The Worst Star Trek Next Generation Episodes

 

                                                                                (image via Treknobabble.net)

Like the vast emptiness of space, our world is a damn lonely place these days. To cope, I'm unleashing my ire upon one of my favourite shows of all time because... shut up, that's why!

Star Trek: The Next Generation is, pardon the wordplay, a generational show. If you've been a lifelong fan there's a good chance you grew up while it initially aired as I did (the first episode aired the same month I was born), then watched it repeatedly through syndication as you got older (bless the old CityTV days. I can still hear the late Mark Dailey say "your Federation Station").

While I confidently conclude that overall Next Gen was an terrific show with countless memorable stories... when it missed it really missed. To invent a baseball analogy: an awful TNG episode is a failure akin to a batter wiffing on strike three, yet then spinning himself so hard into the ground he twists his legs broken, finishing the ugly moment as the bat bonks him on the back of the head while the coach announces he's cut from the team and oh by-the-way your wife cheated on you. 

Bad TNG is spectacular in its badness, and not for the timid either. For the record I am not recommending any of these in a "so bad it's good" way, rather warning of radioactive material to be steered far away from. Many of you may disagree with my choices, either that I missed a dreadful one or actually liking some of my selections. Hey... disagree away. This list may be imperfect but I'm also certain that none of these planets are worthy of admission into the Federation.

As a warning, I may be a bit more ruthless than usual in my criticisms here. For that I apologize if my language is more crass, but the sheer unpleasantness I experienced while watching some of these makes such harshness unavoidable. Okay. (deep breath)... here goes.

 

The Naked Now (s1 e2)

 

I just don't goddamn understand what they were thinking here. What was that writer's meeting like? "All right second episode... you know what's a great idea? Lets take this new crew the audience has just met and turn them all into drunken horny idiots! Perfect!" Does the 'Now' part of the title imply "now where's my suitcase of money for this horrible idiocy?" At least that would make sense.

The Naked Now is a ripoff... *cough* I mean spiritual sequel to the TOS episode The Naked Time, except the original is actually decent and the execution of what's happening has actual tension. The only tension in Naked Now is brought about by the Enterprise-D crew behaving like complete morons. For instance, not setting up a proper quarantine once they know Geordi likely has contracted what infected and incidentally killed the crew of the science ship. No... he's allowed to just stumble out of sickbay! Geez... advanced 24th century medicine my ass, we're better at recognizing and helping contagious people here in the 21st century (much love to current medical professionals everywhere). Then there's the assistant engineer who leaves Wesley in charge of Engineering before he gets infected with the drunk virus. Before! Goddamn Wesley! It's the second episode! Fuck you! Gahhhhhhhhh!

Eventually this collapsing star throws a huge stellar mass at the Enterprise and so Data (who is also infected with drunk.... somehow) has to re-plug in all these microchip things that same assistant engineer tossed about (beginning the "Picard fires his chief engineer every episode in Season 1" trope), so they can restart the engines and escape. Oooo... suspenseful...? Except no, because anything resembling that is overshadowed by the reality of how these nimrods stupidly got themselves into this mess.

No terrible Season 1 episode is complete without the wonderkid. Wesley helps save the ship by using his untapped supergeniuswhateverthefuck, giving them extra time and ugh it mercifully ends. Again, this was the second damn episode of the show and the only thing I'm convinced they were going for and succeeded at is character assassination. Maybe something like this could've worked much, much later in the series, with those more established (better written) characters and when the audience better understood the relationships between them. It could've shaken dynamics up! Instead the show went for a nostalgia grab immediately and miserably failed. Tasha Yar's final line "It never happened" is frankly damn good advice.

 

Code of Honor (s1 e3)

 

 

Man what a start this show had... like a marathon runner crapping himself and twisting an ankle when the starter's pistol goes off. 

One common element of bad early TNG is how damn uncomfortable it makes you feel while watching it. The first season of the show is a notorious abyss of dreadfulness and that reputation is well deserved. It has atmosphere of the worst dated and corny aspects of the 60s show, but lacking the compelling concepts, strong character interactions and bare humanity that made TOS work more often than it didn't. Instead here you get stiff dialogue, strawmen antagonists lacking defined motives and bland cliches disguised as evolved morality. Or you get Code of Honor, which combines all of those and still sinks to an even lower bar.

The biggest problem is pretty obvious: you have a planet based on a one-dimensional stereotype of tribal Africans. They speak accented English... have a "code" that is remarked as being confusing and less evolved... they bang sticks together and kidnap the white girl. Yeah, that's at least a 10 on the 1-to-Racism Scale. Compare that with the all-white planet depicted in Justice (oh don't worry, I'm coming for you too)... and the nakedness of this is pretty gruesome. Code of Honor seems like something filmed in the 30s as a propaganda film opposing interracial couples or something. 

