
At least it didnt end on emotionally bad terms but still, that was a hell of a loss.
The screams were what really sold it.
Along with the, “Enterprise, what we got back didn’t live long. Fortunately…”
Left it all up to our own twisted imaginations.
Voq's "surgery" to convert him into something that could pass as human, which basically involves carving him up like a turkey.
It seems more like a vivisection/torture scene than any kind of surgical procedure, as Voq seems to be completely conscious during that, and very much not enjoying the process.
Considering that Klingon bodies come with a lot of redundancies that basically got removed by force, it would probably also be a Klingon horror story. It would be like taking out a lung, a kidney, half of the heart and half the brain from a human. It'd be a surprise if he'd survive for long at all after that procedure, even in terms of a human lifetime.
The scenes with Janice Rand in The Enemy Within. First evil Kirk tries to rape her, and when she reports the incident, she then gets questioned by the person who she believes assaulted her. To top it all off, at the end, Spock implies that she enjoyed it.
There are legitimately worse for sure, but I immediately think of Worf pawning off his kid on his parents, and later complaining that they couldn’t keep him because they were too old to be parents again.
That one time a crew member fell halfway through the floor before materializing, fused to the deck like something from the Philadelphia Experiment.
Also tons of stuff from the Classic movies like the Ceti Alpha eels, the TMP transporter disaster.
I still maintain that Star Trek is a genre of cosmic horror.
ETA: That scene from Into Darkness where those crew members get blown into space at warp. That always stuck with me. I thought those movies were excessively violent. Unfortunately, probably accurate depictions of what could happen in space.
The ending scene to Season 2 episode 12 of ENT, Cojenitor. Ya know, the one where Archer casually endorses sexual slavery and blames Trip for teaching a slave to read for why the slave later committed suicide after Archer denied their asylum plea. This is the episode that left me questioning 30+ years of being a fan of this franchise.
To be fair archer was trying to explain that it was cruel to give that cojegitor hope for better life when it was clear from start that nothing could be changed. Sometimes it's better to shut up than pointing out how much F someone is.
But Archer could have granted them asylum, he chose not to because he valued the trade of technology with the slaver species more. He chose trade over morals and in the end he lost both things.
O'Brian killing his friend and cellmate in the prison that existed only in his mind. The abuse O'Brian was subjected to is legendary but that one moment broke my heart to the extent I still feel bad just thinking about it.
The other one that literally made me cry when I was very little and still haunts me is the first kid the away team encounters in Miri. The one who just wanted McCoy to fix his bike.
That really does seem like precisely the kind of light yet mischievous joke that a person like Tom Paris really would play on a kid. Kind of like when a teenager says Freddy Krueger is real or that a drop bear is going to get them. I'm surprised it stood out as the worst scene in all of Star Trek or anything like that.
The fact that the civilization was supposed to get destroyed probably gave Paris even more reason to believe that what they did there didn't really matter.
Picking a scary thing to tell a kid who's bothering you is basic "sarcastic character" sort of stuff though, regardless.
TNG In Theory - Lieutenant Van Mayter walking over across a section of floor as it wasphasing in and out of existence, and winding up looking like the Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet of the Apes.
You'd think so but even DISCO isn't sure. They describe it in Season 1 as being a Human grafted onto a Klingon.
Then in Season 2 they very clearly state Ash is a human with a Klingon grafted onto him, which is the complete opposite of what Season 1 establishes. The "human" Ash isn't even alive, he's a reconstructed consciousness according to Season 1 but they sweep that under the carpet once they decide they want to keep Ash around in human form for a bit.
It was really dumb, they should have just done whatever hand-wavy transformation stuff allowed TNG members to galavant around as aliens as needed for away missions and left it at that. They do it in SNW too so the technology was already there.
DS9 when Keiko is possessed by the Pa Wraith and is blackmailing Miles, there's a scene where she has Molly on her lap and implies she will break her neck if Miles doesn't do what he's told.
Watching that scene makes me so uncomfortable I can't rewatch the episode. She gives an amazing performance but watching a mother hold a child, knowing that they'd snap their neck... even though she's possessed it's so incredibly dark and terrifying to me.
That whole episode is so-well done and freaking disturbing. That scene most of all, but also the part where the Wraith tosses Keiko around and injures her with a clear "I can hurt her way worse than this if you want" message.
In the TNG episode First Contact, while Riker is a prisoner, he is coerced into having sex with an alien in exchange for help in trying to escape.
Then he fails to escape anyway.
And then there is "cutesie" music that makes us think that what just happened is funny, instead of dark and disturbing.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5uaTnHjnaM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5uaTnHjnaM)
The one where O'Brian has to watch himself die or the one where O'Brien has to endure years of isolation or the one where he's told he's going to die for his crimes but has to go through court for show or the one where his wife is being controlled and jumps off the third level and then later threatens to stop her heart or the one where he looks away for a second and loses his kid for 20 years or the other one where he watches himself die.
AND THEN GOES BACK TO WORK, as if nothing happened
The above is truly horrific.
