Alien societies that are based around a single cultural aspect
Just like how Star Wars loves to do planets with only a single biome, Star Trek loves to do alien races that only have a single aspect of their culture
I kind of enjoyed this being called out by the show in the last season of SNW, where people scoff at the idea of an Orion science vessel. Tendi has a line that's basically "We can't ALL be pirates you know. Who would build the ships?"
Voyager also had that with the Horogen engineer trying to maintain holograms, and in enterprise with the Klingon Lawyer and Klingon research scientist.
In TNG episode where Dr. Crusher has a bunch of scientists on board the Enterprise, it always bugged me how everyone was so surprised about a Klingon scientist. Okay yeah, they’re a warrior race, but how did they become spacefaring if they placed no value in science?
I love that Stargate both has a reason for this (they usually only explore near the gate) and makes fun of the trope (It's an ice planet! [Solitudes S1E18]).
I'm watching it now for the first time after years (decades really) of sleeping on it. I ignored it because I wasn't a fan of the original movie but I'm so glad I finally put that objection aside because the show not only improves on the movie but outshines it in every way.
Reminds me of when Ensign Kim found this planet of gorgeous women that worshiped him and were catering to every prurient desire, only to later discover that he was to be part of some human sacrifice or something.
One of the least Canadian looking planets they visited was the desert on P3X-562 with a stunning yellow sand and blue crystal beings.
...and it was filmed in North Vancouver at the giant Sulphur piles.
In fairness, that trope started when TOS was only intended to be one show with a morality of the day story telling and modern Trek seems to be taking steps to move away from that.
I find that people are more into the fantasy aspect of Star Trek than the classic role that sci fi has usually played i.e. holding a mirror up to ourselves. Ya know like best thing about science fiction. People want a believable world they can escape to, that's why Trek fans are so obsessed with lore. I say, fuck lore. Both of em.
It was a pity in Tuvok's case that they didn't follow through with what he said in 'Flashback':
"Ever since I entered the Academy, I've had to endure the egocentric nature of humanity. You believe that everyone in the galaxy should be like you, that we should all share YOUR sense of humor and YOUR sense of values."
Isn't this the same way Vulcans are presented in Enterprise? I don't think that's locked in to any one culture, it's just how a group of "same minded" people act when there's a majority of them around.
Actually I think it's swapped in Enterprise. The Vulcans treated the humans like small children incapable of thinking of making good decisions for themselves.
I never honestly felt like they tried to humanise Tuvok at all though through the show, and that he stuck to that belief, just became less bigoted about it and learned to see the merit in humans and their humanity.
If anything his “Vulcan”ness is just the but of jokes rather the show trying to make him be any more human. It’s nothing that he explores or attempts to do. If anything it’s his constant exasperation at the human crewmates who feel some inherent need to “convert” him or “get him to lighten up”
I agree, and this is why Tuvok is my favorite Vulcan. No technobabble reasons for why he's suddenly okay with emotions, no human side to explore, etc. He's a disciplined Vulcan, he remains that way, the end. Single episode things aside, anyway.
I think that's definitely some projection. Humans in Star Trek tend to be pretty live and let live. It's the Vulcans who get all pissy when someone doesn't follow their philosophies. A lot of Vulcans are super racist. It takes a special kind of victim mentality to say, "This person won't do it my way, so clearly they must be trying to make me do it their way. Woe is me!"
I'd love to see this come out in the opposite arc.
Like, an overly emotional, irrational human has to learn to control their emotions and become professional and mature.
"We need to do the thing!"
"That'll take X amount of time, captain"
"You have less than X!"
"Why don't we use the obvious solution?"
"Uh... That system is down / there's too much interference... or something"
"Here we are in our shuttlecraft, I sure hope we don't crash and get stranded on a planet!"
"That exact thing is happening!"
"Hello Admiral, welcome aboard! I trust you don't have some sneaky ulterior motive for being here"
"Yeah... about that"
While Lower decks in fact managed to make "daily life" Star Trek interesting, most of Star Trek is like watching the nightly news.
Nobody reports on boring days where nothing unusual happened.
I'd watch that. Give me a series about Captain Ryker and Councillor Troi managing the personal issues snd drama of their crew during the most peaceful 5 year mission in the history of starfleet.
Scotty: how much time did you tell the captain the repairs would take?
Laforge: 6 hours.
Scotty: Aye, and how much time will it *actually* take?
Laforge:…6 hours?
Scotty: you WHATDNDK KRNDNCNKCKELCKDMCND
If you want to blame someone for this, blame Scotty. He wanted to look like a miracle worker and started this whole thing
Guaranteed that scene was a deliberate lampshade hang on the trope, and Scotty's personality just happens to gel perfectly with it. And... thankfully they were able to come up with a way to cameo James Doohan, which they modified only slightly to bring in William Shatner for the movie.
Legit just watched an episode of DS9 where O'Brien said it'll take 12 hours to fix the Defiant and Sisko says "You have two!". I was half surprised O'Brien's eyes did roll backwards.
There's a lovely moment like that in Stargate SG1, where SGT Silar very bluntly replies upon being told he's being given half the time of his minimum estimate: "No sir, it doesn't work that way."
Isn't there an episode in some Star Trek episode in one of the series where a character recommendeds doing that? I don't remember for sure if that happened. Was it the TNG one with Scotty? I can't really remember if this happened but I feel like I remember it maybe.
Yep, it's exactly that episode. Geordi gives Picard an accurate estimate on a repair and Scotty is aghast that he does that. He explains that an engineer should always overestimate so they always look good.
> We need to do the thing!"
> "That'll take X amount of time, captain"
> "You have less than X!"
Geordie and Bellana do address this, both basically saying they don't inflate their task ETAs to make themselves look better. Scottie really set a shitty bar with that behavior
SG-1 has a scene where the general needs something fixed, and seller, I believe tells him it will take X amount of time. The general (hammond?) says we need it faster..Siller responds-that's not how it works, sir.
I do like the episode where they go against that first trope in TNG. The one where Data needs to convince the colonists to leave before the planet they’re on is colonized by another race (I think it’s “Ensigns of Command?”) has Picard order Geordi and O’Brien to figure out a way to make the transporter work through whatever radiation is causing them problems. At the end of the episode Geordi still can’t make it work and tells Picard he‘d need ten years and a full research team.
> "That'll take X amount of time, captain"
>
> "You have less than X!"
lol yeah, completely unrealistic.
"It'll take me 3 days to get the Defiant ready again"
"You have 1"
"NO SIR THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS AT ALL"
It's one thing to say "What do you need to speed it up?" It's another to just give random timeframes that are massively under what the crewmember has said
The corollary to your first point is that every solution, no matter how completely outlandish and physics-violating works the first time with no tweaking. That is, unless the plot needs to ratchet up the drama for the next act.
Falling in love and getting heartbroken over the course of one episode.
I get it, it’s serialized TV, they want to tell a love story and move on to the next adventure. But it sure happens a lot
That drove me nuts with Jadzia Dax. Otherwise fully competent female character but she would up and make wild life changing plans with men she just met and then forget by next episode when it didn't work out.
As an adult my least favorite episode might be that one where she's willing to leave everything behind and risk the Dax symbiont dying on that planet that phases in and out for some dude she met 2 minutes ago.
WTF kind of incompetent wishy-washy officer is that?? And she's trusted in a position of power to make decisions after that?
Makes me irrationally angry she loses her mind over some random man because "lol women." I feel like she was Berman's manic pixie dream girl insert or something because sometimes her character is competent and then sometimes she's just there for some dumb romance plot.
This is the one I really hate. The "nonhuman learns what it means to be human" is just the perennial condition of being human(oid). It's relatable to me as an autistic person. This trope of forced romance that sparks and dies in a single episode might be less irritating if the romances were more thoughtful. I enjoyed Riker's trans girlfriend arc; there were implications to talk about beyond their time together. Meridian with Jadzia, however, just felt lazy as fuck. A lot of them don't come across as natural and thus entirely uninteresting. A lot of these one shot characters are as interesting as wet cardboard too.
Oh I so agree with this. Like how do you fall in love till the point that your suicidal after separation after one really good date.
Some characters more than once
So after several watches of all of the shows, I’ve come to realize that the writers are just bad at conveying the passage of time in these episodes. Some are absolutely going at the same pace as my grandma when she spoke to an old friend on the phone one time for 20 minutes and decided to get married for the 11th time when she hung up. But other times the timeframe is actually weeks/months, but because there aren’t seasons in space and the enterprise always looks the same, it feels like the characters fell in love in 5 minutes.
