Time can do funny things to television. Some shows and individual episodes only get better with age, revealing ideas and themes that audiences may not have fully appreciated the first time around. Others make you wonder how something that once seemed perfectly normal can feel so uncomfortable just a few decades later. Sometimes TV ages like a fine Romulan ale.
Other times, it spoils like a carton of milk left sitting on the counter. Star Trek has experienced plenty of both. The original series was remarkably progressive for television in the 1960s, imagining a future where humanity had moved beyond many of the divisions that defined the era. But it was still made in the 1960s, and nearly six decades of changing attitudes, not to mention Star Trek itself continuing to evolve, haven’t been kind to every trip aboard the Enterprise.After celebrating the classic episodes that have only gotten better with time, it’s time to check the expiration date on the other end of the spectrum.
Here are five Star Trek episodes that have aged poorly.
5
“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” (Season 1, Episode 8)
“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” introduces one of Star Trek’s earliest androids, and its vision of an artificial woman is very much a product of 1966. Andrea (Sherry Jackson) was created by Dr. Roger Korby (Michael Strong) as a beautiful, obedient female companion who follows his commands and claims she is incapable of emotion. She also spends the episode in an outfit that makes the Enterprise miniskirts look conservative. When Korby orders Andrea to kiss Captain Kirk (William Shatner), she complies, making her feel less like a person than another piece of technology at her creator’s disposal.
To the episode’s credit, Andrea eventually develops feelings Korby insists she cannot have. But nearly 60 years of stories about androids, AI, and what constitutes a person make her treatment feel particularly dated. Later Star Trek stories would explore these questions with characters like Data (Brent Spiner) in far greater depth. Andrea instead begins as the fantasy of an artificial woman who is beautiful, compliant, and literally made to obey a man. She eventually gets some agency, but it’s an awfully uncomfortable road getting there.
4
“The Apple” (Season 2, Episode 5)
“The Apple” presents Kirk with what seems like paradise. The Vaalians live peaceful, extraordinarily long lives without disease or war, but their society is maintained by a machine they worship as Vaal. The catch? They have little individual freedom, don’t reproduce, and remain technologically stagnant. Kirk, with a nudge from McCoy (DeForest Kelley), decides that’s no way to live and destroys Vaal, which was holding the Enterprise in orbit. He then tells the Vaalians they’ll have to learn about having children and assures them, “Just go on the way you’re going. You’ll find out.”
The episode carries an uncomfortable whiff of cultural imperialism. The Enterprise arrives, decides this society has been living the wrong way, destroys the center of its culture, and leaves its people to adopt what Kirk considers a more natural life. The Vaalians never ask to be liberated. Even Spock (Leonard Nimoy) questions whether they had the right to interfere. Kirk and McCoy brush him off, but it’s a question later Star Trek would take much more seriously.
3
“Mudd’s Women” (Season 1, Episode 7)
Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel) became one of Star Trek’s most memorable recurring troublemakers, but his introduction has aged considerably worse than the character. “Mudd’s Women” finds him transporting three women to become wives for lonely miners, essentially treating them as cargo for prospective husbands. The women take the Venus Drug, which temporarily makes them extraordinarily beautiful. Much of the episode involves men staring at them and evaluating their attractiveness while Mudd tries to turn the arrangement into a business.
The episode attempts a more progressive message when Eve (Karen Steele) discovers the Venus Drug Kirk gives her is actually a placebo, and that her transformation comes from believing in herself. But rather than questioning a society that values women largely for their appearance, the episode suggests Eve’s insecurity is the real problem, positioning self-confidence as the fix. It’s an oddly patronizing solution for a story spent objectifying its female characters. “Mudd’s Women” sometimes feels like it barely made it out of 1966.
2
“The Paradise Syndrome” (Season 3, Episode 3)
“The Paradise Syndrome” finds an amnesiac Kirk on a planet inhabited by Indigenous peoples transported from Earth centuries earlier. He’s mistaken for a god, becomes the tribe’s medicine chief, and marries Miramanee, who becomes pregnant with his child. The episode presents the society as a grab-bag of Native American imagery, combining distinct cultures into one generic version complete with buckskins and tepees. Worse, the two most prominent Indigenous characters, Miramanee and Salish, are played by non-Native actors Sabrina Scharf and Rudy Solari in brownface.
It’s a romanticized depiction that feels particularly out of place in Star Trek. Rather than imagining how these cultures might have developed after centuries on another planet, the episode freezes them in an idealized version of America’s past. Miramanee is eventually stoned by her own people while protecting Kirk and dies from her injuries. For a franchise built around celebrating different cultures, “The Paradise Syndrome” reduces this one to a collection of stereotypes.
1
“Turnabout Intruder” (Season 3, Episode 24)
There’s something almost poetic about the final episode of Star Trek: The Original Series being one the franchise would spend the next 60 years proving wrong. “Turnabout Intruder” introduces Dr. Janice Lester (Sandra Smith), a former lover of Kirk’s who resents that she could never have his career. “Your world of starship captains doesn’t admit women,” she tells him. Lester then uses alien technology to swap bodies with Kirk Freaky Friday-style, finally putting herself in the captain’s chair.
The problem isn’t simply that the episode suggests women couldn’t command starships. It repeatedly connects Lester’s ambition and resentment with emotional instability. Kirk, trapped in Lester’s body, explains that “she wanted to murder James Kirk, a man who once loved her. But her intense hatred of her own womanhood made life with her impossible.” Later, Star Trek gave us Kathryn Janeway, Michael Burnham, and plenty of other women in leadership positions. As a sendoff for a series famous for imagining a progressive future, “Turnabout Intruder” certainly picked an unfortunate way to say goodbye.