10 Scariest Star Trek Episodes Ever

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 6, Episode 5

Schisms isn't only the scariest episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, nor the scariest episode of Star Trek full stop, it's probably one of the scariest things that went out on 90s pre-watershed television. As an X-Files episode, this would have been lauded, on The Twilight Zone it'd have been considered 'too much', but it's Star Trek. Friendly, rewarding, fun-for-the-whole-family Star Trek, and it's terrifying.

Taking the classic alien abduction trope that's made movies like Fire In The Sky so difficult to watch, the episode builds from a growing sense of unease all the way to a horrifying reveal absolutely perfectly.

When several crewmembers start complaining about being tired, it's slowly revealed that they've been missing from the ship's logs overnight. Then when several of them begin experiencing flashbacks trigged by otherwise innocuous objects, it's clear they all share a common, sinister memory. Riker, in particular, has even had his limbs amputated and reattached.

Finding a way to stay awake during their abductions, Will sets off to rescue a missing crew member and get to the bottom of this. He finds himself on a cold metal slab in the midst of an alien autopsy but manages to escape, however not before his captors can send a mysterious energy signal back through the rift they'd taken him with, leaving us on a sinister cliffhanger.