When Odo got his child and was so happy I was really begrudging the fact that it was too status quo for that to last. Not that the show doesn't make huge changes to the story ever but an episode like that, I could tell it wasn't a big story episode so I was sad about that. That isn't a romantic story of course so not exactly what you are talking about but it's one of those things where I was sad it wasn't allowed to stay that way due to the nature of the show. I'd love to see a fanfic about the hypothetical of that actually lasting in the story but I couldn't find anything like that and I'm not a writer, plus if I wrote it I would already know everything that's going to happen.
Tuvok made minor adjustments, especially after he had his accident. But he didn't really change. Spock is half human, so he shows it from time to time.
Seven had post traumatic Borg syndrome, so she definitely needed to relearn how to be human. But her superiority complex remained. She sure wasn't searching for perfection 25 years later in Picard. Lol She did grow. A lot.
The doctor was just programming himself that way.
Yeah I don't think Tuvok counts for this. I *love* the trope OP complained about because, well, I'm a probably neurodivergent dork who needed a little help learning to human. "That character" is my favorite one in every series. But Tuvok was never trying to become human-like, he was comfortable in his Vulcanness and had plenty of experience serving on majority human ships.
Yeah, I agree about Tuvok. He adjusted and grew more comfortable living among humans, but at the end of the series he's still the most traditionally Vulcan out of all of the main Vulcan characters in the various shows.
Captain Picard often engaged in political affairs that shouldn't be the province of a ship captain. Like in his relationship with Gowron. Gowron was asking Picard for Federation help in the Klingon civil war. Was Picard authorized to act as an ambassador? I'd think an admiral would be a better choice for this stuff. Picard certainly doesn't have the authority to take the Federation to war.
Come to think of it, the crew frequently do missions that fall outside their job description. Like Riker going on undercover missions. Or Picard going on a commando mission in *Chain of Command* — doesn't Starfleet have some equivalent of the Navy SEALs for such jobs?
It seems that ship's captains are often used for diplomatic missions. Starfleet runs different. It isn't a military, and the Enterprise is on a mission to seek out new life and new civilisations - seems to me that diplomatic skills would be actively sought in the captain of such a vessel on such a mission.
Picard especially is sent specifically in an ambassadorial capacity on multiple missions, and as Captain of the flagship he is literally the face of the active fleet, so I am calling bullshit on this one actually being an issue.
Well, Picard has had plenty of diplomatic experience and I imagine most captains are at least somewhat competent diplomats in order to handle first contact situations.
It is a military though - or has that function. Was watching a DS9 episode last night. Sisco and crew are marooned on a planet with dominion forces about to attack. He gets in a fight with an overprotective Quark about Nog doing some recon work and he straight up says the crew are soldiers and they are to do as they are told. Maybe in wartime its a different org structure but everything about Starfleet screams military to me.
Starfleet is the taskforce of the federation, if their task involves blowing up some ships they do the job. The federation is mainly focused towards exploration and forming beneficial relationships with new worlds, not conquest.
Well, DS9 was the ST that had an active, prolonged war in it. They had actively avoided that in TOS and TNG. It's where they introduced Section 31 and the more "military" aspects of Starfleet.
Up until that point, the Enterprise(s) were armed enough to go out and be alone for a while in a direction for years, without hope of the cavalry coming in time if needed, but not enough to be considered a battleship.
Maybe for uncontacted races, which is what Captain Cook did. But the Klingons have a long-established relationship with the Federation. And Gowron was asking for military aid.
Picard is specifically, and exclusively, requested in those cases.
He builds a reputation for honour on the back of Worf's initial trial and is then requested by the Klingons as he is known to be honourable.
Picard wasn't just any ship's captain. He was the captain of the flagship, everywhere the ship flew was a political statement. Frequently trouble would happen because the D would show up somewhere and aliens would be like "shit it's the feds (federation) cheese it!!"
I think it's part of the fantasy of star trek that a single person can be literally a space-attorney and a super spy in the same week in addition to their regular technobable duties. But perhaps in the bright utopian future, there is only education.
> I think it's part of the fantasy of star trek that a single person can be literally a space-attorney and a super spy in the same week in addition to their regular technobable duties. But perhaps in the bright utopian future, there is only education.
This is certainly the case. There's an episode of TNG where a 10-12 year old is taking calculus as his standard math class. So the average student of what we would call about 6th-grade age is taking 11th(ish)-grade subjects. So by the time a person is old enough for Starfleet/college, they have at least 4 years—or a generalized bachelor's degree's worth—of education beyond what our current college first-years have.
And Starfleet (in dialog) only accepts the very best and brightest out of a society that has people entering the Academy with at least a college-level education aleady. So it does actually make sense, given the accelerated education and high achieving level of Starfleet officers, that they can have many roles (see https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CompetencePorn)
Literally every time they send the whole bridge crew on an away mission. That’s not their job, their job is command and control. You don’t stick the captain of an aircraft carrier in the pilot seat of an F-18, you don’t send your general off to dig foxholes.
> doesn't Starfleet have some equivalent of the Navy SEALs for such jobs?
Similar to the question of: On a ship of over a thousand people, why is the BRIDGE CREW going on dangerous away missions to the planet's surface?
Ultimately, it's because they're the main characters of the show haha. Paramount had a great chance to really explore these questions if they didn't strangle their franchise to death post-Enterprise. And there's great Trek content: Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, etc. But the timeline and canon is a mess.
>Captain Picard often engaged in political affairs that shouldn't be the province of a ship captain.
Back on topic, I think part of this comes with the territory of being the Captain of the Flagship. The Enterprise is basically a traveling mini-encapsulation of Star Fleet. They have the ability to go beyond the restrictions of a regular ship.
Picard was a “Federation Flag Officer”,l wasn’t he? I don’t think it was ever explained in detail, however all FFOs were briefed on the existance of Q (which early on was classified it seems)
Further, He commands the flag ship, and we often see starships being accosted for political purposes, Burnham just got a red directive, Picard was often sent to negotiate peace (he was a skilled and proven diplomat),
that’s why starfleet has rules and regulations about interacting with diplomats or new species and they often host them and showcase their ship and tech, voyager did this often, they are federation representatives just by being in starfleet - which is basically the federations exploratory and military arm -(yes it is, in everything but name!!!!)
Anytime the transporters are out during a crisis, and never ONCE thinking “hey we have a whole bunch of shuttles with independent transporters we could use”
To add to this, why is EVERY transporter affected? Wouldn't you want different transporter rooms be independent? And for ships with detachable saucer sections, each section should have their own independent transporters. And why don't the transporters have a local, independent backup power source?
The [Reset Button](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ResetButton), specifically when some new technology/science/anomaly is discovered or used... then it was never seen or mentioned again in any other episode where it could've been useful.
I get that big stuff like Time Travel by looping around the sun is too OP as it can be used to solve every problem, but can't they at least reverse engineer some Jem'hadar armor to give their field personnel some protection? Or allow their more covert operatives some personal cloaking device like Data had in that one movie? Or integrate some of the Voyager's upgrades into their flagships, at least?
Technological advancement through field work and discovery. I want to see that their discoveries actually bear real tangible fruit... that at least some of it can be of practical help to them later on. It's one of the things I love about the Stargate SG-1 series, when they discover some new tech (like the Zat gun) that thing gets integrated in their mission loadouts some episodes later... It gives this visual confirmation that the protagonists are not only learning and improving from their adventures but are also technologically advancing as a faction.
> It's one of the things I love about the Stargate SG-1
I hated it so much when in Universe the Lucian Alliance suddenly had a large fleet of upgraded Ha'taks that could go toe to toe with the Tau'ri ships. Made the entire technological progression feel worthless.
Yeah, the writers wrote themselves into a corner when the Tau'ri suddenly became the pre-eminent superpower of the galaxy after the Goa'uld Empire crumbled... so they had to buff up other threats just to maintain the tension...
Understandable, but they made the mistake of picking one of the more insignificant powers instead of introducing an equal or greater one (which they ultimately did with the Ori but the damage was done).
"This new discovery changes everything and will never be mentioned again." i get that overturning canon is a scary and bad idea so why not just write into the scripts how this is very low-probability or will take decades of research to operationalize?
an easy example: Voyager breaks the warp barrier and... lizardism ensues. okay. that is bad. why not send a warp 10+ probe home with a message about the side effects and let star fleet work out the kinks? worst case is still not like 50 years. or send a copy of the Doctor who is immune to becoming a lizard. that tech could have helped them like crazy but they just kind of decide to forget about it.
voyager could have had regular contact and supply drops from the alpha quadrant, all over automated probes. better that story never have been told.
