Fun fact: Code of Honor was the worst episode of both TNG and Stargate SG-1 (S01E03 - Emancipation). Same writer, same story treatment.
Why though! Wasn't it panned in its time for being kinda racist? Why do that twice??
It was originally written in the 70s for the planned and canned revival of TOS
You can ping Joe Mallozzi over on Reddit to confirm if you really want (he's active on the Stargate sub), but I'm sure the SG1 showrunners in that first season were like, "You wrote for TNG? Yes, we'll buy it! No, we don't need to read it first."
When you write for TV, it gives you the opportunity to vent your... secret desires in a very public fashion
Also if you can get paid for swapping out a few names on a script, I'm not going to judge
Shades of Grey was literally a clip show cobbled together because of a writer's strike, it's not even an episode
Up The Long Ladder is a strong contender too. Combining Irish stereotypes with a half-baked story about cloning ethics and a conclusion that involves using the women as brood mares to rebuild a society?
The episode where Barclay had a fantasy world where all the women found him hot and all the men were dunces was pretty funny tho.
Top 5 holodeck episodes but also still in the bottom quadrant with all the other holodeck episodes
Unrelated, but I feel like DS9 went too hard with the Vic Fontaine thing. I guess it was near the end the the writers were like "fuck it, let's bring in Sinatra!"
YES, I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels that way. I loved it when Sisko gave Yates that reality check of “no I don’t want to hang out in that program because Las Vegas in the 1960s wasn’t a great place for black folks” though.
But then Yates gave him the ol' "Maybe not, but this is how it should have been" and then everyone was fine with it
DS9 has the only good holodeck episode, it's the one where Dr. Bashir is playing a James Bond type and everyone else has to have their bodies loaded into the program to take the place of the characters due to some transporter buffer thing and a terrorist attack and blah blah blah because we get to see Avery Brooks play a scenery-chewing villain
I never cared for the episodes focused on individual characters. Especially those centered around Data, Dianna and Wesley
Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like DS9 did it better. Like a Garak or Odo episode was often the highlight of the season.
Edit: Although OP is definitely right. Shades of Grey and Code of Honour are by far the worst.
The worst TNG episode is definitely Code of Honor lmao
