Star Trek: 10 Most Overused Plot Tropes

You need to beam someone to safety? Too much transporter interference. You want to send a distress call or hail an attacking ship? Too much subspace interference. There are entire compilations of characters from Star Trek saying these lines again and again countless times and they've become the biggest excuses for when the writers don't want Starfleet's miracle technology to just save the day no problem.

It makes sense that these devices would experience interference from certain phenomena, but it is funny how they only seem to have these issues in the heat of battle when they need them to work most, never when just calling a starbase for a mission briefing, or beaming some diplomats onboard.

Often, because of how seemingly over-powered Starfleet's technology is, the writers need ways to limit the characters and raise suspense. The "interference" solution is just one way to do this.