Beyond the racism factor, the episode just totally, completely sucks. The Enterprise-D has to get an important vaccine from some planet but their leader dicks them around and kidnaps Tasha, which is considered acceptable because it's part of their customs. Gee, that's diplomatic. Just try that tactic in a negotiation: "yeah I'll disarm my nukes but I want a night with your hot wife in return, whether she's willing or not". What the fuck, Picard. I get trying to be patient and understanding with alien cultures, but kidnapping is a form of assault in basically any culture you dipshit. And even if she hasn't been "mistreated" (as the episode tries to slip in there to make you feel less like eels are crawling under your skin) Yar is still being held captive against her will. At least, except for the totally not misogynist part when the story brings up how attracted she is to her kidnapper for being so strong and powerful and geezus did I mention how fucking horrible this episode is?

This episode has no redeeming quality, not one. Even the lighthearted Data/Geordi shaving scene is painfully stale: I suspect LeVar Burton didn't even care as Geordi, who is blind don't forget and not wearing the VISOR in the scene, moves backwards without discomfort around furniture while Data closes in with his bad punchline. You know the episode is trash if I'm finding a weak reason to knock the awesome LeVar Burton... sadly that unintentional gaffe is the most amusement I got from this shit story.  

Eventually there's a scene that turns melodrama well past 11 (sorry Nigel) as oh noooo the Enterprise won't get Tasha back or the vaccine! It's maybe the most over-the-top sequence in the entire series, but not lacking good company in this episode. This total trash is ham handed in just the right places with Dr. Crusher popping in just to remind the audience how crucial the vaccine is. "Millions will die!" Gee, that sure makes this asshole kidnapper look not cartoonish since he's content to allow these people to perish just to satisfy his ego... I mean "code of honor". For fucks sake... this guy is just such a colossal prick it makes Picard look like a pathetic dweeb for not even considering just taking the vaccine by force. That isn't the right thing to do either, don't get me wrong, but considering what's at stake and having one of your officers get kidnapped... wouldn't it at least be a temptation? It could give this irredeemable story something resembling depth maybe? A moral issue to explore for more than just three seconds? Nah... lets instead get a catfight to the death and you know, on second thought this episode doesn't deserve to even be in the same vicinity as an interesting idea. Competence needs a restraining order against this, lest it assault and/or infect others. Even the music sucks, going as over the top as possible in vain attempts to drown out the awful acting. Oh and the cherry atop the fecal sundae: Wesley gets to man a bridge station during the crisis because this episode hates me (along with the human race) personally. 

I try not to swear and be somewhat objective when I write reviews like this, and I've obviously failed here... but who cares and fuck this episode. Fire it into a supernova.

 

Lonely Among Us (s1 e6)

 

 

'P' for Picard. Yeeeeahh. It's a happy miracle this show survived seven seasons and eventually became so good. 

So far we've had: turning the crew into drunken imbeciles, then blatant racism with a seasoning of misogyny. Hey, how about something brain-dead ridiculous instead! 

The Enterprise is escorting two sides of feuding delegates to a peace conference, who are constantly attempting to murder each other. Sure, that basic idea worked quite effectively in TOS' Journey to Babel, except that premise is taken absurdly far here. These aren't assassins they're diplomats... yet carrying around knives and all stalking the corridors for their enemies. Yet it's played for comedy of course because Season 1 TNG is about as funny as getting beamed into space. I bet this peace conference is gonna be a hoot...

Speaking of not that, the A-plot of the episode is about some energy spark entering the ship, possessing various characters until it gets Picard, who takes the ship back to some energy cloud. When they finally try and stop him (at the last possible moment despite knowing he's been compromised... Starfleet's finest, everyone) he zaps everyone with blue lightning! Now that's funny. Picard-Energy Being beams himself into the energy cloud and well... that's that.

Except no? Somehow, Picard (as an energy thingy) finds his way back into the ship, alerts the crew of this with the infamous "P for Picard" scene, and they're able to restore him... somehow. The absurdity of this nonsense continues in that very scene as Picard returns: Tasha runs in to report one of the delegates is missing while there's a pool of blood in the corridor, only for Riker to ask "can't this wait?" because hahahah! Possible murder is so hilarious.

