10 Dumbest Things in Star Trek The Original Series
3. Game Changers...Forgotten
Star Trek was overall relatively consistent where its core technology was concerned. The warp drive had speed limits. The transporter was relatively short-range and couldn’t beam across interplanetary or interstellar distances. The phasers stunned, exploded, and vaporized things, or could be overloaded to blow up.
But things got dicier when individual episodes invented techniques and technology to solve a problem of the week, which were often forgotten in subsequent segments and never used or referenced again.
Examples: The truth serum mentioned in “The Man Trap” and the “psycho tricorder” of “Wolf In the Fold” could have been handy in other adventures. The time warp-causing engine “implosion” in “The Naked Time” was never repeated for temporal shenanigans (replaced by the slingshot effect). Kelvan engine mods that let the Enterprise travel at Ludicrous Speed in “By Any Other Name” were apparently undone as if they never happened. Telekinetic powers obtained by kironide and super speed via Scalosian water consumption in “Plato’s Stepchildren” and “Wink of An Eye” are likewise forgotten, handy as they might be in a pinch. And the one that ought to have been standard issue instead of one-and-done: the subcutaneous implants allowing the crew to be located and beamed out when their communicators are invariably taken in “Patterns of Force."