Star Trek: 10 Plot Twists Everyone Saw Coming

"Options?" "There are none." That question from Captain Janeway, and that reply from Ensign Kim, at the end of False Profits, sums up the outcome of all of Voyager's would-be shortcuts home, until the very last. The plot twist was, by necessity, always 'back to square one,' or back to whatever square of the Delta Quadrant they had reached by that episode. Barzan and those bloody Ferengi, were but one in a line of examples of what Lieutenant Paris would later call the "tendency to blow up in our faces".

If Voyager had flown back through that wormhole in season three, the twist would have turned the series on its head. The highly frustrating for the crew was the already obvious for the viewer. The carrot had to be the stick. We all knew no amount of high intensity impulse would see them catch up with that aperture. The 'would-they?' was the 'how-would-they-not?'

Barzan, previously of The Price, wasn't even the first wormhole to have teased a quick hop across the galaxy for the Intrepid-class. At the end of the excellent Eye of the Needle, the twist was temporal mechanics, not a debrief with Starfleet. Later, the 'telepathic pitcher plant' would tempt Voyager, with a fake wormhole to Earth's doorstep this time.

Star Trek: The Next Generation went out in the finest of forms, and that includes its penultimate episode, Preemptive Strike. It is by no means a critique to say that we'd all seen the twist coming before the barrel of that phaser. In fact — sorry, Captain — it only ever made perfect sense. Until quite late in the day, according to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, the episode was called 'The Good Fight'. Ro Laren had to join it.

Sent undercover into the Maquis, Ro could never have remained indifferent to their struggle, could never have remained insensitive to the plight of those in the Demilitarised Zone. Ro grew up under the boot of Cardassian domination during the Occupation. Choosing her for the mission in part "because [she was] Bajoran" was downright cruel in the first place. Captain Picard might have taken less than several decades to understand and accept the consequences of his and Admiral Nechayev's decision, to understand Ro.

By the point of Macias' death on the colony during a Cardassian assault, the 'turncoat' twist was all but inevitable. Its predictability was, in this case, the great strength of the episode. It would have been the apotheosis of the character, were it not for an even greater surprise years later. In her final moment of Preemptive Strike, Ro beamed away from one shuttle. Now, the ultimate twist would be that she made it off another.

There was something oddly familiar about Doctor's Orders, the third season episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. Crossing a dangerous region of space with the crew in a comatose state? Now, where have we heard that before? This time, there was no Tom Paris to put back to bed, nor EMH on call. The Doctor was Phlox, and his familiar was T'Pol.

The twist wasn't 'they did that already in the One from Star Trek: Voyager,' but it was about as self-evident. T'Pol, or so it would seem, said it as much to Phlox:

You once told Ensign Sato that it's considered healthy for Denobulans to hallucinate.

He had indeed said that in an earlier episode of the season, Exile. Here, in Doctor's Orders, Phlox was actually reinforming himself. He still hadn't caught on, but we had!

Unlike Seven of Nine, and unless you count Porthos, Phlox was truly on his own for the journey in reconfigured space. T'Pol had been a hallucination throughout, but a decidedly friendlier one than that Xindi insectoid! Other clues included the science officer's sudden and inconvenient lack of science. The ending in T'Pol's quarters wasn't a surprise. It was arguably still a well-executed attempt. Does that mean, however, that Phlox never checked up on the real T'Pol that whole time?

A blistering courtroom drama with an impressive guest star cast, Ad Astra per Aspera is undeniably one of the best examples of Star Trek of recent years. The piece, like the defence, was practically faultless in its execution. Sadly, the same can't be said about the official promotion of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' second season. The spoilers were such that, like a Cardassian show trial, we knew the verdict for Una in advance.

Season one ended on quite the cliffhanger of quite the episode. Though events had been foreshadowed in the alternate timeline of A Quality of Mercy, the conclusion was still a shock. Commander Chin-Riley was arrested "for violations of [the] anti-genetic modification directive". At that point, we didn't know if we'd ever see Una again outside of prison, let alone back in Starfleet.

It was more than a little baffling, therefore, that teaser and trailer for season two should show Una in uniform, on an away mission, and Una on the bridge. Unlike in said alternate timeline, the 'illicit' Illyrian clearly hadn't been sentenced to a Federation penal colony on Salius VI. In fact, she'd evidently got to keep her commission. In the end, the how of it all was a masterclass. The if could have done with a few lessons in suspense from the brilliant Neera Ketoul.

The opening gambit of Gambit, Part I was the demise of Captain Picard. Countermove, surprise reversal, and soon a smack in the face for Commander Riker, Jean-Luc's not dead, because of course he's not. They weren't going to kill off the star of the show, except for all those times they technically did.

As cold-open death fake-outs go, it was still rather effective. None of us, nor the characters, had heard of the energy weapon-transporter combo at that point. Crusher's scans, and Troi's "he's telling the truth [about Picard's vaporisation]," was all we, all they, had to go on, aside from the knowledge that the seventh season had barely just begun.

Despite years of practice, Riker sure needed to work on his poker face, shocked as he was to see Picard back from being a cloud without a micro-crystalline scratch on him. The twist for the viewer aboard the mercenary ship was more in the chair, as alias 'Galen' (an odd, but apt homage to a former professor) swivelled around. What on unearthed Vulcan artefacts was he doing in that outfit?