If Naked Now is foolish, Code of Honor unbearable... Lonely Among Us is... just really damn stupid. Uh, spoilers? Whoops. Seriously though, even turning off your brain doesn't make this enjoyable. The one redeeming moment is a short scene with Colm Meaney making his Trek debut as a random security officer. Smart of O'Brien to get that cushier transporter chief job as quickly as possible and escape this episode.

      

Justice (s1 e7)

 

 

Oh no. Oh no! Ohhhhh noooooo!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!

(catches breath)

As Chuck Sonnenburg of SfDebris said best in one of his typically excellent video reviews: "You probably shouldn't create a planet that Hitler himself would nod his head in approval at." 

Season 1 TNG! We put the "dive" in diversity. 

To understand my mindset while watching this "story", here are my scribbled notes from the first eight minutes of viewing it:

 

(Eventually I conceded these mad ramblings were not meant for mortal men... here I was up against a true titan of wretchedness)

Justice looked at the stupidity of Lonely Among Us and decided that was an amateur job. Apparently that absurd, barely watchable mess just didn't make the audience cringe enough. So! Meet the Edo: another planet of hats where everyone is blond, white, childlike in their innocence and oh they really really like sex too (never directly said but strongly, strongly implied). I can't believe I'm even writing this. Also... for the love of god WHY THE FUCK DO THEY RUN EVERYWHERE???

There's a lot of really uncomfortable stuff to unpack here. First, the Enterprise crew seeming all too happy to take shore-leave here and delightfully indulge in that particular... openness of the locals, despite that they are a pre-Warp civilization and unaware of the existence of other planets or alien beings. Okay... that's rather creepy and manipulative... at best. 

They transport down and are embraced warmly by the Edo... not quite in that way, but that is actually offered to the crew on camera. With grade nine Wesley standing right there. Yeeeeaah. Seriously, is this just a disturbing Trek porn parody and the scriptwriter submitted the wrong draft? No wait, most Trek porn parodies would have more convincing dialogue.

So Wesley, fortunately sent off to play ball with some other youngsters likewise below the age of consent (but unfortunately exposing the unconsenting audience to arguably the most pointless scenes ever filmed in Trek)... accidentally crashes into a garden, trampling some flowers which on this planet means... instant death! The episode then turns deeper into this ditch by making the Edo wanting to execute Wesley a Prime Directive issue. Sure, I bet allowing Wesley off free because he damaged your tulips is waaaaaay more damaging to your Caucasian wet dream than the Enterprise crew (people from various other worlds), having a bunch of sex with you then leaving and dear god this is so fucking terrible. 

Speaking of God: above the planet there's some kind of powerful space station which the Edo worship as a god, and Picard even shows them this fact by beaming a young lady aboard the Enterprise to see it. Disrupting the natural development of a civilization by revealing what their beacon of worship actually is? Yep, sure not breaking the Prime Directive there. Fuck... I can't even talk about this anymore. After watching this it's so damn unbelievable this show eventually became so good. If you watch this and then something like Darmok afterwards you're in serious danger of mental whiplash. 

Maybe it's entertaining for its extreme visual camp, but personally I'd never watch this again without other people around to laugh at its expense with. Truly a nadir not just of this series, but the Star Trek franchise itself. 

 

Hide and Q (s1 e9)

 

It's an impressive feat to be simultaneously camp and pretentious in equal measure throughout an hour long running time.

Hide and Q begins the Star Trek practice of inserting a Q related pun into any episode title that features him (only the first and last episodes of this series, Tapestry and Voyager's Deathwish do not). And this is truly one of the worst episodes in which he appears... yet among these awful Season 1 entries it's one of the best! Another impressive dual feat.

The only enjoyable aspect of this episode is that camp element though: the cheap planet set that looks recycled from TOS... de Lancie's chewing of the scenery as Q ("GAMES?????") and Wesley Crusher getting impaled by a bayonet (it was a Q illusion so he was fine, ok? Just let me enjoy this). Frankly the acting in this one is superbly bad, with everybody hamming it up to near Shatner levels (even Patrick Stewart seems off his game). It's funny in moments, but consistently directionless throughout.

To describe this, that's really the missing word here after camp and pretentious: directionless. When you get right down to it... this episode is just way too cheap and silly to be taken in the serious way it clearly wanted to be. Q shows up to essentially tempt Riker by offering and giving the god-like powers of the Q, to prove humans can't resist the downfalls of absolute power... I guess? Sorry I was too distracted by the wolf creatures dressed in French Revolution uniforms firing laser muskets. Cerebral!

