25 WORST Episodes Of Star Trek EVER

Pre Star Trek Discovery, the Trek franchise had a patchy history when it came to LGBTQ+ issues. Episodes like The Outcast and Rejoined were effectively the only entries to portray such struggles in any kind of sympathetic light. There had been attempts by cast and crew to change this but these attempts have been cited as being stopped from the very top by several commenters.

So, when Deep Space Nine, arguably the most progressive series in the franchise, offered up an episode that depicted not just transvestism, but a complete gender reassignment, one could be forgiven for thinking that, finally, the franchise was opening up a bit.

No, this was not the case.

Quark receives gender reassignment surgery to conduct a business meeting. It is played for comedy, mocking the struggles that transgendered people face in their journeys. It is simply a bad, offensive episode and is quite rightly regarded as one of the worst Star Trek had to offer. While the franchise would thankfully land wins with Culber and Stamets in Discovery, this episode is a sad reminder that even by the late '90s, Star Trek had a long distance to go in depicting LGBTQ+ issues.

To be absolutely fair though - this is a script that started with the best of intentions. The idea was to take this misogynistic character and have him understand the plights of being a woman in a man's world. Armin Shimmerman hated the script, saying that Quark didn't learn anything from the experience. A swing and a miss.