However, despite its forward-thinking ethos, not every “Star Trek” episode has stood the test of time gracefully. As society has evolved, certain stories and characters have come to seem outdated, reflecting views that clash with today’s cultural sensibilities. Some episodes, marked by offensive stereotypes, racist depictions, or blatant misogyny, have become uncomfortable relics of their time. These portrayals have even been acknowledged by the show’s cast and crew as regrettable missteps. Here, we examine ten episodes from the ’60s through the ’90s that have aged poorly, to the point that they likely wouldn’t make it to air in today’s climate.

A glaring example of this is the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode titled “Code of Honor,” from its first season in 1987. Infamous for its poor quality and cringeworthy racism, this episode is often cited as the starting point for discussions on the franchise’s missteps. Its storyline centers around a life-threatening plague on the planet Ligon II, where the Ligonians are depicted as a primitive culture, ridiculed by both the audience and the Enterprise crew. Portrayed entirely by Black actors with exaggerated Jamaican accents, the Ligonians wear tribal attire and adhere to antiquated gender norms, treating women as possessions. The narrative takes a particularly distasteful turn when the Ligonian leader, Lutan, demands that Captain Picard hand over Tasha Yar, the ship’s white security chief, as a condition for the life-saving medicine. This leads to a confrontation between Lutan’s fiancée, Yareena, and Tasha Yar, culminating in a battle to the death.

If we’re talking about “Star Trek” episodes so offensive that today’s broadcasters would never allow them to air, there’s really only one place to start the discussion: Season 1 of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “Code of Honor” which aired in 1987. It’s an episode that’s legendary for being terrible but also for being horribly racist with bad stereotypes and many groan-inducing moments.

There’s a deadly plague in need of a cure in “Code of Honor” on a planet called Ligon II. The Ligonians are portrayed as a primitive, almost backward culture that seems silly to the audience and the Enterprise crew. Played entirely by Black actors putting on a comically over-the-top Jamaican accent, the Ligonians wear tribal clothing and treat women as property. The Ligonian leader, Lutan (Jessie Lawrence Ferguson), wants Picard to give him Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), the ship’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed white security chief, as the price for the medicine they need. An objection from Lutan’s betrothed, Yareena (Karole Selmon), leads to a fight to the death between the two women for the fate of an entire world.

So offensive is “Code of Honor” that even during production the cast objected to much of what they saw being filmed. During a convention in 2013, “TNG” star Michael Dorn called it “the worst episode of ‘Star Trek’ ever filmed” (per HuffPost). Actor Jonathan Frakes labeled the episode an “embarrassment” and agreed with co-star Denise Crosby that the episode would never play these days (during another convention appearance relayed by TrekMovie).

The issue of sexual assault has come a long way since the darker days when women dared not even speak about their experiences. It still remains a difficult topic to talk about today and one that needs more open discussion, but the MeToo movement of the 2010s did a lot to move the needle. As a result, episodes like the “Star Trek: Voyager” installment “Retrospect” now seem woefully outdated, if not hopelessly misguided.

“Retrospect” puts the spotlight on Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), the former Borg who has rediscovered her humanity and joined the Voyager crew. She’s assigned to work with a visiting trader named Kovin (Michael Horton) who becomes obsessed with acquiring the Borg nanoprobes in Seven’s blood which he says could have countless applications. Seven declines, but when she loses consciousness during an equipment test she awakens to discover nanoprobes missing from her system. With the help of the Doctor (Robert Picardo), Seven begins to recover vague memories of Kovin assaulting her while unconscious and stealing her nanoprobes.

Though the episode was intended to be about how recovered memories can’t be trusted, the violation of an unconscious woman makes it feel much more like a story about sexual assault. And that makes it all the more shocking when it’s revealed that Seven’s memories were falsified and Kovin was innocent.

Gender is, arguably, the issue that “Star Trek” got wrong more often than not. It first aired in the 1960s, when attitudes towards the sexes were still very much set in the stone age by comparison to today. Women in the original “Star Trek” series all wore miniskirts and almost universally behaved meekly. The strongest female character in the original series pilot “The Cage” was booted from the show. But the biggest offender when it comes to its portrayal of women came during the final episode of “Star Trek: The Original Series,” “Turnabout Intruder.”

Famous for its sexist storyline, “Turnabout Intruder” sees Captain Kirk (William Shatner) become the target of Janice Lester (Sandra Smith), a jilted former lover who dumped her to focus on his Starfleet career. Feeling betrayed by Kirk’s rejection years before, Lester uses a machine to swap bodies with Kirk in an effort to steal the very career that kept him from being with her. As silly as that all sounds, though, it gets way worse when Kirk begins acting like a petulant child and overly emotional spoiled brat — all because he has the mind of a woman now.

