10 Terrible Star Trek Episodes With Awesome Endings

At the time of its release in 2002, Star Trek: Nemesis was panned by fans and critics alike. Without the box office receipts, it put paid to a follow-up movie for The Next Generation crew and taxed the rest of the franchise with 'fatigue,' hoisted by its own title! Nemesis isn't an episode of television (aside from the Voyager one), but by now it is, for all intents and purposes, a mini-series that you must watch before Star Trek: Picard, and really before Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Prodigy too.

Looking back at the film in strict isolation, we can reproach Nemesis for its over-reliance on action sequences, some of which (and you know which) border on the absurd. The central premise of 'mistreated clone come to seek vengeance on the Federation via a magical new superweapon' was also arguably not strong enough to carry an entire movie. Then, of course, Nemesis tried to pull off a double allegory with Data and B-4/Picard and Shinzon, but p**sed everyone off instead with the most senseless death of a beloved character.

We've now got to spend a good deal more time with the Next Gen crew and, most notably here, we've had rebirth and resolution for Data, thanks to B-4. In that way, the ending to Nemesis is no longer a disappointing and dangling conclusion, but the awesome set-up for something much bigger (and better). It can't redeem the film as a whole, but it does place it within the properness of context that we'd begun to think it would never have.