10 worst star trek next generation episodes

10 worst Star Trek episodes, according to the fans

With so many episodes of Star Trek out there, there were bound to be some horrible missteps. A group of fans hashes through space hippies, stolen brains and an awful series finale to find the worst of them all.

10 worst star trek next generation episodes

Brainless Spock under remote control.

I'm sitting in the DeForest Kelley theater at the 50th anniversary Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, dressed as an original-series starship captain and surrounded by members of my tribe. We're here on an hour-long mission to figure out the 10 worst episodes of Star Trek ever made. Any series is fair game.

I have my personal favorite choices for worst episode. "Spock's Brain" from the original series comes to mind. Here's the premise: Aliens steal Spock's brain! And that's all you need to know about how big a stinker that episode is. "The Way to Eden" (space hippies!) is another strong contender. "These Are the Voyages" was the series finale for prequel show "Enterprise." It sucked on so many levels by reducing the main cast to glorified cameos and including the pointless and frustrating death of a main character.

Stellar cosplay warps into Star Trek anniversary convention (pictures)

10 Worst Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Follow the intergalactic adventures of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and his loyal crew aboard the all-new USS Enterprise NCC-1701D, as they explore new worlds.

Written by Sophie and last updated on nov 30, 2023.

PS: The following content contains spoilers!

PPS: I will admit that parts of this page was written with the help of AI - it makes my work so much easier to not start from a blank page!

#10 - The Loss (Season 4 - Episode 10)

Troi loses her empathic abilities when the Enterprise is caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole.

The episode was rated 6.98 from 434 votes.

#9 - Skin of Evil (Season 1 - Episode 22)

Stardate: 41601.3. When Troi's shuttle crashes on an alien planet, a new being is discovered: an entity that thrives on the suffering of others.

The episode was rated 6.95 from 667 votes.

#8 - Dark Page (Season 7 - Episode 7)

Stardate: 47254.1 - Lwaxana Troi collapses with a repressed memory related illness. Her only chance for survival is if Deanna can probe her subconscious and find out what is killing her. However, the secret Lwaxana holds is deeper than Deanna imagined.

The episode was rated 6.93 from 360 votes.

#7 - Too Short a Season (Season 1 - Episode 15)

Stardate: 41309.5. The aging and terminally ill Starfleet Admiral Mark Jameson, who is negotiating the release of hostages, suddenly begins growing younger through an unexplained phenomenon.

The episode was rated 6.89 from 672 votes.

#6 - Aquiel (Season 6 - Episode 13)

Stardate: 46461.3 - Geordie falls in love with a lieutenant who is the prime suspect in a murder case.

The episode was rated 6.82 from 385 votes.

#5 - Manhunt (Season 2 - Episode 19)

Stardate: 42859.2 While being escorted to a Federation conference by the Enterprise, Lwaxana hunts for a man to satisfy her needs when her sex-drive is quadrupled during a natural mid-life cycle.

The episode was rated 6.81 from 450 votes.

#4 - Code of Honor (Season 1 - Episode 3)

Stardate: 41235.25. Tasha Yar must fight for her life and a vaccine to save a race of people when she is kidnapped and forced to battle with her abductor's wife.

The episode was rated 6.74 from 955 votes.

#3 - Imaginary Friend (Season 5 - Episode 22)

Stardate: 45832.1 - While exploring a strange form of energy in a region of space, a little girl's imaginary friend becomes real and places the Enterprise in great danger.

The episode was rated 6.64 from 353 votes.

#2 - Sub Rosa (Season 7 - Episode 14)

Stardate: Unknown - Dr. Crusher attends her grandmother's funeral, to find that she had been in romantic encounters with a mysterious man who had been haunting the Howard family women for generations.

The episode was rated 6.43 from 333 votes.

#1 - Shades of Gray (Season 2 - Episode 22)

Stardate: 42976.1 Riker is infected with an alien organism that takes over his mind. Dr. Pulaski must force Riker's mind back to a state where it can access primitive survival skills.

The episode was rated 5.87 from 477 votes.

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The Best And Worst Episodes Of Star Trek: The Next Generation According To IMDB

Screenshot from "The Inner Light", Star Trek: The Next Generation

Since the very first episode of Star Trek aired in 1966, the series has built a fanbase of epic proportions. At the same time, says SyFY Wire, its episodes have been generating controversy and confusion since the beginning. It's been the same for all subsequent shows in the franchise, including the sequel series, Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Running from 1987 until 1994, Star Trek: The Next Generation didn't get an easy start, as many die-hard Trekkies were skeptical of the new series. According to Johnathan Frakes, who played Riker on TNG , early fan reactions were understandable. "They were generally not terribly interested and completely unfamiliar with the new Star Trek ," he said recently at GalaxyCon , "[The show] had a bald English captain with a French name, and an entirely new cast."

Patrick Stewart featured as the bald English guy, the philosophical Captain Jean-Luc Picard. He was backed up by Commander Will Riker (Frakes), android Data (Brent Spiner), and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). They were joined by Security Chief Worf (Michael Dorn), Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), among a cast of other rotating regulars. The new series eventually won fans over, thanks to some beautiful episodes — and in spite of a few truly awful ones. Read on to learn more, but beware the spoilers that lie ahead.

Worst: Sub Rosa

Season seven's "Sub Rosa" really tried to go for ... something. Whatever that was supposed to be was muddled by an odd mishmash of gothic drama, romance, and science fiction.

It starts with Beverly Crusher, the ship's doctor, attending her grandmother's funeral on Caldos, a terraformed planet that looks like a Scottish theme park. During the funeral, a mysterious man drops a flower into the grave, makes smoldering eye contact with Beverly, and leaves. When Crusher goes to her grandmother's cottage, she finds the older woman's journal. She's just about to read it when Ned Quint, the caretaker and possible Groundskeeper Willie impersonator, interrupts her. He tries to steal a candle holder before the doctor stops him. Beverly goes back to the journal and learns that grandma had a young beau, Ronin. Weird how she never wrote to Beverly about this guy.

Later, the candle lights on its own, and ghostly hands start to mess with Beverly's nightgown. The same mysterious man from the funeral appears, claiming to be Ronin. He persuades Beverly to resign her post and shack up with him on Caldos instead. Turns out Ronin is an entity who inhabits the candle holder. He's been loving up the Crusher family women for centuries with their very dubious consent. Beverly vanquishes him, but not before a series of overdramatic hijinks that include briefly reanimating her grandmother's remains. With a mere 4.9 out of 10 on IMDb , we can understand why fans usually skip this one.

Best: The Inner Light

Season five's "The Inner Light" will break your heart, thanks to a derelict space probe. The episode sits at a practically perfect 9.5 on IMDb .

The episode begins when the Enterprise encounters the spacecraft. Without warning, it zaps Picard, who falls to the floor of the bridge. While the crew tries to revive him, he wakes up on a strange planet. The woman who greets him says she's his wife and that he is a man named Kamin. Who's this Picard you keep yelling about?

Picard/Kamin eventually settles into life on the planet, Kataan, convinced that he must have experienced some traumatic brain injury. His family helps him piece his life as a father, scientist, and penny whistle musician back together. Just as well, since Kataan is facing destruction at the hands of an unstable sun. Kamin and other scientists desperately search for a solution.

The episode takes us through 50 years of his life, as an aging Kamin realizes that he simply can't save his people. "The Inner Light" really twists the knife when it's revealed that this has been a vision all along. One of Kamin's friends tells him that they launched the probe so someone could hold the memory of a vanished people. Picard wakes back on the Enterprise , having been out for only a few minutes. The episode ends as a quietly devastated Picard plays the very same whistle he had learned to play as Kamin.

Worst: Masks

In "Masks," the Enterprise comes up alongside a comet for a scientific study. Soon enough, everyone starts finding odd symbols everywhere on board, including a tiny obelisk in Troi's quarters. Crusher, responsible for the health and safety of everyone on board, cheekily suggests it's a gift from an admirer.

Actually, all of these signs are coming from a probe buried in the middle of the comet. It's sending signals straight to the Enterprise in an attempt to recreate an ancient civilization. Data gets infected by the signal and starts acting as different deities, including the ominous "Masaka." The ship begins changing, too. The bridge, engineering, and more get filled up with carved stone blocks and palm fronds. Picard saves the day by putting on his own mask and playacting his way through a few cultural myths, thereby appeasing Masaka.

"Masks," with a 6 on IMDb , is terribly uneven. The technobabble explaining how an alien craft can transform the ship into an ancient temple is hard to parse, characters make confusing decisions, and Brent Spiner's mugging as a possessed Data can get tiresome. The abrupt dinner theater-quality ending, where Patrick Stewart pretends to be a moon god, is just the confusing cherry on top of a strange sundae.

Best: Darmok

It's rare that a linguistics lesson makes for good TV, but a monster and some fine acting help make "Darmok" profound.

The story begins as the Enterprise meets the Tamarians, who have developed a language system so allegorical that no one else understands them. Even today, says The Atlantic , viewers are still trying to parse the meaning of this fictional speech. Picard and the Tamarian captain, Dathon, attempt to communicate, but it's no use. Tensions begin to rise. Dathon turns to his first officer, saying, "Darmok at Tanagra." His second-in-command looks dismayed but obeys. He beams Dathon and Picard down to the surface of El-Adrel, a nearby planet inhabited by a dangerous beast. The Enterprise crew scrambles to regain Picard, but the Tamarians have jammed the signal.

Eventually, Dathon is mortally wounded by the beast, but not before Picard finally understands. He makes it back to the Enterprise just in time to deescalate a standoff between his crew and the Tamarians and show that he understands them. The Children of Tama are satisfied that communications have been opened, though they clearly mourn their captain, and leave in peace.

Dathon is played by Paul Winfield, who masterfully commands attention even when we can't understand him. Winfield and Patrick Stewart are the acting powerhouses at the heart of the episode, which is currently at an 8.7 rating on IMDb .

Worst: The Child

While some episodes tug at your heartstrings, others stumble over them and end up in an awkward tangle on the floor. At 5.8 on IMDb , "The Child" definitely falls in the latter category.

In the opening scene, a ball of light enters the ship, zips around, and comes to the quarters of Counselor Deanna Troi. She sleeps on, unaware that the light has lodged itself in her body. Well, she doesn't know until she begins to change rapidly. It looks like she's pregnant, but she can't recall doing anything that could have gotten her in such a situation. In the space of only 36 hours, she gives birth to a baby boy, who she names Ian.

Ian continues to grow at an alarming rate, looking like an eight-year-old in just two days. Meanwhile, an unknown radiation source is causing containment issues in the cargo bay, which is carrying deadly plague samples. No one wonders why the Enterprise , with civilians on board, is transporting disease specimens.

