The Most Skippable Star Trek TV Episodes Revealed by Fans (Do You Agree?)

The Star Trek franchise has released 13 different television shows across the live-action and animated formats, and this includes 960 episodes and counting. It is easy to see why even the most hardcore Star Trek fans might have picked out a few to skip over when going through rewatches. This doesn’t always mean they are bad, as it sometimes just means they either don’t add anything to the main plot, character development, or world-building, and in some cases seemed like filler even when they were first released. However, there are also others that have been labeled as episodes that are too difficult to revisit, and others that just don’t work as well as they used to.

There have been various Reddit threads discussing these skippable Star Trek episodes, including one where the OP (via Reddit) suggested a Star Trek: Voyager episode and another where the OP (via Reddit) led off with options from Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Which Star Trek Episodes Are Skippable?

The first Star Trek thread saw the OP write, “I’m currently rewatching Voyager, and I think for the first time I skipped an episode in a watch through.” The second thread had the OP open by commenting that, “I skipped ‘Twisted’ as it’s an episode where literally nothing happens. I love Enterprise and Strange New Worlds, but I always skip ‘These Are the Voyages’ and ‘Subspace Rhapsody’.” Both of the Reddit threads asked what other fans skipped, and this led to several episode titles, with some good reasons for skipping them.

“Twisted” is a low-stakes “reset episode” that doesn’t add anything to Voyager’s overall plot or character development. While there is a problem to solve, the episode doesn’t seem to have any real stakes, and when it ends, there is nothing about it that pushes the series forward. There is no reason at all to watch it again, much less when rewatching the entire series. As for “These Are the Voyages,” this was the Enterprise series finale and it took place on the holodeck and mostly ignored the entire main cast, leaving fans disappointed. As for “Subspace Rhapsody,” this was a musical episode, so that is likely just a matter of taste.

There is also a comment that not everyone will agree with. One Redditor said they will skip all the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine mirror universe episodes. They wrote, “DS9’s mirror universe episodes. They went back to the well too many times and the whole shtick had greatly diminishing returns.” Others agreed, with one writing, “I love the first one because it’s a nice TOS continuation, but the longer it went the more I couldn’t stand them anymore.”

The biggest problem with the mirror universe episodes is that they are often “filler” and do almost nothing to impact the overall Deep Space Nine mythology, and since that series was serialized long-form storytelling, it just seemed to stop the flow. The entire idea of the mirror universe episodes was to offer fan service, but they often delivered nonsensical storylines compared to the deeper themes from DS9.

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However, there were also some opinions that believed the Star Trek episodes dropped the ball as they tried to undertake serious themes. One mentioned “Tattoo,” where they wrote, “Let’s take Chakotay’s fake Indigenous-ness and tie it in to a twisted Chariots of the Gods/Ancient Aliens thing.” Another agreed and added “Code of Honor.” They wrote, “This one though is just completely unwatchable and inexcusable.”

“Tattoo” was a Star Trek: Voyager episode that centered on Commander Chakotay, a Native American character played by a Mexican-American actor (Robert Beltran), which always caused controversy. However, this episode was steeped in what some critics called offensive Native American culture stereotypes. As for “Code of Honor,” this Star Trek: The Next Generation episode shares the same complaints, except toward Black alien culture, and many critics have labeled it the worst episode of that series.

What are your picks for the most skippable Star Trek episodes when you are rewatching the different series? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!