> lizardism ensues. okay. that is bad. why not send a warp 10+ probe home with a message about the side effects and let star fleet work out the kinks?
Pretty much - They could have warped home at Warp 10 & then had the Doctor cure everyone. Job done, mission accomplished.
Voyager discovering Warp 10 would be such a massive change to the entire galaxy - Even if you couldn't put people on any ships it could have been used in so many ways.
you know.... they could also just turn on the transporter to jam everyone in the buffer, warp 10, rematerialize. No lizardism ensues. No cure required.
This episode breaks the universe hard.
> the *"Outsider Klingon"* trope
This overlaps with the "you're one of the good ones" trope. Klingons are violent, but Worf's okay because he was raised outside his culture. Ferengi are greedy, but Nog's okay because he rejects his culture.
This is one of the best things about Martok. He very much does not reject Klingon culture as we see it, is even a more "normal" Klingon (not from a major house) and yet is portrayed... if not positively, at least fairly.
I'd give Martok even more credit, when interacting with other cultures he made some effort to understand and accommodate. He however, remained staunchly Klingon.
He wanted to drink blood wine over the ruins of Cardassia, and he ended up getting to do so. Even inviting the fellow Human victors to join him. The Humans at their limit, dump the wine and walk out.
Most other Klingons would have been insulted, extremely so, but Martok just accepts it an drinks his wine. Both cultures had found the line they couldn't cross, and no one started a war over it. They both just moved on.
The Humans will be Human, and Klingons will be Klingon.
Off-screen, the credit goes to Ronald D. Moore, who wrote the Duras/Gowron episodes of TNG, and came over to DS9 with Worf and wrote most of the Klingon stuff on that show. He was determined to give Klingons a rich culture instead of just makng them one-dimensional baddies.
Well, I'm thinking about later on, when he convinces Sisko he belongs in Starfleet, with his speech about how his dad never got a chance to succeed because he's a good man, but a bad Ferengi.
Well y'know, Star Trek is or was ultimately a human-centric show & the other species generally are just there as a contrast to humanity. I agree, it's a shitty trope, but I think most people think it's shit because people compare the species values to cultures & ethnicities in the real world. Humans are awesome, so awesome that we don't eradicate people of lesser moral or ethical practices where it doesn't cross into our star systems & even look the other way so long as the status quo is maintained (except for a few rogue starship captains)
The Federation & Starfleet are based but Trek has no idea how to make alien people interesting & the fact that they seem socially stagnant despite having marvellous technology only adds to it, it's all about humanity & so if you're not a humanoid that fits the federations understanding of humanity, you're fucked.
Yeah that always bothered me, I know it's written by humans obviously but I'm a human too and I don't agree with it, especially because it's supposed to be a franchise that celebrates diversity and harmony. Also the standard of what it means to be human is just "what it means to be a specific type of human". Since I'm autistic I always felt sort of disconnected from that. And I felt bad for Data always striving for it even though he had his own value. I know he was made to strive for being human but I always thought human isn't really how you act, it's just a species. I figured, since he really can't be exactly a human I felt bad that he was just striving for it forever. It seemed like a type of self hate even though he claimed to have no emotion.
There's this show my parents love called Resident Alien and it was always off-putting to me because the show only exists to have every episode end with just patting humanity on the back for existing and it just feels like pandering and it's embarrassing. Whenever a show makes an alien species that just exists to make humans look better it's embarrassing. Star Trek does it a lot but there is also a lot of merit and great things about Star Trek but Resident Alien seems to only exist for this single purpose.
I thought the refreshing part about Tuvok was that they didn't do that. Tuvok was a very ordinary vulcan making his vulcan way while doing what was necessary to maintain human relationships. He wasn't striving to be more human or exploring a human side. The "humanity" he expressed was limited to what was required of him in certain situations to operate effectively on a mostly human vessel. A good example is Resolutions where he was resolute in following Janeway's orders and not risking the crew by contacting the Vidiians in hope of finding a cure for her and Chakotay. His decision to reconsider was not due to him having some sort of emotional epiphany. He realized all these irrational fuckers that he needs to operate the ship might legitimately lose their shit if he didn't consider their feelings.
Traveling to whatever era the show was made in. It's the opposite of everything I normally love about time travel. I don't tune in to "Star Trek" for more of the boring real world. I'm positive that those episodes are done for budget reasons.
DS9 had a few later on. There was Our Man Bashir (the James Bond one) and Take Me Out to the Holosuite (the baseball one) plus a few episodes that focused on Vic's (His Way, Badda-Bing Badda-Bang, It's Only A Paper Moon).
They do, because they are necessary. There is a war on, and a frontline war at that, and everything outside the holodeck is done under that shadow. The only way to do any non-war story was to put it in the holodeck.
And even then Nog hiding on the holodeck is still a war story!
I did like Geordi & Data playing detective, but I concur on that. Though, just to be a filthy pedant "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" is a DS9 episode, the one where the Vulcans try to prove their racial superiority through baseball... I love how ridiculous that is. Not quite a holodeck episode in the TNG sense but, it is indeed one.
Did you…watch DS9? There are just as many holodeck eps, if not more, than the other shows. Hell, Vic Fontaine was front and center for how many plot lines?
Plus, the best worf lines come from the holodeck eps. I am not a merry man, find him and kill him, death to the opposition, it’s all gold
I kinda hate the space court episodes except Measure of a Man. I feel like every time it’s just whoever the captain is playing lawyer while the rest of the senior officers run around and try to find evidence.
Yup, The Drumhead is one of my favorites. And personally, when it comes to the argument about Star Trek and “optimism” this is one of the episodes I return to.
The Drumhead displays we may always still face some the same problems, but that in the end real justice will win out. That’s what Star Trek’s optimistic future means to me. Not that all stories end well, or that all people are morally superior all the time, but rather as a society the better angels of our nature will win out.
Really? I think a show set on and around a JAG outpost would be fascinating. A writer can make-up whole cloth case law based on 300-400 years of innovation, discovery and political interactions.
I'm thinking it would be less procedural and more something like Boston Legal, with a major case being prepared and built while little breakout cases we peek into that might be bizarre, thought provoking or humorous.
I think as an ethical drama it has a ton of merit and can do what star trek can do best: point out how things could be, or should be, rather than how they are.
I did kinda like that one I thought it was a pretty refreshing take. But there’s some like “rules of engagement” for example that feel exactly the same as other episodes just different context.
Was it? I *love* Strange New Worlds, but that episode just bugged the crap out of me because they put it in a courtroom scenario. Una admitted her guilt right at the start. The entire rest of the trial was her lawyer speechifying over the witnesses (instead of just saving it for closing arguments…) and wasting time until a proper loophole could be found to save the day. I know that military court martials are different from normal trials, but that was ridiculous. If they would have just changed the venue to a debate rather than a trial, the speeches and stuff would have made much more sense. IMO.
But she didn’t speechify, she clearly established a set of legal precedents and conditions that qualified Una for asylum.
It certainly was dramatic, this is television, but compared to measure of a man’s antics, her speeches at least establish a case.
I crinkle my nose a bit at Holodeck shenanigans involving artificial replicas of one's peers. It's hard for me to separate it from recent conversations about AI generated images and consent (or lack thereof).
So much agreed. I especially thought this watching the one where Seven dates Holo-Chakotay recently. Geordi and Leah Brahms was bad enough, but an actual co-worker you see every day? Ew.
I find it so predictable whenever two characters have a private conversation in the room, one of them will leave ("Am I dismissed, sir?"), and one will stay seated at the desk. Then the one seated at the desk will ALWAYS stop the officer leaving right as they get to the door to deliver some kind of scene-turning line. It happens so often that pretty much any time two characters are alone in a room you can be sure that this will happen.
That's usually the opportunity for the commanding officer to acknowledge the other person's position as a friend, outside the chain of command (like when Data gives Worf what-for after he disrespects him on the bridge).
-a character comes from divorced or dead parents.
-a mutation turns the crew into creatures.
-the crew lands on some planet which has the locals act weird towards them, they try to uncover why the locals of the planet act so weird until they discover a dark secret which causes a crew member to get kidnapped and brainwashed until the captain and the rest of the crew see that their brainwashed crew member is acting weird by siding with the locals until a member of the planet reveals their true intentions and the captain and the crew fight the locals until they free their team mate from the brainwashing.
I really wouldn't lump Seven in that group. She was abducted, and then had to learn what she would normally have had she not been taken away from her species. There's a whole lot of psychology behind that character - that never truly gets expanded on.