The crew discovers that the radiation is coming from Ian. He destroys his human form, sticking around just long enough to explain that he is a "life force entity" who wanted to learn more about humans. Perhaps he should have read up on consent first. Either way, Troi is devastated as her magical space baby jets off into the unknown, never to call or send a postcard.

Best: All Good Things

"All Good Things," the series finale with a 9.2 on IMDb , starts off on an alarming note. A retired Picard is talking nonsense about time travel while puttering about on his vineyard in France. Geordi La Forge visits him, but it soon becomes obvious that Picard hasn't been enjoying himself. He and Dr. Crusher married and then divorced. Deanna Troi has died. Picard himself is suffering from dementia, which promises only to get worse.

Then Q, the all-powerful trickster, shows up. He's decided to judge all of humanity and just happens to be leaning toward total and utter destruction. Picard must get the crew back together to save his species. All of this comes together in a plot that moves back and forth between the first episode ("Encounter at Farpoint"), the "present day" of the series, and a deteriorating future Picard trying to rescue everyone. Ultimately, it works. Everyone involved is reliably noble and self-sacrificing, to the point where even Q has to admit that he'll give them a pass. It ends with the crew enjoying a quiet poker game together.

For a series that had gone on for a full seven seasons, with so many opportunities to fizzle out into nothing, this episode is a lovely finale. The strength of "All Good Things" rests more on the characters themselves, drawing together despite the passage of time.

Worst: Angel One

Science fiction is primed to take risks. That's part of the genre: thinking wild thoughts and then turning these daring ideas back onto our own society. That method can produce beautiful, profound results. Then again, sometimes it creates "Angel One." This episode falls flat so dramatically that you wonder if the writers were even in the room when it was developed. It clunks in at 5.7 on IMDb .

It all begins when representatives from the Enterprise beam down to Angel One, a planet ruled by a matriarchal society. They're looking for escape pods from the freighter Odin , which must have landed nearby. Those pesky survivors have been inciting unrest and upending the traditional power structure. Beata, the leader of the society, also takes some time to harass Riker. You know, like a man would, right?

"Angel One" smacks of earlier sci-fi cheese, like Cat-Women of the Moon , where women slink around in tights and crumble at the sight of a "real" man. Simply flipping gender roles that are already cliched in our own reality doesn't make it much better. You can almost see what Star Trek's writers were trying to achieve. It's supposed to be a comment on gender relations today, but it only folds back in on itself and upholds lame stereotypes about women and men.

Best: Yesterday's Enterprise

Time travel is a mainstay of Star Trek and a neat narrative device that earned "Yesterday's Enterprise" a 9.2 on IMDb .

The Enterprise is monitoring a space-time anomaly when another vessel emerges from the rift right in front of them. Immediately, Picard and his crew are transported to a reality where they are at war with the Klingon Empire . They don't realize anything is different, though the audience certainly does. Security Chief Tasha Yar is there, too, though we saw her die in season one's "Skin of Evil."

The crew identifies the new ship as the long-lost Enterprise-C . Its captain says that they were about to defend a Klingon outpost when they were lost in the anomaly. Their disappearance touched off the war now threatening the Federation. Guinan, the ship's mysterious bartender played by Whoopi Goldberg, senses something is wrong. She speaks to Picard, arguing that the Enterprise-C must go back to its own time, but Picard's reluctant to send the other Enterprise on a suicide mission based solely on her intuition.

Of course, Guinan's right. The Enterprise-C has to go back. Meanwhile, Yar learns that she shouldn't exist and transfers to the Enterprise-C , seeking a nobler end. The Klingons attack while the Enterprise-C returns, but it all stops once the old ship disappears. No one but Guinan feels that anything has changed. After all of the compelling drama, the episode ends quietly as she asks Geordi to tell her about the long-gone Yar.

Worst: Code of Honor

Season one's "Code of Honor" is so awful that actor Michael Dorn called it "the worst episode of Star Trek ever filmed," reports Huffington Post . With an IMDb rating of 5.2, viewers seem to agree.

It begins as the Enterprise crew stops by Ligon II to pick up a vaccine. Things get deeply cringey when we see that the Ligonians are all played by Black actors in turbans. The fictional culture is clearly an attempt to emulate a mishmash of different real-world African cultures. The Ligonians are depicted as aggressive and primitive, to boot. Their leader, Lutan, kidnaps Security Chief Tasha Yar, with the intent to make her another of his wives. Yar and Lutan's first wife attempt to fight to the death before the episode stumbles into a resolution.

Episode director Russ Mayberry was replaced halfway through filming, having been pinpointed as the source of the trouble, according to Tor . Actor Jonathan Frakes hates the episode so much that he's reportedly tried to get it pulled from syndication, says The Take .

Best: Unification, Parts I and II

The Romulans of Star Trek: TNG can't seem to keep away from trouble. For much of the series, they were unambiguously evil, sowing discord everywhere while sporting the biggest shoulder pads in the galaxy. The two-part "Unification" serves to complicate this notion and also features a killer cameo. With an 8.3 and 8.4 IMDb rating for Parts I and II, respectively, viewers agree.

The story begins when Picard is told to find one of the Federation's most important ambassadors: Spock. He's gone missing, and everyone is frantically trying to uncover his whereabouts. Picard goes off to find him, bringing Data along for backup. The duo eventually track Spock down on Romulus, where he's assisting a resistance movement that wants to open up contact with their cousins, the Vulcans. Sela, a government official trying to stop them, is actually the half-human daughter of Tasha Yar, who traveled back in time in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and was captured by Romulans.

The story isn't perfect. There are some fun but ultimately useless sequences on a Klingon ship, while Sela occasionally seems more like a harried paper-pusher than a real menace. Yet, with Leonard Nimoy's return as a revolutionary Spock and an interesting peek into Romulan society, this two-parter is worth your time.

Worst: Genesis

You don't have to treat each episode of Star Trek like it's a profound meditation on the human condition. "Genesis," with a 7.2 rating on IMDb , is just one of those definitely bad, but oddly enjoyable, episodes reminding you to enjoy the trash once in a while.

It starts with Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, usually a nervous, hypochondriac mess played for laughs. This time, he's actually sick with a mild flu, but Crusher says she'll cure him with a genetically engineered treatment. Seems innocuous, but people soon begin to act strangely. Worf becomes ultra-aggressive, Barclay gets extra twitchy, and Troi longs for a humidifier or 20 in her quarters. It's weird but not odd enough to keep Picard and Data from going after a rogue test torpedo.

By the time the duo step back on board, it's a different matter. The Enterprise is eerily quiet — but not uninhabited. They enter the counselor's quarters to find that Troi has turned into a frog woman, gills and all. Barclay is now some sort of spider-man stalking engineering. Riker is a literal caveman. Worst of all, Worf has grown venom glands, an exoskeleton, and a supremely bad attitude. The duo realize that Dr. Crusher's experimental treatment has somehow reversed evolution. Seriously. Though Worf is trying to murder them and Picard's beginning to succumb himself, Data engineers a treatment and saves the day.

It's deeply silly, especially if you have even a passing knowledge of evolutionary biology, but "Genesis" is still a good hour of stupid fun.

Best: The Best of Both Worlds, Parts I and II

If not for "The Best of Both Worlds," we might have never gotten the season finale cliffhanger that's de rigueur for shows today. Love them or hate them, these storytelling arcs have become an integral part of TV storytelling. It's mostly thanks to Captain Picard and a frightening villain known as the Borg .

Originally, says SyFy Wire , the Borg weren't very scary. In their first appearance in season two's "Q Who," they only seemed interested in assimilating other civilizations' technology. With "The Best of Both Worlds," however, they want to assimilate all species and demand that Picard hand himself over.

The Enterprise crew does no such thing, of course. But that doesn't stop the Borg from kidnapping Picard, anyway. In the last scene of Part I, we see him transformed into the mindless Locutus of Borg. "Resistance is futile," he intones through the viewscreen. "Your life, as it has been, is over." Riker orders the ship to fire, and we cut to black until the next season.

We know now that Picard is eventually rescued and the Borg defeated, though they would remain a source of Picard's PTSD for years. For viewers at the time, however, the suspense was unprecedented. Would Picard really be gone forever? According to The Hollywood Reporter , the creative team wasn't sure, either, having written only the first episode before the season break. Thankfully, they got it together and produced a classic Star Trek two-parter, with Parts I and II currently standing at 9.4 and 9.3 , respectively.

Show cover for Star Trek: The Next Generation

The Worst Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Every episode of star trek: the next generation ranked from worst to best. explore the worst episodes of star trek: the next generation.

Follow the intergalactic adventures of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and his loyal crew aboard the all-new USS Enterprise NCC-1701D, as they explore new worlds.

Lowest Rated Episode

The worst episode of " Star Trek: The Next Generation " is " Shades of Gray " , rated 3.3 /10 from 4083 user votes. It was directed by Rob Bowman and written by Maurice Hurley, Richard Manning, Hans Beimler . " Shades of Gray " aired on 7/17/1989 and is rated 1.5 point(s) lower than the second lowest rated, " Sub Rosa " .

# 1 - Shades of Gray

Season 2 episode 22 - aired 1989-07-17.

Stardate: 42976.1. Riker is infected with an alien organism that takes over his mind. Dr. Pulaski must force Riker's mind back to a state where it can access primitive survival skills.

Director: Rob Bowman

Writer: Maurice Hurley , Richard Manning , Hans Beimler

# 2 - Sub Rosa

Season 7 episode 14 - aired 1994-01-31.

Stardate: Unknown. Dr. Crusher attends her grandmother's funeral, to find that she had been in romantic encounters with a mysterious man who had been haunting the Howard family women for generations.

Director: Jonathan Frakes

Writer: Jeri Taylor , Brannon Braga

# 3 - Code of Honor

Season 1 episode 3 - aired 1987-10-12.

Stardate: 41235.25. Tasha Yar must fight for her life and a vaccine to save a race of people when she is kidnapped and forced to battle with her abductor's wife.

Director: Russ Mayberry , Les Landau

Writer: Michael Baron , Katharyn Powers , Kathryn Powers

# 4 - Angel One

Season 1 episode 13 - aired 1988-01-25.

Stardate: 41636.9. The Enterprise discovers the male crew of a crashed Federation freighter are hiding as fugitives on the planet Angel One, which is dominated and ruled by women.

Director: Michael Ray Rhodes

Writer: Patrick Barry

# 5 - Man of the People

Season 6 episode 3 - aired 1992-10-05.

Stardate: 46071.6. Deanna becomes attracted to an alien ambassador. Shortly thereafter, she starts ageing rapidly and starts becoming violent.

Director: Cliff Bole , Winrich Kolbe

Writer: Brannon Braga , Frank Abatemarco

# 6 - The Child

Season 2 episode 1 - aired 1988-11-21.

