Is Star Trek Actually Any Good at Horror?
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- Опубліковано 18 тра 2024
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▶Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
01:45 - "Catspaw": Star Trek's First and Only Holiday Special
11:43 - "Schisms": Star Trek: TNG Does an Alien Abduction Episode
19:05 - Horror Episodes of DS9, Enterprise, and Discovery
21:36 - "The Thaw": The Best (and Scariest) Star Trek: Voyager Episode
30:17 - Conclusion
33:11 - Shoutouts, Plugs and Announcements - Розваги
How could you not include the TNG episode Phantasms? Data having nightmares about Beverly drinking Will's brain through a straw, and Deanna as a cake? Data stabbing Deanna because of a cake dream? In my mind this is TNG horror at its best.
With mint frosting!
It's less horror and more surrealism.
While not typical horror and more of a psychological thriller, TNG’s season 6 episode “Frame of Mind” is properly scary. The writing and acting are great. When I first saw it, it reminded me of “A Nightmare of Elm Street” in that once you loose track of your waking and dream state, you loose your grip on reality.
I thought of Frame of Mind as well. That one truly creeped me out as a child. And Night Terrors. Night Terrors was the sleep deprivation story that hit me harder than Schisms did.
I was thinking of this one too.
Oh also Phantasms...which is set up to make us think that Data is becoming a schizophrenic killer robot until the twist is revealed.
"You must kill them all, before its to late."
I came here to write this comment! Also, easily one of Frakes’ best performances as Riker in my opinion
Yeah, Frame Of Mind was the first episode that sprang to mind for me too... after Sub Rosa.
I was hoping you'd mention Night Terrors. That scene where the corpses all sit up on their examination tables and Doctor Crusher does what she probably learned as a child, close her eyes and tell them to "go away", always gets me.
Sisko punching Q wasn't a Christmas holiday special? Must have felt like one to Patrick Stewart. I bet he recorded it and watches it on repeat whenever he needs a pick-me-up.
More on topic, the Borg always seemed somewhat horrorish.
I agree about the Borg having a horror element, and slightly disappointed Steve didn't talk about any of First Contact, my personal favorite Trek film. (I'll always be a TNG boy)
While there's no authentic holidays episode there are unique special day episodes like Captain Picard Day ("The Pegasus") or the Bajoran Gratitude Festival ("Fascination") or "First Contact Day" celebrated in Voyager ("Homestead") or the Klingon Day of Honor ("Day of Honor"), the latter did air around the same time as the Jewish holiday of Yum Kippur that year if I remember. And of course "Generations" with Picard and his family in a Christmas festive setting and the movie was released well around Christmas time.
I had a nightmare about the Borg invading real-world Earth once, so I would say you're right.
@@LexYeen According to Star Trek First Contact they will actually try that in year 2061 to assimilate us before we test first spaceship with warp drive.
@@normanbuchwald Mortal Coil on Voyager has the Talaxian holiday of Prixian. It also aired in mid December and had a trailer that definitely framed it as a Christmas Special.
But the overall theme is pretty heavy.
Star Trek the Motion Picture is basically Lovecradtian horror. V'ger is an ancient, unknowable, godlike entity that consumes knowledge by literally consuming the things it comes across. When Spock attempts his mind meld it nearly drives him mad. The movie takes it's time to show us just how vast V'ger is which slowly raises the cosmic horror of this being shrouded in shadowy clouds.
Also the transporter accident scene has been nightmare fuel since my early childhood.
Seriously, poor Dr. McCoy was totally in the right to be terrified of that transporter
I maintain that most of TOS is a absolute horror show with the methods people died compared with tng and others. Omg yes as a kid I would run out the room during the transporter accident scene and when the probe took Ilia. Absolute horrifying as a kid
What transporter accident scene? I hear about it, and when I watch the movie something is mentioned about a transporter malfunction, but there is no memorable scene. The only scene I can think of is in Galaxy Quest when the pig lizard beams up inside out and explodes, and there is nothing remotely like that anywhere in this movie. Now THAT is a memorable transporter malfunction scene!
