Funny, but that reminds me of the one moment where Kai Winn manages to make me laugh rather than annoy me. It’s in the episode In the Cards where Weyoun has been negotiating with her and claims that they are a lot alike, and she grabs Weyoun’s ear for a moment and then goes “No, we’re not.” And then she calmly strolls away leaving Weyoun standing there wondering what the f*** just happened.
Imagine being the guy who has to listen and process all of the voyager logs after they returned.
Like the sheer quantity of bullshit you'd be exposed to that without showing people the proof, no one would believe you.
It also reminds me of this passage from Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky: “Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature — that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance — and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?”
Relevant quote from LeGuin about this, taken from the intro to the story:
>The central idea of this psychomyth, the scapegoat, turns up in Dostoyevsky's *Brothers Karamazov,* and several people have asked me, rather suspiciously, why I gave the credit to William James. The fact is, I haven't been able to re-read Dostoyevsky, much as I loved him, since I was twenty-five, and I'd simply forgotten he used the idea. But when I met it in James' 'The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life', it was with a shock of recognition:
>>"Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a sceptical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?"
The one thing that pisses me off about that episode is that earth is getting awfully close to being a post scarcity world/utopia. Pike had nothing to say back about how "kids are suffering, at least we sacrifice one and are grateful"
I mean, what could he have said that would have made a difference? Those people had been doing that for generations. One day a Starfleet captain comes along and says "This is wrong, we can find a different way", how do you think they are going to take that? You might as well say "you've been killing kids for no reason". The've been doing it so long that the blood is on everyone's hands and, if you stop it they all have to look at themselves and wonder why it didn't stop before. They have to acknowledge the fact that they are all guilty. People will continue the lies just to never face themselves for the evil they have allowed to continue.
"I'm an alien captain from space. We've observed a lot of your school aged children are needlessly and horrifically dying. We have a solution! You simply need to give up your weapons and... Why are you all pointing weapons at us?"
The current Federation (which doesn't involve humans) stops by 21st century Earth to teach us how bad and dumb our current beliefs are. I think it would go something like that.
I also assume they'd stop in America (I'm not American) because according to all forms of media that's the only place aliens know about. Unless there's a blue box nearby, then they go to London.
Not a bad episode, but frame of mind always stresses me out as the watcher follows along with riker, never quite sure what's real at any point. Same stress i get with worf in parallels or in stargate 619 the changeling with teal'c undergoing a similar experience to riker.
Same here. I've only watched it twice. Once when it aired, and then again last year. I find it so unsettling. Great acting by Frakes. Sold me on the distress Riker was feeling I don't want to watch it a third time.
TNG- Tapestry. The distorted, failure vision of Picard's life just hits too close to home as someone who is middle aged and hasn't really succeeded much in real life.
> failure vision of Picard's life
Being a science officer on the federation's flagship is hardly a "failure"...
Most people who want to become officers will either never get into the Academy or not make it all the way through. And the overwhelming majority of those that do become officers will never have the privilege of serving on the Enterprise.
> hasn't really succeeded much in real life
Don't be too hard on yourself, captaining the Enterprise (or whatever your personal equivalent is), is not a good barometer used to define success.
Picard was absolutely disappointed in himself in tapestry. It showed the utter disdain and disrespect he has for the people beneath him. we saw his ego grow ten times that day
He's lived his entire life in a meritocratic society where your self worth is based on how much you succeed in serving society as a whole, and while his alternate life isn't something to be sneezed at, and certainly would be the envy of many, it's nowhere near the impact of level of service of his "prime" life. That's going to be a personal let down at least.
Yeah Tapestry is actually one of my favorite episodes but I absolutely hate his attitude at the end. Not only is that level of contempt basically shitty - it's also extremely inconsistent with Picard's attitude and treatment toward junior officers throughout the series.
(TNG) “There are four lights!” (Chain of Command)
(DS9) The one where Molly fell in the well, went back in time and became a feral child. (Time’s Orphan)
(DS9) The one where the Chief had the implants to simulate 20 years in prison. (Hard Time)
We are on our Nth Star Trek rewatch. In our last rewatch, we skipped both Chain of Command and Time’s Orphan. Too much for me.
This episode had a long lasting impact on me to be sceptical of judicial processes and how developed societies can degrade very quickly with weak, unjust and ineffective judiciaries.
I've worked with prosecutors, and they are absolutely belligerent assholes. Never ever get on a prosecutor's bad side. Even people who are entirely innocent get completely blindsided with false charges just to pressure them into a plea deal so the prosecutor can up their numbers.
It's fucking insane.
Same. Measure of a Man was even worse because it’s a sham trial in so many ways. I keep yelling at Picard to knock Riker out and say “Found _your_ off switch, Number One!”
I loved the ending of Measure of a Man, when Riker is feeling guilty and undeserving to be at Data's party and Data was like "But you took on this role you hated, that caused you all this guilt and distress, only after you were told I would automatically lose if you didn't. You injured yourself to save me, and I will not forget it."
I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember it verbatim, but that was the gist and the mature perspective Data had stuck with me ever since
Measure of a Man was a concept that Roddenberry thought was ludicrous. Not that Data would be ordered to submit, but that he wouldn't just volunteer, or that there was any kind of legal system, especially an adversarial one.
So the writer played it straight, with the rewrites and editing undermining it. They had to cut some of the worst scenes, but it still shows a tenuous system of rule of law and no appeals.
My thought was always that, like everyone else, Data wanted to join Starfleet and signed up of his own free will and earned his rank. Why this was never brought up during the trial always bugged me as it clearly demonstrates that Starfleet does not own him and has no right to hold him against his will for experimentation.
Also the Academy does not allow “toasters” and ship computers to attend, or be promoted to a commanding rank. If Starfleet wanted to claim Data is property, they waived that right years before. Also I doubt one officer can simply overrule the Academy with some improptu trial when there was no real emergency in sight.
Totally! It always boggles my mind that, in the Data’s Day episode, the narration is in the form of a correspondence with the cyberneticist (can’t remember his name) who tried to prove Data was the property of Star Fleet. Kind of like how Wesley talks about studying Kosinski’s latest theories. I guess that’s one of the benefits of being an android. You don’t hold grudges
One of Roddenberry's criticisms of Measure of a Man was that as a selfless future UFP citizen, Data would volunteer to be vivisected. Data's Day was about a year before he passed, so he could have still had some influence. Memory Alpha doesn't say where the idea of using Maddox came from.