Stardate: 42073.1. Troi undergoes a mysterious pregnancy when the Enterprise tries to escape from a system that has recently fallen victim to a deadly plague.

Writer: Jon Povill , Maurice Hurley , Jaron Summers

# 7 - Masks

Season 7 episode 17 - aired 1994-02-21.

Stardate: 47615.2. The Enterprise is slowly transformed into an ancient alien temple when Data discovers an alien archive full of information about an ancient culture. Shortly after opening the archive, Data becomes possessed with several different personalities.

Director: Robert Wiemer

Writer: Joe Menosky

# 8 - Justice

Season 1 episode 7 - aired 1987-11-09.

Stardate: 41255.6. Picard is forced to choose between friendship and the Prime Directive when Wesley Crusher is sentenced to death for accidentally breaking the law on Rubicon III.

Director: James L. Conway

Writer: Worley Thorne

# 9 - The Loss

Season 4 episode 10 - aired 1990-12-01.

Stardate: 44356.9. Troi loses her empathic abilities when the Enterprise is caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole.

Director: Chip Chalmers

Writer: Hilary Bader

# 10 - Imaginary Friend

Season 5 episode 22 - aired 1992-05-04.

Stardate: 45832.1. While exploring a strange form of energy in a region of space, a little girl's imaginary friend becomes real and places the Enterprise in great danger.

Director: Gabrielle Beaumont

Writer: Edithe Swensen , Brannon Braga

# 11 - Aquiel

Season 6 episode 13 - aired 1993-02-01.

Stardate: 46461.3. Geordie falls in love with a lieutenant who is the prime suspect in a murder case.

Director: Cliff Bole

Writer: Jeri Taylor , Brannon Braga , Ronald D. Moore

# 12 - Too Short a Season

Season 1 episode 15 - aired 1988-02-08.

Stardate: 41309.5. The aging and terminally ill Starfleet Admiral Mark Jameson, who is negotiating the release of hostages, suddenly begins growing younger through an unexplained phenomenon.

Writer: D.C. Fontana , Michael Michaelian

# 13 - Manhunt

Season 2 episode 19 - aired 1989-06-19.

Stardate: 42859.2. While being escorted to a Federation conference by the Enterprise, Lwaxana hunts for a man to satisfy her needs when her sex-drive is quadrupled during a natural mid-life cycle.

Writer: Tracy Tormé

# 14 - Cost of Living

Season 5 episode 20 - aired 1992-04-20.

Stardate: 45733.6. Deanna's mother pays a surprise visit to the Enterprise with even more surprising news: she plans to marry a man she has never met. After destroying an asteroid, the ship becomes infected with parasites that eat away at the ship's hull.

Director: Winrich Kolbe

Writer: Peter Allan Fields

# 15 - Haven

Season 1 episode 10 - aired 1987-11-30.

Stardate: 41294.6. The mother of Deanna Troi, Lwaxana, pays a surprise visit to the Enterprise and announces the prearranged marriage of Deanna to the son of her mother's late husband's best friend.

Director: Richard Compton

# 16 - The Outrageous Okona

Season 2 episode 4 - aired 1988-12-12.

Stardate: 42402.7. The Enterprise is placed in a compromising situation when the captain of a disabled starship places the crew in the middle of a love triangle.

Director: Robert Becker

Writer: Burton Armus

# 17 - The Dauphin

Season 2 episode 10 - aired 1989-02-20.

Stardate: 42568.8. Wesley falls in love with a passenger the Enterprise is escorting, who has the secret ability to shape-shift.

Writer: Scott Rubenstein , Leonard Mlodinow

# 18 - The Icarus Factor

Season 2 episode 14 - aired 1989-04-24.

Stardate: 42686.4. Riker is promoted to Captain of another Federation ship. Worf must confront his past and his Klingon heritage.

Director: Robert Iscove

Writer: Robert McCullough , David Assael

# 19 - Up the Long Ladder

Season 2 episode 18 - aired 1989-05-22.

Stardate: 42823.2. Picard must convince two dying civilizations that they must co-exist on the same planet to survive, however, they have other plans to ensure their survival: in the form of clones of the Enterprise crew.

Writer: Melinda M. Snodgrass

# 20 - Violations

Season 5 episode 12 - aired 1992-02-03.

Stardate: 45429.3. While escorting a group of telepaths, crew members on board the Enterprise suddenly start to slip into comas.

Writer: Jeri Taylor , Pamela Gray

# 21 - Interface

Season 7 episode 3 - aired 1993-10-04.

Stardate: 47215.5. Geordi defies direct orders from Captain Picard in an attempt to rescue his mother who had recently been reported as missing.

# 22 - Journey's End

Season 7 episode 20 - aired 1994-03-28.

Stardate: 47751.2. Under the terms of the new Federation/Cardassian alliance, Picard is ordered to evacuate a colony of native Americans, but protests from Wesley hamper the process. Wesley's destiny is finally revealed to him when the Traveler returns.

Director: Corey Allen

Writer: Ronald D. Moore

# 23 - The Last Outpost

Season 1 episode 4 - aired 1987-10-19.

Stardate: 41386.4. A powerful entity disables the Enterprise and a Ferengi ship. Their only means of escape is if they can correctly answer the riddles he asks.

Director: Richard A. Colla

Writer: Herbert Wright

# 24 - Lonely Among Us

Season 1 episode 6 - aired 1987-11-02.

Stardate: 41249.3. Picard's mind is taken over by an energy field that the Enterprise passes through.

Writer: D.C. Fontana

# 25 - The Price

Season 3 episode 8 - aired 1989-11-13.

Stardate: 43385.6. The Enterprise hosts the negotiations for the rights to a newly discovered, stable wormhole to the Delta Quadrant. One of the negotiators, Devinoni Ral, becomes attracted to Deanna Troi, but he holds a dubious secret.

Director: Robert Scheerer

Writer: Hannah Louise Shearer

Worst Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes

Jonathan Frakes in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

1. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Shades of gray.

Marina Sirtis in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

2. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Mick Fleetwood and Diana Muldaur in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

3. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Gates McFadden in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

4. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Brent Spiner in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

5. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Stephanie Erb and Charles Lucia in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

6. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Man of the people.

Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

7. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Denise Crosby, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

8. Star Trek: The Next Generation

The last outpost.

Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Patrick Stewart, and Rick Fitts in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

9. Star Trek: The Next Generation

10. Star Trek: The Next Generation

More to explore, recently viewed.

When Star Trek: The Next Generation Was Bad, It Was Truly Horrendous

The crew of the Enterprise meet the Space Irish. Things get much worse from there.

There aren’t just a lot of candidates for the worst episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation , I would contend there are a lot of worst episodes , period. It’s amazing how much terrible content this show produced while simultaneously reviving the beloved franchise —there’s the racism of “Code of Honor,” the supernatural assault of “Sub Rosa,” the clip show crappiness of “Shades of Gray,” and many more. Everyone has their pick, but “Up the Long Ladder” is my dark horse contender for the title, because it manages to be racist, sexist, and terrible sci-fi, all at once.

Assorted Musings:

Besides receiving the signal, the episode also begins when Worf (Michael Dorn) collapses on the bridge. As it turns out, he has Klingon Measles, is embarrassed to have Klingon Measles, and Dr. Pulaski lies to Picard about Worf’s illness so no one knows he has Klingon Measles. This “story” is wisely and completely abandoned after about three scenes, maybe a quarter of the way through the episode, having meant and affecting absolutely nothing.
The Space Irish love booze so much Delilo isn’t content with the whiskey produced by the ship’s replicator, so Worf gives him the Klingon booze chech’tluth. He reacts to it as The Honeymooners ’ Art Carney or one of the Three Stooges might, two ancient references I suspect maybe a quarter of you readers know at best. Hopefully, the fact that the episode is reusing a joke from the ‘40s and ‘50s is indicative enough of just how hilarious it is.
The “Next Time On” preview for the episode doesn’t mention the Space Irish at all, even though they get more screentime than the Mariposans. Huh. Wonder why.
If nothing else, at least the episode gave us the Shakespearean bit of dialogue just above. “Clones?” “Clones?” “Clones.”

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'Make it so': Star Trek: The Next Generation's 25 best episodes, ranked

These are the best adventures of Captain Picard's TNG crew.

Star Trek The Next Generation Best Episodes Header

No one expected Star Trek to last longer than the original series’ first three seasons, let alone 55 years.

Even by 1960s standards, the classic show suffered from low-budget sets and, at times, cheesy effects. But what it lacked in spectacle it made up for with ideas; a thematically-rich exploration of heady sci-fi concepts bolstered by occasional space-based action and some of the finest TV characters ever assembled. Trek ’s legacy would endure and spawn 13 feature films and several series, most notably Star Trek: The Next Generation , which is as popular now (or more) than it has ever been, thanks to streaming. In 2021, TNG celebrate some significant milestones: The 30th anniversary of the Season 5 episode "Disaster," Trek 's take on disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure , the 30th of "Unification, Parts I and II, which marked Mr. Spock's return to television prior to the theatrical release of 1991's Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , and Star Trek: First Contact recently turned 25.

With everyone coming up Star Trek: The Next Generation lately, as well as the franchise itself celebrating its 55th anniversary this year, SYFY WIRE scrolled through our databanks to rank and file the 25 greatest episodes of TNG .

25. “Q Who?” (Season 2)

Borg Cube Tractors Enterprise D Startrek

The Borg have never been more scary than they are in “Q Who?”, their first appearance in Star Trek .

When Q is denied a spot amongst Picard’s crew, he punishes the captain’s perceived short-sightedness by snapping his fingers and sending the Enterprise to the unexplored reaches of the Delta Quadrant. There, Picard encounters — and barely escapes — the Borg and their relentless pursuit of perfection by means of assimilation. The moment their cube vessel cuts out a section of the D’s saucer as easily as one would carve a roast, the Borg instantly shot past the Klingons as Star Trek ’s most lethal adversary. Our introduction to the Borg is both bleak and dark, which gives the episode a slow burn, almost haunted house movie-type feel thanks to future X-Files director Rob Bowman’s dread-filled visual style. For the first time on Star Trek , you don’t know how or if the crew will get out of this one. The tension therein makes for one hell of an episode.

24. “The Next Phase” (Season 5)

“The Next Phase” is further proof that, when it comes to delivering high-concept entertainment, no Trek show did it better than The Next Generation .

With a plotline rich enough to sustain an entire feature, “Next Phase” pairs the conflict-heavy Ensign Ro (Michelle Forbes) with LeVar Burton’s Geordi LaForge on a mission to free themselves from being phased out of reality before Romulans destroy the Enterprise. Forbes and Burton’s committed performances help ground the out-there premise as the sci-fi complications build to a race-against-time conclusion that is so satisfying, you might catch yourself applauding in approval.