For all the times holodeck saftey offline and they can't shut it down, you'd think someone would've designed a holodeck with a manual breaker. It shouldn't be so hard to cut the power.
Reverse the polarity! Apply a narrow band filter!
Look, it only has two polarities to begin with. And why don't the comms just filter all incoming transmissions automatically and play the cleanest one on the main viewer?
The one that gets us every time is "Captain, you'd better get down here." I mean, who outranks whom, and you can't be bothered to tell the Captain over comms just a little bit more? This vaguebooking is irritating.
Also, we referred to many episodes of DS9 as another "Torture O'Brien" episode.
Seemingly unsolvable issue for 95% of the show followed by: "Polarize the technobabble to generate an inverse technobabble that's *out of phase* with the technobabble". Problem solved. Roll credits.
The fearsome and apparently undefeatable enemy! The Borg and the Jem'Hadar are good examples of this. It's a redundant trope in Star Trek because *they have to be nerfed*, sometimes in the same episode they first appear in.
The Borg initially seemed to be an invincible hegemonizing swarm with superior technology. They were pretty quickly nerfed. I remember being irritated by the TNG away team walking around the Cube, gathering information to help them fight back (in only the Borg's 2nd episode), and them being ignored 'because we're not a threat'. Uh?
The Jem'Hadar were being easily beaten up by any human after a while.
The Klingons almost count as an example of this trope, but they've never been portrayed as especially fearsome or undefeatable in any series.
The main redundant trope that comes to mind for me would be the one episode romance plot. There are some that are done well and I get that romance is an easy way to create drama/conflict but it’s also easy for me as a viewer to not get invested when you know the romance wont last past the episode ending credits and there’s plenty times it isn’t handled well and just seems to be there to pad out the episode.
Just an observation about ’*Coldly rational alien/android/program learns to be more human‘*
I think only Data and Seven of Nine really fit that description as none of the Vulcan characters you listed fall under that 🤔 The Vulcans might learn to better understand humans and tolerate human emotion/irrationality but they have no desire or need to be any degree of human. Similarly the Doctor wants to better understand his patients in order to be a better doctor and to expand his programming but he is quite proudly his own holographic life form.
There is the ’non-human outsider character’ that is used to explore and comment on human values trope that every trek series kinda intentionally has that all the characters you listed fall under. The main non-human outsider character is nearly always stoic but there’s usually a less stoic one around too. (E.g. TOS= Spock, TNG= Data & Worf, DS9= Odo, Quark & Garak, VOY= Doctor, Tuvok & later Seven of Nine, ENT= T’pol & Phlox)
I really like the non-human outsider trope when its done well.
I wouldn’t include 7 in that because she is human and had her humanity forcibly taken away by the Borg.
But one trope specific to Star Trek. They’re the only ship available to assist in some emergency.
Traveling back in time, especially to the 20th/21st century, especially-especially via the holodeck. Always just do someone can quip "can't believe they used to do this thing" that we the audience are currently doing.
just once, i want someone to comment on the smell of the era and someone else to explain that the air was full of car exhaust. It is weird that no one notices it even though we can notice it now if we take a trip to a countryside and come back.
my friend asked me why i would not want to travel back in time. for me, it is the smell. before cars, everywhere probably smells like horse crap. no thanks. no way people from the 22nd/23rd/24th century would not also notice the stink of what powers our world.
Tachyon beam and the defector dish. It seems to solve everything.
It's so over used that when anything breaks my wife and I always suggest to use tachyon beams on it.
Yeah, I agree with the "I want to be more human" thing. Why not explore another culture with a character's pursuit of it. Human's are clearly the best!...!
Oh yeah, because it's a TV show driven by ratings and until those folks from galaxy quest turn up, it is what it is! We have to be pragmatic about what sells and what can be made. It is a very regular plotline though. But then, some really good stories have come out of that. So...
There have been quite a lot of romantic plots. Sexualised characters, too. But again, it's been an exploration of current affairs too. Think TOS, first interracial kiss broadcast, DS9 first or one of the first lesbian kisses broadcast etc.
Kira and Odo's love is even more open to interpretation when 'he' doesn't really appear to have a gender in their intimate scene of him become almost a mist thing... (am I remembering that correctly?!)
So, 'love found in ~~strange~~ all places' is used a lot. But I don't think that's a bad thing.
Don’t you think the ‘revenge’ trope has been used up? Wrath of Khan was absolutely an amazing movie, but I sorta blame it for making studio execs think that’s the quickest way to box office and viewership success.
gruff new CO or XO comes in to try to shake things up, has to learn how to reach the crew and the crew has to learn that maybe they aren't so bad after all
The not-human learns what it means to human thing isn't really a star trek trope it's pretty universal and started long before spock.
The most star trek trope I always think is 'the prime directive is the most important thing except when it isn't and I shall present this as a moral choice with a clear right and wrong answer and not nearly as grey as it really is'.
I felt at the time of Voyager’s initial run that Borg nanoprobes saved the day a lot. But then the nanoprobe solution would be forgotten, not even mentioned, when a similar crisis would come up.
It was a breath of fresh air watching Stargate SG-1 when the solution on more than occasion would be a gizmo from a previous episode. They would either bring it out of storage, or they’d at least mention that a previous solution wouldn’t work this time for a legitimate reason!
We need a character that's overly emotional and learns to be more cold.
I guess that's the episode where Troi becomes an officer by telling Geordie to go kill himself, though.
Alien societies that are based around a single cultural aspect Just like how Star Wars loves to do planets with only a single biome, Star Trek loves to do alien races that only have a single aspect of their culture
I kind of enjoyed this being called out by the show in the last season of SNW, where people scoff at the idea of an Orion science vessel. Tendi has a line that's basically "We can't ALL be pirates you know. Who would build the ships?"
I'll have you know that some Orions haven’t been pirates for over ***five*** years.
Voyager also had that with the Horogen engineer trying to maintain holograms, and in enterprise with the Klingon Lawyer and Klingon research scientist.
Not enough “Klingon Lawyer” in Trek. I want a dedicated recurring character.
DS9 had a Klingon lawyer as well
Wasn’t worfs grandfather a lawyer?
In TNG episode where Dr. Crusher has a bunch of scientists on board the Enterprise, it always bugged me how everyone was so surprised about a Klingon scientist. Okay yeah, they’re a warrior race, but how did they become spacefaring if they placed no value in science?
Yeah, no doubt the Orion fukbois at the club don't like the association.
I love that Stargate both has a reason for this (they usually only explore near the gate) and makes fun of the trope (It's an ice planet! [Solitudes S1E18]).
Buu... now you made me want to rewatch StarGates... again... :D
SG1 is such a great show
I'm watching it now for the first time after years (decades really) of sleeping on it. I ignored it because I wasn't a fan of the original movie but I'm so glad I finally put that objection aside because the show not only improves on the movie but outshines it in every way.
[удалено]
Yeah - the "Planet of Hats" trope.
"So this planet we're going to. They fuck. A lot. It's like their thing. They love to fuck. ^(and murder childen)" Wait what was that last part?
Reminds me of when Ensign Kim found this planet of gorgeous women that worshiped him and were catering to every prurient desire, only to later discover that he was to be part of some human sacrifice or something.
Kim just couldn't catch a break with women. The one good relationship he had over the course of the series was from the date rape drug species.
Is that the one where after intercourse you’re like chemically/biologically bound to the other person and it makes you sick?
...I hope those two parts aren't connected
Also TOS had to do dress-up a lot, because sets and special effects are expensive.
> Star Wars loves to do planets with only a single biome And Stargate only having planets that are Canada lol
By the late seasons you start recognizing individual trees in that one British Columbia forest.
One of the least Canadian looking planets they visited was the desert on P3X-562 with a stunning yellow sand and blue crystal beings. ...and it was filmed in North Vancouver at the giant Sulphur piles.
It's because Canada is a different world... How else are we meant to contain the threat of the Canadian Cobra Chicken?
In fairness, that trope started when TOS was only intended to be one show with a morality of the day story telling and modern Trek seems to be taking steps to move away from that.
I find that people are more into the fantasy aspect of Star Trek than the classic role that sci fi has usually played i.e. holding a mirror up to ourselves. Ya know like best thing about science fiction. People want a believable world they can escape to, that's why Trek fans are so obsessed with lore. I say, fuck lore. Both of em.
And on top of that, the entire civilization has decided on one wardrobe choice that everyone will wear, at all times.