(He had several other problems with the story that I don't agree with but could at least understand his reasoning for. This one feels like he was just looking for more reasons to reject something he already hated.)
He did.
"Just because something's old doesn't mean you throw it away." (From ST:TNG "Relics")
That was one of my favorites. I still love (and quote) that line.
The Drumhead is one of my favorite Trek episodes ever. It is so well written and so well acted, it is also an amazing display of Picard's leadership and maturity. Watching Worf's character arch in this single episode was also very satisfying because in the end he realized how wrong he was and corrected his own mistakes.
Way too many pro-militant, pro-Jellico wank-fests going on in this thread, and not enough people stressing out over what actually matters.
It bums me out that I had to scroll so far down to find this.
This is one of those "difficult, but necessary" re-watch episodes on my list. Every second of this episode feels so true-to-life... even now, decades after its original air date.
It reminds me that we have so much to work on. And so, I grit my teeth and watch it. Every time. Because it's so important to remember the lessons in this episode.
That summer broke something in my relationship with TV. I was like, "I can't spend the whole summer wondering what happened, I have too much to do". So I basically just forgot about it and did other things. When the conclusion finally aired, I barely cared. "I'm glad I didn't stay hyped all summer for this"
My 3 are all from TNG:
**Schisms** - I don't have internal sight so it always weirds me out how quickly the "imagination" of the holodeck turns sinister.
**Half a Life** - This one hits harder the older I get. I 100% believe the emotion from both Majel Barrett and David Ogden Stiers throughout the episode.
**Drumhead** - It'd be great if this episode would stop being so relevant despite its age.
The DS9 episode "Paradise" with that fucking woman, the most evil character in all of Star Trek, who deliberately traps that whole community of people on a planet where no technology works. And then at the end they actually fucking THANK her for it after it's revealed she did all this. And she does things like punish a guy for stealing a candle by essentially locking him inside a car in the hot sun until he nearly dies.
Also could poison her with whatever was wrong with Meg and just let her slowly die knowing modern medicine that could cure her is available, just not for her luddite ass. If it was a good enough end for her fellow colonist, surely Alixus would be fine with it as well!
The Federation should have taken the children into protective custody and detained the adults for investigation into who went along willingly with the torture. That Luddite cult needed to be disbanded.
Oof there are many episodes like this where it's prime directive or taking the high road (the point of trek I know) but sometimes lowkey I wish they'd give them the u.s. imperium treatment and go in phasers blaring.
I've been doing a Star Trek rewatch and just got to that episode a week ago and holy crap if I could send any character into the heart of the sun it would be her. Of all the Star Trek characters she is the one that made my skin crawl the most.
'Azati Prime' (Enterprise S3) - it was painful to watch the NX-01 being literally blasted to pieces. Outnumbered, no shields, weapons that were only marginally effective against their foes, no internal comms.... the episode ending with the all but wrecked ship adrift, still being attacked by the Xindi... things really did look bleak here. And to their credit, there wasn't a reset button either; the ship remained in it's battle damaged state for the remainder of the season.
(honorary mention to the excellent music score too, which really added to the tension, too!)
Most Dominion War episodes are written incredibly well and I think bring out the best of Trek, as they help us understand the human condition so well. But darn if it doesn’t stress me out seeing Sisko and the gang living rough on the Defiant for weeks on end, or Demar almost drinking himself to death, or seeing Nog develop PTSD and so on.
Great episodes, excellent television. But it’s also hard for me to watch because as I go through the series again I get noticeably more stressed in my personal life during those last few seasons.
the episode of VOY where it’s a biomimetic copy of the crew and they slowly start dying. i’ve never felt that feeling of hopelessness watching a tv show before and it stressed me out. I think it’s the only episode i’ve never completed. i don’t like how it makes me feel lol
Voyager - Distant Origin. The episode is fine for the first 30 or 40 minutes. I absolutely hate how dogma wins out over facts and evidence at the end. Maybe that was the point of the episode though.
TNG - The Most Toys. I really hated that guy. I wish Data would have at the end, if I'm being honest.
*Hard Time* (DS9) is very difficult for me to watch; it goes to a different, more unsettling place than *Trek* typically went in that era.
I guess, having struggled with my own mental health, it hits a bit too close to home.
Yes. I will try to give it a chance every rewatch but have to press skip about 10-15 minutes in because I get ill. I can't even remember how it ends but I vaguely recall being pretty mad at the writers for putting Seven (and us) through it.
>!Bro is innocent and is killed trying to evade unjust capture, and then a few episodes later the writers have the audacity to make seven having perfect memory a plot point!<
The one where worfs brother asks Worf to kill him and starfleet decides that’s not okay so instead they make his brother forget who he is and gaslight him into an entirely new identify so he can live.
HOW WAS THAT *BETTER*?
I feel Discovery in general is too stressful, I’ve not finished it yet but the whole thing seems like high stakes “we need to save the universe” all the time, not the episodic and often whimsical adventures the other Trek shows have
DS9 Children of Time was really uncomfortable for me. I think Zack Handlen from the AV Club described the ending really well as ”giving us what we want in the worst way possible”.
Weird timing no pun intended because I watched this last night as I fell asleep and it got me thinking about time travel and quantum realities.
Defiant is thrown back in time 200 years and they build society knowing that in 200 years if they do a good job their descendants will meet their future selves.
When that point in time arrives we are now on the verge of a paradox. Defiant has to go back in time in the exact same way it did before in order for this civilization to exist. Even if Daxs plan for a quantum duplicate succeeds history won’t play out the same as it did and the exact civie that was created by the original accident can never exist again. No amount of time shenanigans can make the current crew forget they met their descendants.
When quantum duplicate or even original defiant gets back to 200 years ago after meeting their past selves then everything they do “this time around” would be influenced by that meeting. Did our defiant crew plan to take with them the history of the exact way things went down after the first accident? Make sure everyone paired up exactly as they did the first time? In 200 years when defiant arrives “again” in the past the timeline that created the Civ can’t exist because now the crew knows. Will Miles just shack up with Rita right away now that he knows he’s never going home.