23. “Ensign Ro” (Season 5)

Season Five’s “Ensign Ro” had the unenviable task of introducing the episode’s titular recurring character as means to tee up the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine spinoff. While more plot heavy than usual TNG episodes, Michael Piller’s teleplay delicately balances out the exposition with essential character development scenes between the infamous Ro Laren and her new captain, Picard.

When we first meet the Bajoran Ro, everything about her says “stay away.” Her rebellious Starfleet record precedes her when she first boards Enterprise, which leads to instant friction between her and Riker as Picard recruits Ro for a mission that concerns her people and their enemy, a Nazi-like occupational force known as the Cardassians. Ro quickly became a fan-favorite, thanks to Forbes’ sympathetic and charming performance in what would become a load-bearing episode for the franchise’s expansion in the ‘90s.

22. “Brothers” (Season 4)

This Season 4 entry fleshes out Data’s backstory with a one-man show for Brent Spiner as he plays three different characters: Data, his very old creator, Dr. Noonien Soong, and Data’s very evil brother, Lore.

After Data inexplicably orchestrates a fake disaster aboard the Enterprise and takes control of the ship’s computer, he confronts both the father he thought was long lost and the brother he can’t seem to lose. Soong wants to give Data an emotion chip, to finish what he started before he dies, just as Data’s family reunion jeopardizes the health of a young boy under Dr. Crusher’s care. If Data doesn’t relinquish control of the Enterprise, this kid will die and his brother will suffer from a lifelong case of survivor’s guilt. Looking past the fact that “Brothers” confusingly avoids dealing with any serious questions surrounding Data’s selfish and potentially deadly actions, the episode serves as an extended Emmy reel for Spiner. He effortlessly dons old age makeup and switches between three generations of Data’s family line in what is a definitive moment in the android’s arc.

21. “Deja Q” (Season 3)

The second best of Q’s visits to the Enterprise, “Deja Q” is a brilliant elevator pitch — what if Q lost his powers — executed to its richest and most dramatically satisfying potential. Stripping Q of his omnipotence gives the mischievous a newfound sense of vulnerability and humility, one he only previously experienced when observing the subjects of his torments. While Q’s appreciation for what it means to be human is brief, it gives John de Lancie interesting opportunities to invest his iconic baddie with more nuance as Q goes from selfless to selfish in this entertaining (and very meme-friendly) outting.

20. “Reunion” (Season 4)

Worf-centric episodes of TNG like “Reunion” or “Sins of the Father” are to Star Trek what the last two Captain America movies are to Marvel: World-building game changers. “Reunion” pushes major plotlines whose consequences will eventually ripple effect throughout the next three decades of Star Trek , as Worf’s personal vendetta against his rival, the Duras family, brings more intrigue to the Enterprise and tragedy to our favorite Klingon.

It also pushes Worf into a relationship with his estranged son, Alexander, as the two must learn to live together when a conspiracy that threatens to tear the Klingon Empire apart results in the death of Alexander’s mom and Worf’s over, K'Ehleyr (the scary-talented Suzie Plakson). The mystery plot here clicks into place like safe tumblers, but “Reunion” truly excels in the moments spent with Worf as his obligations as a Starfleet officer get in the way of his code as a Klingon warrior. Especially when, during one of Trek ’s darkest moments, Worf exercises his right to avenge his one true love by straight-up murdering her dishonorable killer.

19. “The Drumhead” (Season 5)

The Drumhead Star Trek **Spotlight** GETTY

As bottle episodes go, they don’t get much better or more powerful than “The Drumhead.”

It’s The Crucible on the Enterprise as Picard spars with one of the Federation’s legendary legal minds and investigators when she suspects there is a Romulan conspiracy taking root on the flagship. The circumstances surrounding her suspicions achieve Red Scare-levels of paranoia as TNG puts McCarthyism through a revealing and unyielding sci-fi lens to tell a very timely story of how far people will go to find the truth — even if it means fabricating a version of it.

18. “Lower Decks” (Season 7)

Before the comedic adventures of the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks , Star Trek ’s first attempt to explore the lives of the rank-and-file officers aboard a starship occurred in “Lower Decks,” one of the few standout episodes from the underwhelming Season 7.

“Lower Decks” devotes most of its screentime to a small group of pals who aspire to be on the Enterprise bridge or among the senior staff’s away missions. They soon end up in “be-careful-what-you-wish-for” territory when Picard plucks one of the young officers, the Bajoran Ensign Sito (Shannon Fill), to help him execute a dangerous mission involving the Cardassians. “Lower Decks” acts as a pseudo-sequel of sorts to “The First Duty,” where Picard first encountered Sito during a court martial that tarnished the then-cadet’s career before it started. Her chance at redemption via Picard’s mentorship gives the episode its beating heart, which ultimately breaks ours in the final moments when this earnest officer we’ve been rooting for becomes another casualty under Picard’s command. With this final dramatic twist, “Lower Decks” goes from a welcomed departure from TNG ’s usual story template to one of the show’s most effective episodes.

17. “The First Duty” (Season 5)

Wesley Crusher continues to give Picard more headaches than anyone is worth, but at least this time it results in a standout episode of Trek .

Ron Moore’s attempt to do A Few Good Men , Star Tre k -style, centers on Crusher and his fellow cadets. On the eve of their graduation from Starfleet Academy, they find themselves in the middle of a tribunal that intends to get to the truth behind why their friend and fellow cadet, Josh, died during a flight exercise. The lies Wesley and his friends tell to escape justice only puts them under more scrutiny when Picard goes digging around the shady circumstances surrounding Josh’s death. That search yields a show-stopping scene between Picard and Wesley, with one hell of a monologue that still gives us chills. “The First Duty” adds some much needed depth and ethical greys to Wesley’s squeaky-clean image, while also affording TNG the rare chance to challenge its “perfect” utopia by proving that even the best of us can succumb to our lesser angels.

16. “The Defector” (Season 3)

“The Defector” is another exceptional episode from (shocker) writer Ron Moore, which puts a Romulan defector front and center with tragic consequences.

This defector, who Picard struggles to believe is just some low-level officer, risks never seeing his family again in an effort to save his people and Earth’s from what appears to be another costly war brewing between the two adversaries. In the course of vetting the defector’s statements, Picard finds more questions than answers. That investigation comes with one hell of a gut punch: Eventually, the Romulan officer realizes his people betrayed him . They used him as bait, leaking somewhat false information as a way to test his loyalty to the Empire and gleam intelligence off Starfleet’s response to their partial ruse. “The Defector” is a powerful tale of one man’s journey from brave hero to duped traitor, with a mystery plot that keeps audiences at the edge of their seats as the final scenes send them reaching for some tissues.

15. “Disaster” (Season 5)

Designed as an homage to classic disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure , Ron Moore’s underrated “Disaster” gives the Enterprise the Irwin Allen treatment when the starship is crippled after a collision with two quantum filaments (think space potholes). With the ship powerless and adrift, “Disaster” splits up the crew and mines their individual crises for maximum tension by putting these characters outside their comfort zone or into conflict-rich pairings. For example, an injured Picard is forced to help and work with people he normally can’t stand, children, while Counsellor Troi finds herself both in command and way over her head as her inexperience clashes with that of the better-trained Ensign Ro. “Disaster” is the rare Trek outing with no moral or lesson to learn, just good ol’ fashioned, keep-the-plates spinning tension that is just as rewatchable as the epic movies that inspired it.

14. “Relics” (Season 6)

Star Trek: The Next Generation Relics Getty

The Next Generation thankfully loosened up on its “no classic Star Trek actors” guest star policy for Season 6’s “Relics,” a thrilling episode written by Ron Moore that brings James Doohan’s Scotty into the 24th Century.

Prior to Scotty, only McCoy and Spock mingled with Picard’s crew, but Scotty’s episode arguably makes the best use out of revisiting these iconic characters. Here, Scotty struggles with being a man out of time and a fish out of water when he is thrust into a conflict of engineering styles with Geordi as the two must work together to free the Enterprise-D from the massive confines of a Dyson sphere. The episode spends considerable time contrasting the two engineer’s styles, giving Doohan more meaty acting moments in this one hour than any episode or movie did before. Scotty, accustomed to saving the day and with plenty of old war stories to prove it, quickly realizes he’s less of an asset on this Enterprise and more of a has-been. He begins to find his place and relevance once again by sharing a drink with Picard on the bridge of The Original Series ’ Enterprise (albeit a holodeck recreation of it).

“Relics” wisely invests Scotty with a rich exploration of what would really happen if one of the 23rd Century’s most famous heroes finds himself questioning his usefulness in the 24th Century. Moore’s script uses one Trek icon to push and challenge his TNG equivalent, giving fans one of the show’s most exciting adventures.

13. “Chain of Command, Parts I & II” (Season 6)

Chain Of Command Star Trek **Spotlight** PRESS

“Chain of Command” is arguably TNG ’s darkest hour, and one of its most thrilling. This two-parter kicks off with one of the shortest teasers in Trek history: Captain Picard loses command of the Enterprise when Starfleet re-assigns him to lead a Black Ops-esque team on a mission deep into enemy territory. That enemy? The Cardassians. Picard’s job is to find out if these baddies are creating a deadly bio-weapon and but his mission goes sideways; he is soon captured and tortured as a POW by a sadistic Cardassian (David Warner) as Riker bristles against the brash command stylings of Picard’s replacement, Captain Jellico ( RoboCop ’s Ronnie Cox.)

The second half of this intense storyline is the strongest and most memorable for fans, as it features the infamous “There are four lights!” interrogation scene. Here, a gaunt and delirious Picard combats his captor’s psychological torture as the Cardassian gaslights Picard into submission by promising him freedom if Jean-Luc will admit he sees five lights when there are only four. This battle of wills is fraught with more tension than any space battle could muster, as “Chain of Command” provides a sobering dose of political commentary by tackling the issues of war crimes and genocide in ways only Star Trek could.

12. “The Wounded” (Season 4)

The first appearance of the villainous Cardassians (complete with their funky and quickly-abandoned head gear) is Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s sci-fi take on Coppola’s Apocalypse Now . Only instead of venturing “up river” to terminate a rogue colonel, Picard and Chief O’Brien (Colm Meany) are forced to work with “the bloody Cardys” in pursuit of O’Brien’s former captain, Maxwell ( Shawshank Redemption ’s Bob Gunton). Maxwell has seemingly gone rogue, using his starship to attack what appears to be non-military Cardassian targets.

O’Brien, having fought the Cardassians during a violent war years ago, must grapple with his hate and his duty in an episode that gives the supporting character his first real dramatic showcase. When O’Brien finally has some alone time with the cornered and defeated Maxwell, “The Wounded” earns its namesake as the two sing a melancholic song after sharing war stories of comrades lost that Maxwell’s vengeful PTSD can’t ever bring back. This haunting scene tugs on the heartstrings moments before Picard discovers that the supply ships Maxwell attacked were indeed part of Cardassian efforts to re-arm themselves. It is a revelation that validates Maxwell’s career-ending crusade while also giving the episode one of Trek ’s most bittersweet finales.