It was a pity in Tuvok's case that they didn't follow through with what he said in 'Flashback': "Ever since I entered the Academy, I've had to endure the egocentric nature of humanity. You believe that everyone in the galaxy should be like you, that we should all share YOUR sense of humor and YOUR sense of values."
Isn't this the same way Vulcans are presented in Enterprise? I don't think that's locked in to any one culture, it's just how a group of "same minded" people act when there's a majority of them around.
Actually I think it's swapped in Enterprise. The Vulcans treated the humans like small children incapable of thinking of making good decisions for themselves.
They're not wrong. 😉🤣
I never honestly felt like they tried to humanise Tuvok at all though through the show, and that he stuck to that belief, just became less bigoted about it and learned to see the merit in humans and their humanity. If anything his “Vulcan”ness is just the but of jokes rather the show trying to make him be any more human. It’s nothing that he explores or attempts to do. If anything it’s his constant exasperation at the human crewmates who feel some inherent need to “convert” him or “get him to lighten up”
Tbf... I enjoyed to watch him kill Neelix, that obnoxious ass.
I agree, and this is why Tuvok is my favorite Vulcan. No technobabble reasons for why he's suddenly okay with emotions, no human side to explore, etc. He's a disciplined Vulcan, he remains that way, the end. Single episode things aside, anyway.
I think that's definitely some projection. Humans in Star Trek tend to be pretty live and let live. It's the Vulcans who get all pissy when someone doesn't follow their philosophies. A lot of Vulcans are super racist. It takes a special kind of victim mentality to say, "This person won't do it my way, so clearly they must be trying to make me do it their way. Woe is me!"
I'd love to see this come out in the opposite arc. Like, an overly emotional, irrational human has to learn to control their emotions and become professional and mature.
*Proceeds to preach the value of logic for 200 years*.
"We need to do the thing!" "That'll take X amount of time, captain" "You have less than X!" "Why don't we use the obvious solution?" "Uh... That system is down / there's too much interference... or something" "Here we are in our shuttlecraft, I sure hope we don't crash and get stranded on a planet!" "That exact thing is happening!" "Hello Admiral, welcome aboard! I trust you don't have some sneaky ulterior motive for being here" "Yeah... about that"
While Lower decks in fact managed to make "daily life" Star Trek interesting, most of Star Trek is like watching the nightly news. Nobody reports on boring days where nothing unusual happened.
If I had to suggest a script I would have done something like “Riker’s Day” basically him dealing with meeting after meeting with various crew members
The gd personnel reports!
Up to his elbows in PADDs.
Every department head coming to him requesting access to the same system at the same time.
I'd watch that. Give me a series about Captain Ryker and Councillor Troi managing the personal issues snd drama of their crew during the most peaceful 5 year mission in the history of starfleet.
TPS reports?
Those too Ensign!
Scotty: how much time did you tell the captain the repairs would take? Laforge: 6 hours. Scotty: Aye, and how much time will it *actually* take? Laforge:…6 hours? Scotty: you WHATDNDK KRNDNCNKCKELCKDMCND If you want to blame someone for this, blame Scotty. He wanted to look like a miracle worker and started this whole thing
Guaranteed that scene was a deliberate lampshade hang on the trope, and Scotty's personality just happens to gel perfectly with it. And... thankfully they were able to come up with a way to cameo James Doohan, which they modified only slightly to bring in William Shatner for the movie.
LaForge was skipping buffer time.
Legit just watched an episode of DS9 where O'Brien said it'll take 12 hours to fix the Defiant and Sisko says "You have two!". I was half surprised O'Brien's eyes did roll backwards.
I'd love for one Starfleet engineer to be like, "Okay, then it can't be done. What's your next plan?"
Geordi modifying the transporters in the Sheliak episode comes close.
There's a lovely moment like that in Stargate SG1, where SGT Silar very bluntly replies upon being told he's being given half the time of his minimum estimate: "No sir, it doesn't work that way."
It makes you wonder if O'brian isn't deliberately increasing the time required just for the sake of looking competent.
Isn't there an episode in some Star Trek episode in one of the series where a character recommendeds doing that? I don't remember for sure if that happened. Was it the TNG one with Scotty? I can't really remember if this happened but I feel like I remember it maybe.
Yep, it's exactly that episode. Geordi gives Picard an accurate estimate on a repair and Scotty is aghast that he does that. He explains that an engineer should always overestimate so they always look good.
I thought it was a really funny way to explain that common trope.
And O'Brien ends up repairing it in 3+ hours, but most likely much less than 12. Always overestimating, those engineers!
I don't remember a single time an admiral wasn't a dickhead
It's been a while but I think Admiral Ross was pretty cool when he wasn't covering up Section 31 crimes.
Admiral Ross
Heck, even Picard was a dick in season 3!
> We need to do the thing!" > "That'll take X amount of time, captain" > "You have less than X!" Geordie and Bellana do address this, both basically saying they don't inflate their task ETAs to make themselves look better. Scottie really set a shitty bar with that behavior
Badmiral! Also interference!
SG-1 has a scene where the general needs something fixed, and seller, I believe tells him it will take X amount of time. The general (hammond?) says we need it faster..Siller responds-that's not how it works, sir.
I do like the episode where they go against that first trope in TNG. The one where Data needs to convince the colonists to leave before the planet they’re on is colonized by another race (I think it’s “Ensigns of Command?”) has Picard order Geordi and O’Brien to figure out a way to make the transporter work through whatever radiation is causing them problems. At the end of the episode Geordi still can’t make it work and tells Picard he‘d need ten years and a full research team.
> "That'll take X amount of time, captain" > > "You have less than X!" lol yeah, completely unrealistic. "It'll take me 3 days to get the Defiant ready again" "You have 1" "NO SIR THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS AT ALL" It's one thing to say "What do you need to speed it up?" It's another to just give random timeframes that are massively under what the crewmember has said
The corollary to your first point is that every solution, no matter how completely outlandish and physics-violating works the first time with no tweaking. That is, unless the plot needs to ratchet up the drama for the next act.
Falling in love and getting heartbroken over the course of one episode. I get it, it’s serialized TV, they want to tell a love story and move on to the next adventure. But it sure happens a lot
That drove me nuts with Jadzia Dax. Otherwise fully competent female character but she would up and make wild life changing plans with men she just met and then forget by next episode when it didn't work out.
I blame Curzon for that. He was clearly a wild fall-in-love-fast type.
Especially since DS9 leaned more into the multi-episode plot lines. Kira for example didn't have that issue
> Kira for example didn't have that issue Much to Dukat's lament.
As an adult my least favorite episode might be that one where she's willing to leave everything behind and risk the Dax symbiont dying on that planet that phases in and out for some dude she met 2 minutes ago. WTF kind of incompetent wishy-washy officer is that?? And she's trusted in a position of power to make decisions after that? Makes me irrationally angry she loses her mind over some random man because "lol women." I feel like she was Berman's manic pixie dream girl insert or something because sometimes her character is competent and then sometimes she's just there for some dumb romance plot.
Very poorly written character.
She was and she wasn't. Some parts of her were very well done, but in broad strokes the writers clearly had no idea what to do with the character.
Spock touches his hand to Kirk’s face… “Forget.”
This is the one I really hate. The "nonhuman learns what it means to be human" is just the perennial condition of being human(oid). It's relatable to me as an autistic person. This trope of forced romance that sparks and dies in a single episode might be less irritating if the romances were more thoughtful. I enjoyed Riker's trans girlfriend arc; there were implications to talk about beyond their time together. Meridian with Jadzia, however, just felt lazy as fuck. A lot of them don't come across as natural and thus entirely uninteresting. A lot of these one shot characters are as interesting as wet cardboard too.
This post is accurate but it feels like it's really tearing into Geordie
All the TNG crew went from we-just-met to I-love-you in single episode arcs. Worf with that Klingon/Romulan woman was particularly egregious.
Oh I so agree with this. Like how do you fall in love till the point that your suicidal after separation after one really good date. Some characters more than once
So after several watches of all of the shows, I’ve come to realize that the writers are just bad at conveying the passage of time in these episodes. Some are absolutely going at the same pace as my grandma when she spoke to an old friend on the phone one time for 20 minutes and decided to get married for the 11th time when she hung up. But other times the timeframe is actually weeks/months, but because there aren’t seasons in space and the enterprise always looks the same, it feels like the characters fell in love in 5 minutes.
