Star Trek: 20 Worst Episodes Ever

15. The Omega Glory (TOS)

Gene Roddenberry originally wrote The Omega Glory as a potential second pilot for Star Trek, after his first pilot failed to sell. The network, however, wisely chose the far superior Where No Man Has Gone Before, and the rest is history.

Roddenberry's script, however, was still sitting around, although not many people around the office seemed to like it. It remained shelved throughout season one, even as the production was in dire need of scripts that were ready to go before the cameras. Near the end of the second season, however, Roddenberry finally got his pet script into production.

It starts off promisingly enough, with the Enterprise finding the U.S.S. Exeter in orbit of Omega IV. They beam aboard to find the entire crew dead, reduced to piles of salt crystals after all of the water from their bodies has been somehow removed. A log entry leads the crew down to the planet, where they find the Exeter's commanding officer, Ronald Tracy. It seems that Tracy has become involved in a civil war between the planet's two factions -- the Kohms and the Yangs -- and has been arming the Kohms with phasers (a violation of the Prime Directive) to tilt the balance of power in the conflict. Kirk is aghast when he learns of this, since upholding the Prime Directive is "a star Captain's most solemn oath," even if it means death.

It's the last act's attempt to make a political statement, however, in which The Omega Glory falls totally to pieces. It's bad enough that the Kohms and the Yangs turn out to be Communists and Yankees, but the finale involves a waving American flag, the star-spangled banner, and a perfect reproduction of the U.S. Constitution. The patriotism is over the top, and Kirk's ultimate solution - he tells the Yangs the right way to interpret the Constitution - sure seems like a violation of the Prime Directive to me. I guess that solemn oath wasn't so important, after all.