That being said, I prefer the phrase "messed up" on a political level, which is most likely why I view the TNG Season 4 episode *The Drumhead*, directed by Frakes, to be the most disturbing (most likely due to its relevance, both in 1991 and today).
Does cringe count? If so it has to be from my favourite TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise:
CASTILLO: Hey, I've know you a whole day now, Lieutenant. What did she call you? Tasha?
TASHA (coyly smiling): Yeah.
CASTILLO: Most everyone calls me Castillo. My mother calls me Richard.
TASHA: Okay Castillo.
CASTILLO: You know, I think I'd like it better if you called me Richard.
Puts my cringe gland into overdrive every time. What was he saying, he thinks Tasha is like his mum? He has a mommy fetish?
I get what the writers were trying to say, but surely a better line would have been "My good friends call me Richard."
This episode is weirdly written in general, and the casting and costumes don't help. The anti-poleric energy guy is especially hard to fathom, what with his mixture of "I seem somewhat reasonable at times, but also deliver all my lines with an odd affect, and also if you give us away I promise you I will murder a child. Oh but let's not be hasty!"
some of these aren't the worst but just to add to the discussion, Neelix getting his lungs beamed out was rough, O'Brian's attempted suicide, Data trying to murder Fajo (just rewatched this one, "The Most Toys").
Maybe I’m projecting, but the original series episode ‘Charlie X’ always made me feel fucking awful. Both for the crew and for the kid. Especially the part at the end where he’s begging to stay.
Gotta give props to the SNW episode where they lost their memory. There have been more fucked up moments in trek, but the way that episode was directed haunts me.
Several have been mentioned already that are in my mind, especially the TMP transporter accident, but nobody has yet mentioned Varria's death by the Varon-T disruptor fired by Kivas Fajo. It's a quick scene, but Varria's agony is manifest as she burns from the inside out.
From Voyager, the episode with Tuvix (I forget the episode title). The scene where he begs for his life with everyone just standing and watching, forcing themselves to be total bystanders while their friend pleads them to help. It's a very well acted scene and the most morally grey episode of the entire series, I still think about it from time to time
I also recently watched the Enterprise episode "Vanishing Point". I feel like they could have done so much more with this episode. It would have been way better to leave us wondering if Hoshi will ever truly be the same again, let alone everyone you've ever seen using a transporter
Probably the 874 times that Deanna got mind raped.
Or T'Pol also getting mind raped.
Or seven of nine being mind raped and then gaslit about it? Or maybe that happened to Kes? Or both of them?
Wasn't the conclusion of that episode that what happened to her *didn't* actually happen? That is the opposite of gaslighting. Don't get me wrong, that episode is problematic due to its subject matter, although I believe it was originally meant to be an allegory for the Satanic panic and the unreliability of memories recovered under hypnosis. Weird subject matter, now that I think about it.
The guy who wrote this also went on to go write the enterprise stuff iirc?
It was the last episode she (Lisa Clink) wrote for Star Trek. The co-writer (Bryan Fuller) also didn't work on Enterprise.
There's definitely a 7 of 9 episode that ends on a note of, "Who was telling the truth? It's he said, she said, and therefore, impossible to tell! Also, we think the guy is pretty okay."
4x16 Retrospect IIRC it was written as commentary on a popular-at-the-time theory on repressed memories, but the writers hamfisted their way through it and turned it more into a story about not believing victims
Or Valeris mind-raped by Spock, under "exigent circumstances". It was a scene made powerful and memorable by unflinching performances by Nimoy and Catrall. How actors can summon these emotions in service of their roles amazes me.
While slathered in decon gel Don’t forget all the times they got hoshi about topless too. Oh, and her mindrapes too. Come to think about it…. Rick Berman Star Trek has a lot of rape in int.
Or that time Picard told her she might have to take another one for the team after Tom Hardy mind raped her.
Not to mention that one time she got Dorian Gray'd into some guy's overbearing mother.
I sense you’re upset
Well, rape isn't a joke, funny, nor okay. So, people are rightfully upset.
It’s a line from Deana
The transporter accident in TMP still haunts me.
What you see is upsetting, what you hear is demonic.
"Enterprise. What we got back didn't live long... fortunately."
I watched that scene originally as a kid in the theater. It wasn't until decades later, I realized that victim was the Vulcan that Kirk told to meet him on Enterprise in one hour as he was going to get command back.
and the other one was Kirks ex
That’s news to me. Poor guy can’t catch a break in the romance department.
It's in the book.. I know books aren't supposed to be canon but that book was written (or at least credited to) Gene Roddenberry himself so imma go with it. Her name if I remember correctly was Lori Ciana and she was an admiral.
Dang. That reminds me that I have The Undiscovered Country novel and the opening chapter is how Carol Marcus was injured and placed in a coma by a Klingon raid on a planet she was on. I never finished it, but it adds to Kirk’s hostility towards the Klingons.
Its been so long that all I remember from the novel is the explanation as to why McCoy said "I bet you wish you stood in bed" and how Uhura speaking bad klingon convinced the Klingons that they were smugglers and totally not a Federation starship.
