Remembering the most shocking Trek episode

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Bob Jersey

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Mar 23, 2022, 11:08:29 AM3/23/22
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"Cause and Effect," late in TNG season 5, released ironically before Groundhog Day, aired 30 years ago this week... Bethlehem, PA's Jonathan (Riker) Frakes, directing his fourth episode, interviewed by THR along with writer Brannon Braga, "thought [Braga] was f***ing with me"... and people called affiliates thinking Paramount had sent a glitched-up program...

Oh BTW, it also was Kelsey Grammer's first and only Trek role...


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Tom Wolper

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Mar 23, 2022, 3:15:08 PM3/23/22
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Why was it the most shocking episode? I mean I remember it as one of the better episodes but shocking?

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David Bruggeman

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Mar 23, 2022, 3:21:23 PM3/23/22
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The piece tries to make the argument for shocking by how the episode broke with typical episodic TV format.  I think it's a inapt word, especially since other Trek episodes had plotlines or topics that might be more appropriately be considered 'shocking.'  For instance, I remember one episode of TNG where crewmembers were being abducted and experimented on while they 'slept.'

David

PGage

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Mar 23, 2022, 3:39:50 PM3/23/22
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Agreed. It’s not shocking (unless the inter-species romance was shocking for anyone), and it remains one of my favorite TNG episodes, one that I periodically revisit stand alone, not part of a complete re-watch.

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Bob Jersey

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Mar 23, 2022, 9:50:47 PM3/23/22
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Because plenty of fans would have been shocked at the time to see the Enterprise blown to bits, even if it was to be back in one piece later.    B

Kevin M.

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Mar 23, 2022, 10:30:55 PM3/23/22
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“Ship of the Line” was a well written Star Trek novel (set following the events of the movie Star Trek: Generations) featuring Grammer and the Bozeman crew being assigned to do the shakedown cruise of the newly christened Enterprise E while the Next Generation crew is doing a lot of introspection and soul searching. 

There were greater aberrations in TNG. The episode when the crew devolved into various animals (Troi was a fish, Riker was a Neanderthal) was more Twilight Zone than Trek. The post “Best of Both Worlds” episode that centered mostly on Picard in France was atypical storytelling for the series, too. 

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Tom Wolper

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Mar 23, 2022, 10:31:59 PM3/23/22
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Are these the fans who don’t know it’s an hour show?

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Tom Wolper

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Mar 23, 2022, 10:43:26 PM3/23/22
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The cliffhanger end of the first part of The Best of Both Worlds is as close to a shock since it came at the end of the season and there were no guarantees as to who would be back for the next season.

Kevin M.

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Mar 23, 2022, 10:57:06 PM3/23/22
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I read an article a few months ago featuring interviews with some of the TNG writers, and apparently in the episode where they discovered a transporter malfunction had created two Rikers, there was talk in the writers room of changing the crew dynamic by killing off Commander Riker (promoting Data to Number One) and having Lieutenant Riker join the crew in the lower decks. It was rejected as two non-Trek a premise, but it would’ve been interesting. 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

M-D November

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Mar 25, 2022, 3:17:41 PM3/25/22
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...or if the show would be back at all, given the Writer's Strike.

Since Kevin mentioned Thomas Riker, the transporter accident and lower decks, I wanted to point out that "Star Trek: Lower Decks" built a whole episode around that premise (only it happens to  Boimler while under William Riker's command on the USS Titan).

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