25 WORST Episodes Of Star Trek EVER
21. Plato's Stepchildren - TOS
Where to begin with this one?
Positives first: THAT kiss. That's right, this is the episode that contained the historic interracial kiss between Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura, a daring move that resulted in the episode being banned from broadcast in several states along the bible belt. Here ends the positives.
It's a strange, strange episode of Star Trek. Although the show was well used to oddball topics, this was a little too close to slapstick humour. The sights of Spock dancing and crewmen neighing like horses, once burned into your retinas, are hard to wipe away. It remains then a shame that an episode that could potentially have been best consigned to the scrap heap contains one of the most memorable scenes in not just Trek history, but in the history of television broadcast.
The original script called for Spock and Uhura to share the kiss, an idea that would be revisited in JJ Abrams' movies, but William Shatner upon reading this element of the script demanded it be rewritten, correctly sensing the media furor it would create.
What we have been left with is an episode that looks like it was written and shot on hallucinogenics, giving the crew a chance to escape the confines of their normal roles and the audience a chance to escape the confines of sanity.