ST: TNG Best Of?

Cafe Society
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I’ve had a rather large Amazon Gift card sitting about, trying to come up with a list worthy of it.

One of things I am considering is collecting some Next Generation. Now, I would like to get all of Deep Space Nine as I never had very good luck at catching it on TV, and they seemed to have seasonal story arcs so when I would see it I always felt like I was seeing a spoiler since I missed everyting up to there.

But the Next Generation I must admit has a lot of episodes that just don’t age well (particularly towards the beginning and anything with Ensign Whats-his-butt or Troi.) So my hope is to skim off as much of this as I can (so I can still buy other stuff) by only buying some of the better episodes.

Picard’s “There are FOUR lights!”, any of the Sherlock Holmes/Moriarty episodes, the Borg episodes, the non-cheesey Q ones, Data taking over the ship, etc. What are the ones that you remember and don’t grimace thinking how cheesey that same episode will seem going back to it now?

Also…the titles of those would be good.

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has a vision of Picard as Robin Hood and Data as Friar Tuck…and shudders… Some scary stuff in there.

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good link here - http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/episodes/TNG/index.html

“Elementary, Dear Data” - the first Moriarty ep.

“Deja Q” - really funny Q episode without turning entirely to cheese - Q gets turned mortal.

“A matter of perspective” - I really liked this murder mystery episode, with the holograph used to great effect as an investigational tool, to recreate the events of the various witnesses.

“Yesterday’s enterprise” - Great alt-timeline ep.

“Best of both worlds” - the big Borg/Locutus two parter.

“Brothers” - this is the ‘data takes over the enterprise’ one you were thinking of - his creator activates a homing override device and Data has to get to a rendezvous as quickly as possible, with duty, concern for friends, and all other concerns subservient to that, so he uses all of his talents to divert the ship at maximum warp.

“Clues” - I can’t even find the right words to describe how much I like this episode. :smiley:

“Ship in a bottle.” The second Moriarty ep.

“Chain of command, 2” is the four lights episode… part 1 has to do with how he got captured by the cardassians in the first place, as you might guess.
Part of the problem with star trek, though, is that a lot of the time episodes ‘not aging well’ is a very subjective one. Some people might not thing very much of episodes that other people think are still great. (I’ve been trying to be very conservative with which eps I’ve recommended, so as to not get piled on for suggesting doper-unpopular ones. :smiley: )

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In addition to the ones chrisk listed, you absolutely must see the following to appreciate the richness of TNG:

“Skin of Evil” - This is a season 1 episode that needs to precede “Yesterday’s Enterprise”
“The Measure of a Man”
“Who Watches the Watchers?”
“Darmok”
“Cause and Effect”
“Samaritan Snare” and then “Tapestry” - The former is from season 2, the latter is season five. Both good episodes in their own right, when together it’s a kickass Picard combo.
“The Drumhead” - An excellent political commentary for any age
“Unification” - Spock guest stars in this 2-parter
“The Inner Light” - More Picard goodness
“Relics” - Scotty. 'Nuff said.
“The Pegasus”
“All Good Things” - series finale 2-parter

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One of my favorite episodes is “The Mind’s Eye,” but it is best enjoyed in the midst of the series as it plays heavily upon the building Klingon/Romulan subterfuge that builds up over the fourth and fifth seasons.

A truly good stand alone episode, though, is “The Quality of Life.” It is essentially the continuation of and improvement upon “The Measure of a Man.” Data really shines there.

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“The Inner Light”

My favorite episode of the whole series. Picard lives an alternate lifetime all in the space of a few minutes. He ages, loves, has children, loses old friends, only to see them again at the end. It gives me goosebumps.

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“I am NOT a merry man!”

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Anything with Worf’s heritage kicks ass. Sins of the Father, Redemption Part 1, (not as much a fan of Pt. 2) and the one where Kheylar bites the bullet.

The one where the Enterprise was caught in the time loop was such a cool episode.

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I was just going to mention that one. If nothing else, it has the best opening of any episode of any TV series ever.

The Enterprise-D, sitting calmy in space, only to BLOW THE FUCK UP!!

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Sorry if it has been mentioned already in this thread, but I don’t know the name of the episode. I love the episode when Picard must legally defend the idea that Data is alive and has a right to autonomy. I’m always a sucker for a good courtroom drama, especially when an excellent, well-spoken dramatic actor has the role of one of the attorneys.

Another episode whose name I don’t recall is where Picard goes to visit his family vineyard in France. He goes because he’s in need of comfort after his ordeal with the Borg, but he meets only hostility from his older brother. We don’t find out that he’s an emotional mess inside until the end of the episode, when he breaks down and cries. That’s some good stuff there.

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I was always rather fond of The Royale, in part because I first watched it with a group of Ottawa Trekkers and one of them made “nyuk nyuk” noises when Riker, Data and Worf couldn’t get through the revolving door.

The Arsenal of Freedom had a cool ending.

First Contact was cool (with no relation to the film of the same name, which I kinda disliked), with a hilarious cameo by Bebe Neuwirth.

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Heh. :stuck_out_tongue:

Well maybe I will have to get that one.

Is the time loop one the beginning of the whole Tasha Yar deal (that then got beaten to death over the rest of the series)?