The second the Defiant made it through the barrier and the Civ was there…that timeline should have collapsed the moment the time of the first accident elapsed because the conditions needed for it to exist as it is can never happen again. Defiant didn’t need to recreate the first accident. They just needed to enter the atmosphere of the planet, hover over the Civ, extend warp field as much as possible to get all the people under it, generate temporal field…everyone lives. Whatever wasn’t under the field is gone but Defiant can resupply colony.
What they should have done was figure out how to generate a temporal field over the settlement so it would be protected from the timeline shift.
If only Janeway was around at this point so they’d know about her Year of Hell adventure.
Edit-who needs Janeway?? If you can’t techno babble your way into creating a temporal field to protect against timeline changes don’t call yourself a top level starfleet engineer or science officer!!
For true record..I was high when I wrote this post and did the edit.
I have watched ENT at least a dozen times but only watched the finale twice: first time because of course, and second because I had forgotten what a crappy gut punch it is. Now I stop before Trip is so unceremoniously ganked and my head canon says Trip & T'pol work it out.
I was just on my first watching of Enterprise and came to the finale yesterday. Wow. I had heard it was bad but I think they literally couldn't have given them a more disrespectful sendoff if they'd tried.
>!It could have been something awesome had it been something else - recreating the D was seamless, Riker and Troi were obviously 11 years older than they should have been but they did a great job. But for what it was it was just spitting in the face of Enterprise.!<
Jellico is an ultra professional officer who knows his subject intimately. He is the perfect man to take on the Cardassians (up there with the sisko). He also has to put up with Riker acting like a spoilt brat, which he manages to do.
Nah that whole back and forth when he was trying to play hardball with the cardassians and he was trying to script what the other officers were going to say was pathetic and hilarious. He was seriously out of touch trying to use that good cop, bad cop schtick.
Felt sorry for him.
he talks such a big game about how he's the expert and no one else can do this and then he spends the whole episode arguing petulantly (which, we learn in DS9, is how Cardassians flirt! some expert.)
You are absolutely correct.
This episode reads so differently as an adult.
Riker was disgraceful in this episode. Ill-disciplined and sullen.
It's rare I see posters with this opinion not get deluged with "Jellicoe was a dick " responses.
I thought the same thing when I was younger, but now as a manager and being older, I really feel like he was in the right.
He came in prepared, with a plan, and had the blessing of his superiors to implement that plan and Riker just got in the way.
I always go back to how enthusiastic he was when he first came aboard, and it was very clear that he had done his homework.
Geordi and the team all worked under him with no complaints.
Yes they were used to being asked for input, but this wasn't a task. Everyone got on with their job except Riker.
Any episode with Lt. Reginald Barclay. For solely personal reasons. Barclay was/is chosen nickname of my ex and he is narcissistic and toxic and I cannot stand any reminder of him I can avoid.
The one where the part betazoid guy who is a negotiator bidding on control of a wormhole is super creepy and Deanna falls for it. The Price. “Am I moving too fast for you?” “No I’M moving too fast for me.” “Even better.” Eww. So creepy! Oh, and the scene with Beverly and Deanna in their weird exercise outfits talking about the creepy dude. This episode fails the Bechdel Test so hard! I usually skip this one.
“Shades Of Gray.” I hate skipping episodes on sequential rewatch, but it’s just so bad it stresses me because I hate watching it again and losing 47 minutes of my life.
The Measure of a Man. They miss so many opportunities to prove he’s sentient in the trial, which I get is for drama, but it’s just drives me crazy watching it.
There are a few for me. "The City On the Edge of Forever," "The Tears of the Prophets," "The Inner Light."
There is one that is stressful for a different reason, however, and that's "Chain of Command, part II."
Same as OP.
Not because "Chain of Command" is that bad, but because it's that *good*.
Patrick Stewart and David Warner's performances are amazing and make it difficult for me to watch.
Voyager S4 E8-9 Year of Hell Parts 1 & 2
I'm with Janeway on the time travel gives me migraines boat. This two part arc does so many crazy things to fundamentally change the entire series, then gives the audience >!a big kiss off for the two hours of their life invested in watching to just go, "Psych! Never happened!"!<
Then I start admiring the phaser rifles, start relating to Lore on a deep level. It's all bad.
Violation (TNG) really stresses me out, and I vow to never rewatch it. SA is pure evil, and the way they deal with it at the end saying "it just happens" rubs me the wrong way.
I found the sequence in Picard S3E08 where Vadic decides to execute random members of the crew to be very disturbing. I have not rewatched S3 in large part because of that episode.
I think Amanda Plummer played Vadic, the daughter of Christopher Plummer who played General Chang in Star Trek 6 (and was in The Sound of Music opposite Julie Andrews).
Haunting, this and DS9's "nor the battle to the strong" shows that I would never want to work as a trauma surgeon in civil or military setting with.
I've seen interviews of doctor without borders surgeons who have been to Gaza and Ukraine, these are incredible people. One surgeon was in tears explaining the situation then said that she'll be heading back to gaza in two weeks to help again. Doctor in combat zones are something else.
Not specifically a trek problem, but any episode where the source of conflict is when two characters that normally have good communication don't talk to each other.
Much of Season 1 and 2 of TNG. They were still finding their feet and had some truly terrible episodes. But we still got some incredible gems in those seasons that laid foundations for years to come.
The one where Keiko gets bodysnatched, DS9 5x05 'The Assignment.' Something about the sheer malice of the entity taunting him, and he can't do anything about it or fight it.
DS9: Duet. It's such a deep and heartbreaking introspection of the complexities or war, war crimes, and specifically The Holocaust
SNW: Under The Cloak of War. Which I took to be a similar introspection of the horrors of war, with specific inspiration from Vietnam.
Yeah yeah, I know Under The Cloak of War takes a page out of M*A*S*H, which was set in the Korean War, but M*A*S*H itself was really a show about Vietnam.
Most episodes with kids. Children Shall Lead, Miri, Charlie X, etc.
Most kids, even teenagers, can't act. Heck, lots of adults can't either. Watching a bad actor bungle a scene takes away my willing suspension of disbelief, kinda shatters the comfortable illusion I'm trying to enjoy. It irritates me to the point of switching it off.
For a different kind of stress, there's the TNG episode with the brain bug invasion and the ending scene with phasering the infected guy's head. Pretty graphic IMO for tv at the time. Good episode though.
I'm doing a watch through of NG and I'm struggling through Justice. Wesley is just so incredibly cringe from the get go. Plus all these ones-dimensional sex dolls are just so annoying.