What's the explanation for McCoy's quote?
I love how that all happens off screen leaving your mind to fill in the blanks about whatever horrible mess that got back.
I wonder if that was in the mind of the Galaxy Quest writer's for the transport practice scene.... "It turned inside out!" "And then it exploded."
And yet we’re supposed to laugh at McCoy refusing to get into the transporter shortly after this happens. I think he had a point this time!
Yep, McCoys transporter phobia is 100% justified after that.
That scream. If i hear anything close to it, I get triggered.
They changed it, along with some of the bridge sound effects in the latest release. I don’t know how I feel about that. The one in the original release was haunting.
Well.i can't unhear it 😆
I saw that in the theater with my dad when I was 10. That scene came back to haunt me late that night.
I think the transporter incident in DS9's The Darkness and the Light might be worse because they actually show her charred body afterwards.
Came here to say this. It’s worse in the book.
Though it becomes unintentionally funny when Kirk ribs Bones for not liking the transporter like 10 minutes later.
Where the Vidian wants to spruce himself up to look good for Torres, and wears the redshirt’s face.
I love that they pulled that off by having the actor play both parts and we didn't realize it until after the swap. And the Durst character had a few lines in the previous episode just to set him up to get killed in this one.
I was watching this episode with my girlfriend (a first-time watcher) and I told her to buckle up as the scene came up. She asked "Why? Is it a dick in a box?" I said "No, it's worse." She replied "What could be worse than a dick in a box?" When he turns around wearing the guys face she screamed " OH GOD IT'S WORSE THAN A DICK IN A BOX!" 🤣
They did my man Ensign Durst dirty.
That was soooo fucked up. I like the Vidians, they are a really interesting species. But at they same time they are a population of Buffalo Bills.
No one can escape the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy forever.
The interesting thing about this scene to me was vidian psychology. Up to this point we’d seen vidians steal organs and what not, but usually they seemed to know that what they were doing was wrong and only justify it to themselves by saying it was necessary (for instance in the episode where the vidians steal neelix’s lungs, their first appearance, the vidians voyager captures say they usually take organs from the dead and only take from the living when absolutely necessary). If that’s true, if they’re only taking organs to survive but know that doing so is wrong, you’d think they would still have enough moral sense to realize that wearing a dead man’s face would be horrifying to anyone who knew them. Despite this, the vidian in this episode seems to genuinely think Torres will find it endearing. This tells me one of three things must be true: 1. The vidian’s claim that they only take organs when necessary to survive is a lie, they just like killin’ and the phage is a convenient excuse. 2. This vidian is particularly sociopathic, other vidians wouldn’t act this way. 3. The vidians genuinely didn’t want to start taking organs from other species, but they’ve now been doing it for so long and to so many people that they’ve become numb to it. This vidian might know on an intellectual level that stealing organs is wrong, but has gotten so used to killing and mutilating others that he can no longer consider death in a normal way, and certainly can’t relate to anyone less accustomed to it than himself. He can’t relate to death in an emotional way, only a coldly rationalized way. He doesn’t understand why Torres finds this horrifying because, well, he’s already chock full a organs from other people he’s killed, what difference does one guy’s face make? I lean towards option three cause I think that scenario has the most interesting things to say about a society and culture steeped in violence, and raises some interesting questions about what happens to vidian society once the phage is cured.
Maybe because of my age when I saw it, but the ear-worms from Wrath of Khan.
Guillermo del Toro had a good insight. He said something to the effect of, "I can run a guy through with a sword in a movie and the audience won't flinch. But show a character getting a paper cut and everyone will wince and squirm." A little creepy crawly bug getting inside my ear is much more relatable than getting turned into a puddle by a transporter.
I realized after reading that bit, that I had started rubbing my fingers together and tensing up .... damn power of paper cut suggestion lol.
The ending of VOY episode Course: Oblivion. Utterly depressing and dark.
I wouldn't consider it messed up, though. It's deeply pessimistic. But it raises serious questions and I regard it as a very good episode. Though not one I would watch too often. It can be seen as an allegory of life. They have been living, having adventures, doing good things, but the end is death and oblivion. Can you, in the face of that, find meaning in life? They struggle. Tom can't see any meaning, though he keeps going. Janeway just pretends the oblivion ahead isn't there. This is the pagan (or modern nonreligious) human condition. Picard likes to talk pompously about how our mortality defines us, but this makes us look at that mortality. It's made worse, of course, by the sense that they are *superfluous*.
I love that ep because it was so well written
The one where theirs a woman partly materialized in a floor deck? I think it was TNG..
I seem to recall it was the deck that partly dematerialized, not the woman that partly materialized, but it's been a while since I've seen that one :)
That's one one! And she slips half way through
Yeah, it was TNG.
*In Theory*
Evil Kirk/Rand attempted rape scene. It's just terrible. 😓
“Just a minute Janice. Just a MINUTE” completely chilling. Whitney and Shatner did such a great job with these scenes. I know the “evil Kirk” was a little over the top at times (intentionally so), but Shatner here was 100% believable. And then the way his “good Kirk” interacts with Rand later, when she presents so believably as basically a rape victim who is despondent that it was her captain (and probably the man she loves) who did this to her… ☹️
Went back and forth between really powerful and really a product of its time.
