20 Most Cringeworthy Star Trek: The Next Generation Moments

17. Troi's Wedding Chest From Haven (1987)

Speaking of nightmares... The first season episode Haven opens with the Enterprise taking delivery of a chest for Troi, which opens to reveal jewels and precious gifts and ohmygodwhatisthat! Granted, there's no good way to reproduce on camera what the teleplay writer intended here. A talking gift chest was bound to be ghastly and terrible no matter how much CGI was thrown at it. In a brave (and probably cost-saving) move, the director decided to simply put some poor actor in silverface, build a false front around his head, and...well. None of the effects in the first season of TNG are particularly stellar, mind you, but there are times that you could wish they'd either a) tried harder or b) thought about what the end result on film would be before writing such a stupid stage direction as "The chest comes alive and scares the living sh*t out of everybody, including the audience."