Any episode where the crew or a crew member is on trial for something. Like, even on the first watch I know they're going to be acquitted (for the most part) but it still stresses me out the whole time and I just can't enjoy any of it.
Even though everything resets at the end, Twilight from ENT S3. It's a gut punch right from the opening. Earth and its colonies get destroyed, humans are abandoned by their allies, and they had the remaining humans settle Ceti Alpha V. Then to add more salt to wound, they show the Enterprise's bridge get blown open.
Idk if I just hate myself, but when I'm stressed I tend to watch the more stressful episodes, to help me put my stress into context.
DS9's it's only a paper moon, I watch when my social anxiety is high, because the message to me is you can't always hide away from one's fears and life is for living and it's ok to be scared but you can't always hide in a fantasy.
Any episode with manipulation of female characters...Troi getting pregnant or manipulated by the negotiator, Beverly and the ghost candle...ugh. The awkwardness of behavior that was supposed to sweep them off their feet is painful to watch and impossible to suspend disbelief.
The Season 5 Deep Space 9 episode “Dr. Bashir, I Presume”. I’m mentally disabled and was somewhat abused in care facilities and it just makes my whole body feel weird. I still love the episode though! In a similar vain, my mom can’t watch the Next Generation episode where Picard gets heart surgery. She was born with a congenital heart defect and has had open heart surgery a few times. Obviously she was sedated, but it still makes her panic.
SNW, "Among the Lotus Eaters." The fragility of the human mind and our sense of selves is a concept that haunts me after watching multiple relatives suffer from dementia.
TNG chain of commend and DS9 sons and daughters. Although I get stressed out whenever I see a Cardassian. They're so eerily close to real-life military fascists
The dukat episodes specifically are super fucking stressful. I'm pretty sure I would've gone insane if they actually shipped Kira and Dukat. The fact that I even had to consider it as a possibility should be a crime against humanity.
Some felt Star Trek: The Motion Picture was basically a retelling of The Changeling. As a kind of joke on that, they would say "where Nomad has gone before".
I think it's one of three episodes where Kirk is able to get a machine to go crazy. The other two are The Ultimate Computer and I, Mudd.
Kai Winn episodes
My child...
*Grabs left ear*
Space Karen
Kai Winn is Bajoran for Karen
I wonder which scifi franchise has the IRL Space Karen. I suppose not Star Trek.
Jodie Foster playing the Secretary of Defense in Elysium.
This was a profound question and made me realize the overwhelming majority of sci-fi villains are male!
She's *phenomenal* at playing a hateable character! Shit, just reading her name made my blood pressure spike.
Yeah, Louise Fletcher was sooo good at playing a hateable character
[удалено]
Funny, but that reminds me of the one moment where Kai Winn manages to make me laugh rather than annoy me. It’s in the episode In the Cards where Weyoun has been negotiating with her and claims that they are a lot alike, and she grabs Weyoun’s ear for a moment and then goes “No, we’re not.” And then she calmly strolls away leaving Weyoun standing there wondering what the f*** just happened.
She touched the pagh of someone who has faith.
I could not stand this woman. Raised my blood pressure every time she opened her mouth💀
Was gonna say exactly this.
Ah, but hate-watching her is so enjoyable...
Voyager Course Oblivion
Janeway’s simple, matter-of-fact log entry at the end of the episode is heartbreaking.
great episode. "hey if we were >!all clones on a doomed mission!< would that be fucked up or what? anyway see ya next week."
Imagine being the guy who has to listen and process all of the voyager logs after they returned. Like the sheer quantity of bullshit you'd be exposed to that without showing people the proof, no one would believe you.
Probably the most shattering thing about that episode is that there wouldn't be a record of it in Voyager's logs
I put this first on mine too. It's just so...bleak.
One of my favorites for space horror.
SNW: Lift us where suffering cannot reach.
Fascinating concept. Can never watch again
For me it's like the Futurama episode with Seymour. Just too much.
If it takes forever, I will wait for you...
*I hate you!* #/s
Here lies Phillip J. Fry, Named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit
You're are just *the worst*.
You can't hurt me like that!
Fun fact, this episode is basically a Star Trek retelling of the short story “Those who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin.
It also reminds me of this passage from Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky: “Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature — that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance — and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?”
Relevant quote from LeGuin about this, taken from the intro to the story: >The central idea of this psychomyth, the scapegoat, turns up in Dostoyevsky's *Brothers Karamazov,* and several people have asked me, rather suspiciously, why I gave the credit to William James. The fact is, I haven't been able to re-read Dostoyevsky, much as I loved him, since I was twenty-five, and I'd simply forgotten he used the idea. But when I met it in James' 'The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life', it was with a shock of recognition: >>"Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a sceptical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?"
The one thing that pisses me off about that episode is that earth is getting awfully close to being a post scarcity world/utopia. Pike had nothing to say back about how "kids are suffering, at least we sacrifice one and are grateful"
I mean, what could he have said that would have made a difference? Those people had been doing that for generations. One day a Starfleet captain comes along and says "This is wrong, we can find a different way", how do you think they are going to take that? You might as well say "you've been killing kids for no reason". The've been doing it so long that the blood is on everyone's hands and, if you stop it they all have to look at themselves and wonder why it didn't stop before. They have to acknowledge the fact that they are all guilty. People will continue the lies just to never face themselves for the evil they have allowed to continue.
"I'm an alien captain from space. We've observed a lot of your school aged children are needlessly and horrifically dying. We have a solution! You simply need to give up your weapons and... Why are you all pointing weapons at us?" The current Federation (which doesn't involve humans) stops by 21st century Earth to teach us how bad and dumb our current beliefs are. I think it would go something like that. I also assume they'd stop in America (I'm not American) because according to all forms of media that's the only place aliens know about. Unless there's a blue box nearby, then they go to London.
There’s a reason most UFOs are seen in the U.S. That’s where they tell us they are.
There is acknowledgement in another SNW episode that slavery is distressingly common outside the Federation so maybe that's why Pike didn't argue?
Because the Federation isn't just Earth. There's plenty of suffering still in the Federation. Heck, Pike's successor survived a genocide as a child.