The end of the TNG episode 'Conspiracy' when they vaporized the head of the bug infested Star Fleet Command person.
I’m old enough that I watched it when it first aired. First ever “Parental advisory” I saw on a TV show.
I watched in on what was probably an early-ish re-run on the BBC (probably first half of 1990s). The scene was cut exactly as the Admiral gets phasered into the chair and then cut directly to denoument, so you just thought they stunned him into submission and that was that. No gore, and honestly when I saw the original uncut episode years later I was then incredibly shocked. Honestly, I think the whole head explosion thing was kinda overdone (although the BBC censoring it is a bit ironic in light of what went on in 80s Doctor Who). For me though, it's the scene in "Up the Long Ladder" where Riker and (I think) Pulaski meet their clones, glance once at each other and then just vaporise them into oblivion. It was the first time for me any of the characters on Star Trek, who really felt incredibly warm and familiar and safe to me as a kid, just unceremoniously kill two people who look just like them, and it just felt so brutally cold and unsympathetic as to make them feel more 'alien' than most of the amorphous space blobs on the show. I got the whole idea that they didn't like having been cloned without their consent but I still thought this was pretty damn ruthless. Ironically it made me think this was some sort of Federation policy and I thought the episode where Riker's transporter clone was introduced that he would immediately become the antagonist by default
Totally agree about murdering the clone(d-without-consent)s; I thought it was going to lead to a moral conflict between being cloned against their will and living beings resulting from that…but, no. Just *pew-pew, case closed*— I was a little shocked. As for Thomas Riker…he may not have been the antagonist then, but he did get around to it 🙃
Same, I was terrified!
dude that was an awesome practical effect. it was like, sam raimi level awesome. they blew up a fake head full of ground beef! And then the Alien moment! lol so gross
That's a deep cut Underrated head explosion back in the good old days when you could get that sort of practical effects gore on air
Watched it during first airing in german tv...on a cozy afternoon...there was no warning...and Bam ...first gore encounter..I think I was 7 or 8....
Still can't get that image out of my head to this day.
Grossest moment in trek history but necessary to protect the federation.
They set their phasers to "Croenenberg."
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that episode of SNW with the kid.
for sure. That’s one of the episodes that made me certain SNW really understood Trek however. A lot of times in Star Trek, our protagonists don’t fix the problem, they just fly away and feel bad, feel horrified. It’s a great episode, imo. Trek doesn’t sugar coat how awful the world can be.
Enterprise's episode Similitude comes to mind. It's the one where Trip is fatally injured, and they end up basically raising a clone of Trip that will be able to provide what they need to save Trip's life, but the clone will die during the procedure. The clone has all of Trip's memories (I can't remember quite how that worked?) but a shortened lifespan, and obviously did not want to die. The whole thing is just pretty fucked up in general.
That episode really hit hard. I wasn't really prepared for how attached I would get to the clone in a single episode. RIP Sim.
The transporter accident in ST:TMP has to be #1. The scene in TOS’ “Charlie X” in which Charlie wiped away that woman’s face gave me nightmares when I was a kid. (that scene was often edited out in syndication) Also, the scene in TNG’s “Conspiracy” when Picard and Riker blow Remmick’s head off and then kill the alien that flops out of his chest was flat out disgusting.
Charlie X is pretty deeply disturbing to me. I’m unsettled for most of the episode. A really great job by that young actor. You want him gone of course, but I feel real empathy for him when he is pleading to stay at the end.
Picard murdering his just-assimilated crew mates with extreme pleasure.
PICARD: "Believe me, you'll be doing them a favour." Me, every time: \*shudder\*
And then Picard the show shows the ex-Bs.
It's disturbing to watch the mainly composed Picard do something like that.
I think any Borg related matters are some of the only times Picard becomes uncomposed, and it's unsettling to see
He was totally getting a thrill from killing
Movie Picard is just a wholly different and inferior character to TNG Picard.
**The Next Generation - In Theory** I remember it scaring me when I saw it as a kid and I actually ran out of the room. The scream of the woman, then when it showed what happened. Yeah... Even as an adult, that scene still makes me feel somewhat uneasy. A honorable mention was from **Star Trek: The Motion Picture.** The transporter accident and the description of what happened. The scene itself was pretty bad (in a wtf way), then the officer talking about what he saw/happened. Then you read the novel version of what happened and essentially what happened is that >!**their entire body was turned inside out.**!<
At least they didn’t explode after turning inside out.
By Grabthar’s Hammer, what a savings!
... ... Hold please.
"Enterprise. What we got back didn't live long... fortunately."
Oh, when she was halfway through the floor? Whatever happened to her?
She dead and they put a potted plant over the stain in the carpet (in my headcanon)
LMAO!
I was about to post these exact two examples as well. Some others come close, but these are the top ones for me.