@@Mike-uh5xl ua-cam.com/video/KIiNbDVQMRE/v-deo.html
It's worth noting that this scene isn't the original theatrical version; that was only a few seconds longer, but those few extra seconds are the two people beaming up screaming and writhing and dying pretty horribly.
The TNG episode "Night Terrors" stuck with me, specifically the scene with Dr Crusher in the morgue where all the cadavers in their body bags suddenly sit up. Troi's recurring 'Eyes in the dark' dream in the same episode is also fairly creepy, although it is tempered somewhat by Marina Sirtis having to do wire-work in that low-cut onesie.
The morgue scene--really scary imo.
My nightmares have become over the top as of late, the eyes in the dark are coming together with 2-4 other dark themes in a single traumatizing narrative.
In my dreams, I almost die but don’t wake up until it’s time.
Sometimes they make me feel like I need to talk to a therapist, but I have none. I can feel afraid to go to sleep all the time but have to still perform at my job to survive in a capitalistic society
Nobody will really help me.
That episode feels tame. Mine feels like an episode of “The Outer Limits” instead.
Yeah, if I had to single out the creepiest scene of Treks TOS thru ENT (I haven't seen the new hot garbage), the morgue scene is definitely it. "Schisms" is up there too when they are making the holodeck recreation with clicks coming from the pitch black.
The Thaw is such a great episode. The otherworldliness of the simulation and the primal reactions of the clown when threatened. Also, Janeway is the best movie monster.
"Frame of Mind" - I still can't watch without getting the chills. Probably it's the prospect of having lost one own's mind and everything conceived of as real is brought into question... It really scares the s*** out of me. Jonathan Frakes does an awesome performance of Riker struggling with the competing concepts of reality and I think it is one of TNG's best ventures into the horror genre, intentionally or not. And I'm usually a person not easily terrified by classic "horror" movies or motives.
Yeah, this is my most memorable one.
I turn that episode off because it disturbed me as a kid. Still gives me the heebie jeebies.
On my first full watchthrough of TNG I watched that episode before going to sleep. Watching it late at night certainly was spooky.
That might be my favorite Voyager episode. Michael McKean is SUCH a good actor.
Agreed. I'm just surprised in certain Trek message boards and social media a lot of people vote this as either the worst Voyager episode or the worst of Trek. Hardly. I consider this episode absolutely brilliant and with McKean"s acting, the cinematography and the Crique De Soleil ensemble it's fantastic. This is definitely in my Voyager top five and probably my top 30 maybe of all Trek!
Loved McKean on the X-Files.
I rewatched that episode a while back and finally recognised McKean as the evil clown because I'd watched Better Call Saul in the interim. He's really good in both.
I've always wondered if the black cat from "Catspaw" was played by the same black cat from "Assignment: Earth". I'm guessing not, but it would have been cool.
Legend has it that Isis was indeed portrayed by the same cat!
I was really creeped out by the whole phage thing in Voyager. The face swapping bit gave me nightmares.
They really could have done some great body horror stuff the phage. Shame thst they either weren't allowed or didn't want to.
Neelix randomly having his lungs stolen did it for me I don't know it's just so surreal like something out of a creepypasta. I mean I guess they're basically zombies they're kind of decaying undead monsters that harvest bits of people to keep themselves alive
@@scaper8 I think in the episode "Faces" where the Vidiian doctor put on Durst's face to appear more attractive to B'Elanna was the most graphic body horror in all of 90s Trek
yeah except conspiracy
@@blankb.2277 yeah that was a really messed up scene. Effective as hell too.
"Schisms" is a pretty solid and scary episode, but I'd personally put it as TNG's THIRD best horror episode, behind "Phantasms" (where Data has nightmares that lead to him stabbing Troi in the turbolift) and "Frame of Mind" (where Riker is trapped in an alien insane asylum).
