A soon-forgiven liar revealed scene or the suitably mourned and quickly avenged death of a sympathetic character by a villain are not even remotely on the level of the protagonist we’re rooting for causing genocide without remorse or consequences.

Why would the “lying” scene even remotely matter when Tim Allen’s character killed their entire civilization? That’s a much bigger deal than lying about being a space captain! Why would they put him in charge again without even explaining his error?

Wait, what? I don’t remember that being implied at all. That would be incredibly dark for such a light-hearted comedy.

The Thermians were fighting Sarris long before they brought in Tim Allen’s character.

I agree. But there were a few moments where the Ferengi were shown not to behave consistently with the principles they espoused.

They shouldn’t have had any problem with (Edit: Rom) forming a union, for instance. After all, what’s wrong with a little collusion and price-fixing between the sellers of labor?

I guess some hypocrisy is to be expected in any society.

Star Trek: Picard has Picard too…

Am I the only one who’s having trouble processing the fact that Leela and Nibbler casually murdered someone early in the episode? I mean Futurama has always shown a lot of dark or mean humor, but that really threw me. Especially when they followed it up with such a sentimental story. I don’t like it when shows try to mix the two. Either I’m watching the show with the mindset that nothing matters, or I’m getting invested in the characters and their arcs. I don’t know about other people, but I can’t do both at once.

I’ve seen both.

My thought was that turning it into an alloy somehow stabilized it.

Nausicans of all species had working temporal technology thousands of years in the past!!!

Is it possible they merely discovered the portal and carved the notice on to it?

So “Horonium” was once so abundant that it was accessible even with Earth’s limited capabilities in the NX-01 era, but somehow it’s now gone from the entire quadrant? Seems like there must be a story there. I wonder if something like The Burn could have come into play (I never watched DISC past the first season, so I’m going off of hearsay of what that was.) Or possibly it was a material somehow created and scattered all throughout the galaxy at once with a limited lifespan. Given that it powers the time portal, maybe it has some weird temporal properties that made it disappear.

Been awhile since I’ve watched it too, but given that Tellarite culture revolves around things we see as rudeness, do we really know for sure that runts are seen as or treated as lesser?

This is similar, albeit much better written, to a theory that I posted on reddit ages ago.

What’s interesting about this is that is seems like Worf is among those who misunderstand what Klingons mean by “honor.” When Worf refused to support the invasion of Cardassia, Gowron warned him that he’d lose his standing in society, he’d have nothing. Worf answered, “Except my honor.” Whereas that act entailed losing, not saving “face.”

Another interesting scene was in The House of Quark, where Gowron told D’ghor, “…if you can stand here and murder this pathetic little man, then you have no honor, and you have no place in this Hall.” If this theory is correct, Gowron was in a sense ceremonially stripping D’ghor of honor with that statement.

It’s possible that the answer is somewhere in-between, however. Klingon honor involves both being trusted and being trustworthy.

Well, the OP spelled out their criteria explicitly.

these should be episodes that can work with a minimum number of sets- In The Pale Moonlight could work on a single set. It’s Only a Paper Moon could work with two. DS9 and holodeck/Vic’s club.

no special effect and modest-to-minimal practical effects- In both cases the episode is carried out through dialogue.

amateur though dedicated actors- This one’s a little harder to quantify, so I’ll leave that up to OP’s judgement.

In addition, they deal with themes that are relatable without being exposed to the context of the story. Moreso It’s Only a Paper Moon than In The Pale Moonlight.

Is it a common trope in Westerns? Maybe it was there as an homage.

I wonder if it’s really time healing itself, or someone healing time.

Taking the idea of temporal wars and a department of temporal investigation to its logical end, it’s like what they said in the second Bill and Ted movie. Only the winner can go back and change things. We can speculate that, at some point in time, the most powerful time-traveling organization possible exists and is actively trying to maintain the meta-timeline that leads to its existence.

What about DS9’s In The Pale Moonlight or It’s Only a Paper Moon?