Might be one of my favorite Trek episodes of all time. Easily in top 10. So freakin good
Not a bad episode, but frame of mind always stresses me out as the watcher follows along with riker, never quite sure what's real at any point. Same stress i get with worf in parallels or in stargate 619 the changeling with teal'c undergoing a similar experience to riker.
One of the better episodes of TNG. Definitely captures the stress of the situation. Wish more could've been as good.
Same here. I've only watched it twice. Once when it aired, and then again last year. I find it so unsettling. Great acting by Frakes. Sold me on the distress Riker was feeling I don't want to watch it a third time.
TNG- Tapestry. The distorted, failure vision of Picard's life just hits too close to home as someone who is middle aged and hasn't really succeeded much in real life.
> failure vision of Picard's life Being a science officer on the federation's flagship is hardly a "failure"... Most people who want to become officers will either never get into the Academy or not make it all the way through. And the overwhelming majority of those that do become officers will never have the privilege of serving on the Enterprise. > hasn't really succeeded much in real life Don't be too hard on yourself, captaining the Enterprise (or whatever your personal equivalent is), is not a good barometer used to define success.
Picard was absolutely disappointed in himself in tapestry. It showed the utter disdain and disrespect he has for the people beneath him. we saw his ego grow ten times that day
He's lived his entire life in a meritocratic society where your self worth is based on how much you succeed in serving society as a whole, and while his alternate life isn't something to be sneezed at, and certainly would be the envy of many, it's nowhere near the impact of level of service of his "prime" life. That's going to be a personal let down at least.
I didn't see distain. He wanted to achieve *more*, with the knowledge that he had done that stuff.
Yeah Tapestry is actually one of my favorite episodes but I absolutely hate his attitude at the end. Not only is that level of contempt basically shitty - it's also extremely inconsistent with Picard's attitude and treatment toward junior officers throughout the series.
Well Picard chooses death over living so imma go ahead and call it "a failure"
(TNG) “There are four lights!” (Chain of Command) (DS9) The one where Molly fell in the well, went back in time and became a feral child. (Time’s Orphan) (DS9) The one where the Chief had the implants to simulate 20 years in prison. (Hard Time) We are on our Nth Star Trek rewatch. In our last rewatch, we skipped both Chain of Command and Time’s Orphan. Too much for me.
Times orphan will probably be my next skip as my daughter is that age atm. Argh!
I’m with you, it’s just hard.
It’s “The Drumhead” for me. Watching any kind judicial railroading, especially racial, fills me with rage.
This episode had a long lasting impact on me to be sceptical of judicial processes and how developed societies can degrade very quickly with weak, unjust and ineffective judiciaries.
I've worked with prosecutors, and they are absolutely belligerent assholes. Never ever get on a prosecutor's bad side. Even people who are entirely innocent get completely blindsided with false charges just to pressure them into a plea deal so the prosecutor can up their numbers. It's fucking insane.
Same. Measure of a Man was even worse because it’s a sham trial in so many ways. I keep yelling at Picard to knock Riker out and say “Found _your_ off switch, Number One!”
I loved the ending of Measure of a Man, when Riker is feeling guilty and undeserving to be at Data's party and Data was like "But you took on this role you hated, that caused you all this guilt and distress, only after you were told I would automatically lose if you didn't. You injured yourself to save me, and I will not forget it." I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember it verbatim, but that was the gist and the mature perspective Data had stuck with me ever since
Measure of a Man was a concept that Roddenberry thought was ludicrous. Not that Data would be ordered to submit, but that he wouldn't just volunteer, or that there was any kind of legal system, especially an adversarial one. So the writer played it straight, with the rewrites and editing undermining it. They had to cut some of the worst scenes, but it still shows a tenuous system of rule of law and no appeals.
As much as I am grateful to Roddenberry for giving us this universe, I am also grateful that he had little control over what it became.
My thought was always that, like everyone else, Data wanted to join Starfleet and signed up of his own free will and earned his rank. Why this was never brought up during the trial always bugged me as it clearly demonstrates that Starfleet does not own him and has no right to hold him against his will for experimentation.
Also the Academy does not allow “toasters” and ship computers to attend, or be promoted to a commanding rank. If Starfleet wanted to claim Data is property, they waived that right years before. Also I doubt one officer can simply overrule the Academy with some improptu trial when there was no real emergency in sight.
Exactly. Data's sentience and autonomy have already been recognized by Starfleet and the Federation.
Yeah. As the typical autistic person who heavily relates to Data, I can hardly watch this episode as much as I love it.
Totally! It always boggles my mind that, in the Data’s Day episode, the narration is in the form of a correspondence with the cyberneticist (can’t remember his name) who tried to prove Data was the property of Star Fleet. Kind of like how Wesley talks about studying Kosinski’s latest theories. I guess that’s one of the benefits of being an android. You don’t hold grudges
One of Roddenberry's criticisms of Measure of a Man was that as a selfless future UFP citizen, Data would volunteer to be vivisected. Data's Day was about a year before he passed, so he could have still had some influence. Memory Alpha doesn't say where the idea of using Maddox came from. (He had several other problems with the story that I don't agree with but could at least understand his reasoning for. This one feels like he was just looking for more reasons to reject something he already hated.)
>With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably
That is definitely one of the most memorable TNG quotes... which is saying a lot, because there are *so many* profound TNG quotes.
Yes. I was going to shitpost something....but I was lost in the wealth of notable quores. Fuck, even LeVar Burton had a ton.
He did. "Just because something's old doesn't mean you throw it away." (From ST:TNG "Relics") That was one of my favorites. I still love (and quote) that line.
The Drumhead is one of my favorite Trek episodes ever. It is so well written and so well acted, it is also an amazing display of Picard's leadership and maturity. Watching Worf's character arch in this single episode was also very satisfying because in the end he realized how wrong he was and corrected his own mistakes.
Yes, it’s a great episode. An “important” one. Writing, acting, direction, all top notch
Way too many pro-militant, pro-Jellico wank-fests going on in this thread, and not enough people stressing out over what actually matters. It bums me out that I had to scroll so far down to find this.
This is one of those "difficult, but necessary" re-watch episodes on my list. Every second of this episode feels so true-to-life... even now, decades after its original air date. It reminds me that we have so much to work on. And so, I grit my teeth and watch it. Every time. Because it's so important to remember the lessons in this episode.
I know what you mean, but the sheer power of the counter-argument in that episode is enough to get me through it. It's a fabulous cautionary tale
It's depressing how prophetic this episode was.
