this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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Sub Rosa is awful, but I'm not even sure if it makes the top 5 worst episodes of TNG. Code of Honor, Justice, The Neutral Zone, and Shades of Grey definitely have it beat. And there's several others I'd probably rank as being sub Sub Rosa, but which I would have to rewatch to be certain.
Maybe it's just that Sub Rosa has a distinct "so bad it's good" quality. The superstitious groundskeeper, the fog taking over the enterprise, zombie grandma, it's all so ridiculous in just the right ways, so I can't help but get a few laughs out of it. That's a lot more than I can say about those other episodes.
The one no one ever seems to mention is Transfigurations. It comes right before The Best of Both Worlds (another arguably best episode) and is so incompetently written that it doesn't feel like a real episode. It legitimately feels like they didn't have a real script, just a jumble of notes from a brainstorming session in the writing room where they couldn't decide what they wanted the episode to be about. It just meanders from one cliche premise to the next, with vestigial remnants of subplots still dangling off of it. And for the icing on the cake, the climax it builds up to is a guy in a morph suit pretending to be an energy being, an effect that might have been barely passable in standard definition, but which looks like something that would get laughed off of a power rangers set when watching in HD.
It's probably not the worst episode since it isn't painful or offensive, but it's still a dumpster fire that would fit in better among bad fanfics than actual episodes. I swear, they must have kept it out of the episode rotation too, because I didn't even know it existed until fairly recently.
Transfigurations at least has a consistent main theme and message, and bad as the final special effect is (my dude I can see the texture on the zentai suit you're wearing) the resolution and the way it unfolds are very Trek, especially the semi-hopeful note of "they're jerks but only because they're ignorant and they might change once they know better." It's easier to forgive a lot of the awkward stuff in the middle when the end is on brand.
Meanwhile, Sub Rosa's only message seems to be "ain't no fuckin' like ghost fuckin'."
Also, I maintain that Code of Honor is the worst episode of TNG by far. Even discounting the uncomfortably possibly racist undertones throughout, the whole thing is full of incredibly regressive and outdated stereotypes of gender even for the time. Also it's just kinda boring.
Sub Rosa's message was "I'd rather be writing gothic horror romance stories, but I'm stuck writing for Star Trek" which is an important enough message that they managed to bring it back as a subplot for the first two seasons of Voyager.
And I didn't mean to say that Transfigurations is necessarily worse than Sub Rosa (though I do enjoy it less), I just wanted to bring it up because I think it's awful in so many ways, and yet I've never seen it discussed.
Transfigurations has an ending consistent with Trek, but not consistent with the rest of the episode. It's a medical mystery plot, then an alien influence plot for all of 30 seconds mixed with a "Geordi is bad with women" plot, then an amnesia mystery running parallel with our love interest of the week plot, followed by a tyrannical alien civilization plot mixed with an energy being with godlike powers plot. A little focus and polish could have made any of those work, but instead it just feels like Trek Trope Mad Libs.
It also uses lazy plot devices that make no sense and seem utterly inconsistent with how Star Trek works. In the beginning, we see a medical device that regulates alien biology by syncing it with human biology, despite the two being potentially very different (and even if they aren't the best it could do would be to mirror what a device designed for humans would do). But we need that to have Geordi get hit by some alien influence I guess. But then we'll mostly drop that plot, except to have the alien tell Geordi that the magic was in him all along.
Later we get an enemy ship that has a "force choke a thousand aliens at once on another ship even though their shields are up" button. How does this technology work? Couldn't they use that effect to target a warp core or something? Who knows, it's just there so that our alien messiah can have a way to save the entire ship using healing powers.
Hell, I can't give credit to the ending because the ending is just a massive exposition dump trying to justify the rest of the episode. Our bland guest star of the week spends several minutes telling us about things we should have seen if they wanted us to care.
In fact, you can see at least one version of what this episode could have been with some trimming and focus by watching Counterpoint on Voyager. You have a tyrannical alien government attempting to wipe out those with mental abilities that they view as a threat, and in the midst of this we have a love interest of the week from that alien civilization, but with questions about who he really is and perhaps whether or not he can be trusted. It doesn't have every element of this episode, but the ones it has are actually fleshed out, and we even have some interesting chemistry in our romantic subplot for a change.
Shit, I just realized that Beverly's love interest in Transfigurations is essentially an energy ghost. She officially has a type. It must run in the family too, because Wesley also had a romantic subplot with a shapeshifter that turned out to be an energy being. And that's not counting the Traveler, who is basically a godlike energy being, and whose interest in Wesley has always had a "there's free candy in the back of my van" vibe to it.
And now I think I need a shower.
Code of Honor is a terrible one. I guess I usually exclude pre-beard TNG from my lists since they're all pretty bad. But the bad ones after it gets good really stand out since it's such a stark contrast in writing quality. Another very bad one is Masks, where Data becomes the mouthpiece for an Aztech god, but I don't usually call it bad because it's such a treat to watch Spiner going all out with his performance. He seems to be having a legitimately fun time with that role.
Code of Honor is so bad I thought for sure it was an unproduced TOS script they decided to recycle for TNG. Nope! Brand new story made for TNG. Astounding given that I'm pretty sure it would've been out of place even during TOS's run.
Then again, the pitch wasn't specifically for pseudo-African aliens. Someone else added that:
Even without that though the underlying "Strong Woman Suddenly Weak When Faced With Average Man" theme was pretty bad.
Alright, I'm done making new comments ranting about Code of Honor, I promise.
Not only is Tasha suddenly weak, but they even have her admit that despite being kidnapped she still finds her kidnapper arousing. Because the story just wouldn't be complete without that little nugget.
Not only was it a new script, but the same writer went on to write an episode of of SG-1 with an almost identical story, but this time on a planet of Mongolians. And as if that wasn't enough, we even get little bit of racist casting, as the one prominent female character from this society (whose parents are clearly Asian and is repeatedly praised for her beauty) is played by a white actress.
I thought Masks was great, Spiner absolutely kills in that episode
He really does! Unfortunately he's about the only good thing in that episode from what I remember. Spiner is a very talented actor with a lot more range than he usually gets to use as Data.
People don't like Shades of Grey?