But hey, at least you didn't pick "Sub Rosa". **shudder**
Ah yes the classic tng episode where Dr Crusher has a steamy love affair with an ancient vampiric ghost whilst staying on planet Scotland, who could ever forget such a stand out episode lol.
@@simonorourke4465 That ghost certainly gets around; after Crusher sends him packing, he ends up on Bajor in DS9, leading the resistance cell of which Kira was a member.
Hey, Sub Rosa was *peak* terror. ble. Terrorble. Something like that.
I sometimes forget that’s meant to be scary given how often my chosen family quote “it’s a cellular peptide cake. With mint frosting”
@@kaitlyn__L I recall someone forgets to identify the frosting later on, so dream-Worf has to remind them :P
For me, the most chill bump-inducing Trek episode is DS9's "The Darkness and the Light". From the creepy "That's One..." in the teaser to the reveal that the killer is a physically and emotionally mutilated Cardassian *who has a kind of valid point*. It's a masterpiece that doesn't show up on enough "Best of DS9" lists.
For me, one of the scariest episodes was Voyager’s “Twisted.” Like, yes it’s a standard “weird stuff going on” episode where everything gets solved at the last minute almost by sheer luck, but seeing those twisted corridors and the crew’s bodies being bent and warped just haunts me to this day.
What make clowns scary?
Never trust a man who pours custard down his trousers for a living, Steve.
The DS9 episode similar to The Thaw, Julian fights his own fears in a coma after being attacked by a psychic alien.
Genuinely terrified me, excellently paced, and Siddiq El Fadil is a genuinely brilliant and emotional actor.
Plus I love the rest of the station crew getting to ham it up as caricatures of Julians psyche.
TNG episodes "Frame of mind" and "Remember me" had some nice horror elements that were misused in the end. I especially like "Frame of mind" - Frakes makes good job portraying, how it's like to not know, what is real, and what is hallucination of slowly descending into madness.
Voyager episodes "Revulsion" and "One" are good too. "Revulsion" is a classic "stuck in the cabin in the woods with an ax-crazy murderer" plot done in space. And it actually works. "One" is more like "haunted mansion" plot with a bit of "Alien" atmosphere added in. It works well too, as again it questions the reality and perception of Seven.
I am mostly through the video, so maybe you may mention it at the end-- but hands down the creepiest moment of all Trek is Crusher in the morgue in "Night Terrors." Every time I see that scene I get the same reaction as the first time-- my goose bumps are super charged and I'm shivering (and Gates McFadden effectively displays that feeling on screen). That was Star Trek's' best moment at doing Horror (yeah, the episode is a bit "loopy" but still truly creepy unlike "Cat's Paw" and later, Genesis and Schisms will do it better for the horror effect overall, but nothing can beat Crusher in the Morgue, and that's true to this day). By the way, the creepiest moment had no CGI, no special effects, just a bunch of extras sitting up covered in sheets! Bravo!
I actually think night terrors is better with the horror it may not have had the same outright scares but from a subtle psychological standpoint it's actually creepier again those other episodes. The mystery of what killed the crew cuz they just went crazy and killed each other with no outside force, then subtle gradual increase of things happening aboard the enterprise eluding to a haunting and even when it's revealed that the real terror is just the natural processes of our own human brains only just barely kept at bay by sleep in the same vein as the Russian sleep experiment I think it adds up to an overall very unsettling vibe yes people act corny throughout the episode but the episode itself isn't corny it's more of a slow burn of dread versus the in your face jump scares of genesis personally for me it works slightly better. I think from the point of view of the individual characters mainly troi and Picard it's extremely terrifying. Troi finding out that this catatonic traumatized person she's trying to help is traumatized by the same dreams she's been having and eventually she'll be just like him and Picard being the strong stoic person he is having to except that he's not immune and he too will lose control of his own mind, when he admits this to Data you can see how much it terrifies him!
Not sure if TNG: Frame of Mind counts as horror but it creeped me out. I really felt compassion for Riker's fight to find reality.