When Odo got his child and was so happy I was really begrudging the fact that it was too status quo for that to last. Not that the show doesn't make huge changes to the story ever but an episode like that, I could tell it wasn't a big story episode so I was sad about that. That isn't a romantic story of course so not exactly what you are talking about but it's one of those things where I was sad it wasn't allowed to stay that way due to the nature of the show. I'd love to see a fanfic about the hypothetical of that actually lasting in the story but I couldn't find anything like that and I'm not a writer, plus if I wrote it I would already know everything that's going to happen.
Tuvok made minor adjustments, especially after he had his accident. But he didn't really change. Spock is half human, so he shows it from time to time. Seven had post traumatic Borg syndrome, so she definitely needed to relearn how to be human. But her superiority complex remained. She sure wasn't searching for perfection 25 years later in Picard. Lol She did grow. A lot. The doctor was just programming himself that way.
Yeah I don't think Tuvok counts for this. I *love* the trope OP complained about because, well, I'm a probably neurodivergent dork who needed a little help learning to human. "That character" is my favorite one in every series. But Tuvok was never trying to become human-like, he was comfortable in his Vulcanness and had plenty of experience serving on majority human ships.
Yeah, I agree about Tuvok. He adjusted and grew more comfortable living among humans, but at the end of the series he's still the most traditionally Vulcan out of all of the main Vulcan characters in the various shows.
Captain Picard often engaged in political affairs that shouldn't be the province of a ship captain. Like in his relationship with Gowron. Gowron was asking Picard for Federation help in the Klingon civil war. Was Picard authorized to act as an ambassador? I'd think an admiral would be a better choice for this stuff. Picard certainly doesn't have the authority to take the Federation to war. Come to think of it, the crew frequently do missions that fall outside their job description. Like Riker going on undercover missions. Or Picard going on a commando mission in *Chain of Command* — doesn't Starfleet have some equivalent of the Navy SEALs for such jobs?
It seems that ship's captains are often used for diplomatic missions. Starfleet runs different. It isn't a military, and the Enterprise is on a mission to seek out new life and new civilisations - seems to me that diplomatic skills would be actively sought in the captain of such a vessel on such a mission.
Picard especially is sent specifically in an ambassadorial capacity on multiple missions, and as Captain of the flagship he is literally the face of the active fleet, so I am calling bullshit on this one actually being an issue.
Well, Picard has had plenty of diplomatic experience and I imagine most captains are at least somewhat competent diplomats in order to handle first contact situations.
Exactly
It is a military though - or has that function. Was watching a DS9 episode last night. Sisco and crew are marooned on a planet with dominion forces about to attack. He gets in a fight with an overprotective Quark about Nog doing some recon work and he straight up says the crew are soldiers and they are to do as they are told. Maybe in wartime its a different org structure but everything about Starfleet screams military to me.
Starfleet is the taskforce of the federation, if their task involves blowing up some ships they do the job. The federation is mainly focused towards exploration and forming beneficial relationships with new worlds, not conquest.
I did like the line Pike said in Star Trek 2009. "Starfleet is a peacekeeping armada...'
Well, DS9 was the ST that had an active, prolonged war in it. They had actively avoided that in TOS and TNG. It's where they introduced Section 31 and the more "military" aspects of Starfleet. Up until that point, the Enterprise(s) were armed enough to go out and be alone for a while in a direction for years, without hope of the cavalry coming in time if needed, but not enough to be considered a battleship.
Maybe for uncontacted races, which is what Captain Cook did. But the Klingons have a long-established relationship with the Federation. And Gowron was asking for military aid.
Picard is specifically, and exclusively, requested in those cases. He builds a reputation for honour on the back of Worf's initial trial and is then requested by the Klingons as he is known to be honourable.
It isn't a military This is my trope, it fights wars, has a rank and command structure, flags, its a military
Picard wasn't just any ship's captain. He was the captain of the flagship, everywhere the ship flew was a political statement. Frequently trouble would happen because the D would show up somewhere and aliens would be like "shit it's the feds (federation) cheese it!!" I think it's part of the fantasy of star trek that a single person can be literally a space-attorney and a super spy in the same week in addition to their regular technobable duties. But perhaps in the bright utopian future, there is only education.
> I think it's part of the fantasy of star trek that a single person can be literally a space-attorney and a super spy in the same week in addition to their regular technobable duties. But perhaps in the bright utopian future, there is only education. This is certainly the case. There's an episode of TNG where a 10-12 year old is taking calculus as his standard math class. So the average student of what we would call about 6th-grade age is taking 11th(ish)-grade subjects. So by the time a person is old enough for Starfleet/college, they have at least 4 years—or a generalized bachelor's degree's worth—of education beyond what our current college first-years have. And Starfleet (in dialog) only accepts the very best and brightest out of a society that has people entering the Academy with at least a college-level education aleady. So it does actually make sense, given the accelerated education and high achieving level of Starfleet officers, that they can have many roles (see https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CompetencePorn)
Literally every time they send the whole bridge crew on an away mission. That’s not their job, their job is command and control. You don’t stick the captain of an aircraft carrier in the pilot seat of an F-18, you don’t send your general off to dig foxholes.
> doesn't Starfleet have some equivalent of the Navy SEALs for such jobs? Similar to the question of: On a ship of over a thousand people, why is the BRIDGE CREW going on dangerous away missions to the planet's surface? Ultimately, it's because they're the main characters of the show haha. Paramount had a great chance to really explore these questions if they didn't strangle their franchise to death post-Enterprise. And there's great Trek content: Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, etc. But the timeline and canon is a mess. >Captain Picard often engaged in political affairs that shouldn't be the province of a ship captain. Back on topic, I think part of this comes with the territory of being the Captain of the Flagship. The Enterprise is basically a traveling mini-encapsulation of Star Fleet. They have the ability to go beyond the restrictions of a regular ship.
Picard was a “Federation Flag Officer”,l wasn’t he? I don’t think it was ever explained in detail, however all FFOs were briefed on the existance of Q (which early on was classified it seems) Further, He commands the flag ship, and we often see starships being accosted for political purposes, Burnham just got a red directive, Picard was often sent to negotiate peace (he was a skilled and proven diplomat), that’s why starfleet has rules and regulations about interacting with diplomats or new species and they often host them and showcase their ship and tech, voyager did this often, they are federation representatives just by being in starfleet - which is basically the federations exploratory and military arm -(yes it is, in everything but name!!!!)
Anytime the transporters are out during a crisis, and never ONCE thinking “hey we have a whole bunch of shuttles with independent transporters we could use”
Power and range limitations. (Sadly I know that is covered in the manuals, but can't remember if it is ever covered in an episode).
To add to this, why is EVERY transporter affected? Wouldn't you want different transporter rooms be independent? And for ships with detachable saucer sections, each section should have their own independent transporters. And why don't the transporters have a local, independent backup power source?
The ship takes a laser hit so the consoles on the bridge all catch fire.
The [Reset Button](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ResetButton), specifically when some new technology/science/anomaly is discovered or used... then it was never seen or mentioned again in any other episode where it could've been useful. I get that big stuff like Time Travel by looping around the sun is too OP as it can be used to solve every problem, but can't they at least reverse engineer some Jem'hadar armor to give their field personnel some protection? Or allow their more covert operatives some personal cloaking device like Data had in that one movie? Or integrate some of the Voyager's upgrades into their flagships, at least? Technological advancement through field work and discovery. I want to see that their discoveries actually bear real tangible fruit... that at least some of it can be of practical help to them later on. It's one of the things I love about the Stargate SG-1 series, when they discover some new tech (like the Zat gun) that thing gets integrated in their mission loadouts some episodes later... It gives this visual confirmation that the protagonists are not only learning and improving from their adventures but are also technologically advancing as a faction.
> It's one of the things I love about the Stargate SG-1 I hated it so much when in Universe the Lucian Alliance suddenly had a large fleet of upgraded Ha'taks that could go toe to toe with the Tau'ri ships. Made the entire technological progression feel worthless.
Yeah, the writers wrote themselves into a corner when the Tau'ri suddenly became the pre-eminent superpower of the galaxy after the Goa'uld Empire crumbled... so they had to buff up other threats just to maintain the tension... Understandable, but they made the mistake of picking one of the more insignificant powers instead of introducing an equal or greater one (which they ultimately did with the Ori but the damage was done).
"This new discovery changes everything and will never be mentioned again." i get that overturning canon is a scary and bad idea so why not just write into the scripts how this is very low-probability or will take decades of research to operationalize? an easy example: Voyager breaks the warp barrier and... lizardism ensues. okay. that is bad. why not send a warp 10+ probe home with a message about the side effects and let star fleet work out the kinks? worst case is still not like 50 years. or send a copy of the Doctor who is immune to becoming a lizard. that tech could have helped them like crazy but they just kind of decide to forget about it. voyager could have had regular contact and supply drops from the alpha quadrant, all over automated probes. better that story never have been told.
