Star Trek: 10 Episodes That Wasted An Incredible Premise

We've said it before, and we'll say it again until we're blue in the face: bring back the butt bugs!

You'd think the invasion of Starfleet right royally into its upper echelons by a (very) non-humanoid species was too good an idea to leave to a one-and-done. However, whilst events to come had been somewhat telegraphed in Coming of Age, the epic bluegill premise was pretty much confined to Conspiracy. In Drumhead, we did find out that Admiral Norah Satie had played a crucial role in exposing the butt bug plot, but after that, the little parasites have had no further impact on canon than a slight uptick in subreddits on Tulgana IV.

That doesn't mean Conspiracy was a waste of an episode by any means. In fact, it was one of the best of a rough season, and it certainly swung for the fences when it came to gruesome special effects. It all comes down to budget, and the episodic nature of Star Trek at the time, but there could easily have been a whole mini-series about the bluegills, depicting their discovery and schemes for galactic domination before the Enterprise-D even entered the frame.

In fact, according to The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, the original idea for Conspiracy didn't have any bluegills at all. Instead, it was regular members of Starfleet who were plotting "against the Prime Directive and Federation-wide complacency following the Klingon detente." That plot became central to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and in a more roundabout way, to the next entry on this list.