Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

It’s not one episode, but a two parter.

Year of Hell.

It’s another excellent ‘Starfleet put through the wringer’ tale.

Well written, beautifully conceived, reasonably acted.

Honorable mentions from TNG based on just pure good old fashioned sci fi "get ya thinking" (which TNG was at its best at)

The Nth degree
Cause and Effect
Schisms
Where no one has gone before
Evolution
Emergence
Genesis
Timescape
Clues

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
There are a lot of very good episodes to pick from. I can't really even pick just a top 10, as they would change from moment to moment as I remember others.
But, to add something, I'll mention one nobody else has said yet: TOS's The City on the Edge of Forever.

I was going to mention that one. It is often picked by "serious critics" as the best ever.

It's also worth reading Harlan Ellison's original screenplay for it, where it wasn't McCoy that went back in time and screwed up the timeline. It was originally a drug dealing crewmember that went through the portal to escape, and part of the tragedy of it all being that they basically had to stop a bad guy from doing a genuinely good deed.

 AlexHolker wrote:

2, 4 and 6 are all good movies, and 3 ties into all three in various ways. I also think that Star Trek Beyond is a lot of fun. The TNG era movies suffered from trying to make Picard into an action hero, when he was a very different captain to Kirk.

I read a silly theory somewhere that after Generations, Picard never leaves the Nexus and the remaining TNG movies are his fantasies. That explains why he becomes more of an action hero, and why the plots make less and less sense.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s not one episode, but a two parter.

Year of Hell.

It’s another excellent ‘Starfleet put through the wringer’ tale.

Well written, beautifully conceived, reasonably acted.

Right up till they hit the reset button at the end. But it was great and in the same vein, I'll nominate "Scorpion: Part 1", or "Equinox". I think those were the standout episodes where Voyager broke away from being generic Trek and actually used the possibilities of being painfully alone in uncharted space. No backup or easy resupply, very little knowledge of what's lying ahead of you, and you have to write your own rules to survive.

Pretty much any TNG episode with Q.

Absolutely loved his role as all powerful, but a complete dill weed. The exchanges between Q and Picard were pure theatre with a big dollop of pantomime nonsense.

Particularly when he throws them up against The Borg. Picard’s pleading. It’s desperation, but not cowardice. And as for Q in that tale? He’s only being partially malevolent. Yes he’s a dill weed about it, but he’s genuinely helping.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and of course, Chain Of Command.

Just a deeply impressive episode whenever it comes to Picard and his captor. Closer to a two man stage play than an episode from a slightly ropey sci-fi TV show

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Pretty much any TNG episode with Q.

Absolutely loved his role as all powerful, but a complete dill weed. The exchanges between Q and Picard were pure theatre with a big dollop of pantomime nonsense.

Particularly when he throws them up against The Borg. Picard’s pleading. It’s desperation, but not cowardice. And as for Q in that tale? He’s only being partially malevolent. Yes he’s a dill weed about it, but he’s genuinely helping.

The way I see it, Q was always helping/teaching. But he was doing it in a non obvious, reverse psychology way. If Q had simply appeared as a benevolent godlike being bearing gifts and knowledge, what would Picard and the crew really learn?

Well indeed.

There’s also the question of how capricious Q actually is. He goes from threatening to ‘back handed help’ seemingly on a whim.

It could be he’s malevolent up to an undisclosed point in every encounter. And it’s only when he feels the crew have shown some kind of learning or understanding (always undisclosed of course) that he gives them chances to extricate themselves.

Just a truly wonderful character, and one I feel helped to make the show,

Speaking personally, I don't remember a lot of Star Trek but I remember a lot more of the Original Series episodes, partly because they were broadcast during my "Reminiscence Hump".

I only ever saw about two episodes of Voyager and Enterprise.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
.

I only ever saw about two episodes of Voyager and Enterprise.

You didn't miss much.

I'll second that.

Voyager just never quite gelled for me. Sure there's the odd excellent episode, but I can't see myself following Janeway into the gates of hell in the way I can Picard.

Not to say she's a bad actress or character, just not my taste.

as to worst episode? Lots of stinkers in the early NG seasons, and I consider any episode of Voyager with the appearance of the Kazon, that awful 'oirish' hologram town or Neelix having a line to be an automatic bag of gak, but, actually, I'd have to hand it to my favorite trek of all, DS9, for providing me with the episode I hate most, perhaps because it is DS9 and therefore I expected better from them...

move along home... gah








truly awful.

IIRC the second season for TNG was just after a writers strike.

So they open the dusty old filing cabinets and pulled out every unused script from TOS and the aborted Phase 2 and quickly swapped all the names.

It's a wonder that show survived to season 3. If/when I introduce it to Kyoto Secunda and her Clone Sister we'll see the pilot, the borg episode and skip to season 3.

If there's no mandarin collars skip ahead!

Yup, Writers' strike hit hollyweird hard that year.
It's also why season 2 is the shortest one of all the TNG seasons (be thankful for small mercies, for it was still a dire season).

TNG is my favourite series so I vote for "All Good Things".

Cant remember the name but the episode where picard gets his flute, also Darmok, loved them both.

DS9 (best series Eva!) has to be pale moon light.

Voyager its got to be year of Hell.

TOS... not sure, wasnt really a fan (HERESY I know, I know)

Enterprise.... ergh

New Trek Movies all universally suck, and Discovery... not sure on that yet, its been ok.