10 Most Frustrating Star Trek Moments Ever

Honestly, did Admiral Cornwell have to die? And if so, was it really necessary to kill her simply to highlight the need for locks on both sides of a blast door?

When a torpedo impacts the saucer section of the Enterprise in Such Sweet Sorrow, part 2, Cornwell volunteers to go down in an attempt to disarm it. She is joined by Una, then later by Captain Pike. None of them are able to disarm the warhead, so they need to seal the blast door in order to contain the explosion.

Now, wouldn’t you know it, the only access to the locking mechanism is on the explody side of the door. Cornwell pulls rank, and orders Pike to leave the room. She locks the blast door, and as the torpedo detonates, Pike watches from behind one of the sturdiest pieces of transparent aluminum known to Starfleet.

While Such Sweet Sorrow part 2 has appeared on this list twice, it’s not a truly bad episode by any means – but both of these gaps in logic stick out awkwardly. If the crew at the front of the saucer section were able to evacuate with enough time, why not simply pull back a deck or two, then try a different blast door? Or, was this torpedo sitting in the only room on the Enterprise with blast doors installed? If so, handy!

Much like the blatant decision that Discovery needed to jump into the future, this feels awfully like it was decided early on that someone recognisable had to die in this episode. Cornwell was well known enough for this to hit the right emotional beats, sure. But, it still felt completely unnecessary, and not in the good ‘oh no their pointless death has affected me greatly’ kind of way.

This felt like – ‘so, that happened. Right so.’