10 Utterly Devastating Star Trek Endings That Came Out Of Nowhere

Crafting an ending that truly devastates is no easy task. For the full impact, one must build the tension as the story goes, allowing the audience to either prepare themselves or be lulled into a false sense of security. Only after perfectly setting the scene does the trap close - and hearts break.

An even more difficult version of this is creating those scenes of devastation that attack like a clever girl in a jungle. In almost sixty years of trying, Star Trek has managed to pull it off quite a few times.

This is more than a case of sticking the landing - this is setting up a scene with such subtlety that the audience is truly blindsided by what happens. We expect one thing, we're delivered another, and we're all the sorer for it. 

Star Trek may be one of the greatest ongoing franchises in television and cinema history, but let us never forget that it's like a Rose. Beautiful to look at, yet fully capable of stabbing right under your skin and punishing you for your enjoyment. 

Shattered Mirror rarely gets mentioned in lists of tragedy, as it is mostly remembered for the dogfight between the ISS Defiant and the Regent's Battlecruiser. Easy to forget, however, is the cold-blooded murder that Jake Sisko witnesses toward the episode's end. 

As the Intendant is escaping, she moves to kill Jake, but Jennifer Sisko steps in the way of the blast. Though audiences had only known this version of the character for barely an episode and a half, she represents something so much more to both Jake and Ben.

Both men endured the loss of the Prime version of Jennifer in the Battle of Wolf 359, so to lose her again was almost more than they could bear. To have it happen, once again, in so brutal a fashion seemed cruel beyond measure. 

Ben and Jake's embrace over Jennifer's death bed brought what had been, to that point, a fun action-adventure style episode to a dark and sombre close.