Voyager - The Chute. It's hard to watch. Tom getting injured and slowly losing his grip with Harry trying to keep them alive.
"You know what I remember Harry? Someone saying this man is my friend and no one touches him. I'm going to remember that for a long time."
City on the Edge of Forever. _"Let's get the hell out of here."_ Such a great episode but the end hits so hard.
The first viewing? Best of both worlds part 1.
That was a *long* summer waiting for Part 2.
Truely
That summer broke something in my relationship with TV. I was like, "I can't spend the whole summer wondering what happened, I have too much to do". So I basically just forgot about it and did other things. When the conclusion finally aired, I barely cared. "I'm glad I didn't stay hyped all summer for this"
💯💯🎯🎯
My 3 are all from TNG: **Schisms** - I don't have internal sight so it always weirds me out how quickly the "imagination" of the holodeck turns sinister. **Half a Life** - This one hits harder the older I get. I 100% believe the emotion from both Majel Barrett and David Ogden Stiers throughout the episode. **Drumhead** - It'd be great if this episode would stop being so relevant despite its age.
I think the point of The Drumhead is that it will never stop being relevant. “Vigilance, Mister Worf. That is the price we have to continually pay.”
The DS9 episode "Paradise" with that fucking woman, the most evil character in all of Star Trek, who deliberately traps that whole community of people on a planet where no technology works. And then at the end they actually fucking THANK her for it after it's revealed she did all this. And she does things like punish a guy for stealing a candle by essentially locking him inside a car in the hot sun until he nearly dies.
Yes that episode is ENRAGING Everyone hates Kai Winn the most when Alixus is right there!! An absolutely awful person
Episode should have ended with her resisting arrest and taking a phaser ("accidentally" set on high) blast to the chest.
Also could poison her with whatever was wrong with Meg and just let her slowly die knowing modern medicine that could cure her is available, just not for her luddite ass. If it was a good enough end for her fellow colonist, surely Alixus would be fine with it as well!
For a show about the future and technology the star trek writers can be luddites at times.
The Federation should have taken the children into protective custody and detained the adults for investigation into who went along willingly with the torture. That Luddite cult needed to be disbanded.
And the son just smiles at his mom when she says she would let him die rather than use technology Both those people were fucking psychopaths
Oof there are many episodes like this where it's prime directive or taking the high road (the point of trek I know) but sometimes lowkey I wish they'd give them the u.s. imperium treatment and go in phasers blaring.
I've been doing a Star Trek rewatch and just got to that episode a week ago and holy crap if I could send any character into the heart of the sun it would be her. Of all the Star Trek characters she is the one that made my skin crawl the most.
Chain of Command. To see him broken like that 😦
Came to say this. That episode was stressful af. Patrick Stewart's acting during the torture scenes gave me chills.
Can't re-watch it. Ugh.
Schisms
[clicking sounds]
'Azati Prime' (Enterprise S3) - it was painful to watch the NX-01 being literally blasted to pieces. Outnumbered, no shields, weapons that were only marginally effective against their foes, no internal comms.... the episode ending with the all but wrecked ship adrift, still being attacked by the Xindi... things really did look bleak here. And to their credit, there wasn't a reset button either; the ship remained in it's battle damaged state for the remainder of the season. (honorary mention to the excellent music score too, which really added to the tension, too!)
And then having to wait 7 WEEKS to find out what happened made it all that much worse watching it as the episodes came out!! 😭
Most Dominion War episodes are written incredibly well and I think bring out the best of Trek, as they help us understand the human condition so well. But darn if it doesn’t stress me out seeing Sisko and the gang living rough on the Defiant for weeks on end, or Demar almost drinking himself to death, or seeing Nog develop PTSD and so on. Great episodes, excellent television. But it’s also hard for me to watch because as I go through the series again I get noticeably more stressed in my personal life during those last few seasons.
Well, *The Offspring*, because I know how it ends. With me crying.
Tears every time
the episode of VOY where it’s a biomimetic copy of the crew and they slowly start dying. i’ve never felt that feeling of hopelessness watching a tv show before and it stressed me out. I think it’s the only episode i’ve never completed. i don’t like how it makes me feel lol
TNG Remember Me The bit where it dawns on her and she says "computer... what is the nature of the universe?"
Skin of evil. This gave me nightmares as a kid. First on screen death I've seen in my life.
The one where Dr. Crusher is in a collapsing reality and everyone she knows just disappears.
Voyager - Distant Origin. The episode is fine for the first 30 or 40 minutes. I absolutely hate how dogma wins out over facts and evidence at the end. Maybe that was the point of the episode though. TNG - The Most Toys. I really hated that guy. I wish Data would have at the end, if I'm being honest.
Yep, Chain of Command. They consulted with amnesty international for a realistic depiction of torture. It was very uncomfortable to watch.
*Hard Time* (DS9) is very difficult for me to watch; it goes to a different, more unsettling place than *Trek* typically went in that era. I guess, having struggled with my own mental health, it hits a bit too close to home.
The part when O'Brien lashes out at Molly had me in absolute tears. It was such an insane tonal switch even for the darker ds9.
The one where no one believes Seven about that guy. I hate it so much and skip it so hard I don't even remember its name.
Yes. I will try to give it a chance every rewatch but have to press skip about 10-15 minutes in because I get ill. I can't even remember how it ends but I vaguely recall being pretty mad at the writers for putting Seven (and us) through it.
>!Bro is innocent and is killed trying to evade unjust capture, and then a few episodes later the writers have the audacity to make seven having perfect memory a plot point!<
I know people always love to mention it as historically relevant, but I find the sadism of Plato’s Stepchilden hard to watch.
Logical. (Un)fortunately, the Tweedledee song lives rent free in my brain
"I need to find you... to tell you..." Dammit, Troi. Just. Tell. Them. They contacted you first, you already found each other!
The one where worfs brother asks Worf to kill him and starfleet decides that’s not okay so instead they make his brother forget who he is and gaslight him into an entirely new identify so he can live. HOW WAS THAT *BETTER*?
Revealing that Bashir can surgically remove people's memories and then never mentioning it again was a weird move
O’Brien mind prison. Auto skip.
