Star Trek: TNG: The Phantom Edit

Cafe Society
1

What episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation can be safely skipped?

Before someone shoots off with “All of Season 1!” or “Everything until Riker grows the beard!”, let me set some parameters here:

Let’s say you want to introduce Star Trek: The Next Generation to someone with a rather healthy aversion to crap. They’re willing to sit through some clunkers, but only if it helps provide context to later episodes.

So help me piece together a Phantom Edit-like abridgement of TNG by deciding which episodes to include and which to cut out completely. Episodes with any of following characteristics are in, regardless of how bad they are:

[ul]
[li]Episodes that introduce an important recurring character, species, location, technology, etc.[/li][li]Episodes whose events are the subject of callbacks in later episodes (that are not themselves cut).[/li][li]Episodes that are important in establishing or developing the personalities of the main characters.[/li][/ul]

For example, the series pilot, “Encouter at Farpoint”, is in on all three counts:
[ul]
[li]First appearance of Q and O’Brien; first appearance of the holodeck, the saucer separation mechanism, and many other technologies.[/li][li]Lots of callbacks to this episode in “All Good Things”, the series finale.[/li][li]All the main characters are introduced.[/li][/ul]

And of course, it goes without saying that all episodes of decent quality are in, even if they’re “capsule” stories whose events and characters are never referred to again in the series.

I suspect that most discussion will need to focus on episodes from the first two seasons, since the writing was pretty uniformly bad back then, though there are a few stinkers from later seasons (“Aquiel”, “Sub Rosa”, etc.) that also merit consideration. For reference, a full episode list is available on Memory Alpha.

2

The clip show at the end of Season 2 (Riker is bitten by some such thing and Dr. Polanski discovers good memories will defeat it, it was a victim of the writer’s strike) can be skipped.

The one where Deanna is floating through space in a dream, telling the alien ship, “It’s helium!” is also skippable. Also skip the racist Yar-is-captured-by-Africans one. “Deanna! You’re my friend and you tricked me!” Ugh.

Keep the ones with Deanna’s mother. All of them.

3

Sadly, a lot of really bad episodes are going to be saved by your criteria. For example, “Skin of Evil” is saved by the death of Tasha Yar, which is essential watching (explains what happens to her, and informs the later episodes about Tasha going back in time to save the Enterprise-C, which leads to the birth of her daughter on Romulus. And yet, that’s one of the worst episodes ever. It has no redeeming qualities. :frowning:

4

“Genesis” remains my go-to for “stupidest TNG episode”. When Spot became an iguana it became blatantly obvious they weren’t even trying to make any sense.

5

Dammit, I knew I was going to get that wrong. It’s actually hydrogen.

Gyrate, I think even Jonathan Frakes hated that episode, as he flips the bird in one of the scenes.

6

There are a lot of skippable ones in season 1, and several in season 2, and only a very few in 3-5, with a slightly higher number in 6 and 7, based on my memory.

I’d say keep all the Q episodes, including the not very good one in season 1.

Some specific thoughts:
Keep “Skin of Evil” for Yar’s death, even though it’s lousy otherwise.
Keep the one where Data and Yar bone.
Keep the one in Season 1 when the parasitic insects almost take over Starfleet. “Conspiracy”, I think.
Keep “Measure of a Man” in season 2, for sure.
Keep all the Klingon episodes – even the not so good ones in Seasons 1 and 2 can still be entertaining.
Keep all the appearances of Romulan Commander Tomalak.
Keep all appearances (there were just 2 or 3, I think) of Kheylar (Worf’s mate).
Keep all Borg episodes.

7

I would say that, if the goal is to binge-watch, then you can skip more stupid episodes. That would allow, for example, skipping “The Naked Now” and “Code of Honor”, which were both really stupid, and which don’t meet any of the three criteria. But if you are going to watch serially (that is, one or two at a time, with intervals of days between sessions), then you have to be careful skipping too many episodes, because, even though so many first season episodes were awful, they do allow you to build up a sense if investment in the show and the crew.

Can’t skip “Last Outpost”, as we are introduced to the Ferengi in that episode. Can’t skip “Where No One Has Gone Before”, as it introduces us to The Traveller. I would most certainly skip “Justice”, because it really gets the “Wesley Crusher is the most annoying television character ever” ball going. Don’t skip “The Battle” or “Hide and Q”. Don’t skip “Haven”, as we meet the irrepressible Lwaxana Troi in it (Data: “Could you please continue the petty bickering?” :D). I, personally, think every holodeck episode can be skipped, with the exception of the Moriarty ones, so I would skip “The Big Goodbye”. “Datalore” is a must watch (Lore introduced). No skipping “Angel One”, as it’s the first “Riker in bed with everyone female” episode. “11001001” is up to the viewer’s taste; it’s not so bad you would inherently want to skip it. “Too Short A Season” falls in the same category. Of the remaining episodes in the season, I would love to skip “Coming of Age”, but since that’s where Picard first learns about the threat to Starfleet, you can’t. “Arsenal of Freedom” is a saucer-separation episode; how you feel about it depends upon your viewpoint on that piece of mis-handled idiocy/brilliance. As for “Conspiracy”, the less said, the better. The season-ending episode “The Neutral Zone” is really, really dumb, but does introduce to us the re-imagined Romulans.