I think the number of people hear mentioning Frame of Mind (including myself!) qualify it as a horror episode!
Schisms was an example of Brannon Braga at his absolute best. ... No, really. He sucked at a lot of story types, but when it came to mind fuck stuff he (usually) knocked it out of the park.
Immediately thought of Frame Of Mind as another mindfuck episode, checked the writer, and it checks out :P
Yes he really is shined at episodic high-concept 40 odd minute bursts. The issue was trying to constantly come up with enough of these concepts to fill 26 episodes
@@Obsidian__ SF Debris put it best when he called Braga a multiplying factor; "pair him with good writers he can make a strong script even stronger. Pair him with someone like Rick Berman and you get a season of Enterprise so awful the DVD should've come with a coupon for a ladder and a noose."
“Identity Crisis” was also quite effective on the psychological and body horror elements.
Yeah, he wrote so many of them the trope grew tired.
I really liked ‘The Haunting of Deck Twelve’ from Star Trek Voyager. A fun ghost story.
I love that one too!
I know it's not technically a horror episode, but as a stroke patient, "Babel" from DS9 season 1 makes me profoundly uncomfortable. It reminds me of the difficulty I had forming words and sentences when it was happening. It wasn't a fear I realized I had until after I watched the episode, and I've since picked up on it in other things.
Watching and listening to the characters struggling to speak to each other, and watching them deal with the anxiety and terror of being unable to communicate with each other as a complex virus overtakes and threatens to kill the entire crew is tense as HELL. The dialogue itself is hilarious when taken out of context, but thanks to the power of good acting and good scoring, it doesn't come across as silly at all.
I was scared out of my mind by the ENT episode "Vanishing Point" when it was on air and I was a kid, and I was surprised when I re-watched it and it was way tamer than I remembered. It's too bad that they didn't play it for horror even more aggressively than they did, because Ensign Sato slowly realizing that she's stuck in the transporter made for great horror.
I actually think Voyager did horror better than any other Trek show. Course Oblivion and Scientific Method! The one where species 8472 impersonate Boothby. When it came to horror Voyager had it going on
Course: Oblivion was a real gut punch.
What about the episode where Janeway is attacked by a non-corporeal entity that's trying to eat her soul? That shit was freaky.
Even the needle chest scene from Voyager’s premiere episode was fairly intense, if memory serves.
something i miss about older star trek is how they were gallivanting around the galaxy for no reason other then they felt like it
also schisms is one of my favourite TNG episodes
When you do the Keiko episode, please make sure you mention her devotion to her family, which was made very clear, among other episodes, in the episode Tribunal.
I think the better example from TNG would be the season four episode, "Night Terrors." The episode where after finding starship crew dead the Enterprise crew slowly go mad and begin to have horrifying hallucinations, such as Crusher in the morgue when all of the bodies suddenly sit up.
I would genuinely love to see Star Trek tackling all kinds of genres. I'm glad they're doing a fantastic comedy now (which I love, even though I know it's not Steve's cup of tea (or Steve's cup of coffee, as I know tea isn't Steve's cup of tea, either))
Anyway, I'd love a genuine horror series of Star Trek Ghostbusters.
I'd love a medical procedural show (Hopeship?)
I'd love a courtroom drama.
I'd love a political West-Wing program.
Make it so, Paramount. Make it so.
Have you ever heard of Mercy Point? It's essentially a Star Trek medical show. There are only a few episodes on UA-cam and I'm still unable to find the whole thing anywhere but if you want a Hopeship show, that's the closest thing there is. Joe Morton is the lead. He played Miles Dyson in Terminator 2, if you don't know him by name. It's pretty good. It was canceled after a season but there was potential. Might be worth checking out one of the episodes online if you're into that sort of thing
"Frame of Mind" is almost eldritch or cosmic horror; until the last two minutes of the episode, you can't tell if it is real or not... and I had nightmares from it for like 2 weeks, which after a story based on waking nightmares, was F@CKING FREAKY. It felt like I was something from a Lovecraft story. It is fantastic acting from Jonathan Frakes and the direction by James Conway is incredible.