A penchant for all things of the colour comes with the territory for Terry Matalas, but just what was behind the big red door? Theories flourished during the run of Star Trek: Picard's third season as to the meaning of the visual metaphor plaguing Jack Crusher. Was it the Pah-Wraith? Was it Rick Astley, as one Reddit user suggested? Like father like son, the Borg hypothesis was never far away.

In another twist on the twist subgenre, it was an accidental subtitle that saw the red door opened in advance. As Jack stares into the mirror at the end of No Win Scenario (only the fourth episode or "part"), certain closed captions initially gave "[Borg Queen]" for the voices he was hearing in his head. This was rapidly changed to "[Whispered Voice]," but you can't Kobayashi Maru the internet. Anyone with so much as a Raspberry Pi and the willpower could find out the big reveal if they wanted to.

Moreover, inasmuch as the Borg had been done to near galactic extinction, could the answer have been anything else? Would another twist have been quite so pertinent? The 'red door' was that one to engineering, behind which the Borg Queen first lay in First Contact, for which Alice Krige was once more the "whispered voice," here.

Star Trek: The Search for Kirk doesn't have the same ring to it. Probably best, therefore, that they didn't spend the next film doing it when the irradiated roles were reversed. If Star Trek: Into Darkness was the remake of The Wrath of…, the McGuffin in both was still McCoy. In the former, it was more 'remember that tribble (?)' than 'remember,' and then time to collect more super-blood. The twist in Into Darkness was about as subtle as either "Khaaaaaaan".

Out of the warp core, into the cryo-tube, as the saying goes. No sooner was Kelvin Kirk dead than he was being put on ice. "We haven't needed to freeze anyone since we developed warp capability," Doctor McCoy had said regarding the augment ice lolly in the torpedo tube. Oh, don't be so sure, my dear Bones! Don't be so sure!

No ship-to-ship soliloquies either, in this one they had Khan on board. That way, McCoy could inject those magical "platelets into the deceased tissue of a necrotic host". Oooh, that sounds important! Cut to "[tribble chittering softly]," as the subtitles elegantly put it, and we've come full circle. There are worse things you can do with those furry thwarters of the Klingon Empire. With all that super-blood, the real twist might be the rise of super-tribble to rule them all!

This isn't a bandwagon, it's an anti-grav platform. Caught red-tentacled, Fuzz did jump on to one of those. Star Trek: Section 31 is what it is, and it certainly wasn't much of a whodunnit. Was the murderer, a) an upstanding Starfleet officer, or b) the microscopic "maniac" who can fly inside mech tech? You have exactly no seconds. Mine's the jam scones, without the side of obvious, please!

Nevertheless, with more than just a hole in the head, the following is dialogue:

Zeph: "This is my suit. […] We were your friends. We were your friends. You can't kill me."

Quasi: "Zeph killed himself? Why would he do that?"

Some consolation, the whole thing will probably provide plenty of laughs at those strictly-no-office parties in the 2370s. Not at all a twist, but at least an amusing training program for future recruits. Fuzz's wife probably donated the transcripts!

On the subject of everything in, around, and up the god's end… godsend… there was also San's semi-miraculous return. Telegraphed to within a nano(kin)-metre of its life, the entire multiverse, minus the ex-emperor, saw that one coming, too. Divine intervention won't save you now!

"Something's wrong," says Deral as planet Meridian begins to shift. Oh really? Quelle surprise! Also, and no offence, thank the trans-dimensional heavens things did go sideways. If not, we'd have lost Jadzia Dax for 60 years, all because of the shortest is-it-even-summer(?)'s romance.

Meridian, the episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's third season, tends to rank highly on the lowest lists. Its highly predictable ending is only part of the problem, a symptom of the rest. Jadzia was a brilliant scientist in her own right, and a skilled Starfleet officer, too. With Dax, she had the added experience of lifetimes. That she would abandon her career, her colleagues, and her friends for some bloke she just met stretched credibility down to the quantum level.

Nonetheless, Jadzia chose to stay on Meridian. As soon as the decision was made, we knew it had to be swiftly revoked. This was still, by and large, episodic television, after all. The narrative arc was self-contained. The only surprise was that a beloved character would be done such a disservice, that a lack of agency should 'save her from herself'. The benefit of more episodic television is that certain plot twists don't need to hang around. That is, of course, until they do.

No, this isn't about Quark's moon, or lack thereof, though 'business as usual' is still the theme. A good while before cousin Gaila, Captain Kirk was extolling the virtues of an entirely different kind of venture. "Risk is our business" is one of Star Trek's most famous monologues — quite rightly so. The riskier the speech, however, the more foregone the road. Return to Tomorrow's conclusion was there in the briefing room.

Of course, we couldn't have predicted exactly how things would turn out with the Arretans. But, if you are talking "enormous danger potential" by Act Two, Acts Three and Four could hardly have proceeded well. Hosting the consciousness of an ancient being whilst your own sits in spherical storage? What could possibly go right?

"Have no fear, Sargon is here," William Shatner said in one of the bloopers from Return to Tomorrow. Sargon, in the body of Kirk, did at least try to play ball out of his ball, but there's always one (or two) to ruin it, i.e., Henoch in the ('I'm keeping the') body of Spock. Combine that with Thalassa's phobia, and it was oblivion's depths for them all, after hell for the Enterprise crew. Don't say we didn't tell you so!