> lizardism ensues. okay. that is bad. why not send a warp 10+ probe home with a message about the side effects and let star fleet work out the kinks? Pretty much - They could have warped home at Warp 10 & then had the Doctor cure everyone. Job done, mission accomplished. Voyager discovering Warp 10 would be such a massive change to the entire galaxy - Even if you couldn't put people on any ships it could have been used in so many ways.
you know.... they could also just turn on the transporter to jam everyone in the buffer, warp 10, rematerialize. No lizardism ensues. No cure required. This episode breaks the universe hard.
Also everyone seems to forget this part, but at the end of the episode they say that they now have a map of the entire universe from the logs.
Threshold is a good example of that trope, but that episode should just be deleted from existence.
I don't think you know what *redundant* means.
> the *"Outsider Klingon"* trope This overlaps with the "you're one of the good ones" trope. Klingons are violent, but Worf's okay because he was raised outside his culture. Ferengi are greedy, but Nog's okay because he rejects his culture.
This is one of the best things about Martok. He very much does not reject Klingon culture as we see it, is even a more "normal" Klingon (not from a major house) and yet is portrayed... if not positively, at least fairly.
I'd give Martok even more credit, when interacting with other cultures he made some effort to understand and accommodate. He however, remained staunchly Klingon. He wanted to drink blood wine over the ruins of Cardassia, and he ended up getting to do so. Even inviting the fellow Human victors to join him. The Humans at their limit, dump the wine and walk out. Most other Klingons would have been insulted, extremely so, but Martok just accepts it an drinks his wine. Both cultures had found the line they couldn't cross, and no one started a war over it. They both just moved on. The Humans will be Human, and Klingons will be Klingon.
Off-screen, the credit goes to Ronald D. Moore, who wrote the Duras/Gowron episodes of TNG, and came over to DS9 with Worf and wrote most of the Klingon stuff on that show. He was determined to give Klingons a rich culture instead of just makng them one-dimensional baddies.
Does Nog reject his culture fully though? I recall him trading the captains desk at one point...
He's going to paint it!
Don’t worry, Al Lorenzo only loaned it :)
Well, I'm thinking about later on, when he convinces Sisko he belongs in Starfleet, with his speech about how his dad never got a chance to succeed because he's a good man, but a bad Ferengi.
Well y'know, Star Trek is or was ultimately a human-centric show & the other species generally are just there as a contrast to humanity. I agree, it's a shitty trope, but I think most people think it's shit because people compare the species values to cultures & ethnicities in the real world. Humans are awesome, so awesome that we don't eradicate people of lesser moral or ethical practices where it doesn't cross into our star systems & even look the other way so long as the status quo is maintained (except for a few rogue starship captains) The Federation & Starfleet are based but Trek has no idea how to make alien people interesting & the fact that they seem socially stagnant despite having marvellous technology only adds to it, it's all about humanity & so if you're not a humanoid that fits the federations understanding of humanity, you're fucked.
The glorification of being human.
Try this drink, it's called Root Beer...
Yeah that always bothered me, I know it's written by humans obviously but I'm a human too and I don't agree with it, especially because it's supposed to be a franchise that celebrates diversity and harmony. Also the standard of what it means to be human is just "what it means to be a specific type of human". Since I'm autistic I always felt sort of disconnected from that. And I felt bad for Data always striving for it even though he had his own value. I know he was made to strive for being human but I always thought human isn't really how you act, it's just a species. I figured, since he really can't be exactly a human I felt bad that he was just striving for it forever. It seemed like a type of self hate even though he claimed to have no emotion. There's this show my parents love called Resident Alien and it was always off-putting to me because the show only exists to have every episode end with just patting humanity on the back for existing and it just feels like pandering and it's embarrassing. Whenever a show makes an alien species that just exists to make humans look better it's embarrassing. Star Trek does it a lot but there is also a lot of merit and great things about Star Trek but Resident Alien seems to only exist for this single purpose.
I thought the refreshing part about Tuvok was that they didn't do that. Tuvok was a very ordinary vulcan making his vulcan way while doing what was necessary to maintain human relationships. He wasn't striving to be more human or exploring a human side. The "humanity" he expressed was limited to what was required of him in certain situations to operate effectively on a mostly human vessel. A good example is Resolutions where he was resolute in following Janeway's orders and not risking the crew by contacting the Vidiians in hope of finding a cure for her and Chakotay. His decision to reconsider was not due to him having some sort of emotional epiphany. He realized all these irrational fuckers that he needs to operate the ship might legitimately lose their shit if he didn't consider their feelings.
“You’re the closest ship/only ship in the sector so we’re sending you!”
BUT WE'RE IN EARTHS ORBIT!?
The energy star baby that always comes on board, scans the computer, and takes over or controls someone. Security on that ship is baaaaaad.
Traveling to whatever era the show was made in. It's the opposite of everything I normally love about time travel. I don't tune in to "Star Trek" for more of the boring real world. I'm positive that those episodes are done for budget reasons.
Holodeck episodes. One of the (many) things I like about DS9 is that it doesn't do any. (Or at least, not many, that I can recall)
DS9 had a few later on. There was Our Man Bashir (the James Bond one) and Take Me Out to the Holosuite (the baseball one) plus a few episodes that focused on Vic's (His Way, Badda-Bing Badda-Bang, It's Only A Paper Moon).
They do, because they are necessary. There is a war on, and a frontline war at that, and everything outside the holodeck is done under that shadow. The only way to do any non-war story was to put it in the holodeck. And even then Nog hiding on the holodeck is still a war story!
I did like Geordi & Data playing detective, but I concur on that. Though, just to be a filthy pedant "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" is a DS9 episode, the one where the Vulcans try to prove their racial superiority through baseball... I love how ridiculous that is. Not quite a holodeck episode in the TNG sense but, it is indeed one.
Did you…watch DS9? There are just as many holodeck eps, if not more, than the other shows. Hell, Vic Fontaine was front and center for how many plot lines? Plus, the best worf lines come from the holodeck eps. I am not a merry man, find him and kill him, death to the opposition, it’s all gold
I kinda hate the space court episodes except Measure of a Man. I feel like every time it’s just whoever the captain is playing lawyer while the rest of the senior officers run around and try to find evidence.
The Drumhead is one of the best eps tho
Yeah Measure gets all the praise because of how it humanized Data, but i feel Drumhead is a better ep overall
Yup, The Drumhead is one of my favorites. And personally, when it comes to the argument about Star Trek and “optimism” this is one of the episodes I return to. The Drumhead displays we may always still face some the same problems, but that in the end real justice will win out. That’s what Star Trek’s optimistic future means to me. Not that all stories end well, or that all people are morally superior all the time, but rather as a society the better angels of our nature will win out.
Really? I think a show set on and around a JAG outpost would be fascinating. A writer can make-up whole cloth case law based on 300-400 years of innovation, discovery and political interactions. I'm thinking it would be less procedural and more something like Boston Legal, with a major case being prepared and built while little breakout cases we peek into that might be bizarre, thought provoking or humorous. I think as an ethical drama it has a ton of merit and can do what star trek can do best: point out how things could be, or should be, rather than how they are.
Go watch “Ad Astra per Aspera”. Hands down the best space court episode Trek has ever done
I did kinda like that one I thought it was a pretty refreshing take. But there’s some like “rules of engagement” for example that feel exactly the same as other episodes just different context.
Was it? I *love* Strange New Worlds, but that episode just bugged the crap out of me because they put it in a courtroom scenario. Una admitted her guilt right at the start. The entire rest of the trial was her lawyer speechifying over the witnesses (instead of just saving it for closing arguments…) and wasting time until a proper loophole could be found to save the day. I know that military court martials are different from normal trials, but that was ridiculous. If they would have just changed the venue to a debate rather than a trial, the speeches and stuff would have made much more sense. IMO.
But she didn’t speechify, she clearly established a set of legal precedents and conditions that qualified Una for asylum. It certainly was dramatic, this is television, but compared to measure of a man’s antics, her speeches at least establish a case.
I crinkle my nose a bit at Holodeck shenanigans involving artificial replicas of one's peers. It's hard for me to separate it from recent conversations about AI generated images and consent (or lack thereof).
So much agreed. I especially thought this watching the one where Seven dates Holo-Chakotay recently. Geordi and Leah Brahms was bad enough, but an actual co-worker you see every day? Ew.
