20 Most Cringeworthy Star Trek: The Next Generation Moments

2. The Pakleds From Samaritan Snare

The last two entries on our list have less to do with specific moments and more to do with entire species that make us want to hide our heads in shame - and we trust the series' producers felt the same way after the fact because, dammit, they should have. The Pakleds in the second season episode Samaritan Snare are enough to make one wonder whether said producers had any respect for the fans at all, given that some commentators see the Pakleds as a thinly veiled version of the fans. Not quite sure how, given that most fans are much more intelligent. The operative word there is most. The Pakleds, for those who have successfully blocked them from their minds, are a species with substandard intelligence who have somehow managed to trick 'smart' races into giving them technology to 'make them go'. How a race like this ever got out into space is anyone's guess - we suspect a special needs teacher from the Federation was assigned to Pakled once upon a time and got duped into giving them spacefaring tech, the same way the idiots aboard the Enterprise are. Picard really knows how to pick when to leave the ship, doesn't he? Between incidents like this one with the Pakleds, the ship getting frozen in time, and the crew de-evolving, it's a wonder he hasn't been ordered by Starfleet to stay on board at all times, just in case. But the Pakleds aren't the worst species ever created for Next Gen, nor the one that makes us cringe the worst. That dubious honour goes to...