Yeah they really got me. I really thought 6 years of TV were going to just be retconed away as Rikers imagination.
(I'm sorry, but I think Frame of Mind is my least favorite TNG episode.)
The fact that it was a holiday special on halloween week now makes so much sense. Watching Catspaw is now going to be my halloween tradition.
It really has the vibe of one of those made for TV Halloween movies that are corny on purpose and often geared towards kids
The Star Trek episode that sticks out to me as a horror themed episode is Night Terrors from the 4th season of TNG. You mention the terror of not getting a good nights sleep, but this is the true expression of that. Between the dread of watching my heroes begin losing their minds and being completely helpless to stop it, and the morgue scene where Crusher hallucinates the room full of bodies sit up, this one kept me up a few nights.
All I gotta say is that David St. Hubbins is an amazing actor.
Also, the Patron Saint of Quality Footwear.
I'm looking forward to the Keiko video. I've often felt she got a bad rap. I had no qualms about putting both her and Naomi Wildman (another somewhat divisive secondary character) above Captain Kirk when I did my Tier Ranking video for Star Trek characters.
I didn't put Dr. Pulaski above Kirk, but I did rank her higher than some people might expect, thanks in large part to your's and Leon Thomas's videos about her.
The first episode of Star Trek I remember watching was TNG’s Phantasms. Data’s nightmares freaked me out so much that I didn’t watch another episode for maybe five or six years.
And when I did - TNG’s Suspicions - Dr Jo’Brill coming back from the dead also scared me, but now I was old enough to appreciate it and got hooked on all things Star Trek.
Another early Star Trek memory was the Ceti eels from Wrath of Khan, after which, I had to hide in my brother’s bed!
Now that I think about it, all my earliest Star Trek memories were me being frightened. It’s a wonder I’m such a fan!
Scaring me isn’t much of an accomplishment, but one of the first TNG episodes I ever caught as a tween was the one with that planet of (invisible?) stealth aliens that morphs anyone who visits into an alien too. Geordi’s glued-together fingers and whatnot REALLY messed me up. Living rent-free in my brain forever is I believe how the kids like to put it
One of my fav episodes is from Voyager's 4th season, 'Scientific Method', a terrifying saga of shielded aliens painfully prodding crew members until Janeway takes a terrifying risk to get rid of them!
"Schisms" is a good entry. It was the second time the lack of REM sleep was addressed, the first being Season 4's "Night Terrors". Also a good horror entry (as mentioned by other comments) could have been Season 6's "Frame of Mind", which was an excellent psychological horror episode. Some might also include Season 2's "Shades of Gray", but since that was the gawdawful clip show, I don't.
For TOS, I'd probably have gone with Season 1's "The Devil in the Dark". Just seeing commercials for a rerun as a kid prompted some nightmarish imaginations in me.
All I could think of during your review of "The Thaw" was, "So, if you're killed in The Matrix you die here?"
night terrors was a really good episode imo.. seen it several times
On the subject of the best fear being what we bring from within I think the episode of deep space nine where in Jadzia begins having homicidal flashes and can’t figure out why is very good. The idea of having such memories that you don’t even know about and come to learn that they are not imagination but true events Is pretty terrifying.
14:13 According to Michael Dorn they planned on killing Spot in Star Trek Nemesis but he argued that WORF of all people would take on responsibility for Data's moggie. This was later paid tribute to in one of the now (sadly non canon) novels when Worf says "at first I was hesitant of Data's bequest, I mean what exactly is a cat supposed to do? I've never understood it. Then one day she jumped out of nowhere and scratched my face. I stared into her eyes and saw that she was a hunter, a predator, a warrior bound to no one and I was honoured to adopt her into the house of Martok"
Where Silence has Lease is a solid horror episode , at least the first half imo
I thought Nagilum was a decent space terror, he felt very predatory and capricious, even though he had a goofy catface.