11. “The Offspring” (Season 3)

Data’s earnest endeavors to be more human reach a turning point in “The Offspring,” an emotionally-charged episode of TNG where Data creates his daughter, Lal.

Just as the android bonds with his child, a veteran Starfleet admiral arrives on Enterprise threatening to pull them apart when he challenges their right to be a family at all. Star Trek: TNG often finds success in exploring Data’s humanity

through the lens of the very humans who would try and take it away from him. “The Offspring” offers an excellent and tearful portrayal of that conflict as the crew comes to their friend’s aid just as Lal suffers a life-threatening issue. It’s a five-boxes-of-tissues affair when Data and the admiral work offscreen to save Lal. No matter how fast Data’s hands move, they fail to prevent Data from having to learn the hardest of humanity’s lessons: Loss.

10. “Measure of a Man” (Season 2)

Real talk: Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s first two seasons are noble misfires. Their weekly installments have more lows than highs, but one of the few outstanding hours from the series’ early days is the Data-centric “Measure of a Man.”

When another jerkoff Starfleet scientist comes looking to dissect Data to see what makes him tick, Picard must defend his officer’s sentience in court, and settle once and for all if this android is indeed alive or merely Federation property. The stakes couldn’t be higher — Data either gets to live on the Enterprise or under a microscope — and the drama that unfolds from this classic Star Trek premise is riveting. “Measure of a Man,” Melinda M. Sondgrass’ first writing credit for the show, is full of great dialogue and speeches that spark numerous ethical debates: Who is Starfleet to say that Data is sentient or not? Is their mission to explore new life or to play God when they find it? “Measure” never shies away from debating such topics, which have always been at the heart of Star Trek . It all builds to Picard’s passionate, climactic defense in favor of his colleague and friend — a scene that ranks near the top of Patrick Stewart’s long list of great acting achievements.

9. “Darmok” (Season 5)

Credit: © Paramount Television/courtesy Everett Collection

Picard’s diplomatic skills are put to the test in “Darmok,” when he is taken against his will and paired with an alien commander who only communicates via metaphor. This “only-on- Star-Trek ” premise offers a potential minefield of narrative obstacles that could easily derail the drama in their execution, but Joe Menosky’s exceptional script for this Season Five episode pulls it off effortlessly.

Picard, stranded on a mysterious planet with Dathon (Paul Winfield), quickly finds that language can be both a tool and a barrier for success, but only after failing several times in his attempt to communicate with his new alien friend. The two can hear each other's words, but not comprehend their meaning, which eventually leads to one of Picard’s finest moments: A campfire story recounting the tale of Gilgamesh. (But only after Dathon tells the mythic story of Darmok and Jalad, at Tanagra). Here, the two strangers forge a strong alliance — just in time to combat a savage threat. “Darmok” deservedly takes its time to tell a story about how similar we are despite our linguistic differences, and every rewatch of this seminal TNG episode never fails to make that point resonate as deeply as it did when it first aired.

8. “I, Borg” (Season 5)

The value of life has been a thematic staple of many Star Trek episodes, but few have tackled it with the high-stakes drama like “I, Borg” does.

When the crew of the Enterprise finds an injured Borg drone, Picard must make a choice: Nurse it back to health or use it as a Trojan Horse that can infect the Borg Collective with a fatal virus. When Picard leans closer to condemning this Borg’s life to save millions of others, “I, Borg” thrusts the captain and his crew into a passionate moral debate that results in one of the series’ most powerful moments when Picard confronts the naive drone, one that Geordi has affectionately named “Hugh”. Up until this moment, Picard was hellbent on using Hugh to destroy the alien race that once assimilated him. But the captain has a change of heart while talking to Hugh as Locutus, Picard’s former Borg self. Here, Hugh breaks from the collective by speaking firmly from the “I” instead of “we,” which sends Picard into a wrestling match with his conscience.

Star Trek rarely colors its heroes in such dark shades, but “I, Borg” succeeds by realistically portraying how someone like Picard isn’t wrong , per say, for wanting to kill those that turned him into a killer. For wanting to punish the Borg for crimes against humanity (and the galaxy) that they have committed and will likely commit again. But can you still be a hero if you do to your enemy what they did to you, and alter and weaponize them? “I, Borg” argues that there are no easy answers to those questions, but the discussion they spark makes for a very profound hour of television.

7. “Tapestry” (Season 6)

Star Trek goes full It’s a Wonderful Life with “Tapestry”, which is arguably the best of the standalone Q episodes.

After a near-death experience, Picard is shown the life he could have lived had he played it more “safe” in his youth. The path not taken leads Picard away from command and into a blue uniform with a career so unremarkable, even Troi struggles to find something nice to say about it. On the road to nowhere fast, Picard turns to Q for a second chance to get back the only life he knows, even if it means dying to get it. “Tapestry,” written by the inestimable Ron Moore, takes an almost Twilight Zone -y approach in telling this story, which is full of heartfelt moments and surprisingly laugh-out-loud comedy. The lesson Picard learns here, about how rewarding taking risks can be, is a universal one — which explains why "Tapestry" often finds its way near the top of fans’ “must-watch” lists.

6. “Family” (Season 4)

Honestly, it’s a mini miracle that “Family” got made.

Before this exceptional episode from TNG ’s fourth season, the series largely steered clear from serialized storytelling. At the time, executive producer Rick Berman and Paramount television were strongly against “sequelizing” any TNG storylines; “no serialized stories” was an unofficial “rule” of television back then. But writer Ronald D. Moore thankfully saw an opportunity to break that rule with a story that he couldn’t pass up: How would Picard deal with the emotional fallout of his time with the Borg?

With no phaser battles or even a trip to the Enterprise bridge (the only episode in Star Trek ’s run to never have a scene set on the command deck), “Family” pulls off an engrossing hour of television that peels back the curtain on who Picard was, and who he is struggling to be, in the the aftermath of the two-parter “Best of Both Worlds”. Mostly set on Earth, the episode introduces Picard’s family vineyard into Trek canon, as Picard confronts his estranged brother and debates whether or not to leave Starfleet. The only person who can help Picard deal with his trauma is the last person he can stand being with, his brother. Only through their constant bickering does Picard find a sense of satisfying resolution, which gives Stewart one of his most heartbreaking scenes when he finally acknowledges the emotional scars the Borg left him with.

5. “Cause & Effect” (Season 5)

After a jarring teaser that culminates with the fiery destruction of the Enterprise, “Cause & Effect” unfolds with time loop after time loop as Picard and his crew struggle to free themselves from suffering the same terrible fate.

Written by Brannon Braga, TNG ’s go-to scribe for high-concept stories, “Cause & Effect” pulls a Groundhog Day two years before the movie was even a thing. It breaks the show’s traditional storytelling mold by repeating the same disaster and making each loop through a new puzzle that both the audience and the crew must solve. Fans were so “in it” with their favorite characters that many called their local affiliates during the original broadcast with concern that something was wrong with the satellite feed as the episode kept repeating scenes. While audiences take the “time loop concept” for granted today, “Cause & Effect” pioneered it in a way that still registers as one of its best and most entertaining executions.

4. “The Inner Light” (Season 5)

Star Trek Tng Inner Light Picard Telescope

This surprising tearjerker ranks high for fans, thanks in large part to Patrick Stewart’s compelling performance as “The Inner Light” explores the concept of being a living witness to an extinct civilization. In this classic episode, Picard finds himself living the life of a long-deceased man named Kamin, after being zapped by a probe that is seemingly all that remains of Kamin’s civilization.

The probe allows Picard to live a lifetime in 20 minutes, and experience all the things Picard denies himself to be — namely a husband and a father. The majority of the episode takes place on an alien world as it is slowly undone by Star Trek ’s equivalent of global warming, with Kamin trying to help save his planet from pending doom the way Jor-El tried with Krypton. And like his Superman counterpart, Kamin fails — but he succeeds in providing a glimpse into a society that, while being nothing more than a blip in the galaxy’s grand scheme, still has a legacy worth being remembered. That’s the heartfelt and poignant endnote “Inner Light” imparts on viewers, which explains why this episode still resonates decades after it first aired.

3. “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (Season 3)

When the long lost Enterprise-C travels through a (what else?) temporal anomaly that alters history, Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D find themselves in the darkest timeline and at war with the Klingons. The only way to stop this war is to send the C’s Captain Garrett back to when she came from and change history. The only catch? In order to save millions of lives, nearly everyone aboard the Enterprise-C must sacrifice theirs.

That moral and ethical dilemma at the heart of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” makes this hour more than just a novel “What If…?” detour for the show to explore. It affords TNG a chance to give its main characters a more desperate edge as they debate the notions of fate as participants in a reality that should not exist. At the heart of this drama is Picard, who is more militant and beleaguered than ever as he debates with Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan (and her time-sensitive intuition) about whether or not to send the other Enterprise’s crew to certain death.

The return of Denise Crosby’s Tasha Yar gives her character the proper (and heroic) sendoff she deserves, which gets complicated as Tasha falls in love with a member of the C’s crew around the same time she discovers she died in the original Enterprise-D timeline. The internal struggle over restoring the way things were meant to be, by sacrificing lives history already recorded as lost, is a classic Star Trek premise that “Yesterday’s Enterprise” explores to a very satisfying, and action-packed, conclusion.

2. “The Best of Both Worlds, Parts I & II” (Season 3 & 4)

Star Trek: The Next Generation The Best of Both Worlds: Part II Getty

Star Trek ’s first-ever season-finale cliffhanger is one of television’s greatest. More than three decades later, fans still get chills at the end of “Best of Both Worlds, Part I” when Riker gives the chilling order to “fire” on the Borgified version of his former Captain Picard.

The wait for this iconic storyline’s resolution made the Summer of 1990 a very long and agonizing one for Trek fans, but it was worth it. “Best of Both Worlds, Part I” has TNG mining similar character drama as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan did, with Commander Riker forced to confront why he keeps passing up one promotion to Captain after another — just as his Captain is taken by the Borg in a violent attempt to turn Picard into Locutus, the public face of their campaign to assimilate Earth and all of humanity. The episode is a nail-biter, thanks to a perfect script from the late writer Michael Piller. The former TNG showrunner takes a bigger-than-usual swing with the characters to tell a story somewhat outside of the series’ comfort zone. While “Part II” falls a bit short of the dramatic highs of “Part I,” it finds great success in dramatizing the crew’s struggle to get their Captain back (even if their final solution is ultimately more convenient than inspired.)