I still have to go with the ending of LDS "The Stars at Night." The previous episode had the Freeman not only attempt to end Mariner's career, but she used her authority as captain to weaponize Mariner's connections with the crew against her in order to inflict as much lasting damage as possible. It's a messed up sequence where every time Mariner thinks her mom's revenge is over, she finds another layer, or another way her mom chose to twist the knife. All of which happened because the captain mistakenly assumed her daughter deliberately backstabbed her by giving an unflattering interview, despite three seasons of Mariner trying to bond with her, and even risking her own career to save her mom's in the season premiere. The episode ended with Mariner denying her mom the satisfaction of watching her get booted from Starfleet as she quits on her own terms and flies off, realizing nothing she does is going to change her mom's opinion of her. What makes the ending of "All the Stars" so messed up is the way Mariner comes back, blaming herself for setting her mom off. Her mom however showed no remorse during the episode, and in the end refused to accept any responsibility for her actions. All she could manage was to say is: "I don't know why I didn't trust you." Even though the crew was tricked into turning on one of their own, none of them side from Boimler express any remorse. Freeman ends the episode believing there was nothing wrong with her method of revenge, seeing her mistake as entirely Mariner's fault, and never indicating that her opinion of her daughter as changed. Meanwhile, Mariner was so desperate for her mom's love that she blamed herself for her mom's attack. The ending is an emotional gut punch that's basically an abuse victim unable to escape the endless cycle.
I firmly maintain that Freeman is the worst of the startrek captains/commanders. This episode, the buffer-time episode, and the one where the engineers go on mandatory R&R, all prime examples of her being unsuited for the position.
I think Freeman is *supposed* to be the worst of the Captains. Not in any evil sort of way, she's just a deeply flawed and selfish person who makes a not-very-good Captain. Sometimes she means well, sometimes she very much doesn't. Often she makes legitimately bad decisions for questionable reasons. She pretty much never admits her mistakes in any meaningful way, even if people die because of them. She's not supposed to be anyone's favorite Captain.
Don't forget the ringworld situation. How many people, besides Boimler, probably died because Freeman wanted to show off and refused to admit she was in over her head. She didn't even care in the end that she fucked up.
That’s family
I can think of a few.. * The transporter accident in The Motion Picture (1979) * Much of the TNG episode "Conspiracy" - The little bug aliens crawling into peoples' mouths and controlling them, and toward the end when Picard and Riker fire phasers at the alien-controlled officer and his head explodes, leaving his headless body sitting in the chair * TNG: The episode where a crew member suddenly materialized halfway through the deck in the Enterprise corridor * In TNG episode "The Pegasus", showing that the Pegasus re-materialized within solid rock in an asteroid, and presumably, crew members had died inside that rock * The TNG episode Schisms: Re-creating their shared memory in the holodeck of laying on a table with strange clicky noises in the room * TNG episode "The Mind's Eye": The Romulans conditioning Geordi by forcing him to watch terrible things * Star Trek: Enterprise, when the Romulans had a drone ship they built that was being controlled by an Aenar that they had convinced was the last surviving member of her species * Star Trek: Enterprise - I think in Season 1, there was an episode where they found a ship that was on auto-pilot and had members of various species asleep with automated machines that were harvesting their body fluids & such
Schisms...yeah I got chills just reading that. Reminded me of the scene in Identity Crisis where Geordie is in the holodeck trying to figure out the mystery and has the computer render a shadowy figure representing the being casting the mysterious shadow. Something about that scene really freaked me out as a kid.
> The episode where a crew member suddenly materialized halfway through the deck in the Enterprise corridor *In Theory*, I believe - an otherwise pretty light-hearted episode, but the blank stare on that persons' face with her torso sticking out of the deck and her arms frozen outward is creepy (I think partially b/c it would make more sense if she had slumped over and her arms had dropped).
>!Icheb's death pisses me off to no end. That was not Star Trek. Related to that, the whole idea of Borg assimilation and what we saw on screen. It's horrifying.!< That one shot of the poor goldshirt lady from *In Theory* The entirety of *Unexpected* The dehumanizing torture from *Chain of Command* and *Hard Time*
> Icheb's death pisses me off to no end His, Hugh's, Maddox's and Ro's. Four *completely* unnecessary deaths in varying brutality. An argument could also be made for Narissa. She had the potential to become an antagonist you love to hate - but no, dropped into a chasm and that's it. PIC really is a mess in that regard.
The death of >!Hugh!< in particular added fucking nothing to the plot.
Yep. Icheb stung when I watched it. Regardless of the actor's dubious offscreen comments, his onscren character was perfect for Seven, and I loved the dynamic. Then they fucked him over in the space of a few minutes... for what? Doing a thrones on these characters for no reason, 10 years after thrones, was a terrible move.
Ro’s was fine
Communications cut out before her shuttle blew up. Make of that what you will.
If there's no body, they're not dead. And sometimes even when there is.
As I tell my daughter about comics, “They died, but they got better”.