8

If I was trying to proselytize someone to ST:NG fandom, I think I’d skip all the ones with Trio’s mother in them.

9

Why not skip “The Battle”? Because it sets up a season 7 episode? That was a forgettable episode, so I say skip both.

You want to save “Angel One” because it establishes Riker as a horndog, but skip “The Naked Now”, where Data boinks Tasha? That actually is important, as it comes into play in “The Measure of a Man”, which is the least skipable episode from season 2. Similarly, you say “11001001” is up to the viewer, but that depend on if you will skip “Future Imperfect”, as it comes into play there.

And why say you can’t skip “Coming of Age” since it introduces the threat to Starfleet, but then you want to skip “Conspiracy” when that’s what the episode is all about?

10

The reintroduction is meaningless, though. As I recall, the episode made a big deal about Romulans hadn’t been seen in decades, but the series never follows up on this, exploring why the Romulans had cut off contact with the Federation (and later episodes like “Unification” suggests they didn’t, really). There’s nothing in “The Neutral Zone” that informs any later episode, the basic premise doesn’t make sense (why was a 20th-century cryolab put on a satellite and how did it get way the heck out in space?) and it includes a lot of pointless sanctimony against the 20th century. It has one minor redeeming feature:

One of the 20th-century refugees shows a shrewdness Picard lacks, regarding the Romulan attempt to bluff

11

That episode has extremely dumb science but it is still one of my favorites. It has great atmosphere and is genuinely creepy in places.

12

When I say “don’t skip”, that’s an indication that I like the episode enough I don’t think it’s a complete dog. I liked “The Battle”, as it gives background to Picard, so I say “don’t skip.”

Remind me: how did Data boinking Tasha have ANYTHING to do with “Measure of a Man”? Was the fact he boinked her used to establish he was sentient? I find the whole redone “Naked Time” episode to be worthless, and I thought it was rather a cheap sci-fi basement-boy titillation to have Data boink Tasha. I’d be perfectly happy to skip episodes of Riker in bed with women, but that’s a lot of episodes, it tends to drive plots, and “Angel One” starts the whole ball rolling. As for “11001001”, yeah, Minuet re-appears later, so I suppose that saves the episode, though I’m not sure you have to know Minuet isn’t real to understand what’s going on in “Future Imperfect”.

Finally, I didn’t say you could SKIP “Conspiracy”, did I? :dubious:

13

It’s also the episode that sets up the Borg (sort of). And despite the fact that they flubbed it later, the arrival on scene of the new Romulans was perhaps one of the coolest events in the whole first season.

14

One of the things brought up in Data’s trial was that he had relationships with the crew members, and remembered his friends fondly, which are both human characteristics. I believe Picard points out that Data keeps a hologram of Tasha and when he asks why, Data mentions they were intimate and he enjoys recalling their time together.

I think it would be very out of left field to have that portion of the trial if you didn’t have the set up from (the very bad otherwise) The Naked Now

15

By all means, skip Symbiosis, the preachy “just say no” anti drug episode. Even if it has both David Marcus and Joachim. It has the cringeworthy scene where Tasha explains to Wes why people do drugs.

And the Naked Now still sucks. I haven’t watched it since the very first airing. But, from this thread, now you know that Data and Tasha boinked, so that’s all you need out of that episode anyway. Oh, that and the phrase “fully functional”. There, I saved you 45 minutes.

16

In season 2 skip The Outrageous Okona, TNG’s attempt to create a lovable rogue, a scoundrel. He sucks, even if he is played by The Rocketeer. It also has Joe Piscopo teaching Data humor, which is about as bad as it sounds.

Skip also Up The Long Ladder, You think Code of Honor plays on stereotypes? At least they have a functioning planet. The drunk Irish stereotypes are so offensive you want to open the airlock and flush them all overboard.

And if there was an episode where Pulaski fell down a turbolift shaft, don’t skip it. Alas, there is no such episode.

17

Speaking as someone who saw “Future Imperfect” long before catching “11001001” in reruns, yeah, it really bugged me at the time that Minuet was presented as someone who both Riker (in-universe) and the audience (out-of-universe) was familiar with. I mean, not bugged in the sense that I think the writers were being sloppy or unfair, but bugged in the sense that I wanted to know more about the characters’ history together but couldn’t. (Remember that in 1990, there was no way of viewing past episodes except for waiting for reruns, and no encyclopedic source of episode and character synopses to read.)

You are of course correct that “Future Imperfect”, like all other TNG episodes, is self-contained enough to be understandable on its own. But that’s not what this thread about.

18

“And programmed in multiple techniques.” Rawr. Dr. Soong was a freak.

19

Re Data and Yar:

Yar: “It never happened.”

20

Skip the episode where Wesley is sentenced to death on some planet for disobeying a “keep off the grass” sign equivalent.