The Enterprise crew’s second encounter with the evil cybernetic beings would have consequences throughout the next 30-plus years of Star Trek , especially in 1996’s Star Trek: First Contact . The hit movie serves as a big-screen, action packed therapy session for Picard to deal with the trauma of his assimilation into the Borg collective.

1. “All Good Things…” (Season 7)

“All Good Things…” is the best Star Trek series finale ever and The Next Generation ’s crowning achievement.

Written by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, “All Good Things” proved to be a better cinematic-worthy adventure than The Next Generation crew’s first movie, Star Trek: Generations . The briskly plotted, feature-length episode — and its complex storyline involving paradoxes and second chances — finds a disoriented Picard struggling to uncover why he is moving back and forth through time. He slips in and out of three key time periods: The past, just before the launch of Enterprise-D’s first mission; the present, and the future. In the future, Picard is a very retired, very old man, who runs his family’s vineyard. He also is afflicted with a debilitating neurological syndrome that makes it hard for his former shipmates to believe him when he starts pulling a Sliders across multiple timelines. Picard’s mission — which, of course, is being manipulated by the omnipotent Q — forces the captain to convince all three versions of his crew to work together in each timeline in order to stop an anomaly from unraveling existence as we know it.

TNG gives the beloved cast and their characters a perfect final episode that brings them together as a family in ways the series left surprisingly unexplored for most of its run. As impressive as the action is in “All Good Things”, especially the scene where the futuristic Enterprise-D flies on its Z-axis while blasting newly-mounted phaser cannons, the episode’s best scenes are the quieter ones spent with these characters. The finale truly shines in its final moments, when Picard joins his crew for the first time at their regular poker game. Picard’s arrival at the poker table resonates with his crew as deeply as it does for fans, which is a testament to the finale’s commitment to giving Next Generation the emotional send off it deserves.

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Den of Geek

Why Star Trek Uniform Colors Changed From the Original Series to Next Generation

The uniforms on Star Trek have changed over time, but for reasons that make a lot more sense behind the scenes than on the Enterprise bridge.

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Even if you don’t know an El-Aurian from an Illyrian, even if you can’t tell the original Enterprise from the Enterprise-D, you’re probably familiar with one of the fundamental rules of Star Trek : redshirts always die.

Unlike many of the popular misconceptions about the series (Kirk doesn’t actually chase women, for example), the redshirt stereotype does have grounding in the show. Over the course of three seasons in The Original Series , 26 characters wearing red tunics died, as opposed to 15 wearing gold and blue combined. But that trend stopped with the Star Trek movies, and continued to fall away with The Next Generation and the spinoffs that followed.

Why, you ask? Because the costume colors signify a crewman’s role on their particular ship, and the color scheme changed between TOS and TNG .

Although some Trekkies hate to admit it, Star Trek didn’t really have much in the way of canon in its first few episodes. Leaving aside the infamous grinning Spock in the original pilot, it took several episodes to decide on the name of Starfleet or the Prime Directive. The same was true of the uniforms, as demonstrated by the luscious green shirt that Kirk sometimes sported.

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By the end of the series, however, the three main colors solidified into the following divisions: those in command wore gold, people such as Kirk and Sulu. Science officers and doctors, namely Spock and Bones, dressed in blue, while everyone else had red shirts. And by everyone else, that includes engineers like Scotty and security personnel, which is why they tended to get killed.

But as is so often the case with all things Trek , the uniforms weren’t entirely what creator Gene Roddenberry had in mind. Most notably, the gold uniforms were actually intended to be green, but read on camera as the color that we know today. During production of the never-released follow-up show, Star Trek: Phase II , Roddenberry wanted continuity between TOS and the new series, not only in terms of the cast, which mixed Kirk and Sulu with newcomers, but also production. In particular, Roddenberry brought back his original series costume designer William Ware Theiss.

However, when production shifted and Phase II became Star Trek: The Motion Picture , Theiss was replaced by Robert Fletcher, who designed costumes for the movie crew through Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . Fletcher maintained some of Roddenberry’s vision for TMP , which tried to match ’70s aesthetics by giving the crew pastel pajamas. But when Nicholas Meyer took over for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Fletcher designed military-inspired uniforms to match the director’s naval warfare vision.

Although most Trekkies prefer the Meyer movies, Roddenberry hated the militarization of Starfleet and, equally important, resented the way his franchise was taken from him. So when Roddenberry regained some power for The Next Generation , he sought to right the ship, so to speak, by making Starfleet explorers again. And with it, he brought back Theiss.

For the most part, Theiss succeeded where Roddenberry and Fletcher failed in TMP . The TNG uniforms feel like ’80s versions of the ’60s original, especially after they were revised in season 3. However, with the emphasis on division colors came a confusing switch. Once again, science officers and doctors wore blue, but command now wore red while operations wore gold. Also, there’s the skant, but only Lower Decks talks about that now.

So why did the colors change? Once again, the answer is simple and almost mundane. Patrick Stewart apparently didn’t look commanding enough in yellow, while Brent Spiner , in his pale Data makeup, didn’t look good in red.

Roddenberry and the producers may have also been amenable to these changes because of the public’s changing perception of the aesthetic of Star Trek at the time. It was the massive success of Star Trek IV that gave Roddenberry the green light for TNG , and in that movie the crew wore the same civilian clothes that they sported in The Search for Spock , but during the first three Trek movies, Kirk wore red (as did Spock and the rest of the crew, because everyone wore red in Meyers’ more militarized uniforms).

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So in the eyes of casual fans, the Captain wore red. And even Trekkies had seen enough of Kirk in red that the idea didn’t seem outlandish.

The Trek uniforms have been altered many times since. TNG and Deep Space Nine later limited colors to the shoulders, a look continued in Voyager . The TNG movies then introduced darker uniforms in Star Trek: First Contact , with division colors on the underliner, a look adopted by later seasons of Deep Space Nine .

These stories adhere to the division colors from TNG , but whenever the franchise goes back to pre- TNG era — including the J.J. Abrams reboot movies or Strange New Worlds — the TOS colors come back into play. Even the prequel series Enterprise , in which the crew of the NX-01 wears blue jumpsuits with TOS division colors on the piping. And then there’s Discovery , which began with blue uniforms and a different division color scheme, but that show started out as its own thing, anyway.

Rest assured, writers both official and on the internet have offered in-Universe explanations for the evolution of the costumes. But the best explanation is that Star Trek , as an ongoing story over six decades old, had evolved and mutated over the years, sometimes in ways that don’t make sense. And as long as some unnamed operations ensign gets killed now and again, that’s just fine.

Joe George | @jageorgeii

Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!

Giant Freakin Robot

The Worst Star Trek DS9 Episode Got Writer To Join The Show

Posted: June 8, 2024 | Last updated: June 9, 2024

<p>For a while, Star Trek: The Next Generation and its spinoffs had an open-door policy on scripts, which gave a voice to young writers while potentially bringing new blood into the permanent writing teams. </p><p>On paper, the idea sounds very straightforward: write a great episode and get a permanent chair writing for the show. However, great Star Trek writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe managed to get offered a permanent job after writing “Q-Less,” one of the worst DS9 episodes ever made.</p>

For a while, Star Trek: The Next Generation and its spinoffs had an open-door policy on scripts, which gave a voice to young writers while potentially bringing new blood into the permanent writing teams.

On paper, the idea sounds very straightforward: write a great episode and get a permanent chair writing for the show. However, great Star Trek writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe managed to get offered a permanent job after writing “Q-Less,” one of the worst DS9 episodes ever made.

<p>In other words, the Star Trek lawyer’s assertion that Gene Roddenberry had created new lines for “Too Short a Season” seemed very plausible…at first. </p><p>However, producer Rick Berman was privy to information that Fontana (who had not yet seen the changes) and others were not. Namely, that Roddenberry had been out of town and would have had no way of suddenly handwriting new dialogue for this episode.</p><p>The Star Trek creator’s absence would have been a smoking gun (or maybe we should say “smoking phaser”) in and of itself, but Berman had another reason to suspect Roddenberry’s lawyer was fibbing. </p>

Paramount’s Open-Door Script Policy

Before we can dish more about how the worst DS9 episode gave us one of the best writers, you need to know what a game-changer Paramount’s open-door policy on Star Trek scripts was. This policy allowed Ronald D. Moore to submit a script for the episode that became “The Bonding,” and it was good enough that he was soon offered a full-time writing position on The Next Generation.

The sheer quality of that episode’s writing impressed showrunner Michael Piller, who later said he was “very proud” of “The Bonding” because “it struck the heart of Star Trek, exploring the human condition.”

<p>One of the reasons that we’re confident Star Trek fans will love the Battlestar Galactica reboot is that the showrunner is veteran Trek writer and producer Ronald D. Moore. He even won an Emmy for his work on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and he brought an entire lifetime’s worth of amazing talent and powerful storytelling to Battlestar Galactica (a show already recognized as his masterpiece).</p><p>Interestingly, one of the hallmarks of Galactica is that Moore brought in many of the darker plots that he could never get away with on Star Trek. While that means this show isn’t as light as, say, The Orville, it does mean that Moore got to make a show where every decision matters and every character beat has the potential to affect all of humanity. </p><p>It’s a high-stakes show with lasting consequences, and that makes for a great watch if you get sick of Star Trek: Voyager always hitting the reset button between episodes.</p>

Moore Created One Of The Best Sci-Fi Shows In History

Moore would go on to be one of the best writers for that era of Star Trek, which eventually opened some major doors. Not only did he win an Emmy for his work on TNG, but Moore eventually became the showrunner for the Battlestar Galactica reboot, generally considered one of the best sci-fi series ever made. It’s fair to say that Moore is the ultimate example of a Trek writer who parlayed a great episode into multiple exciting careers for himself.

<p>Shimerman spoke of an agenda on de Lancie’s part, but just what was the agenda? The guest actor was “very familiar with his end and thought of us sort of as the new kids.” Continuing this line of thought, the Quark actor said “we were the regulars, he was the guest star, but he felt like he was the regular and we were the visitors.”</p>

Not All Star Trek Submissions Were Gold

Then there’s Robert Hewitt Wolfe, someone who owes his Trek career to creating what might be the worst DS9 episode in the series. He wrote “Q-Less,” the disappointing story in which Q made his one and only cameo on Deep Space Nine. And in case you guys think we’re being overly hard on this early episode, Wolfe is the first to admit that the final script was very lacking.

<p>Previously, Wolfe had written the fun (if overly basic) TNG episode “A Fistful of Datas.” This demonstrated his Trek experience, but he wrote “Q-Less” before he was offered the full-time job on the new spinoff. </p><p>While he didn’t go so far as to call his Q-centric adventure the worst DS9 episode, Wolfe later said he focused too much on Q and not enough on the main characters. He also criticized the infamous boxing scene where Sisko bellows, “I’m not Picard,” noting that simply illustrating that the new character is different from the Enterprise captain doesn’t do enough to tell us who Sisko really is. </p>

From A Fun Episode To A Dull One

Previously, Wolfe had written the fun (if overly basic) TNG episode “A Fistful of Datas.” This demonstrated his Trek experience, but he wrote “Q-Less” before he was offered the full-time job on the new spinoff.

