10 Things You Hopefully Forgot About The Next Generation

Tonight my mind is slowed by Tequila so I'll cover a strange topic. While conversating with bwane111 we were discussing the worst episodes of The Next Generation. One week we would get a fantastic episode about Picard and crew that gets an Emmy and the next week is worst garbage ever seen. I exaggerate a little but some episodes made me wonder who got payed for the crap coming from the tube, Star Trek is better than that. So, I'm bringing to you my Top 10 worst Next Generation episodes. There were Seven (7) seasons of TNG. The majority of my list comes form the first two (2) seasons, mostly because the creative minds behind the show were trying to find the tone of rhythm of the characters and universe. Mostly they failed. It wasn't until season 3 (with better uniforms) did the show suddenly shine. That's not to say there weren't good episodes in the first two (2) but three was the charm. The fourth season is my favorite as almost every episode is a sequel to a previous one and began to show consequences to the characters' actions, for the first time breaking out of "status quo" mindset of the prior plotlines. Season 5 slipped a lot but had a few good ones. Season 6 made up for the last one and even reintroduced us to Scotty. At this time Deep Space Nine began airing and all the best writers went to that show leaving us with Season 7, which alternately had some of the best and worst writing. The below was a harder list to put together than I thought. I may have to expand this to a top (bottom?) 20 list of worst episodes. To any writers/creators/producers of Star Trek that might read this, I love all the TNG episodes, just some more than others.

#10 Shades Of Gray: The Second Season finale. Like now, there was a writers strike in 1989 and it cut the second season short. The best they could do was turn the finale into a flashback episode. There wasn't enough plot to go around so the plot relives more exciting times with Riker. You see, he beamed down to a jungle planet and became infected when stabbed by a plant. The remainder of the episode had Riker unconscious in sickbay. Troi stands by as useless as ever, sensing the dreams he was suffering. And we get to watch every dream, which happened to be a past episode. Boring. To kill the virus Riker has to relive all the exciting moments of his life, and so do we. Sad.

#9 Birthright: A Season 6 low point. If this had been a single episode it wouldn't be here, but the Trek writers stretched it out, and it shows. This 2-parter is about Worf learning his father wasn't killed by Romulans at Khitomer so many years ago, but was in fact captured. A disgrace for a Klingon, and Worf goes in search of the internment camp for Klingon survivors. This could have been interesting, but Worf's real father isn't there (he really did die) and some love-child of a Klingon and a Romulan meet him. I guess this was the allegory to Viet Nam POWs after a generation. Maybe there's some truth to this, but the Klingon captives now wish to live in the camp and not go home in shame. This makes sense but the episodes don't. Worf tries to teach the captives what its like to be a Klingon. Eventually he leaves with some Klingon children who want to learn about their heritage. On top of this is Data, who learns to "dream" about his creator and can see visions and dream and stuff. The Klingon story was marginally tolerable, but Data's was just terrible.

#8 Emergence: Season 7. The Enterprise computer has learned so much that it becomes sentient and "gives birth" to an artificial life form. Um, okay. The crew tries to figure all this out by hanging out on the holodeck, which now has become the "dreams" of the Enterprise. As the ship becomes self-aware, its goals become metaphors on the holodeck. Typing this was more interesting than the episode. However, I would like to know what happened to the artificial "baby" Enterprise. I generally hate holodeck episodes, and this episode didn't help.

#7 Descent: The Season 6 finale and Season 7 opener. Data's brother Lore, who took Data's emotion chip from Season 4, is back and is leading a disconnected group of Borg in a religious cult. And Lore wants Data at his side. The chip was never meant for Lore (who reacts badly to it, some would say insane), but he can broadcast the chip's effect to Data, like a drug to get him addicted. This whole story was supposed to show a David Quresh-type character and the cults that follow him. Wako was a disaster and so was this episode. Nothing is believable in the two-parter, and you had to wait all summer just for the let-down. I'm glad Lore is dead. The emotion chip will reappear in Star Trek: Generations and, indirectly, First Contact.

#6 Gambit: Oh look, another season 7 episode. And to make it worst, its a two-parter. Picard, established as an archaeologist by hobby (NOT TRADE) goes under cover to expose a group of treasure hunters, digging up early Vulcan relics. Picard and a Vulcan, both on the staff of a pirate, try to determine the hidden meaning of the relics. Eventually it is discovered that The Stone Of Gol, a weapon used by Vulcans during a war on the planet over 2,000 years ago, before Surak preached logic to the masses (and the Romulans left). There is some nifty blanks filled in on the Trek back story and history of cultures, but it barely makes up for travesty of an unbelievable plot. Picard just leaves the ship without telling anyone what he's doing? In the long run it pays off, but the story doesn't. Another example of a one-episode idea being stretched into two episodes.