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See… Star Trek TNG was great. Why did we geeks have to go and geek it all up?

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“Captain, I must protest! I am not a merry man!!”

I think that’s my all-time favorite line from the entire series. And I loved the oh-so-sincere “Sorry,” Worf uttered after smashing Geordi’s lute to splinters :smiley:

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“The Wounded” was good, about a Starfleet Captain who goes rogue and starts attacking Cardassian ships (after the war is already over and there’s a peace treaty in place), with a strong and interesting ending (which that link totally spoils by the way, so if you click on it and don’t already remember the ending, be careful how far you scroll down).

(The spoiler warning pretty much applies to all these links.)

“Schisms” was a seriously creepy little number involving abductions by extra-dimensional aliens.

I’ll also second “Who Watches the Watchers?”.

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You know, that is the one episode I’ve never seen all the way through. When I was doing all my ST:TNG recording off TV, I had two stations to choose from to get my syndicated reruns, and between them I think they showed that episode exactly once. It was before I got cable, and I recorded it off the lower-quality of the two stations (“quality” signal-wise, that is). There was major interference that day, and I was able to watch less than half of the episode before the snow on the screen and the static in the audio made it completely unwatchable. I had my VCR programmed to record ST:TNG twice a day, on weekdays, 4:00 on one station and 10:00 on the other, and at 7:00 on Saturdays (the regular time for “new” episodes, plus reruns during the summer) for about three years, and never managed to catch that episode again.

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I really like both these episodes, and they’ve both played on SpikeTV in the past few weeks.

As a big fan of any storyline involving time travel or issues related to temporal distortions and anomalies, i also add my recommendation for:

Cause and Effect (bonus points for having Kelsey Grammer).

A Matter of Time.

Time’s Arrow 1
Time’s Arrow 2

And, of course, the final 2-part episode, All Good Things.

Also, any episode where Data goes out of character and actor Brent Spiner gets to display some emotion, especially if it’s anger or fear. For example, Power Play, A Fistful of Datas, and Masks.

I also like Data’s attempt at dating in In Theory, and the episode where Picard has to defend Data against a scientist who wants to dismantle him (The Measure of a Man).

I enjoyed the longer-term storyline with Ensign Ro, and episodes involving the Borg and the Crystalline Entity.

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Regarding aging, another issue is they weren’t necessarily designed for the quality of DVDs. I rented the first season and it was a bit weird. It didn’t look like Star Trek so much as actors on a set.

The worst bit was probably that you could hear the plywood set floors creaking as the actors walked.

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Odd that they couldn’t anticipate the development of new technologies a bit better.

:slight_smile:

(kidding!!)

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Here’s a few more good ones that haven’t been mentioned yet:

Sarek. Spock’s dad comes to the Enterprise to negotiate with an alien race. I’d see this one before Unification.

Parallels. Worf notices things around him changing, but no one else does.

The Game. The other episode guest starring Ashley Judd (Darmok is the first one). Riker sleeps with an alien chick who gets him hooked on a (kinda stupid looking, really) hologram game.

The First Duty. Wesley is involved in a stunt flying accident while in Starfleet Academy, resulting in the death of one of his fellow Nova Squadron members. Robert Duncan McNeil guest stars as squad leader Nick Locarno. The character was essentially modified and renamed Tom Paris for ST:Voyager, and was again played by McNeil. In fact, when I first saw Voyager I had forgotten the exact details from the TNG episode, and thought it was the same character. When I looked up the episode I was annoyed that they changed stuff.

Lower Decks. Sito Jaxa, a Bajoran who was also involved in the Nova Squadron accident, does a tour on the Enterprise. Picard doesn’t like her, although I wonder why he let her on his ship in the first place. Maybe Riker was banging some alien chick when he did the crew assignments and forgot to mention the name to Picard.

Timescape. Picard and some of the crew are in a shuttlecraft when they notice a bunch of bizarre time distortions - sometimes time speeds up, and sometimes it stops or runs backwards.

Remember Me. People around Dr. Crusher start disappearing as if they never existed.

Thine Own Self. Data is on a preindustrial planet, and he has forgotten who he is. The locals think he’s some sort of mountain creature.

Future Imperfect. Riker wakes up in Sickbay to discover he’s 16 years older than he remembers.

Frame Of Mind. Riker stars in a play about a mental patient in an asylum, then he actually is a mental patient in an asylum. (Interestingly, Buffy The Vampire Slayer did a similar episode - Normal Again - except without the play framing it. The way the Buffy episode ended left it a bit of an open question whether Buffy really was the Slayer or just trapped in a delusion.)

Conundrum. The entire crew suffers from amnesia, and finds themselves at war with a technologically inferior race.

Disaster. Holy shit, Troi takes command of the Enterprise!

Face Of The Enemy. Holy shit, Troi takes command of a freaking Romulan Warbird!

Ya know, I have to ask how one would go about buying single episodes. I’ve only ever seen TNG (and most other shows, for that matter) sold in complete season sets. Hell, you might as well buy them all anyway. Sure, a lot of the early episodes suck, but they lay groundwork for the later ones. TNG doesn’t have as strong of story arcs as more recent shows, but I think it helped start the trend.