While he didn’t go so far as to call his Q-centric adventure the worst DS9 episode, Wolfe later said he focused too much on Q and not enough on the main characters. He also criticized the infamous boxing scene where Sisko bellows, “I’m not Picard,” noting that simply illustrating that the new character is different from the Enterprise captain doesn’t do enough to tell us who Sisko really is.

<p>Arguably, though, Q’s one and only Deep Space Nine episode makes Lwaxana’s episode look like high art: the episode “Q-Less” has the impish alien appear on the space station in the company of Vash, Captain Picard’s one-time love interest who ran away with the powerful alien at the end of The Next Generation episode “Qpid.” The fan-favorite antagonist alien was literally only added to this episode to show how different the DS9 characters were from their TNG counterparts. However, I contend that we didn’t need to see Sisko punch Q out and angrily state, “I’m not Picard,” to know how different he was from the captain of the Enterprise.</p>

Wolfe Went On To Write Better Episodes

We were surprised to see Wolfe get offered a full-time job after writing the worst DS9 episode, and the quality of the episode wasn’t entirely his fault. Instead of developing this story on his own, Wolfe was basically handed a really crappy outline and told to make it better. Ultimately, he was offered the full-time writing gig as much for his ability to analyze this and other stories for narrative weaknesses as much as for his ability to craft great scripts of his own.

And while we have been giving Wolfe a hard time for writing the worst DS9 episode, it’s worth pointing out that he wrote or co-wrote some of the show’s best episodes, including great season premieres (like “The Way of the Warrior”), season finales (like “A Call to Arms”), and two-parters (like “In Purgatory’s Shadow”/”By Inferno’s Light”).

<p>Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the greatest series in this long-running franchise, and that’s largely thanks to wildly original characters such as Garak, the Cardassian spy turned tailor. Many DS9 fans are familiar with the story that Garak actor Andrew Robinson later helped develop an extensive background for the character that was later released as a standalone book (A Stitch In Time). </p><p>However, what most fans don’t realize is that the character was originally created just to be a shady connection between even shadier characters, and the decision to make him a tailor was completely arbitrary.</p>

Ended On A High Note

He left after Season 5 but still came back in the final season to write the memorable whodunit “Field of Fire.” At the end of the day, we have to raise a glass of Romulan Ale to the talented writer who gave us so many great stories.

As for the fact that he wrote the most cringe-worthy dialogue for the fan-favorite character Q,…that’s easy enough for Star Trek fans to overlook. Especially by your third glass of the azure alien elixir so good it should be (and was) outlawed.

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Star Trek’s Tech That Brought Scotty To TNG Just Got A Discovery Upgrade

Who is sito star trek: tng’s tragic bajoran ensign explained, star trek: tng’s “there are four lights” meaning & why it’s still quoted 32 years later.

Star Trek: TNG offered groundbreaking sci-fi stories, captivating new and old fans with Captain Picard's adventures.
Iconic episodes like "The Best of Both Worlds" and "The Inner Light" solidified TNG's place in TV history.
TNG's legacy lives on in modern shows like Star Trek: Picard, revisiting the foundational stories from TNG.

Throughout its seven seasons, Star Trek: The Next Generation delivered some of the greatest science fiction stories of all time, and narrowing the list down to a top twenty-five is no easy feat. Following the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-D, TNG picked up about a century after the end of Star Trek: The Original Series . TNG may have gotten off to a rocky start with its first season, but the show quickly found its footing and ultimately delivered more hits than misses.

Captain Picard and his crew went on to captivate an entirely new generation of Star Trek fans, eventually becoming just as popular as their predecessors, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Not only did TNG usher in a golden age of Star Trek, but it also laid the groundwork for everything that came after. Even today, shows like Star Trek: Picard have continued to revisit many of the stories that began on TNG. Star Trek: The Next Generation would not have endured so long if it hadn't delivered so many incredible and groundbreaking episodes of television. Here is the very best of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

7 Episodes From Star Trek: TNG's Worst Season Are Better Than You Remember

Star Trek: The Next Generation may not have hit the ground running, but these 7 episodes from season 1 hold up better than you might remember.

25 "The Most Toys"

Star trek: the next generation season 3, episode 22.

When Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) is kidnapped by Kivas Fajo (Saul Rubinek), the android does his best to fight back against the morally bankrupt collector. Because Fajo faked Data's death, Picard and the USS Enterprise-D crew mourn their fallen friend, until they begin to suspect that something is amiss. Meanwhile, Fajo tries even Data's patience, threatening to kill his own assistants to force Data to comply.

In the end, the Enterprise returns to rescue Data, but not before he apparently fires a phaser at Fajo, which the android's programming should prevent. With his obsession with hoarding priceless artifacts and disregard for humanoid life, Fajo is one of TNG's most despicable one-off characters, played to slimy perfection by Saul Rubinek. "The Most Toys" offers insight into Data, as another step on the androids's journey to become human .

24 "Remember Me"

Star trek: the next generation season 4, episode 5.

In one of Dr. Beverly Crusher's (Gates McFadden) best episodes , the USS Enterprise-D's Doctor ends up in an inexplicably shrinking universe. As Dr. Crusher goes about her day, she notices that various Enterprise offers keep disappearing. When she raises her concerns, however, she discovers no record of these officers exists. Eventually, she and Captain Picard are the only ones left aboard, with Picard assuring her that this is how it has always been.

Dr. Crusher declares: "If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the universe," and she sets about trying to solve the problem.

Meanwhile, aboard the real Enterprise, Ensign Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) and the rest of the crew work to stabilize the warp bubble that Beverly has become trapped in . With some help from the Traveler (Eric Menyuk), they eventually succeed, and Dr. Crusher jumps back to the real universe.

23 "Frame of Mind"

Star trek: the next generation season 6, episode 21.

In one of TNG's most unsettling episodes, Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) finds himself questioning his own reality when he wakes up in a mental institution. Riker goes from portraying a mental patient in a play on the Enterprise to actually being a mental patient himself. As strange aliens try to convince Riker that he dreamt up the Enterprise, Riker struggles to claw his way back to reality.

Eventually, Riker shatters every fake reality, finding himself on an operating table with a strange device attached to his head. After being rescued by the Enterprise, Riker learns that he had been captured while on a covert mission by aliens trying to gain information about the Federation. Jonathan Frakes delivers a stellar performance here, and the episode uses cool shatter effects to add to the strangeness of it all.

22 "Redemption"

Star trek: the next generation season 4, episode 26 & season 5, episode 1.

In this Klingon-centric two-parter, the USS Enterpris-D visits the Klingon homeworld of Qo'noS to see Gowron (Robert O'Reilly) be installed as Chancellor of the Klingon High Council. With the Klingons on the brink of a civil war, Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) takes a leave of absence to urge his brother Kurn (Tony Todd) to back Gowron. When Captain Picard speaks out in favor of Gowron, Lursa (Barbara March) and B'Etor (Gwynyth Walsh) begin preparing for civil war.

Every Star Trek: TNG 2-Part Episode Ranked, Worst To Best

Star Trek: The Next Generation had some truly amazing two-part episodes over the course of its seven seasons.

Captain Picard assembles ships to create a blockade between the Klingon and Romulan border to prevent the Romulans from aiding the Duras sisters. Commander Sela (Denise Crosby), the half-Romulan daughter of Tasha Yar, tries to find a way around the blockade, but Data thwarts her plan from his position in command of the USS Sutherland. The Duras sisters back off from their attack and escape before Worf can apprehend them.

21 "Sarek"

Star trek: the next generation season 3, episode 23.

Although Star Trek: The Next Generation distanced itself from Star Trek: The Original Series , this mindset was beginning to shift by the end of TNG's third season. In the aptly titled "Sarek," Mark Lenard returns to portray Sarek, the Vulcan father of Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Soon after Ambassador Sarek boards the USS Enterprise-D, the crew members begin experiencing uncharacteristic spikes in emotion.

With help from Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), Dr. Crusher eventually realizes that Sarek is suffering from Bendii syndrome , a Vulcan degenerative neurological disease. As Sarek is set to attend an important conference, Captain Picard offers to share a mind meld with the elderly Vulcan to shoulder some of his strongest emotions. Picard suffers through Sarek's feelings of regret and loss, in an incredibly emotional scene performed beautifully by Patrick Stewart.

20 "Reunion"

Star trek: the next generation season 4, episode 7.

Previously introduced in TNG season 3, episode 20, "The Emissary," Worf's former flame K'Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson) returns in "Reunion" with a big surprise for the Klingon security officer. Since their last encounter, K'Ehleyr has given birth to Worf's son, Alexander (Jon Paul Steuer), and kept the young Klingon a secret from his father. Worf wonders why Alexander is not more interested in Klingon culture and worries that his son will be negatively affected by the dishonor on his name.

Meanwhile, Captain Picard works with K'Ehleyr to investigate a Klingon political matter that ends up getting her killed. Worf then avenges her by killing her murderer, the Klingon Duras (Patrick Massett). Despite only appearing in two episodes, K'Ehleyr was one of TNG's best guest stars, thanks in large part to the energy Suzie Plakson brought to the character, making her death all the more tragic.

19 "The Wounded"

Star trek: the next generation season 4, episode 12.

When the USS Phoenix suddenly goes rogue and begins attacking Cardassian vessels, the USS Enterprise-D is ordered to track it down. Cardassian Gul Macet (Marc Alaimo) comes aboard the Enterprise to assist, creating a tense environment with Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney), who served during the Cardassian War. Captain Benjamin Maxwell (Bob Gunton) of the Phoenix insists that the Cardassians are preparing to attack, but O'Brien eventually convinces him to stand down.

In the end, Captain Picard suspects that Maxwell may have been right, and he warns the Cardassians that they will be under close observation. "The Wounded" is notable not only for being the first episode to focus on Chief O'Brien but also for introducing the Cardassians. The Cardassians would, of course, go on to become the main villains on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Marc Alaimo would return as Gul Dukat.

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18 "Brothers"

Star trek: the next generation season 4, episode 3.

When Data suddenly takes over the Starship Enterprise single-handedly, he flies the ship to the home of his creator, Dr. Noonien Soong . Soong reveals that he is dying, so he triggered a homing device implanted within Data's positronic brain so that he could give the android an emotion chip. Unbeknownst to Dr. Soong, Lore was also summoned and he soon arrives, tricking Soong into giving him the emotion chip.

"Brothers" marks a particularly devastating moment in Data's journey to become human.