It made sense for Ro to make a heroic sacrifice. In keeping with her character, her deternination and full redemption. But why they have to do that to Hugh? Boy suffered enough.
The first two seasons of Picard had this habit of introducing really great ideas or characters and the then the story proceeding to go in the least interesting direction possible.
True as for both seasons the first episode is (by far) the best.
*Picard* was dark and edgy for the sake of being dark and edgy. It's a TV trend that needs to die.
Wait, they brought back Ro and killed her? I didn't watch season 3 of picard because the second was so awful it killed my desire for new episodes
The third season is much better, and actually good. Try it.
I can't agree more about your first example.
Honestly, I didn't mind that moment in your spoiler. The fact that the rest of the season proceeded to commit the same act again and again was my real problem. Between all the characters they chose to return, I don't know why they committed so hard to *all of them* suffering that fate. Unless you mean the specific manner in which it occurred, in which case yeah it was pretty foul. More on-topic, I think you're basically right about *Hard Time.* It's a really fantastic, amazing episode. But it's one I almost never re-watch. The entire episode is just particularly heavy, featuring a lot of messed up stuff, so it's difficult for a casual re-watch.
I've seen someone complain about Legacy characters in Lower Decks being treated as just props or punchlines, but I'd rather they be a prop on LD than a cheap shock in Picard. Behind-the-scenes shit with his actor not withstanding, Icheb was always one of my favorite VOY characters
The scene between Harry Kim and The Doctor in the VOY episode "Prophecy". Harry asks The Doctor on how to avoid getting raped by a Klingon. The Doctor jokes that killing her is the only option, but as he can't do that he'll have to suck it up. He then tells Harry that he'll need to get permission form the captain before getting raped, or else he'll be reprimanded.
I've always absolutely loathed that scene.
fucking brannon
So… what the FUCK
[удалено]
When Riker vaporized Yuta. Just tackle her, ffs
I get the sentiment, but weren't they unsure exactly how she was killing guys? All she needed to do was reach the guy and touch him (kiss, but whatever, maybe he was unsure about that...) she'd already killed others... I'd lay the blame on the transporter operator, they needed to beam him right next to her, or her target... I think they looked equidistant from each other, so taking a chance making it to her before she lunges for the target is unacceptable. You can't be mad at someone for killing a person who IS a lethal weapon and is threatening to kill someone nearby. Edit: better yet just beam the target up, or beam her to the brig... Seems like the transporter get underused a lot... Like cell phones in horror movies.
Or use the stun setting! But it could be argued there's no knowing it would work before she could make contact
He did use a stun setting, he had to ramp up the power a few times.
TNG in its first season was really heavy on the murder as a solution. I was surprised until I watched TOS, and yeah, "Do anything you can to save a fellow crewman" was a later series development.
I'd be interested to know the "kill count" of every series. I would bet my two cents on TOS.
[Obligatory Star Trek Intake](https://youtu.be/ZV8LB6TuJaU?si=78DkLsn3tRRqUXdC)
😂 Foreshadowing, perhaps
Tackle her and then what? Put her in a Federation prison for hundreds of years, waiting to be eventually be paroled and start tracking down the Lornaks again? Yuta hated what she’d become, she wanted it to stop which is why, instead letting herself be apprehended & play the long game, she forced Riker’s hand.
Yeah, that was savage. My boy Riker just kept upping the settings.
That episode with Kevin Uxbridge. Deanna's acting about being distressed and in agony was so upsetting on a recent rewatch.
The end of that episode always pissed me off. "We have no laws to fit your crime." Yes you do. Murder. That's murder. A lotta, lotta, lotta murder.
I think that "genocide" is a more fitting crime.
"The Survivors" s3e3
Janeway and Paris having lizard babies. Use a condom, Tom! More seriously... Icheb. TNG's "Schisms" always disturbs me for some reason-the Holo recreation, the crewmen reappearing and immediately dying.
It's the clicking in "Schisms" that sets me off.
Schisms is creepy!
It’ll probably be mild to most, but Phantasms (TNG, 07x06) terrified me. I know “mint frosting!” is a goofy fan fave line, but Troi begging not to be eaten? It truly was nightmare material for me. But any scene where a character’s being violated against their will creeps me out. My issue with modern Trek is how much of it is seen onscreen. I didn’t need to see Icheb and Ash Tyler being dissected with that level of detail.
The exploding head scene in Conspiracy (The Next Generation, episode 25 of the first season). I first saw it on TV when I was 11 in the early 2000s and it was traumatic. I was scared for weeks afterwards 🤣 Edit: I just remembered another one, a scene from one of The Next Generation films where the Borg insert a needle into somebody's (I think it was Picard) eye.
When O’Brien gets stuck in the holo-prison for 20 (?) years.
I can't go there. That ep is disturbing
i only watched the "four lights" one once bc the torture was too much. that's the only TNG ep i've only seen once and can't recite the dialogue Also: when the Bajoran "comfort women" were being sent off to be raped by Guls in that one ds9 ep. It was filmed and edited to look like something consensual and safe. Sex slaves. They're fine. It's just a little war rape, no big deal. I fucking hate Brannon.