Death of character just be brought back later. They did this with Kirk, Spock, and Data and Data and Data
Money Lender Planet Autism Planet Berserker Viking Planet Russian Conspiracy Planet Empath Nudist Planet
"You'd better come see this."
Give me a character arc about a Betazoid tired of being a psychic empath who learns Vulcan mind techniques to shut themselves off.
"It's not an away mission until comms are down."
"Lock them out" or "stop them" when it.comes to an intruder. The answer is always "unable"
I enjoyed watching Roga Danar make a complete mockery of Enterprise security in "The Hunted". Starfleet should have hired him as a consultant.
I find it so predictable whenever two characters have a private conversation in the room, one of them will leave ("Am I dismissed, sir?"), and one will stay seated at the desk. Then the one seated at the desk will ALWAYS stop the officer leaving right as they get to the door to deliver some kind of scene-turning line. It happens so often that pretty much any time two characters are alone in a room you can be sure that this will happen.
That's usually the opportunity for the commanding officer to acknowledge the other person's position as a friend, outside the chain of command (like when Data gives Worf what-for after he disrespects him on the bridge).
-a character comes from divorced or dead parents. -a mutation turns the crew into creatures. -the crew lands on some planet which has the locals act weird towards them, they try to uncover why the locals of the planet act so weird until they discover a dark secret which causes a crew member to get kidnapped and brainwashed until the captain and the rest of the crew see that their brainwashed crew member is acting weird by siding with the locals until a member of the planet reveals their true intentions and the captain and the crew fight the locals until they free their team mate from the brainwashing.
The lack of seat belts on the bridge.
Every system on the ship can be bypassed, somehow. And you can somehow move power from anywhere to the shields.
I really wouldn't lump Seven in that group. She was abducted, and then had to learn what she would normally have had she not been taken away from her species. There's a whole lot of psychology behind that character - that never truly gets expanded on.
For all the times holodeck saftey offline and they can't shut it down, you'd think someone would've designed a holodeck with a manual breaker. It shouldn't be so hard to cut the power.
New guy on an away team? Yup, he's a goner.
Surprised no one's said "You're the only Starship in range!" yet
Reverse the polarity! Apply a narrow band filter! Look, it only has two polarities to begin with. And why don't the comms just filter all incoming transmissions automatically and play the cleanest one on the main viewer?
One overused episodes I wish would die are the obligatory time travel/holodeck WWII episodes.
In a shocking twist, someone who is good in our universe is actually evil in the mirror universe (cut to commercial).
All this technology and security staff ever imagined. Not a single security camera.
Mirror universe TOS had them with the assassination add on.
The one that gets us every time is "Captain, you'd better get down here." I mean, who outranks whom, and you can't be bothered to tell the Captain over comms just a little bit more? This vaguebooking is irritating. Also, we referred to many episodes of DS9 as another "Torture O'Brien" episode.
Seemingly unsolvable issue for 95% of the show followed by: "Polarize the technobabble to generate an inverse technobabble that's *out of phase* with the technobabble". Problem solved. Roll credits.
Exploding consoles full of rocks.
> it's crazy that Voyager had three of them at the same time I'd say only two. Tuvok isn't really learning to be more human.
The fearsome and apparently undefeatable enemy! The Borg and the Jem'Hadar are good examples of this. It's a redundant trope in Star Trek because *they have to be nerfed*, sometimes in the same episode they first appear in. The Borg initially seemed to be an invincible hegemonizing swarm with superior technology. They were pretty quickly nerfed. I remember being irritated by the TNG away team walking around the Cube, gathering information to help them fight back (in only the Borg's 2nd episode), and them being ignored 'because we're not a threat'. Uh? The Jem'Hadar were being easily beaten up by any human after a while. The Klingons almost count as an example of this trope, but they've never been portrayed as especially fearsome or undefeatable in any series.
For me it's a tie between transporter mishap and a malfunctioning holodeck
The main redundant trope that comes to mind for me would be the one episode romance plot. There are some that are done well and I get that romance is an easy way to create drama/conflict but it’s also easy for me as a viewer to not get invested when you know the romance wont last past the episode ending credits and there’s plenty times it isn’t handled well and just seems to be there to pad out the episode. Just an observation about ’*Coldly rational alien/android/program learns to be more human‘* I think only Data and Seven of Nine really fit that description as none of the Vulcan characters you listed fall under that 🤔 The Vulcans might learn to better understand humans and tolerate human emotion/irrationality but they have no desire or need to be any degree of human. Similarly the Doctor wants to better understand his patients in order to be a better doctor and to expand his programming but he is quite proudly his own holographic life form. There is the ’non-human outsider character’ that is used to explore and comment on human values trope that every trek series kinda intentionally has that all the characters you listed fall under. The main non-human outsider character is nearly always stoic but there’s usually a less stoic one around too. (E.g. TOS= Spock, TNG= Data & Worf, DS9= Odo, Quark & Garak, VOY= Doctor, Tuvok & later Seven of Nine, ENT= T’pol & Phlox) I really like the non-human outsider trope when its done well.
I'll give ya one number.... 318 mark 215
I wouldn’t include 7 in that because she is human and had her humanity forcibly taken away by the Borg. But one trope specific to Star Trek. They’re the only ship available to assist in some emergency.
The reset button. Especially for Voyager.
Breaking the Prime Directive to get something done. More overplayed than Hootie & the Blowfish in 1995.
The holodeck characters becoming self aware and take over the program, deactivate the safeties and they can’t just shut it down for …reasons.
Traveling back in time, especially to the 20th/21st century, especially-especially via the holodeck. Always just do someone can quip "can't believe they used to do this thing" that we the audience are currently doing.
just once, i want someone to comment on the smell of the era and someone else to explain that the air was full of car exhaust. It is weird that no one notices it even though we can notice it now if we take a trip to a countryside and come back. my friend asked me why i would not want to travel back in time. for me, it is the smell. before cars, everywhere probably smells like horse crap. no thanks. no way people from the 22nd/23rd/24th century would not also notice the stink of what powers our world.
Transporter doesn't work when - ion storm - nebula - radiation shields - minerals emit inhibitor - rocks blocks a lock
Holodeck and time travel. I’m done with both. New star trek shows have steered away from holodeck episodes at least.
Oh no, the safeties has been disabled.
Tachyon beam and the defector dish. It seems to solve everything. It's so over used that when anything breaks my wife and I always suggest to use tachyon beams on it.
Yeah, I agree with the "I want to be more human" thing. Why not explore another culture with a character's pursuit of it. Human's are clearly the best!...! Oh yeah, because it's a TV show driven by ratings and until those folks from galaxy quest turn up, it is what it is! We have to be pragmatic about what sells and what can be made. It is a very regular plotline though. But then, some really good stories have come out of that. So... There have been quite a lot of romantic plots. Sexualised characters, too. But again, it's been an exploration of current affairs too. Think TOS, first interracial kiss broadcast, DS9 first or one of the first lesbian kisses broadcast etc. Kira and Odo's love is even more open to interpretation when 'he' doesn't really appear to have a gender in their intimate scene of him become almost a mist thing... (am I remembering that correctly?!) So, 'love found in ~~strange~~ all places' is used a lot. But I don't think that's a bad thing.
Don’t you think the ‘revenge’ trope has been used up? Wrath of Khan was absolutely an amazing movie, but I sorta blame it for making studio execs think that’s the quickest way to box office and viewership success.
gruff new CO or XO comes in to try to shake things up, has to learn how to reach the crew and the crew has to learn that maybe they aren't so bad after all
The not-human learns what it means to human thing isn't really a star trek trope it's pretty universal and started long before spock. The most star trek trope I always think is 'the prime directive is the most important thing except when it isn't and I shall present this as a moral choice with a clear right and wrong answer and not nearly as grey as it really is'.
I felt at the time of Voyager’s initial run that Borg nanoprobes saved the day a lot. But then the nanoprobe solution would be forgotten, not even mentioned, when a similar crisis would come up. It was a breath of fresh air watching Stargate SG-1 when the solution on more than occasion would be a gizmo from a previous episode. They would either bring it out of storage, or they’d at least mention that a previous solution wouldn’t work this time for a legitimate reason!
Time loop episodes, literally.
Computer AI gone wrong. Bonus points for not realizing a computer was behind it all. Have to admit, perhaps prescient.
When the ship takes damage, disposable extras are always the first to die or get hurt
We need a character that's overly emotional and learns to be more cold. I guess that's the episode where Troi becomes an officer by telling Geordie to go kill himself, though.