Lore then injures Soong and leaves the deactivated Data to be found by the Enterprise crew. Upon being reactivated, Data comforts Soong as he dies, and although Data protests he will not be able to mourn his creator, Soong disagrees. "Brothers" marks a particularly devastating moment in Data's journey to become human, and Brent Spiner carries the episode, doing triple duty as Data, Lore, and the elderly Dr.Soong.

17 "Disaster"

Star trek: the next generation season 5, episode 5.

When most of the USS Enterprise-D's main systems suddenly shut down, crew members get trapped all over the ship. Captain Picard ends up with an injured ankle, stuck in a turbolift with three young childen, while Counselor Deanna Troi finds herself in command on the bridge. Riker, Data, and Worf are all in Ten Forward with a very pregnant Keiko O'Brien (Rosalind Chao).

Troi handles herself well in command, ultimately making the call that helps save the ship. Worf hilariously helps deliver Keiko's baby, as Riker and Data head to engineering to regain control of the Enterprise. Picard encourages the children trapped with him to work together, as they make their way out of the turbolift. Every main character gets something to do in "Disaster," and the end result is at times charming, funny, and heartwarming.

16 "Relics"

Star trek: the next generation season 6, episode 4.

The USS Enterprise-D responds to a distress call to find the USS Jenolan, a transport ship that has been missing for 25 years. While investigating the ship, Lt. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) finds an intact life signal stored in one of the transporter's pattern buffers. He restores the pattern, discovering it to be Captain Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), former Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise.

Many other Star Trek characters have been saved by transporter pattern buffers over the years.

Scotty eagering explores the Enterprise-D and her new technology, but soon finds himself out of his depth. Scotty confesses to Captain Picard that he feels like a relic of the past, but the engineer's knowledge of old-school Starfleet technology later comes in handy. When the Enterprise gets trapped in a Dyson sphere, Scotty and Geordi work together to save the day. Scotty then sets off in a shuttle to continue his "retirement" from Starfleet.

Star Trek: Discovery just upgraded the transporter pattern buffer technology that was once used to bring Scotty into the 24th century.

15 "The Defector"

Star trek: the next generation season 3, episode 10.

When the USS Enterprise picks up a supposed Romulan defector, Captain Picard and his crew are skeptical of the Romulan's claims. The Romulan reveals himself to be Admiral Alidar Jarok (James Sloyan) and he provides Picard with detailed tactical information on the Romulans. Although Jarok intended to provide the Enterprise with accurate information, it later comes out that he was set up by the Romulans.

Captain Picard had anticipated some kind of response from the Romulans and confronted the Romulan ship with three Klingon Birds of Prey, rendering the conflict a stalemate. When the Enterprise leaves the Neutral Zone, the crew finds that Jarok has taken his own life. With its tragic ending, "The Defector" is a different kind of Star Trek episode that offers insight into the Romulans and their ways of thinking.

14 "Family"

Star trek: the next generation season 4, episode 2.

In a rare example of continuity between Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, "Family" follows up on Captain Picard's traumatic experience as Locutus of Borg. Taking a break from the Enterprise, Picard visits his brother Robert (Jeremy Kemp), who runs the family vineyard in La Barre, France . Robert and Jean-Luc get into an argument, which culminates in a muddy fight. Eventually, Jean-Luc opens up about the guilt he feels regarding his time as Locutus.

Picard's brother and his family would later perish in a house fire in Star Trek Generations.

Although Picard had been considering leaving the Enterprise, his brother reminds him that he will have to work through his experiences regardless of where he is. Picard decides to remain Captain of the Enterprise, and he and his brother part on better terms . Not only does "Family" offer an interesting glimpse into Jean-Luc Picard's family , but it also marks one of the first times viewers see the usually unflappable Picard break down.

"Family" also includes subplots following Worf, as his adoptive human parents visit him on the Enterprise, and Dr. Crusher, as she receives a recording left by her late husband.

13 "Lower Decks"

Star trek: the next generation season 7, episode 15.

Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation focused mostly on the bridge crews, but TNG's "Lower Decks" offers a glimpse of life as a junior officer. Bajoran Ensign Sito Jaxa (Shannon Fill) takes center stage as she is chosen for a dangerous undercover mission. Having previously been introduced as a Starfleet cadet in TNG's "The First Duty," Sito accepts the mission, eager to prove herself.

TNG's Bajoran Ensign Sito Jaxa was a massive influence on Star Trek: Lower Decks' Mariner, but who is she, and what happened to this tragic character?

Tragically, the shuttlecraft carrying Sito is destroyed before making it back to the Enterprise. As Captain Picard announces Sito's death over the comm system, her friends react with shock and sadness. "Lower Decks" illustrates the importance of every Starfleet crew member, and emphasizes that death matters in TNG- era Star Trek . This episode inspired the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks , which takes a more light-hearted look at the lives of Starfleet's Lower Deckers.

12 "I, Borg"

Star trek: the next generation season 5, episode 23.

After "The Best of Both Worlds" established the Borg as one of Star Trek's most frightening villains , "I, Borg" sought to humanize the mindless drones. When the USS Enterprise-D discovers a crashed Borg ship and a single surviving drone, Dr. Crusher insists on saving him. After his experiences as Locutus of Borg, Picard is understandably weary of the drone, who later comes to identify himself as Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco).

As Lt. Geordi La Forge talks with Hugh, the Borg drone begins to develop more of an individual personality. La Forge and Data have found a way to implant a "virus" within Hugh that would disable the entire Borg collective, which raises ethical questions among the crew. In the end, Hugh decides to return to the collective, with the hope that his newfound individualism will affect the other Borg drones.

Jonathan Del Arco reprised the role of Hugh in Star Trek: Picard season 1, before being killed while aiding Admiral Picard.

11 "Q Who"

Star trek: the next generation season 2, episode 16.

No list of great TNG episodes would be complete without the devious omnipotent being known as Q (John de Lancie) . In "Q Who," Q arrives on the USS Enterprise-D and declares Captain Picard to be overconfident. To warn Picard about the dangers lurking in the universe, Q hurls the Enterprise across the galaxy, where they encounter the Borg for the first time. Picard tries to reason with the cybernetic lifeforms, before eventually firing on them, with little effect.

After the Borg kill eighteen Enterprise crew members, Picard admits he needs Q's help. Q sends the Enterprise back to its original location, with a warning to be better prepared next time. With the introduction of the Borg, "Q Who" changed the trajectory of the Star Trek franchise. John de Lancie is always a delight as Q and, as usual, his sparing with Picard is a highlight.

"Q Who" teases a complex history between Q and Ten-Forward bartender, Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), but Star Trek has yet to fully explain their past dealings.

10 "Tapestry"

Star trek: the next generation season 6, episode 15.

When Captain Picard sustains a serious injury while on a diplomatic mission, he gets to revisit a past regret thanks to the omnipotent Q. Q sends Picard back to his Starfleet Academy days, where he avoids the fight that nearly killed him as a cadet. Picard then arrives back in the future, now only a junior science officer on the Enterprise. Picard then realizes that his reckless actions as a cadet helped make him the man he is.

After restoring the original series of events, Picard wakes up in sickbay on the Enterprise, back to being the ship's Captain. Whether Picard's experiences were a dream or not, "Tapestry" offers a fascinating glimpse at his Academy days. "Tapestry" is a simple episode, but it works, thanks in large part to the always great dynamic between Patrick Stewart and John de Lancie.

9 "Chain of Command"

Star trek: the next generation season 6, episodes 10 & 11.

In one of Star Trek: The Next Generation's most brutal storylines, Captain Picard is captured by Cardassians while on a covert mission. As the Cardassian Gul Madred (David Warner) subjects Picard to various forms of torture, Jean-Luc refuses to break. In temporary command of the Enterprise, Captain Edward Jellico (Ronny Cox) clashes with Commander Riker, who wants to mount a rescue mission.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard defiantly shouting that "there are four lights" remains one of Star Trek: The Next Generation's most powerful moments.

Gul Madred shines four lights in Captain Picard's face, trying to convince him that there are five lights, but Picard remains defiant. Later, Jellico and Riker reluctantly work together to thwart a Cardassian attack, demanding Picard's release. Picard returns to the Enterprise, but admits to Counselor Troi that he very nearly broke. Patrick Stewart and David Warner both deliver powerhouse performances as two men who refuse to back down. Picard wins the stand-off, but only just.

8 "Darmok"

Star trek: the next generation season 5, episode 2.

In many ways, "Darmok" is quintessential Star Trek , with its story of two starship captains working to find common ground. Soon after the Enterprise makes contact with a Tamarian ship, Captain Picard and the Tamarian captain, Dathon (Paul Winfield), are both transported to the planet El-Adrel. Unable to understand one another's languages, Picard and Dathon struggle to find other ways to communicate.

Just as Picard and Dathon are beginning to understand one another, the Tamarian captain is fatally wounded by a predator on the planet. The Enterprise then rescues Picard, who is able to tentatively communicate with the other Tamarians. Captain Picard shines here, as he must rely on his own instincts, knowledge, and experience without the help of his crew. The story hits all the right notes, with a hopeful ending despite Dathon's tragic death.

7 "Cause and Effect"

Star trek: the next generation season 5, episode 18.

Remembered as the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that opens with the destruction of the USS Enterprise-D, "Cause and Effect" finds the iconic ship stuck in a Star Trek time loop that always ends in its destruction. As the loop continues to repeat, Captain Picard and his crew begin to experience déjà vu . Data then works out a way to send a message to himself across the loops, which eventually saves the day.

The Enterprise finally avoids the crash that repeatedly caused its destruction, discovering that the other ship has been trapped in the time loop for over 90 years. Picard then greets Morgan Bateson (Kelsey Grammer) and the USS Bozeman, welcoming them to the 24th century. "Cause and Effect" is an incredibly fun episode, and Jonathan Frakes proves his skill as a director by making each loop feel distinct.

6 "The Offspring"

Star trek: the next generation season 3, episode 16.

In another Data-centric Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, the USS Enterprise-D's resident android creates a daughter for himself named Lal (Hallie Todd). As Data teaches Lal how to interact with humans and the world around her, Lal begins to grow even more advanced than Data. Starfleet threatens to take her away to a science station for further study, but Captain Picard fights for Data's right to keep his daughter.

When Lal begins experiencing emotions, she suffers a catastrophic breakdown. Data works relentlessly to save his daughter, fighting just as hard as any father would, but even he cannot save her. After Lal ceases to function, Data downloads her memories into his own positronic net, preserving her in the only way he can. "The Offspring" is a truly devastating episode of Star Trek , and Lal's creation continues to reverberate even in modern Trek stories.

"The Offspring" was the first Star Trek episode directed by Jonathan Frakes, who would go on to become one of the franchise's most beloved and prolific directors.

Jean-Luc Picard

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