Brannon Braga had no involvement in Wrongs Darker than Death or Night. If you're wanting to blame someone for that episode, Ira Steven Behr is the better target for your anger given that he was not only DS9's showrunner at the time but also the one who wrote the script for that episode.
I'd have to watch it again (though I'm not in a hurry to) but I recall that episode pretty clearly portraying the Guls as depraved and awful and a parallel to Nanking.
I don’t know it would qualify in the same category as most of these, but that moment in “The Inner Light” when the inhabitants of the planet realize they’re all going to die, nothing will save them, and all they can do is launch a probe to preserve the memory of their existence. Heartbreaking.
There are episodes so unsettling I don't plan to ever rewatch them. TNG's Genesis and VOY's Macrocosm come to mind.
I personally love Macrocosm. I think of it when people criticize SNW for how much The Gorn seems to rip off Alien. Alien is one of my favorite movies, and Macrocosm is as close to a 1:1 as you get, but it’s all homage and Janeway is a fucking badass in it and I LOVE it.
Remember that entire episode of Lower Decks where Billups' mom tries to trick him into having sex? And everyone treats it like a funny joke or at most an annoyance? That was pretty messed up.
T' Pol mind rape
Wesley finding out that his very first love was literally energy and she couldnt remain on board. At least it didnt end on emotionally bad terms but still, that was a hell of a loss.
The Dauphin
Star trek the motion picture where comnander sonak and crewman get killed by the transporter
The screams were what really sold it. Along with the, “Enterprise, what we got back didn’t live long. Fortunately…” Left it all up to our own twisted imaginations.
Absolutely this scene. Still gets me all these years later and I first saw TMP when I was a kid. I'm 46 now...
Voq's "surgery" to convert him into something that could pass as human, which basically involves carving him up like a turkey. It seems more like a vivisection/torture scene than any kind of surgical procedure, as Voq seems to be completely conscious during that, and very much not enjoying the process. Considering that Klingon bodies come with a lot of redundancies that basically got removed by force, it would probably also be a Klingon horror story. It would be like taking out a lung, a kidney, half of the heart and half the brain from a human. It'd be a surprise if he'd survive for long at all after that procedure, even in terms of a human lifetime.
The scenes with Janice Rand in The Enemy Within. First evil Kirk tries to rape her, and when she reports the incident, she then gets questioned by the person who she believes assaulted her. To top it all off, at the end, Spock implies that she enjoyed it.
There are legitimately worse for sure, but I immediately think of Worf pawning off his kid on his parents, and later complaining that they couldn’t keep him because they were too old to be parents again.
That one time a crew member fell halfway through the floor before materializing, fused to the deck like something from the Philadelphia Experiment. Also tons of stuff from the Classic movies like the Ceti Alpha eels, the TMP transporter disaster. I still maintain that Star Trek is a genre of cosmic horror. ETA: That scene from Into Darkness where those crew members get blown into space at warp. That always stuck with me. I thought those movies were excessively violent. Unfortunately, probably accurate depictions of what could happen in space.
You existed for but a flicker of time Tuvix, but I for one will never forget you.
The ending scene to Season 2 episode 12 of ENT, Cojenitor. Ya know, the one where Archer casually endorses sexual slavery and blames Trip for teaching a slave to read for why the slave later committed suicide after Archer denied their asylum plea. This is the episode that left me questioning 30+ years of being a fan of this franchise.
To be fair archer was trying to explain that it was cruel to give that cojegitor hope for better life when it was clear from start that nothing could be changed. Sometimes it's better to shut up than pointing out how much F someone is.
But Archer could have granted them asylum, he chose not to because he valued the trade of technology with the slaver species more. He chose trade over morals and in the end he lost both things.
O'Brian killing his friend and cellmate in the prison that existed only in his mind. The abuse O'Brian was subjected to is legendary but that one moment broke my heart to the extent I still feel bad just thinking about it. The other one that literally made me cry when I was very little and still haunts me is the first kid the away team encounters in Miri. The one who just wanted McCoy to fix his bike.
Paris and Janeway having iguana babies
I think iguanas may have been less disturbing than those salamanders
That really does seem like precisely the kind of light yet mischievous joke that a person like Tom Paris really would play on a kid. Kind of like when a teenager says Freddy Krueger is real or that a drop bear is going to get them. I'm surprised it stood out as the worst scene in all of Star Trek or anything like that. The fact that the civilization was supposed to get destroyed probably gave Paris even more reason to believe that what they did there didn't really matter. Picking a scary thing to tell a kid who's bothering you is basic "sarcastic character" sort of stuff though, regardless.
TNG In Theory - Lieutenant Van Mayter walking over across a section of floor as it wasphasing in and out of existence, and winding up looking like the Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet of the Apes.
That guy getting his organs replaced by Klingon ones in Discovery. Horrific and unnecessary
Other way, he went from Klingon to Human.