Wait… people disliked Keiko O’Brien? I don’t remember being particular reasonable despite the circumstances she found herself in at various times throughout the shows she was in. Now I just can’t wait for the next video.
Miles loves Keiko and that was always good enough for me. They're the best portrayal of marriage in the franchise. I'm looking forward to next month.
I'll say this, when I was introduced to star trek as a kid part of the appeal was that I found it kind of scary. The scene from "wrath of khan" with the slugs is still burned into my brain. "First contact" was my first exposure to the borg and they scared the crap put of me. And of course, "where no man has gone before" was its own special flavor of scary. I was horrified by Gary Mitchel's apparent invincibility, the idea that a friend could become a monster, and the idea of having to kill a friend in self defense. "First contact" might be the closest out of all these to a full on a horror movie, but I think star trek excels at creating a very specific kind of horror. Primarily a sort of existential horror.
I love "Ode to Spot." I wrote it out all fancy, put it in a frame, hung it up---and people think it's some cool calligraphy of a deep, ancient poem.
Schisms has always been a personal favourite of mine, so glad I've seen it have a resurgence in fans minds in the last decade or so and get its due. Though I guess Voyager basically remade it with "Scientific Method"
Both are great. Though I think "Schisms" pulls on the horror thread more than "Scientific Method" does, I was disappointed that Steve didn't at least give it a mention.
I did not appreciate The Thaw enough when it first aired, but the older I get the more appreciation I find for it.
YESSSSS! Thank GOD someone else recognized Data's poetic GENIUS and HEART!!!!!!
When Khan put that scorpion larvae thing on Chekov’s face and it crawled inside Chekov’s ear and drove him mad, that didn’t just creep me out. It literally gave me nightmares.
For me, the Borg are one of the best examples of Body Horror in a sci-fi brand - even with Gigerian Aliens, you end up DYING… with the Borg, your loss of individuality but not sense of self (as Picard expressed), pretty much for as long as the drone exists, is nasty.
you forgot ENT’s Regeneration (the Borg episode) in your horror in trek vid. The first act at the North pole is a homage to The Thing.
I love the Thaw and Schisms. Those are my favorites, but Microcosm gets an honorable mention (it shifts into an action hero story at the end, but the setup felt very horror/Aliens to me which I liked). I always rewatch these episodes around Halloween so I can get the seasonal vibes.
You forgot about the one that gave me nightmares as a kid... and still gets me to this day. Star Trek: TNG's sicth episode of the seventh season, Phantasms, where Data programs himself to dream. That one scene where the crew is eating the Troi-cake is truly disturbing.
With mint frosting!
@jdslyman hands down, it’s Phantasms. Genesis is a TERRIBLE episode, scientifically, which ruins the horror for me. But the Troi-cake and the straw and the phone … OMG, they still creep me out!
the one with Beverly stuck in a warp bubble is also pretty scary. Abandonment, Gaslighting, Questioning Sanity...
The TNG episode Night Terrors gave me literal nightmares.
Granted I was 9 the first time I saw it…
but still.
“Eyes… in the dark…”
I feel like you left out the "disembodied spirit" and "inexplicable energy type being" genres which could qualify as ghosts/spirits, namely "sub rosa", "wolf in the fold" and "The Haunting of Deck Twelve". And the "psychic pitcher plant" trope may qualify as a haunted house.
"Except for Riker who was strangely unaffected" 🤣🤣🤣
The Haunting of Deck Twelve isn't really much of a horror episode, but it's definitely spooky, and an adorable halloween watch.
Every Halloween I celebrate slightly differently. Sometimes I do themed years. Once I watched old school Universal monster movies, once it was appropriate superhero-based material, and one was family friendly horror. The other one I did was Star Trek. I watched all the horror themed episodes over the course of a few days. I recommend it. It's fun. I watched First Contact too
The most important part of the alien transporter effect is that sound. Nothing defines Classic Trek quite like that "BO-ONG!" sound. I love it. I want to make it my ringtone for text messages.