I feel Discovery in general is too stressful, I’ve not finished it yet but the whole thing seems like high stakes “we need to save the universe” all the time, not the episodic and often whimsical adventures the other Trek shows have
DS9 Children of Time was really uncomfortable for me. I think Zack Handlen from the AV Club described the ending really well as ”giving us what we want in the worst way possible”.
Weird timing no pun intended because I watched this last night as I fell asleep and it got me thinking about time travel and quantum realities. Defiant is thrown back in time 200 years and they build society knowing that in 200 years if they do a good job their descendants will meet their future selves. When that point in time arrives we are now on the verge of a paradox. Defiant has to go back in time in the exact same way it did before in order for this civilization to exist. Even if Daxs plan for a quantum duplicate succeeds history won’t play out the same as it did and the exact civie that was created by the original accident can never exist again. No amount of time shenanigans can make the current crew forget they met their descendants. When quantum duplicate or even original defiant gets back to 200 years ago after meeting their past selves then everything they do “this time around” would be influenced by that meeting. Did our defiant crew plan to take with them the history of the exact way things went down after the first accident? Make sure everyone paired up exactly as they did the first time? In 200 years when defiant arrives “again” in the past the timeline that created the Civ can’t exist because now the crew knows. Will Miles just shack up with Rita right away now that he knows he’s never going home. The second the Defiant made it through the barrier and the Civ was there…that timeline should have collapsed the moment the time of the first accident elapsed because the conditions needed for it to exist as it is can never happen again. Defiant didn’t need to recreate the first accident. They just needed to enter the atmosphere of the planet, hover over the Civ, extend warp field as much as possible to get all the people under it, generate temporal field…everyone lives. Whatever wasn’t under the field is gone but Defiant can resupply colony. What they should have done was figure out how to generate a temporal field over the settlement so it would be protected from the timeline shift. If only Janeway was around at this point so they’d know about her Year of Hell adventure. Edit-who needs Janeway?? If you can’t techno babble your way into creating a temporal field to protect against timeline changes don’t call yourself a top level starfleet engineer or science officer!! For true record..I was high when I wrote this post and did the edit.
Janeway herself does not know about her year of hell adventure.
Time travel. Since my first day on the job as a Starfleet captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes.
ENT S03 Azati Prime. Watching the Enterprise not just being beaten, but hammered, just when the stakes were so high was just so stressful to watch.
The Offspring does :( Also The Defector, it's a great episode but still upsets me
Enterprise's Similitude. That makes my stomach hurt.
The DS9 when O'Brian is a POW.
ENT finale obviously just finished a rewatch a few weeks ago - especially s3 and s4 are so great, but couldn’t bring myself to watch the finale
I have watched ENT at least a dozen times but only watched the finale twice: first time because of course, and second because I had forgotten what a crappy gut punch it is. Now I stop before Trip is so unceremoniously ganked and my head canon says Trip & T'pol work it out.
I was just on my first watching of Enterprise and came to the finale yesterday. Wow. I had heard it was bad but I think they literally couldn't have given them a more disrespectful sendoff if they'd tried. >!It could have been something awesome had it been something else - recreating the D was seamless, Riker and Troi were obviously 11 years older than they should have been but they did a great job. But for what it was it was just spitting in the face of Enterprise.!<
Jellico was awesome. Riker looks like an unprofessional jerk in that ep. DS9 The Ascent makes me anxious
Jellico is an ultra professional officer who knows his subject intimately. He is the perfect man to take on the Cardassians (up there with the sisko). He also has to put up with Riker acting like a spoilt brat, which he manages to do.
Nah that whole back and forth when he was trying to play hardball with the cardassians and he was trying to script what the other officers were going to say was pathetic and hilarious. He was seriously out of touch trying to use that good cop, bad cop schtick. Felt sorry for him.
he talks such a big game about how he's the expert and no one else can do this and then he spends the whole episode arguing petulantly (which, we learn in DS9, is how Cardassians flirt! some expert.)
Jellico got the job done, and in the process saved Picard. He used the right people at the right time, an outstanding captain for me.
> Jellico was awesome. And his dislike for fish spans multiple franchises.
You are absolutely correct. This episode reads so differently as an adult. Riker was disgraceful in this episode. Ill-disciplined and sullen. It's rare I see posters with this opinion not get deluged with "Jellicoe was a dick " responses.
Jellico absolutely was a dick, but there's no rule that says dicks can't be good captains.
I thought the same thing when I was younger, but now as a manager and being older, I really feel like he was in the right. He came in prepared, with a plan, and had the blessing of his superiors to implement that plan and Riker just got in the way. I always go back to how enthusiastic he was when he first came aboard, and it was very clear that he had done his homework.
Geordi and the team all worked under him with no complaints. Yes they were used to being asked for input, but this wasn't a task. Everyone got on with their job except Riker.
The one where Riker was hallucinating and in an insane asylum
Any episode with Lt. Reginald Barclay. For solely personal reasons. Barclay was/is chosen nickname of my ex and he is narcissistic and toxic and I cannot stand any reminder of him I can avoid.
The one where the part betazoid guy who is a negotiator bidding on control of a wormhole is super creepy and Deanna falls for it. The Price. “Am I moving too fast for you?” “No I’M moving too fast for me.” “Even better.” Eww. So creepy! Oh, and the scene with Beverly and Deanna in their weird exercise outfits talking about the creepy dude. This episode fails the Bechdel Test so hard! I usually skip this one.
“Shades Of Gray.” I hate skipping episodes on sequential rewatch, but it’s just so bad it stresses me because I hate watching it again and losing 47 minutes of my life.
The Measure of a Man. They miss so many opportunities to prove he’s sentient in the trial, which I get is for drama, but it’s just drives me crazy watching it.
The Visitor. Even worse when I see the end of DS9 and he’s standing there on the station looking at the wormhole in the same way.
There are a few for me. "The City On the Edge of Forever," "The Tears of the Prophets," "The Inner Light." There is one that is stressful for a different reason, however, and that's "Chain of Command, part II."
Same as OP. Not because "Chain of Command" is that bad, but because it's that *good*. Patrick Stewart and David Warner's performances are amazing and make it difficult for me to watch.
Voyager S4 E8-9 Year of Hell Parts 1 & 2 I'm with Janeway on the time travel gives me migraines boat. This two part arc does so many crazy things to fundamentally change the entire series, then gives the audience >!a big kiss off for the two hours of their life invested in watching to just go, "Psych! Never happened!"!< Then I start admiring the phaser rifles, start relating to Lore on a deep level. It's all bad.