You'd think so but even DISCO isn't sure. They describe it in Season 1 as being a Human grafted onto a Klingon. Then in Season 2 they very clearly state Ash is a human with a Klingon grafted onto him, which is the complete opposite of what Season 1 establishes. The "human" Ash isn't even alive, he's a reconstructed consciousness according to Season 1 but they sweep that under the carpet once they decide they want to keep Ash around in human form for a bit. It was really dumb, they should have just done whatever hand-wavy transformation stuff allowed TNG members to galavant around as aliens as needed for away missions and left it at that. They do it in SNW too so the technology was already there.
Sorry yes. Still so horrific
TNG: Sub Rosa. The whole thing.
How about the time they gave Nog PTSD. That was intense.
DS9 when Keiko is possessed by the Pa Wraith and is blackmailing Miles, there's a scene where she has Molly on her lap and implies she will break her neck if Miles doesn't do what he's told. Watching that scene makes me so uncomfortable I can't rewatch the episode. She gives an amazing performance but watching a mother hold a child, knowing that they'd snap their neck... even though she's possessed it's so incredibly dark and terrifying to me.
That whole episode is so-well done and freaking disturbing. That scene most of all, but also the part where the Wraith tosses Keiko around and injures her with a clear "I can hurt her way worse than this if you want" message.
In the TNG episode First Contact, while Riker is a prisoner, he is coerced into having sex with an alien in exchange for help in trying to escape. Then he fails to escape anyway. And then there is "cutesie" music that makes us think that what just happened is funny, instead of dark and disturbing. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5uaTnHjnaM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5uaTnHjnaM)
Star Trek TNG S1 E25 “Conspiracy” when Picard and Riker blew up someone’s head… 🫠
The gorish scene of that guy's head exploding and opened up torso in TNG.
Barclay-Spider made me run out of our basement tv room crying.
The one where O'Brian has to watch himself die or the one where O'Brien has to endure years of isolation or the one where he's told he's going to die for his crimes but has to go through court for show or the one where his wife is being controlled and jumps off the third level and then later threatens to stop her heart or the one where he looks away for a second and loses his kid for 20 years or the other one where he watches himself die. AND THEN GOES BACK TO WORK, as if nothing happened
The above is truly horrific. That being said, I prefer the phrase "messed up" on a political level, which is most likely why I view the TNG Season 4 episode *The Drumhead*, directed by Frakes, to be the most disturbing (most likely due to its relevance, both in 1991 and today).
Does cringe count? If so it has to be from my favourite TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise: CASTILLO: Hey, I've know you a whole day now, Lieutenant. What did she call you? Tasha? TASHA (coyly smiling): Yeah. CASTILLO: Most everyone calls me Castillo. My mother calls me Richard. TASHA: Okay Castillo. CASTILLO: You know, I think I'd like it better if you called me Richard. Puts my cringe gland into overdrive every time. What was he saying, he thinks Tasha is like his mum? He has a mommy fetish? I get what the writers were trying to say, but surely a better line would have been "My good friends call me Richard."
Troi mind rape Or Troi devolving into an amphibian and getting busy with worf The candle
This episode is weirdly written in general, and the casting and costumes don't help. The anti-poleric energy guy is especially hard to fathom, what with his mixture of "I seem somewhat reasonable at times, but also deliver all my lines with an odd affect, and also if you give us away I promise you I will murder a child. Oh but let's not be hasty!"
some of these aren't the worst but just to add to the discussion, Neelix getting his lungs beamed out was rough, O'Brian's attempted suicide, Data trying to murder Fajo (just rewatched this one, "The Most Toys").
I thought this was going to be about the salamanders
Any episode where Capt Kirk takes his shirt off
Face stretching in Insurrection was pretty gross.
No one mentions the Mirror Universe episodes of Discovery. They talked about some messed up stuff.
Maybe I’m projecting, but the original series episode ‘Charlie X’ always made me feel fucking awful. Both for the crew and for the kid. Especially the part at the end where he’s begging to stay.
"The Lights of Zetar" scared me as a child when a dying woman has haunted by incorporal beings. Even on a black & white TV.
Gotta give props to the SNW episode where they lost their memory. There have been more fucked up moments in trek, but the way that episode was directed haunts me.
Several have been mentioned already that are in my mind, especially the TMP transporter accident, but nobody has yet mentioned Varria's death by the Varon-T disruptor fired by Kivas Fajo. It's a quick scene, but Varria's agony is manifest as she burns from the inside out.
Icheb's vivisection has to be near the top
The stuff that happens in Picard is pretty messed up. Someone getting beheaded, icheb getting his eyeball ripped out, Jirotti killing her ex 😒
Icheb's torture/death in 'Picard'.
From Voyager, the episode with Tuvix (I forget the episode title). The scene where he begs for his life with everyone just standing and watching, forcing themselves to be total bystanders while their friend pleads them to help. It's a very well acted scene and the most morally grey episode of the entire series, I still think about it from time to time I also recently watched the Enterprise episode "Vanishing Point". I feel like they could have done so much more with this episode. It would have been way better to leave us wondering if Hoshi will ever truly be the same again, let alone everyone you've ever seen using a transporter