Best and Worst Star Trek Episodes, The Next Generation

[The Master™]

Following on from McMurphy's Original Series thread, thought I put up one for TNG...

Okay, worst is easy:

SHADES OF GREY!!! Second season episode about Riker getting bitten and a virus attacks him and Doctor Polaski must induce painful, then pleasureable memories to fight the virus... Cutting all the rubbish - it was a lousy reason to do a flashback of season one and part of season two... It was horrendous!!!

Slightly more difficult, best:

Yesterdays Enterprise, Darmok

 

[Brian G Turner]

Worst? Anything with Deanna's mother frolicking around!

Best - offhand, 2 always come to mind - one where Riker was imprisoned on an alien world, but his view of reality was centered around a play he had performed in earlier - classic "what is reality" as a theme. Don't remember the title though...

Also, of course, "All good things...". Think they somehow forgot that one for the movies.

 

[Quest]

I would agree that anything with Momma Troy was terrible. I loved the pilot episode of Next Gen. The two parter that had Pickard kidnapped and turned into a Borg was great, too.

 

[logan_run]

I would agree that anything with Momma Troy was terrible. I loved the pilot episode of Next Gen. The two parter that had Pickard kidnapped and turned into a Borg was great, too.

best
yesterdays enterprise
skin of evil

 

[J-Sun]

best
yesterdays enterprise
[worst]
skin of evil

Fixed that for you (I think - hope). Those are the ones that popped into my head, too. I'm pretty certain about "Yesterday's Enterprise" which I remember well and am crazy about (though I could have stood for them losing the romantic subplot - but you kind of have to have something like it, I guess). There are a lot of good ones but that one's very good. I'm less certain about "Skin of Evil" because there were many bad ones I don't remember so well but that's certainly among the worst if not the worst. I don't know if it's "Spock's Brain" bad, but it's bad.

And guess what those two episodes had significantly in common.

 

[VinceK]

Thought I'd kick this off again as Netflix currently has every episode; and every other program with the words Star Trek in it.

Darmok (5:2)
The dangers of first contact.

Cause and Effect (5:18)
A poker game will determine the fate of the Enterprise.

The Inner Light (5:25)
A memorial to an extinct race.

It would appear I quite like Series 5

 

[Dulahan]

I was liked the episodes with Moriarty "Elemantry, Dear Data" and "Ship in a Bottle"

 

[Zoe Mackay]

The one with Riker and the play is "Frame Of Mind" from S6. And I agree, it's excellent. I'm on a rewatch at the moment, but I think I'd go with Shades Of Grey being the worst (and filler, to boot), and Best Of Both Worlds Pt 1 being the best.

 

[Ray Pullar]

Worst: The naked now, second ever episode, misconceived homage to sixties original, crew go crazy, Tasha discovers Data's functionality. Justice - Wes faces death for treading on flowers, unfortunately not executed. The Royale - Riker, Data and Worf explore 1980s casino full of simulacrums. Up the long ladder - Oirish and sneering sexless English caricatures learn how to make babies together. Qpid - weak romantic comedy based on Robin Hood. Lute smashing, "I am not a merry man."

 

[Rodders]

I'll second for The Inner Light. My Personal favourite of the entire series.

I Borg, The Off Spring also come to mind as personal favourites.

The Best of Both Worlds was the first episode that made me site up and take notice. That cliff hanger had me on the edge of my seat.

 

[Ensign Shah]

Cause and Effect was my absolute favourite. Anything with Q in made me chuckle and because I love it all dearly, I didn't mind Lwaxana Troi. Surely there is no such thing as a bad Star Trek episode but 'The skin of evil' is pretty darn close to a bad one!

 

[REBerg]

I'll second for The Inner Light. My Personal favourite of the entire series.

The Off Spring also come to mind as personal favourites.

"Thank you for my life."

 

[Vince W]

Family is probably my favourite episode. That or Skin of Evil. I really hated Tasha Yar.

 

[Ray Pullar]

Angel one - another first season stinker - Riker plays submissive male on Amazon woman planet, seduces lady boss anyway. Crude gender-reversal story, trying to update hoary sf cliches, out-of-date even in sixties show.

Time's arrow pts 1 & 2 - not awful, disappointing. Wild, wild west with Data in old San Francisco has amusing moments but convoluted solution to how-do-they-get-out-of-that after finding his head buried inthe distant past. Awkwardly shoe-horns rest of cast into 19th c. Bad ret-con of Guinan meetingeveryone centuries earlier on earth and keeping mouth shut.

 

[Ray Pullar]

I'd add to that Jerry "X-Files" Hardin's caricature of Mark Twain and Picard punting the prime directive out the nearest viewport by showing him round the Enterprise. And the time-traveling aliens plot-device.

 

[REBerg]

Add another vote for "Darmok." I had as many question marks hovering over my head as the crew for most of that one.

 

[Ray Pullar]

The common failing of Qpid and Time's Arrow is an unnaturally forced plot and the ultimate pointlessness of it. In the first, Q makes the cast LARP Robin Hood but Vash leaves Picard anyway; in the second, plot exigencies compel everyone to LARP Victorian Americans, Data hasn't died.

 

[Ray Pullar]

Poor - Captain's Holiday - introduces Vash as Picard's foil, plays like magnum p.i. pastiche of the Maltese Falcon.

 

[BAYLOR]

Yesterday's Enterprise .