# Best Episode of Star Trek:TNG ever???? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 29, 2003, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538 "2003-12-29T06:07:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2003, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/21 "2003-12-29T17:08:30Z")
“The Best of Both Words” Best cliffhanger ever! “Mr. Worf, open fire.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Mad\_Hermit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5ac83/32.png) [@The\_Mad\_Hermit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mad_Hermit)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2003, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/22 "2003-12-29T18:25:23Z")
The one where the Enterprise kept exploding, and Kelsey Grammer comes in at the end, is called “Cause and Effect.” It’s one of my favorites. I can’t decide on a “best episode” because there are too many good ones to choose from. ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/23 "2003-12-29T22:17:35Z")
Other suggestions: “Frame of Mind,” where Riker is kidnapped on a mission and institutionalized, made to believe his Starfleet experiences are just a psychotic episode, but elements from his life keep appearing. “Chain of Command.” Picard is kidnapped by the Cardassians and tortured by a sadistic David Warner, in his best performance since TRON. Great acting all around, though, as I recall, the sub-plot with Ronny Cox taking command of the Enterprise was a little weak. “THERE… ARE… FOUR… LIGHTS!!” ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2003, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/24 "2003-12-29T22:36:00Z")
My favorite is **Measure of a Man** , and I pretty much love all the Q episodes equally. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2003, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/25 "2003-12-29T23:12:49Z")
Some that haven’t been mentioned but are worth a look: “Who Watches the Watchers?” - Insurrection, as it should have been. “Starship Mine” - Picard fights off some terrorists trying to take over the Enterprise “Face of the Enemy” - Troi masquerades as a Tal Shiar agent on a Romulan Warbird “Conundrum” - The crew lose their memories and are duped by an alien into attacking his race’s enemies. “Tapestry” - What if Q were God? “Timescape” - Time is frozen and the Enterprise is apparently under attack by a Romulan Warbird. ---
**Author:** ![Mephisto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@Mephisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mephisto)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2003, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/26 "2003-12-29T23:13:07Z")
Tough call, but I think I will also go with “Chain of Command.” ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2003, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/27 "2003-12-29T23:15:53Z")
I forgot “Thine Own Self” - Data crash lands on an inhabited planet and loses his memory. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2003, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/28 "2003-12-29T23:21:29Z")
I can’t recall the name, but I loved the one early on where an alien parasite started infecting the Starfleet high command–it climbed in through the mouth and breathed through a gill that stuck out the back of the neck. I think it was called something like “Conspiracy.” ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2003, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/29 "2003-12-29T23:48:57Z")
“Yesterday’s Enterprise” - I’m always a sucker for alternative universe stories. “All Good Things…” - Great action sequence where the future Enterprise slices through the klingon ship using a phaser cannon. “The Offspring” - How could you not feel sorry for Data when his daughter buys it? “Peak Performance” - Wesley actually doesn’t suck in this one. “The Best of Both Worlds” - The last time the Borg were scary. “Qpid” - Worf: “I am NOT a merry man.” “Darmok”: Excellent writing. “Cause and Effect”: Always enjoy seeing the Enterprise blow up, over and over again. “Ship in a Bottle”: Had me guessing. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/30 "2003-12-30T01:25:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Civil Defense \* > “Conundrum,” I believe, one of my favorites. _Conundrum_ was the one where the crew has thier memories wiped in an attempt by a bad guy to trick them into destroying the bad guy’s enemies. Also an excellent episode. The one where the Enterprise keeps blowing up was _Cause and Effect_. My favorites: _Yesterday’s Enterprise_, _Deja Q_, where Q loses his powers (his speech to Picard toward the end is quite moving), _The Royale_ (yeah, it was cheesy, but it was fun), _The Offspring_, where Data has a baby girl, _The Best of Both Worlds_, Best Episode Ever, _Brothers_, Brent Spiner playing three different characters simultaneously, for the majority of the episode, _Descent_, Data gets pissed off, and of course _All Good Things…_ TNG was a great show. (After the first painful season, anyway.) DS9 is my favorite, though. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/31 "2003-12-30T03:00:08Z")
“Darmok” is my favorite. Not surprising, for a lit geek… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/32 "2003-12-30T03:20:56Z")
I have no ONE favorite, but I have to second everything in **Aes** ’ and **ELO Fan** ’s list. ---
**Author:** ![HelloKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecccb3/32.png) [@HelloKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelloKitty)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/33 "2003-12-30T03:33:39Z")
Hard to pick just one, but my husband and I love love love “Family”, which is the 3rd part of the Picard-gets-captured-by-the-Borg Trilogy. Picard goes to Earth to visit his brother and think about his future; Worf’s parents come to visit aboard the Enterprise. This is also the only episode in all of ST:TNG where there are ZERO scenes on the bridge. ---
**Author:** ![HomerIU](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HomerIU](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HomerIU)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/34 "2003-12-30T04:25:59Z")
I personally like “Tapestry” and “Chain of Command.” “Brothers” is also very good. ``` Oh, and I like the one where they are caught in an anomaly in the space-time continuum.....oh, wait, thats about half of them. It did get old after awhile, though I did enjoy "All Good Things....". I am glad they called it quits after seven years. Any Q or Borg episode is good. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/35 "2003-12-30T05:29:29Z")
One of the Q episodes where Picard is taken back in time so that the event that caused him to have a fake heart never happened. I loved seeing him as a low level officer that the bridge crew looked down upon. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/36 "2003-12-30T08:33:20Z")
I also liked “Disaster”, with no fewer than five simultaneous storylines, and “Time’s Arrow”, a clever time-travel scenario. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/37 "2003-12-30T09:18:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Odinoneeye \* > One of the Q episodes where Picard is taken back in time so that the event that caused him to have a fake heart never happened. That was _Tapestry_, one of several excellent Picard vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![LabRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/898d66/32.png) [@LabRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LabRat)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/38 "2003-12-30T09:26:41Z")
Nobody thought that _Lessons_ was one of the best? It had such a great tie in to _Inner Light_ and the duet scene in the Jeffries tube was wonderful. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/39 "2003-12-30T14:27:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Katisha \* > \*\*“Darmok” is my favorite. Not surprising, for a lit geek… 😉 \*\* I’m foggy on episode names, it seems. Is this the one where Picard transports down to a planet and has to figure out how to communicate in metaphors? If so, this is the WryGuy’s favorite ep. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538/40 "2003-12-30T16:18:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LifeOnWry \* > \*\*I’m foggy on episode names, it seems. Is this the one where Picard transports down to a planet and has to figure out how to communicate in metaphors? If so, this is the WryGuy’s favorite ep. \*\* That’s it. You can find a dictionary [here.](http://www.chaparraltree.com/sflang/discurs.shtml) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-episode-of-star-trek-tng-ever/221538.md?page=3)