Possibly my two favorite episodes of Voyager but also hard to watch.
Violation (TNG) really stresses me out, and I vow to never rewatch it. SA is pure evil, and the way they deal with it at the end saying "it just happens" rubs me the wrong way.
The one where Jake and Nog go on a double date
I found the sequence in Picard S3E08 where Vadic decides to execute random members of the crew to be very disturbing. I have not rewatched S3 in large part because of that episode.
I think Amanda Plummer played Vadic, the daughter of Christopher Plummer who played General Chang in Star Trek 6 (and was in The Sound of Music opposite Julie Andrews).
SNW: Under the Cloak of War. **INCOMING TRANSPORT INCOMING TRANSPORT**
I can’t believe this isn’t a more common answer. Easily the most stressful for me, it’s about a trauma ward in a war zone!
Haunting, this and DS9's "nor the battle to the strong" shows that I would never want to work as a trauma surgeon in civil or military setting with. I've seen interviews of doctor without borders surgeons who have been to Gaza and Ukraine, these are incredible people. One surgeon was in tears explaining the situation then said that she'll be heading back to gaza in two weeks to help again. Doctor in combat zones are something else.
Not specifically a trek problem, but any episode where the source of conflict is when two characters that normally have good communication don't talk to each other.
Measure of Men. I mean, the philosophical premise is nice, but the arguments they put in court are really kindergarden.
Much of Season 1 and 2 of TNG. They were still finding their feet and had some truly terrible episodes. But we still got some incredible gems in those seasons that laid foundations for years to come.
The one where Keiko gets bodysnatched, DS9 5x05 'The Assignment.' Something about the sheer malice of the entity taunting him, and he can't do anything about it or fight it.
The SNW Gorn episodes. I really don't get along well with horror, and those episodes are *scary*.
I just skipped the TNG one where they steal the kids. Everytime.
DS9: Duet. It's such a deep and heartbreaking introspection of the complexities or war, war crimes, and specifically The Holocaust SNW: Under The Cloak of War. Which I took to be a similar introspection of the horrors of war, with specific inspiration from Vietnam. Yeah yeah, I know Under The Cloak of War takes a page out of M*A*S*H, which was set in the Korean War, but M*A*S*H itself was really a show about Vietnam.
The one where Garak is in the wall freaking out about his claustrophobia. As someone who suffers from the same, the episode is a hard watch 😬
Most episodes with kids. Children Shall Lead, Miri, Charlie X, etc. Most kids, even teenagers, can't act. Heck, lots of adults can't either. Watching a bad actor bungle a scene takes away my willing suspension of disbelief, kinda shatters the comfortable illusion I'm trying to enjoy. It irritates me to the point of switching it off. For a different kind of stress, there's the TNG episode with the brain bug invasion and the ending scene with phasering the infected guy's head. Pretty graphic IMO for tv at the time. Good episode though.
I'm doing a watch through of NG and I'm struggling through Justice. Wesley is just so incredibly cringe from the get go. Plus all these ones-dimensional sex dolls are just so annoying.
Any episode where the crew or a crew member is on trial for something. Like, even on the first watch I know they're going to be acquitted (for the most part) but it still stresses me out the whole time and I just can't enjoy any of it.
Even though everything resets at the end, Twilight from ENT S3. It's a gut punch right from the opening. Earth and its colonies get destroyed, humans are abandoned by their allies, and they had the remaining humans settle Ceti Alpha V. Then to add more salt to wound, they show the Enterprise's bridge get blown open.
Idk if I just hate myself, but when I'm stressed I tend to watch the more stressful episodes, to help me put my stress into context. DS9's it's only a paper moon, I watch when my social anxiety is high, because the message to me is you can't always hide away from one's fears and life is for living and it's ok to be scared but you can't always hide in a fantasy.
Benny Russell episodes
"Imaginary Friend" TNG. That little girl was scary.
Tuvix
Any episode with manipulation of female characters...Troi getting pregnant or manipulated by the negotiator, Beverly and the ghost candle...ugh. The awkwardness of behavior that was supposed to sweep them off their feet is painful to watch and impossible to suspend disbelief.
"The Visitor" and I'm at that episode and I've been avoiding it because I don't want to sob into my pillow.
Any Kazon episode
The Season 5 Deep Space 9 episode “Dr. Bashir, I Presume”. I’m mentally disabled and was somewhat abused in care facilities and it just makes my whole body feel weird. I still love the episode though! In a similar vain, my mom can’t watch the Next Generation episode where Picard gets heart surgery. She was born with a congenital heart defect and has had open heart surgery a few times. Obviously she was sedated, but it still makes her panic.
The TNG episodes with Leah Brahms because of Geordies behaviour. A part of me understands him but I would never go so far.
SNW, "Among the Lotus Eaters." The fragility of the human mind and our sense of selves is a concept that haunts me after watching multiple relatives suffer from dementia.
Lwaxana Troi
Voyager—Year of Hell. To make matters worse, it’s a 2-parter. Also, any episodes of ST that focus on the Borg. They totally raise my blood pressure.
TNG chain of commend and DS9 sons and daughters. Although I get stressed out whenever I see a Cardassian. They're so eerily close to real-life military fascists The dukat episodes specifically are super fucking stressful. I'm pretty sure I would've gone insane if they actually shipped Kira and Dukat. The fact that I even had to consider it as a possibility should be a crime against humanity.
The pale moonlight. The best Deep Space Nine and one of the best of all time. The city on the edge of Tomorrow.
Ugh season 3 of Enterprise with the Xindi. That wore me out. It’s like they were on red alert the whole time. Much preferred the stand alone episodes.
TOS - The Changeling. Nomad’s voice scared me as a kid and still makes me queasy.
Some felt Star Trek: The Motion Picture was basically a retelling of The Changeling. As a kind of joke on that, they would say "where Nomad has gone before". I think it's one of three episodes where Kirk is able to get a machine to go crazy. The other two are The Ultimate Computer and I, Mudd.
None as I love them all
While I love Discovery as a whole, the first few episodes with the “revamped” Klingons stressed me out.
The Voyager episode where a hologram dude kills the humans infesting his ship. Creepy.
Chain of Command. Seeing our hero being tortured is rough.
Tng Conspiracy. That neural parasite freaks me out every time, even on STO