The scene of Janeway saying "I knoooow" to the Clown in the Thaw is, in my opinion, one of her most iconic moments in the show.
"That's talent, that's craft"
You can say that again... 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I've never found alien abduction stories to be creepy until I saw that TNG episode. The way the group built up the scene from memory a little bit at a time was great
Episodes like "The Thaw" & others are the reason why Janeway is my favorite Star Trek captain.
Yep, you read that right. Fight me.
"...that's talent! that's skill.... That's ... What Picard season 2 is lacking."
You didn't say it, but we're all thinking it.
I'm a little surprised you decided to talk about Schisms instead of Frame of Mind but I guess it is a little more classic.
I once designed a RPG adventure which was essentially Star Trek meets Dead Space with a mysterious science station inside a nebula gone silent: Borg-infested zombie-like personel, section 31 doing secret experiments, infected klingon warriors on a patrol.
It was one of the best adventures i've ever run as a DM
"Remember Me" of TNG where the ship slowly disappears around Dr. Crusher was the scariest episode for me. It turns out she's in a pocket dimension Wesley accidentally creates. I love that episode.
No holiday specials? I think Steve is forgetting the iconic Star Trek Holiday Special in honor of Life Day
The "it’s art man" bit got me real good. Looove that humor
TNG definitely has several horror-themed episodes that I was hoping you'd talk about more. In addition to Schism, I'd also include "Skin of Evil" (which may be controversial), "Where Silence Has Lease" where an uncaring alien entity could just kill you at any time, Season 4 has two in a row: "Night Terrors" where the ship is trapped, the crew can't sleep properly and start hallucinating (corpses sitting up spooked me as a kid and even before that I was so scared of the dark (thanks Catholic Church) that I'd have insomnia), and "Identity Crisis" has a great scene where Geordi goes to the holodeck and discovers a shadow that doesn't match, which is unsettling, and the body horror of changing into a hideous but invisible creature. Other people are also mentioning "Frame of Mind", which is also delightfully meta... an actor playing a science fiction commander who is dabbling at being an actor while being well-acted by the actual actor.
TNG's Devil's Due also reminds me of "Catspaw" given it's themes of technology-as-magic, fooling gullible people, and rationality vs mysticism.
You deserve at least a million more subs, Steve. Love everything you do.
"I know".. Gives me chills every time.
That one Voyager episode with the clown had me fucked up.
Thanks. Michael McKean for the win! Yeah, that's one of my favorites. There are also a number of Trek episodes where psychological horror is a major element. As far as imagery goes, I'm reminded of the VOY episode where they encounter species 8472 kicking Borg ass. When they board the ship, they find a pile of Borg body parts / small appliances stacked up in a way that would've made the guy who directed Silent Hill cream his pants. tavi.
Awesome vid, man. I forgot about some of these.
I thought TOS "The Devil in the Dark," was pretty scary. "Wolf in the Fold," (also TOS) also scared me when I was young Although it seems silly now, "WitF," and "Catspaw," were both penned by Robert "Psycho" Bloch.
"Confined to a Beep-Chair" is a strong band name.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think Steven Spielberg got the idea for “Jaws” from the TOS episode “Doomsday Machine”. That was a pretty intense episode.
I think one of the scariest episodes to me was 'Scorpion' from good ol' Voyager. Opinions on the Borg flanderisation aside, the crew realising that after years they're finally entering Borg-controlled space is pretty harrowing. Even moreso when they find a probe showing dead Borg, and Kes starts having visions of piles and piles of dismembered Borg corpses. And it dawns on the viewers, something out there is brutalising legions of Borg. Even the ultimate reveal of Species 8472 still hits hard, their design being one of the more unsettlingly 'alien' in the series even with aged CG. I still remember it after all these years, and deserves a mention alongside The Thaw. PS: amazing video, I love it when Trek goes spooky.