#5 Skin Of Evil: This episode from the first season is just terrible. Never has a main character been killed so uselessly, and by a living tar pit no less. Tasha Yar (chief of security before Worf) gets hit with an energy bolt and dies. That's it. The tarpit monster feeds on fear and likes torturing people, and that's it. Apparently some alien race used to live on the now deserted planet, and were able to leave all their negative thoughts and energies behind, inadvertently creating a malevolent tar pit. Then we have to suffer through a funeral and last rights service on the holodeck. Picard seemed particularly affected but no reason is ever given, other than later on it is established he hand-picked her for the job. The death was so terrible, a third season episode altered time to allow her to die a second time. That episode is one of the best episodes ever made. Seems ironic. You might wonder why I hate Yar over Wesley Crusher. Wesley was so bad he was kind of good at times, Yar was never fleshed out and died before we got to know her. At least I can be nostalgic about Wesley (remember that episode where he saved the Enterprise when all the officers were powerless). Oh yeah, and Troi is injured and trapped in a crash shuttled being harassed by the tar pit. Terrible drama. RIP Yar.

#4 Haven: Another first season masterpiece. Troi's mother's, Lwaxana, first appearance (played brilliantly by Majel Barret) is about the only plus in this. It turns out when Troi was a child she was promised to a human boy (Troi being half human/half Betazoid its interesting her mom wants to "muddy the waters"). You can see Riker is pissed and all this drama happens over the planet Haven, a veritable garden of Eden in space. Along comes a ship full of plague victims that have such a horrible disease the rest of their species have been hunted for sport to protect the healthy beings of the galaxy. There is one hot blond (80's hot, that is) on board the disease ship and Troi's mate realizes he dreamt about her his entire life, and sacrifices himself to join her and help cure their ailment. We never know if he's successful but, thank God, the episode ends before I gouged my brain through my eye socket. Even the music was horrible and Trek music is generally good, or at least a background melody. I hated Troi in the first season because of this episode.

#3 The Royale: A promising beginning with a mystery of an American Space Craft in orbit of a planet it should never have been able to reach. It then spirals downward into a crappy story of Riker, Data, and Worf finding a hotel on an uninhabitable planet based on a novel carried by one of the astronauts from the missing ship, wrecked in orbit. Aliens had apparently relocated the American Ship 300 years before but didn't understand human physiology or psychology and made an environment, based a bad novel about a hotel form the 40's, for them to live out their days. I got the impression the last astronaut of three committed suicide, which is how I felt during the story. The opening, however, fills in a lot of background details connecting the future of our current space program with the Star Trek future. According to TNG America will have two (2) more stated added in the next few decades. I vote for Puerto Rico and Guam.

#2 Code Of Honor: The first season didn't have many bright spots and this wasn't even close. The idea was to show the Federation as the British Empire encountering a planet, Ligon II, which represents India. I'm guessing the episode was supposed to show the effects of an Empire on people who don't want them. Picard is trying to negotiate for a vaccine needed elsewhere but the locals are more primitive and not as culturally advanced as the Federation would like. Still, Picard needs his stuff, and, thanks to Yar, who fights in battle to the death after being kidnapped, he and his crew accidentally replace the head of the planet with someone more friendly. This episode comes off showing black people as primitive versus the "white" peoples' Federation. It is so un-Roddenberry, I'm surprised it was made. Maybe in 1987 this was acceptable, but I groaned through most of this lemon. Not knowing this episode is knowledge enough.

#1 The Outrageous Okona: What's one of the big differences between Star Wars and Star Trek. Pirates. Han is the baddest space pirate ever, followed closely by Spike from Cowboy Bebop and Mal from Firefly. We've heard of pirates in Trek but never really seen them. Then we have Okona. A space pirate so local the Federation, including Picard and crew, think he's charming and funny. Wesley looks up to this guy, and he becomes pivotal in the relations between two warring planets. In the style of Romeo and Juliet he is the messenger between the lovers, unfortunately causing as much grief as help. This is a perfect example of the Mary Sue story blunder. As defined, a new character used in a writer's wish-fulfillment fantasy to insert him/herself into an existing franchise. In this case Star Trek. Way too much screen time is given to Okona, which never seems cool even though he hits on every woman in sight, like a bad Kirk imitator. Of note, the transporter chief who beams him to the Enterprise is played by Teri Hatcher, of Loise And Clarke fame. Even Joe Piscopo (was this dude ever funny?) tries to teach Data how to do stand up comedy. There is so much wrong and uninteresting in this episodes I don't know where to start, or stop. Really the story has nothing to do with the crew as we watch Okona do his thing, but Wesley (great, another crappy Wesley episode) talks Okona into doing the right thing, and staying on board Enterprise to help the two warring factions. Starfleet has nothing to due but cater to him. This is the worst episode ever. See you next broadcast.