The Roddenberry Rule

In yesterday's diatribe about the debut of the reboot of the original Law & Order, I had this to say:

I noticed the episode was co-written by show creator Dick Wolf and it's my suspicion that much of the ham fisted dialogue, poorly constructed conflicts and tone deaf plotting are due to his influence. I think that show creators are not always the best caretakers of their show, something I call the Roddenberry Rule.  

What is this thing that I call "the Roddenberry Rule"?    

The person least capable of writing Star Trek was Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

What was the worst episode of Star Trek ever? 

If you say "Spock's Brain", I will fight you to my dying breath that you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Yes, "Spock's Brain" is a terrible episode but it's mediocrity pales when compared to "The Omega Glory". 

Written by Roddenberry, "The Omega Glory" is set on a world with two warring factions, the Yangs and Kohms  who are parallels to Yankees and Communists.  How blunt is this metaphor? The Yangs have their own American flag with a Constitution and a Pledge of Allegiance.

Of course they do.  

Roddenberry gives Spock mind control powers by staring really hard. Powers Spock has never used before or since but it resolved a plot point.

Racism is cranked to 11 with stunned reactions that the Asian Kohms are nice and peaceful while the Caucasian Yangs are asshole barbarians.  

Poor characterization, illogical plot points and absurd coincidences abound in this really bad episode. 

Or as Keith R.A. DeCandido  called it, "a misbegotten piece of crap", calling it an "abomination with its offensive racial portrayals, with its stupid plot, with its idiotic and unconvincing Earth parallels, and with a simply endless number of fist fights."

Some of the other episodes with Gene Roddenberry's name in the writing credits include “Mudd’s Women,” “The Return of the Archons,” “The Savage Curtain,” “A Private Little War,”and “Turnabout Intruder", the last of which challenges "Omega Glory" for worst episode of Star Trek.  These episodes range from mediocre at best to down right awful.  

And Roddeberry did little better with Star Trek: The Next Generation with "Encounter  At Farpoint", “Hide and Q,” and “Datalore.”

To reference Keith R.A. DeCandido again, he wrote "Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, and for that, we owe him a debt of gratitude, because he created a truly great thing."   

But apart from his big vision about Star Trek universe and the ideals he sought to promote, his specific contributions were always lacking.  

To reiterate, the person least capable of writing Star Trek was Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

And I think Dick Wolf shouldn't write any more Law & Order.