to rank every episode of star trek the next generation, you by definition have to watch the bad episodes as well as the best episodes. first 2 seasons probably will end up mostly clustered toward the bottom, but that’s part of the ranking. this isn’t about having fun. does this thread seem fun to you? is this concept entertaining to anyone? of course not. of course it isn’t. this is serious work
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have you seen this series? it will change your life. careful. stewart’s picard will ambush you in your greatest moment of vulnerability. these two seasons are a farce, but I’ll watch along
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yeah, i’ve seen it. but i’ve not ranked it
Let the man cook!
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We haven’t even gotten to the clip show episode yet.
You mean Picard season 3?
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Come on lol. I liked it
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Lol me too. But I saw the shot.
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s1e17 When The Bough Breaks
strange and seemingly benevolent aliens kidnap select children from the enterprise, including wesley. this society is like a boarding school, where expert tutors encourage the children to master their hidden talents. the natives of this planet handed over their society to a superintelligent ai many generations ago and have no idea how it works. their power far exceeds that of the enterprise, but they’re suffering from an infertility crisis. so they kidnapped the children to raise them to carry on their ancient culture. all the kids are treated like royalty and are absolutely NOT molested.
wesley is like five years older than the other kids. he organizes them using old school 1960s protest tricks for nonviolent resistance. dr crusher figures out the cause of the infertility is environmental. the leader doesn’t accept this, saying he has better scientists who say different. but Data disabled the supercomputer with One Simple Trick™ and all the planet’s scientists couldn’t fix it because they relied too much on ai and never learned the fundamentals
so in the end some kids had like, one day of excellent schooling for a change. nobody was molested AT ALL. and federation science figured out their infertility was due to a weak ozone layer. they fuckin fit all the modern tropes into one show. and they solved it. the solution? ai. but not too much ai. have an ai on the team, as part of the team, and he’ll bail you out once in a while. genius.
Summary
s1e17 When The Bough Breaks
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
s1e8 Justice
s1e10 Hide and “Q”
s1e9 The Battle
s1e13 Datalore
s1e11 Haven
s1e6 Where No One Has Gone Before
s1e12 The Big Goodbye
s1e15 11001001
s1e7 Lonely Among Us
s1e14 Angel One
s1e4 Code of Honor
s1e16 Too Short A Season
s1e5 The Last Outpost
s1e3 The Naked Now
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Interested to see if what if anything comes under The Naked Now. I can think of at least three that haven’t come up yet (plus Code of Honor, which is probably my least favourite episode).
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Shades of Grey AINEC
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s1e18 Home Soil
the enterprise is visiting a federation team terraforming a planet. they’re using the latest technology, but all of a sudden a laser drill starts going rogue and killing people. data figures out that the machine is haunted and it immediately tries to kill him.
further investigation reveals an inorganic intelligent life form present on that planet, which hijacked the drill and later the ship’s medical lab. when it starts communicating with the enterprise in english, it calls the crew “ugly bags of mostly water”, and Data points out that they’re technically correct
picard negotiates an end to the terraforming. the inorganic life (that just spends all day glistening in wet sand doing nothing) calls humans primitive and announces diplomatic talks won’t resume for 300 years.
Summary
s1e17 When The Bough Breaks
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
s1e8 Justice
s1e10 Hide and “Q”
s1e9 The Battle
s1e13 Datalore
s1e18 Home Soil
s1e11 Haven
s1e6 Where No One Has Gone Before
s1e12 The Big Goodbye
s1e15 11001001
s1e7 Lonely Among Us
s1e14 Angel One
s1e4 Code of Honor
s1e16 Too Short A Season
s1e5 The Last Outpost
s1e3 The Naked Now
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s1e19 Coming Of Age
the enterprise is being aggressively audited by a federation goon who really really wants to jam up picard for that stargazer fiasco when those ferengi gave him havana syndrome
a kid wesley’s age takes a shuttle alone and gets into mechanical trouble. picard walks him through it via video screen. the auditor is heckling him the whole time but ends up impressed when the kid is saved.
meanwhile wesley goes to Black Mirror Space Camp where starfleet academy psychologically tortures him to see if he has what it takes to be in starfleet. he does, but he got edged out for a spot by a legendary genius adult. in the end, picard reveals to wesley that he failed his first entrance exam too. maybe jean-luc isn’t so bad with kids after all…
Summary
s1e17 When The Bough Breaks
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
s1e8 Justice
s1e10 Hide and “Q”
s1e9 The Battle
s1e13 Datalore
s1e18 Home Soil
s1e11 Haven
s1e6 Where No One Has Gone Before
s1e19 Coming Of Age
s1e12 The Big Goodbye
s1e15 11001001
s1e7 Lonely Among Us
s1e14 Angel One
s1e4 Code of Honor
s1e16 Too Short A Season
s1e5 The Last Outpost
s1e3 The Naked Now
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Even the federation had DOGE goons
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After reading these recaps, and reliving how cringe some of the first season was, it’s really kind of incredible the show got ANY early traction,
And went on to typifying the high minded, aspirational sci-fi morals and values we remember this show for, in later seasons.
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They were lucky the show went straight to syndication. Any network would have canceled it before that first season ended. The fan base kept it going until they found their rhythm.
Season 1 was mostly dreck, 2 had a couple of real gems, and then of course they turned on the afterburners in season 3.
its because they largely tried to center all these stupid cringey storylines around cringey ass wesley who honestly didnt perform it well. hes worn it over the years graciously but any wesley episode is basically terrible. the funniest part about the first and second season is buried in all the terribleness is some stuff that becomes super integral to the story later.
I played the star trek tng era ps4 game which was a choose your own adventure and half the lore in it was based on some early early stuff i had to go back and rewatch and i was cracking up. some deep choices could be made based on whether you knew the background or not. forced me to watch it again after some 10 years at least. i always start s3.
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I read they got a second season because of Whoopi Goldberg.
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s1e20 Heart Of Glory
the enterprise picks up a pair of klingon officers floating dead in space on a damaged ferengi freighter. they speak to worf about klingon culture, and worf is receptive.
a klingon ship soon arrives, demanding the klingon officers be handed over for summary execution. worf pleads with the captain to send them to exile instead. to be marooned on a planet and die fighting a monstrous alien beast is more noble, for a klingon. the captain says his hands are tied, and the prisoners must be handed over immediately.
but before such a handoff can be completed, the klingon prisoners bust out of the brig, killing a guard but one of them dies in the escape. the last klingon makes it to engineering and points a phaser at the warp core, effectively holding the whole ship hostage mere minutes after worf condescendingly mansplained that taking a hostage is a cowardly tactic and a klingon warrior would never do it
worf speaks with him face to face about how the true test of the warrior is the internal struggle of each individual. the guy’s not buying it, but worf was never trying to get him to surrender. when he’s done making his point, he shoots him in the chest with a phaser fuckin point blank. then he howls over the dead body, warning the afterworld to beware that a klingon warrior is about to arrive!
Summary
s1e17 When The Bough Breaks
s1e1, s1e2 Encounter at Farpoint parts 1 and 2
s1e20 Heart Of Glory
s1e8 Justice
s1e10 Hide and “Q”
s1e9 The Battle
s1e13 Datalore
s1e18 Home Soil
s1e11 Haven
s1e6 Where No One Has Gone Before
s1e19 Coming Of Age
s1e12 The Big Goodbye
s1e15 11001001
s1e7 Lonely Among Us
s1e14 Angel One
s1e4 Code of Honor
s1e16 Too Short A Season
s1e5 The Last Outpost
s1e3 The Naked Now
3 Likes