Granted, one could attempt to argue that Lester is simply a petulant, overly emotional woman; they do exist after all, just as there are bratty men. But the clear message of the episode seems to be that women don’t have what it takes to be a starship captain and are incapable of being anything more than a servant to men.

Nearly three full decades after “Star Trek” dropped the ball with “Turnabout Intruder,” the franchise returned with another groan-worthy episode, the “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” entry “Profit and Lace.” It’s a story about the sexes that often feels way behind the times, especially for being the late ’90s. Third wave feminism was nearly over at the point the episode was aired. Women were in positions of power around the world and the prevailing notion that women are weak and incapable was supposedly long gone. The fact that the episode uses much of its runtime for laughs makes it even worse.

An episode centered on the show’s Ferengi characters, “Profit and Lace” is a madcap romp that kicks off with the arrival of Ishka (Cecily Adams), the mother of the station’s bartender, Quark (Armin Shimmerman). Ishka has a bold new idea to begin marketing products to Ferengi women who are still second-class citizens on their world. When she falls ill, she can’t be present for the negotiations with Nilva (Henry Gibson), a powerful Ferengi business and political leader. To complete the negotiations, Quark gets a quick, medical sex reassignment surgery to allow him to impersonate his mother and help women win the first battle in the fight for equality in a moment that stunned audiences.

A well-meaning episode, “Profit and Lace” once again pushed awkward gender stereotypes while also declaring that women need a man to save the day. Today, awareness of gender identity issues makes it even more uncomfortable to watch and horribly transphobic, as many have rightly pointed out over the years.

“Star Trek” often uses aliens as allegories for real Earth cultures in our modern day, allowing them to tell stories about real-world problems. It’s one of the key aspects of science fiction as a genre, after all. Still, every once in a while, “Star Trek” has eschewed allegory and used real Earth minorities in its stories to make the message even more impactful, such as in “Far Beyond the Stars,” one of the best episodes of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” When the original “Star Trek” series produced an episode centered on Native Americans, though, it failed on every conceivable level.

Full of the worst cliches and harmful stereotypes of indigenous people as barbaric and uncivilized, “The Paradise Syndrome” saw Kirk and the Enterprise discovering an alien planet whose inhabitants appear to be descended from Earth’s Navajo, Cherokee, and Delaware tribes of Native Americans. When Kirk is trapped in an ancient temple on the planet’s surface and awakens with amnesia, he’s hailed as a savior by the natives of the planet who mistake him for a god. Of course, the Native American woman, Miramanee (Sabrina Scharf), falls head over heels for this white savior.

Sure, “Star Trek” continues to depict ancient Earth cultures, but usually does so with a bit more grace these days. “The Paradise Syndrome,” however, is the exact opposite of graceful. Its portrayal of Native Americans is borderline cartoonish and depicts them as hopelessly gullible. It’s hard to imagine the episode getting past the concept stage today. 

Decades after “The Paradise Syndrome,” the “Star Trek” franchise tried to do better with Native American representation as part of the 1995 spin-off “Star Trek: Voyager.” The ship’s first officer was Chakotay (Robert Beltran), a Native American from Earth. And while the actor himself wasn’t a Native American, the show wisely hired an expert in indigenous culture to help portray Chakotay and his heritage with more respect and accuracy. Suffice to say, it didn’t help much. The character was full of cliches and negative stereotypes, but it’s the Season 1 episode “Tattoo” that crossed the line.

A deep exploration of Chakotay’s past and his spiritual beliefs, “Tattoo” begins with an away mission to an alien world where a Native American symbol is discovered tens of thousands of light years away from Earth. Chakotay becomes obsessed with discovering the truth behind the symbol. We flash back to him as a young, embittered man who had little interest in his people’s cultural traditions and religious practices. The search for answers in the Delta Quadrant makes him reevaluate everything he knows as he learns the awesome truth that aliens from a distant star system are the gods his people worshipped for thousands of years.

More than just culturally insensitive, “Tattoo” feels blatantly insulting to Native American beliefs. To add insult to injury, it was later revealed that the show’s Native American consultant, Jamake Highwater, was a fraud with no real connection to the tribes he’d claimed.

