Star Trek: The Next Generation Top 10 Episodes

 

  

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

 

Star Trek: TNG was the first Star Trek that I ever watched regularly. I was 10 to 12 when that occurred when I watched my first episode “Violations”. I was attempting to find a replacement for Quantum Leap, which aired at the same time, which was syndicated every Monday through Friday. I like to think that my enjoyment of Quantum Leap helped open the way toward my enjoyment of Star Trek. In making this list, I found it exceedingly difficult to choose my top episodes. Perhaps it is because I am biased towards TNG (although they had some real duds too) I could say almost all these could have been my top episode. Many more episodes I really enjoy didn’t get to make the cut. TNG for me, really shows a potential human existence, that is at once better than who we are but still struggling to find a real balance in life.

 

Star Trek: TNG was more than just living, it showed me what we could become as a species. Star Trek: TOS did this too when first started watching it and something that, in my opinion, did not show up in the subsequent series of Voyager and Enterprise. I felt comfortable watching, thinking that I too was part of the crew and that the Enterprise was my home. Other than the Original Enterprise, I never really had those feelings for any Star Trek. Perhaps that is what separates these two series with the rest of the series. Voyager, my most hated Trek, had so much potential for that comfort level, but fell to being nothing more than mere battle after battle. I know others who had similar feelings with Voyager as I have with TNG so I know that element existed, but I was expecting the same kind of comfort level as I did on the Enterprise.

 

Here are, in order, my top 10 Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes:

 

Top 10 Episodes

 

The Inner Light

Season 5, Episode 25

 

This is my favorite episode of Star Trek, period. I literally cried the first time I watched this and I still get teary eyed every time I watch it. It is one of the profound and emotional episodes they made. When Riker brings the Ressikan flute, the flute he learned how to play during his “life” on Kataan, was the most poignant scene  of this episode The flute, and with it some of the emotion of this episode in a later one called “Lessons” where he shares his experiences in this episode and his love of the flute music with a woman he loves.

 

Time’s Arrow

Season 5, Episode 26

Season 6, Episode 1

 

By far my favorite Time Travel Episode, even beating such awe-inspiring episodes and movies like “Star Trek IV”, this story deals with the apparently fate and death of Data some time in Earth’s 19^th century. As an English major and a lover of books, I found the subtle reference to Jack London as a bell boy in San Francisco and the acting and personality of Mark Twain to be refreshing and an added bonus to an already great episode.  Oh, can’t forget a clever but younger (by like centuries) Guinan and her and Picard’s first true meeting…sweet

 

The Drumhead

Season 4, Episode 21

 

For some reason, which others may not understand, I always enjoyed the court/legal episodes of Star Trek: TNG. Perhaps it was the way the main characters of the Enterprise played their part in the court dramas that I really liked. Suffice to say, these episodes spoke volumes to me. This episode in particular shows us how the desire for security may cause fear and suspicion to become part of a society. Something we can ALL learn to appreciate given the current Bush administration. This has a great quote, spoken by Picard concerning this very subject: “‘With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.’ Those words were uttered by Judge Aareon Satie, as wisdom and warning. The first time any man’s freedom is trodden on, we are all damaged.”

 

Tapestry

Season 6, Episode 15

 

I’m sure most people have wondered what life would have been like if we could go back, change one event and see how things have changed. Picard gets to do just that when Q offers him a gift after he is shot and is about to die. He changes an event that happens in his past, when he was just an ensign, but this change leads to a life much less fulfilling and more boring than he ever would have wanted. Q gives him a chance to correct this and time is put back to normal (unless it was all just a Q fantasy). But the smile on Picard’s face when he is stabbed through the heart is priceless. Like “It’s a Wonderful Life”, it’s better to have lived a good life and die, than to continue living a menial existence.

 

Yesterday’s Enterprise

Season 3, Episode 15

 

Oooh, the first woman captain of the Enterprise-C, the return of Yar of sorts, and Worf’s introduction to Prune Juice, and an alternate universe were the Klingon’s are whopping some serious Federation butt make this episode very memorable. From the mood in the parallel universe, the lighting and sounds, to the different mannerisms of the crew and finally the sacrifice of many Enterprise-D crew to return to Enterprise-C back to its original time line all make this a priceless and great episode.

 

Timescape

Season 6, Episode 25

 

Yet another time-altering episode (notice a pattern? ) Picard, Troi, Data, and La Forge are returning from a conference in a runabout when they suddenly hit a time bubble. In these bubbles, time is moving at different rates; some are moving very rapidly while others are at a near standstill. It is in one of these latter kinds that the Enterprise is in and the four crewmembers must save the Enterprise from being destroyed while figuring out what has happened to the Time/Space Continuum.

 

The Best of Both Worlds

Season 3, Episode 26

Season 4, Episode 1

 

As one can see, this two-part episode is somewhat low on this list. But all these episodes, in my opinion, could have easily made it as my number one (no, Riker, not this time). Making this list was perhaps the most difficult. The most stellar cliff-hanger in modern television history dealt with Riker’s order to fire on a Borg Cube that had Picard kidnapped and turned into Locutus. A very well done episode that made the Borg deserving of one of the most feared species in SF-dom.

 

All Good Things…

Season 7, Episode 25

Season 7, Episode 26

 

This is the last episode of Star Trek: TNG and perhaps should have been the first Next Generation movie. Q returns to put humanity back on trial, since it never really concluded from the First Episode, “Encounter at Farpoint”. We see Picard and all the rest of the crew as they might look like in 2395, decades into the future as well as an even cooler looking Enterprise and an interesting looking Medical Ship. This in of itself makes this episode in the top ten, but there’s so much to this two-parter that it was hard to place.

 

Parallels

Season 7, Episode 11

 

Wow, over 100, 000 Enterprise-D’s and still counting! It’s too bad with the closure of the Quantum Filament (or whatever it was called) sent all those ships back into the past. It was eerie seeing the Enterprise-D in the universe where the Borg have overrun the galaxy and it was truly sad when the one universe had to destroy it. A fun episode where Worf almost went crazy wondering what was happening to his universe. Perhaps reality is more than just the mere senses we preceive.

 

Darmock

Season 5, Episode 2

 

I always wondered, through the course of Star Trek, what it would be like if the crew had difficulty with their universal translators. Although the reason why most species speak English is for the obvious fact to make plot easier in a script, I still wondered what would happen otherwise. This episode showed the problems when two species who cannot communicate with each other attempt to work through their differences and figure out what each other mean. A brilliantly acted episode from both Dathon and Picard and a wonderful reference to the Epic of Gilgamesh.  

 

 

Honorable Mention

 

 

Data’s Day

Season 4, Episode 11

 

This is a purely Data episode but also serves to show a number of continuity points through the rest of the Stark Trek universe. This story, like Enterprise’s “Dear Doctor” is shown as a narrative to a person off the ship, in this case, to Commander Bruce Maddox, who in an earlier episode attempted to get Data deactivated. The plot centers around the wedding of Chief O’Brien and Keiko and shows Data’s trials and tribulations with human emotion and social graces. It also centers around the discovery of a Romulan Spy and another instance where the Federation almost went to war with the Romulan Empire.

 

Where No One Has Gone Before

Season 1, Episode 6

 

What if one’s reality seemed to break down and dreams seemed as real as everything else? This episode shows us that humans perhaps are not quite ready to travel to the edge of the universe. This is a fun story but very serious at the same time and shows us that humanity is still a species that has a lot to learn, despite Star Trek’s very optimistic look on existence.

 

~ by shadowsphere on June 14, 2008.