I remember being absolutely terrified and mesmerised by The Thaw, and ecstatic with the exceptionally good ending and especially blown away by the absolutely outstanding performance of Michael McKean... sincerely, Star Trek has had some truly PHENOMENAL guest stars!!!!!!
Maybe not a tradition horror episode, but the DS9 episode where O'Brien has been replaced with a replicant has some horror elements, if you don't know the twist, watching everything happening from O'Brien's perspective would be legitimately horrifying, everyone you know and love is suddenly cold, distant, lying to you, keeping secrets from you, turning on you. All just to find out that you're a replicant, and die in front of the real you. I'd call that horror.
The Ode to Spot reaction is my favorite thing you've ever done. 10/10!
Wolf in the Fold is FAR more of a horror episode than Catspaw. WitF was written by Robert Bloch, for gods' sakes, the guy who made his career writing versions of Jack the Ripper.
The thaw is one of my favourite Trek episodes and I'm so glad to see you talk about it.
I love Henry Cho's material, especially the "clicking noise" bit!
More relevant bit:
"When are they ever going to get to Boldly Go?"
I was a teenager when First Contact came out, and still have nightmares about the Borg from it. Because zombies, hard to survive; robots, hard to survive; zombies that are also robots, impossible to survive.
Every time I see a picture of the Vulcans from "Impulse", I wonder if they would be funny doing "Thriller"
Given 4 episodes of TOS were banned by the BBC for graphic content in the 60s, the last of which wasn't unbanned until like 92 or so, I think the answer is yes to some degree.
YES!! Finally someone else that knows Henry Cho!!
I've never noticed the western theme explicitly outside of the episodes that feature it, I've always seen more like...submarine movie or like, air force/battleship crew ww2 themes personally alongside the sci fi....and it does horror well, sometimes! Its just a testament to how many people see the show and how well it combines various genres~
You're not kidding Steve. You're a goddamn GENIUS!! Thanks for existing in our lives and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Top job brother. Bless you always.❤👍🏻
"Eyes in the dark. One moon circles!"
22:10 one thing about Voyager. It had a LOT of good stories and ideas ... but they were often ruined by inconsistency.
But The year of hell, the void, The taw, the episode with doctor in the future or meeting Zimmerman.... those are freaking awesome.
Also Tuvix ... THAT could have been a masterpiece if it played out a bit better..... I mean look at the Enterprise episode witih Trips double
daaaaaamn son...that dig at riker was so brutal and casual :PPPP
Michael (The Clown) McKean is one helluva AWESOME actor!
From Laverne and Shirley to X-Files and Spinal Tap to The Thaw.
I really like the in "The Thaw" when Janeway says to clown that "Starfleet captains don't easily succumb to fear"
From the OST. I also remember the episodes Wolf In The Fold about Jack The Ripper was really a BodySnatching alien that’s taken over the enterprise.
And the episode Devil In The Dark, a tremors type creature that terrorizes caverns killing people through out.
Definitely "Frame oF Mind". I always felt one of the scariest episodes was the TOS episode with the flying pancakes that stuck onto your back and got intertwined with your nervous system. Then used pain to force you to do things. That scared the crap out me when I was a kid.
The Thaw is one of my favourite episodes of Trek, period. And like you, Steve, I am very critical of Voyager generally. But that episode is a fucking masterpiece.
And honestly one of the best parts of that episode is the first interaction between the Clown and the Doctor.
Clown: “How am I supposed to negotiate if I don’t know what you’re thinking?”
Doctor (deadpan): “I have a very trustworthy face.”
Clown: *pouts*
I rewatch that interaction on a loop sometimes and it still gives me joy.
Steve, if they allowed holiday Trek episodes we all know Voyager's Thanksgiving episode would have been even worse than "Tattoo".
The morgue scene in TNG “Night Terrors” scared the hell out of me.
Finally! Data's poems are great!!! I remember "ode to spot" more than the actual poetry I was supposed to remember.