The OC writes the only episode of Star Trek I would ever watch:
Okay Gene, here’s the outline. Returning from a mission dirtside, the Away Team discovers that a freak malfunction of the transporter contrast control has turned them all black. Piccard retires to the executive conference room (I understand we’re contractually obligated to use the conference room set for at least five minutes in each show, right?), opens the executive safe, and reads the Enterprise warranty, only to discover that the transporter is covered by a carry-in service contract and the nearest XEROX service center is 200 light-years away.
Troi gets a “bad feeling” about this.
I liked the original Star Trek when I was a kid. I didn’t like it as an adult, however, and I loathed ST:TNG and all the subsequent Treks. (I really liked Galaxy Quest, though, and not because it poked fun at Trekkies. Go figure.) I only saw part of a few episodes, but ST:TNG was one of the most derivative shows I’ve ever seen. By way of example, I once freaked out a Trekkie by telling him the plot of a show he was watching after seeing the first few minutes.
I didn’t stick around to watch it unfold, so around an hour later, the guy came out and demanded to know how I could have possibly known what was going to happen. It was simple, the whole story was ripped off from Ann Rice’s Lasher.