The Top 5 Saddest 'Star Trek' Episodes
Star Trek Stories Can Be Real Tearjerkers
Space, the final frontier… and quite often the saddest…
Writer/producer Gene Roddenberry created his DesiLu produced TV masterpiece Star Trek in 1966. Loyal fans welcomed the unique production warmly and soon regarded the landmark science fiction show as Wagon Train To The Stars. Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Deforest Kelley, it aired on NBC for only three seasons, but ultimately grew into one of the greatest cult shows of all time. The mark of its phenomenal success is many, most impressive of all that new sequel and prequel versions of it are still going strong right up till today.
In 1987, Roddenberry created the Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s focused Star Trek: The Next Generation, starring Patrick Stewart - the first spinoff series which subsequently led to Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, big box office feature films, beginning with Star Trek: Generations, and several other TV shows.
In all those many tales of sci-fi fueled adventures, we’ve seen more than a few sad stories. Sadness is an important, even vital part of life, and Roddenberry’s entertainment legacy encompasses that emotion.
Here are five of the saddest. These remain the tearjerker episodes which are so emotionally charged, you may need more than one box of Kleenex to keep you dry while watching all of them.
These Are The Saddest Stars of Trek
Original Series - City On The Edge Of Forever
Even casual fans will probably recognize this sad tale. Yes, this is one of the most popular, one of the most romantic, and one of the most fascinating Star Trek episodes ever produced, but it’s also one of the saddest stories of them all.
After an accident aboard the Enterprise causes Dr. McCoy to go temporarily insane, flee to a planet and escape through time travel, Kirk and Spock must chase after him utilizing a time travel portal known as The Guardian of Forever. It seems Bones jumping back in time causes a catastrophic timeline alteration. Now, that time travel flaw which has altered all reality must be fixed.
Spock and Kirk go through the Guardian of Forever and arrive at the transformative point of time first. Soon, the Starfleet Captain warms up romantically to a social worker, Edith Keeler, played by Joan Collins. Ultimately, Spock discovers that if their timeline is to be properly repaired, Kirk must make a devastating life and death decision - one which will affect him for the rest of his life. Can Kirk come to the ultimate personal sacrifice? Watch and see for yourself.
The Next Generation - Skin Of Evil
Trekkers know this one for sure as one of the true tearjerkers of all time. Enterprise Security Chief Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) is brutally murdered in this entry, and the saddest part is that her death is for no good reason at all.
Imagine an alien world focusing and collecting all of its bad vibes, its criminal elements, its true evil and throwing it off like a toxic skin to be shed. The inhabitants of this world didn’t just dream it, they formulated a plan and successfully executed it.
When actress Denise Crosby (Pet Sematary) chose to leave Star Trek: The Next Generation to pursue a feature film career, the producers decided to send Tasha Yar off in an incredibly memorable way. Villainous Armus, the alien skin of evil, assassinates Tasha simply for the perverted fun of doing the shocking act.
This haunting episode was penned by the legendary Joseph Stefano, writer of Alfred Hitchcock’s horror masterwork, Psycho. Tasha Yar’s memorial service held in the dreamlike holodeck remains one of the most touching and emotionally charged moment from any series.
The Next Generation - The Offspring
Did you know Data had a daughter? More accurately, he created a daughter in his robotics lab - an android much like himself. He named her Lal.
Lal tried her best to fit into her environment and to understand what it was to be granted a kind of digital, simulation of life. However, try as she might, and as much as her creator father tried to assist her, she simply couldn’t acclimate properly to her complex surroundings. She began to malfunction. Data, despite all of his incredible skills and abilities couldn’t save her, and he was forced to shut her down.
On its surface, the tale seems like only an exploration of the promise and complexities of advanced Artificial Intelligence. However, as is the case with many of the best Treks, it’s far more. Concepts of euthanasia coupled with a loved one suffering a terminal illness are explored here in equal, touching parts.
Deep Space Nine - Life Support
DS9 is regarded as sort of the Un-Trek of Star Trek. It’s considered by fans as the dark, thoroughly dramatic Trek incarnation, more so than any of the others in the sci-fi family. In this poignant tale, Major Kira must deal with her love, Vedek Bareil, and his severely wounded condition.
When Vedek Bareil is seriously injured, he must choose between a twilight existence where he’d be on constant life support machines, or a drug which would perhaps heal him, though would be incredibly toxic, even lethal. Upon choosing the drug, it’s discovered he’ll require cybernetic implants to keep him stable enough to live. Dr. Bashir tells Kira her beloved Bareil would become less human and more machine than man if that choice is selected. Kira knows there’s only one humane choice to be made.
Voyager - Drone
Can you imagine the nightmarish Borg summoning enough emotional impact to actually make us sad? Yep, you got it. With this one, Resistance To Crying may be futile.
Seven Of Nine (Jeri Ryan) as Starship Voyager’s only Borg Drone, albeit a recovering one, gets cybernetic company in this wonderfully written and acted entry.
After a Voyager away team beams aboard and experiences a malfunction in transport, Seven must mentor a newly born Borg Drone - though he’s a fully grown man in biological terms. This is a uniquely created cybernetic creature, one born courtesy of the far flung future tech found in the Doctor’s Mobile Holographic Emitter. This Borg Drone is able to do fantastic things which Seven and her current Borg parallels can only dream electric dreams about.
When the Borg Collective receive an accidental distress call from the Drone, they arrive to try to assimilate him and Voyager, but the Future Drone, now called One, successfully destroys the marauding ship. Unfortunately, the severe injuries he sustains dooms him. His self sacrifice touches the entire crew, and most of all, brings Seven to a completely new place in her developing humanity where she must grieve her all too short friendship.
I wept openly and unashamedly at the conclusion of Drone, but I’d have to give top saddest billing to City… for the originality of showing Kirk’s vulnerability and emotionality.