5 Weird Star Trek TV Series Plot Holes I Still Can’t Get Over, Decades Later

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I absolutely love Star Trek, and while so much of it is brilliantly written, let’s be real – it has some seriously strange plot holes! Considering the show and movies have been made over sixty years with tons of different writers, it’s almost understandable. But if you pay attention, you’ll notice all sorts of little inconsistencies that fans *still* argue about today. It’s part of what makes it so fun, honestly!

The Star Trek series often prioritizes exciting moments over strict logic, which fans generally accept – even when things don’t quite make sense, like Data’s fluctuating emotions or unexplained changes in Klingon biology. However, even dedicated fans have trouble ignoring certain plot inconsistencies, even after countless viewings. Aside from major issues like the handling of the Prime Directive, here are five minor, but persistent, plot holes that continue to bother Trekkies.

5) Star Trek: The Next Generation, “All Good Things”

The final episode of *The Next Generation* is often hailed as one of the best in *Star Trek* history, though fans have pointed out a major plot hole. The story centers on a strange time anomaly that threatens all life, and Data determines it was caused by the Enterprise using a special pulse – an inverse tachyon pulse – at three different points in time. However, the episode shows a different ship, the *Pasteur*, creating that pulse in the future, which makes Data’s explanation impossible.

Apparently, a viewer – the son of producer Rick Berman – first pointed out the mistake after the episode broadcast. What’s more, the show’s internal timeline suggests the problem should have resolved itself long before the Pasteur reached the Devron system, a detail the writers could have used to build suspense. Instead, it’s just another plot hole in Star Trek that doesn’t quite make sense. And, strangely, future Riker’s ship achieves warp 11 without any of the expected dangerous side effects, leading some to wonder if the show quietly reverted to an older, more lenient warp scale for the final episode.

4) Star Trek: Voyager, “Ashes to Ashes”

This *Voyager* episode revisits the story of Ensign Lyndsay Ballard, a crew member presumed dead since Season 2. Years ago, her body was launched into space and recovered by the Kobali, a species that uses the deceased in their reproductive cycle. Now, Ballard unexpectedly remembers her life, steals a Kobali ship, and finds *Voyager* remarkably quickly – after just two days. This is surprising because *Voyager* traveled vast distances, discovered shortcuts, and made significant headway towards Earth between Seasons 2 and 6, yet this alien vessel managed to keep pace.

It’s also annoying that no one thinks to study and adapt the Kobali technology to improve Voyager’s speed. Janeway quickly dismisses the idea without considering how helpful it could be. While this concept might have fit better in an episode of *The Next Generation* or *Deep Space Nine*, it weakens what drives Voyager’s story – the desperate fight to return home. You can’t introduce a faster shuttle and then pretend it’s insignificant. And the sudden appearance of a Talaxian colony just three episodes before the series ends feels completely out of place.

3) Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Nth Degree”

As a critic, I’ve always loved the *TNG* episode where Reginald Barclay unexpectedly becomes a super-genius, but it’s one of those stories you really shouldn’t overthink. After an alien encounter, he dramatically improves the Enterprise’s shields and even manages to open a pathway to another galaxy using transwarp technology. The really baffling part? Everyone just…moves on. You’d expect Starfleet to be all over that – implementing those incredible shield upgrades across the fleet or at least trying to figure out how to replicate that transwarp jump, which would basically make warp speed obsolete. It’s a fantastic episode, but the lack of follow-through always struck me as odd.

The episode tries to explain its way out of a problem, but ends up suggesting a scenario where the Federation could have become unbeatable by season eight. It’s a similar confusing plot point to the strange gas cloud weapon from *The Undiscovered Country*. Fans have long joked that if Barclay’s invention was so effective, the Romulans should have simply given up. Perhaps everyone decided to ignore it to avoid messing with the timeline, but even technology from the 29th century, like the Doctor’s holographic emitter, managed to bypass future security measures.

2) Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Next Phase”

The *Next Generation* episode “The Next Phase” is a standout Trek ghost story, but the science behind it doesn’t quite add up. When Geordi and Ro become “out of phase,” they can walk through walls – but strangely, not floors. They can still see, breathe, and communicate, even though they’re supposedly outside of normal space and time. The episode attempts to explain this with phased subspace fields, but the explanation feels flimsy. If you can move through solid objects, why don’t they simply fall through the floor?

Some fans have offered an interesting, though unlikely, explanation involving gravity plating affecting both stages of the phenomenon. However, when a show known for its realistic internal rules starts relying on magical explanations, it feels more like fantasy than science fiction. Even *Stargate SG-1* acknowledged this weakness in their episode “Wormhole X-Treme!,” where a character raises the same point and receives a deliberately vague response. While the episode is still enjoyable, it requires viewers to really set aside their need for logical consistency.

1) Star Trek: Discovery, “Red Directive”

As a lifelong Trek fan, I’ve always struggled with one thing: the transporter. And honestly, *Discovery* just made it even worse! By the 32nd century, they can beam people across entire star systems almost instantly. So it really doesn’t make sense why bad guys *ever* succeed in their plans. In the Season 5 premiere, the villains were practically hanging around within transporter range of not one, but *two* Federation ships, and nobody even thought to beam them directly to a cell! There wasn’t even a flimsy excuse like ion storms getting in the way – they just completely ignored the possibility. It’s a plot hole that really pulls you out of the story, you know?

As a lifelong Star Trek fan, once it hit me how game-breaking the transporter really is, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Seriously, why even *have* dramatic tension when you can just beam any problem away? Someone breaks into the ship? Beam ’em out. Hostage crisis? Beam the hostages home! Klingons attacking? Poof – send them drifting into space! The show never explains *why* they don’t just solve everything this way, so we fans have always had to come up with our own explanations. And then you add in replicators that can basically create anything you need… it makes you wonder, what *can’t* the Federation do? It feels like the biggest challenge they face is actually *using* all the amazing tech they have!

Did we overlook anything strange? Let us know in the comments and join the discussion on the ComicBook Forum!

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2025-10-13 16:14