There are quite a few episodes of the original “Star Trek” series that probably wouldn’t get made today for going beyond being offensive. In that category is the episode “Patterns of Force,” which was controversial because of its depiction of Nazis from World War II. The episode sees Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise beam down to the planet Ekos II, a primitive world that was supposedly plagued by lawless chaos. When they arrive, however, Kirk and crew discover that Ekos II now looks identical to Nazi Germany in the 1930s complete with swastikas and a Führer.

They soon discover that the world was visited by a prominent Federation historian named John Gill (David Brian) who used the planet as a vast sociological experiment. Believing that Nazi Germany was, at its core, an idealistic society that only went wrong thanks to its persecution of minorities, Gill attempted to save the planet’s lawless society by imposing a new, better Nazi regime. And it absolutely works until Gill’s second in command drugs him and takes control.

As one can imagine, the very notion that Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party was right about anything would be considered ludicrous today. In fact, it was offensive enough in its own time that it was banned in Germany. The real lesson might have been that no matter how well-intentioned, authoritarianism will always lead to oppression, but “Patterns of Force” essentially said that Nazism could work as long as the leader of that regime doesn’t get overthrown.

When calling a decades-old “Star Trek” episode misogynistic, we’re not suggesting that sexism has been vanquished from pop culture. Nevertheless, what makes “Up the Long Ladder” so awkward and difficult to reproduce decades after its 1987 airing is how sexist and backwards it feels even for the ’80s. Despite featuring one of “Star Trek’s” best running gags, it’s an unentertaining slog that tries to be funny and never gets there.

“Up the Long Ladder” focuses on a backwards culture, so there’s a reason the sexism is present. In it, the Enterprise comes across a colony ship of humans who are living like the Amish with little to no technology and a more traditional way of life alongside old-fashioned gender roles. While the episode does show Picard and the crew acting with surprise at their outdated attitudes, the episode’s focus on a man’s search for a husband for his adult, single daughter is downright groan-inducing. She’s regularly treated like property with little objection from the crew, including a scene where the young woman (Rosalyn Landor) makes aggressive sexual advances in an attempt to win Riker over. For his part, Riker happily gives in to his own physical urges.

Sexism isn’t the only problem with this one, either. The secondary story of the episode involves another colony that is stealing the crew’s DNA to create clones. In one shocking moment, Riker kills his own clone with no remorse at all simply because his DNA was used without his consent. There’s absolutely no regard shown for this emerging life.

For all the talk that “Star Trek” has always been progressive and promotes equality for all, the franchise’s misogyny shows up again and again. It’s probably the biggest problem with the Season 1 “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “Angel One,” though it’s hardly the only problem it faces. Not only is it subtly sexist in the grossest ways possible, it’s also just badly written, with a story that is a little too far-fetched and silly even for “Star Trek.”

In “Angel One,” Captain Picard and the Enterprise arrive on an alien world that has a matriarchal hierarchy of power. Women are the dominant gender and men are more passive and subservient. At first, it might seem like an appropriate twist to demonstrate how wrong our patriarchal society is, but the reality is that the episode was written to provide commentary on the then-current apartheid rule in South Africa with the women standing in for the majority white ruling class in that country.

The problem, of course, isn’t the allegory itself which works well enough. The problem is that, because the ruling class on the planet is all women, it seems to be sending a very different message than intended: That women seek power through abuse and that the so-called ‘fairer sex’ can’t govern. What we’re left with is an episode so eye-poppingly sexist that members of the cast and crew have voiced their displeasure with it.

It’s truly mind-boggling how badly “Star Trek” has treated women in its stories over the decades. The “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “The Perfect Mate” is the perfect example. It starts out trying to say something about equality and treating women with respect but winds up doing the exact opposite. It also sends the wrong message when it comes to respecting traditions when they are grossly antiquated and abusive.

“The Perfect Mate” is the episode where Patrick Stewart is united with his future “X-Men” co-star Famke Janssen who plays a self-described mutant with psychic powers. Her name is Kamala, and no, she doesn’t run for president. She’s a rare person on her home world, a woman born with the ability to psychically connect with the first man she bonds with; becoming the person their heart desires, whether they want to or not. In her culture, these one-in-a-generation births are prized possessions and are often trafficked as gifts to foreign dignitaries. So, when she is mistakenly awakened from stasis on a journey to a peace summit where she is to be the gift to a rival diplomat, Picard objects.

Once again, “The Perfect Mate” is an episode that is intended to have one message but sends a completely different one thanks to its head-scratching ending. Instead of Picard allowing Kamala to live her own life as she chooses, he decides to support sexual slavery out of respect for her people’s cultural traditions. Not something any network would be likely to produce today.