10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek: The Next Generation

How tough is it to take over the Federation Flagship™? Going by the episodes, it doesn’t seem all that difficult!

In “11001001,” a smattering of unarmed Bynars take over the ship and send the vessel on a course of their own choosing. Earlier in the episode, Riker says he doesn’t trust the Bynars, but rather than demonstrate some actual leadership, he puts Wesley Crusher in charge of watching them. (Wesley does not stop the Bynars from taking over the ship.) Meanwhile, Riker is sidelined by a sexy holodeck program the Bynars developed to distract him. One wonders how he wrote that one up on his after action report.

In “Allegiance,” Captain Picard is kidnapped and replaced with a doppelgänger, who behaves strangely and gives increasingly bizarre and dangerous orders. Riker only relieves him of command when the imposter orders the Enterprise within lethal range of a nearby pulsar.

In “Evolution,” Wesley’s science experiment with nanites nearly takes control over the entire ship (and almost suffocates the entire bridge crew with deadly nitrogen oxide).

In “Brothers,” Data takes over control of the ship and the rest of the crew is helpless to stop him.

In “Rascals,” a couple dozen absolutely buffoonish Ferengi are able to board and overtake the entire Enterprise crew using a couple of salvaged Klingon Birds-of-Prey. This incident is actually so ridiculous that the writers later had Odo hang a lampshade on it when it came time for Odo to hang Worf’s security protocols out to dry on Deep Space Nine.