Oh sure, the story tries to bring those points into play. There's another damn medical emergency (geez these Season 1 writers really couldn't think of any other plot points could they) and so Riker gets an attaboy from Picard for resisting the temptation to use those powers to bring a dead little girl back to life. Wait, what? What???? What... the... fuck? Seriously? An attaboy? "You were right not to try?" Wow captain... I bet even the Borg were disgusted by that one when they were poking through your brain with a screwdriver. 

The episode winds down with Riker acting like an entitled douchebag because of these omnipotent Q powers, though it's hard to tell the difference since Season 1 Riker usually acts like an entitled douchebag anyway. Q eventually fails in, uh... whatever he was trying to prove... and I guess if you really want to look hard you could argue these events eventually lead to Q's actions in the great Season 2 episode Q Who... if you really want to look hard. Really hard. Otherwise, come for the camp but the rest is tedious self-righteous crap. Crap camp! I'm trademarking that.

 

Haven (s1 e10)

 

 

Amidst the worst of Season 1 TNG (truly a hole at the bottom of a chasm), Haven isn't quite as bad as some others. It's still terrible though, and a lot of that falls onto the introduction of Lwaxana Troi.

I have nothing against the character, not really (though she does pop up mostly in below average episodes) but here she is just utterly intolerable. Condescending doesn't even scratch the surface: she struts about like the most self-important person in the universe and everyone else is lucky to even be breathing in the same air as her. There is nothing at all charming about this in any way, period. After two minutes of screen time you're wishing Picard would accelerate her departure via airlock already. Thankfully they toned the character down afterwards into just being eccentric and somewhat less self-absorbed, instead of the type of person that would inspire a revolution against the aristocracy. Also I must note that actress Majel Barrett does portray Lwaxana well, it's just that the character is written to be so insufferable here.    

The other major problem with Haven is the Riker-Deanna Troi relationship. As in, who gives a shit? Later, once the characters had more depth to them, their complex friendship actually led to some good moments... this here is about as lifeless as a soap opera romance if both partners were in comas.

Troi has some arranged marriage with some dude named Wyatt, whom she hasn't seen since they were children. Riker doesn't just act jealous, he acts like a spurned high school boyfriend moping about because now he doesn't have a date for the prom. And this just goes on, and on... and on! Give him some black eyeliner, some My Chemical Romance CDs and you've got full Emo Riker. Meanwhile Troi is stuck in this love triangle, yet we get little insight into her character at all beyond her relationship with her mother, Riker, or Wyatt (hilariously of those three she has the best chemistry in scenes with him). 

Oh and there's a long lost plague ship that might land and infect this planet called Haven, which has this woman Wyatt has been dreaming abut and and ugh it's like a really cheap drugstore novel with less plot and way more predictable. It's pretty bad. Not uncomfortably bad, but stay far away regardless.

     

Angel One (s1 e13)

 

  

Dear universe... why am I subjecting myself to this.

Angel One is just loaded with plot problems, resulting in one of the most contrived stories in the entire run of the show. The point of this episode seems to be... maybe about societal gender inequality? Though I'm probably giving this dumpster fire too much credit by even theorizing what it's trying to be. 

The titular Angel One is a planet run by a matriarchy, where the men (who here are physically smaller than the females) are second class citizens. Subtlety! Look, if you're trying to make a point about the clear inequalities that women face in our world, so decide to write a story where you reverse things and have women acting like bigoted assholes... your point is going to be tough to pull off effectively. The plight of the very gender you're making a point about could be lost on the audience since the story has to evoke some form of sympathy for real life women, either by giving their leaders here strong characterization (it's TNG season 1 so hahahah yeah right) or creating a parallel by focusing how men are mistreated in this society (which again is very tricky since it on surface it seems like the opposite of what you're trying to do here). 

I mean geez it's a goddamn lazy story idea regardless, but at least do something... anything with it! Because again I'm just speculating because I don't know what this episode is trying to be. If it really is about gender inequality, it fails because of how underdeveloped and one dimensional the situation is. If it's trying to go for a "either way, men and women make the same mistakes when given power!" then it's just completely fucking brainless and a dart epically missing any board. It's portrayed as another planet of hats either way and even then that's not the worst of it.

One consistent theme of Season 1 TNG is how bad the guest acting often is, and the actress who plays The Elected One is Exhibit A. Her blank expression never changes the entire episode, whether she's about to execute the male survivors of a crashed ship or making romantic moves on Riker (a truly torturous subplot). There's one scene where the actress so obviously moves to her mark just to deliver a chilling cliffhanger line for a commercial break. She doesn't come across as a powerful leader with flawed yet complicated principles... instead she reminds you of that girl in high school Drama class who overacted and really was never any good but always got too many lines. Yikes.

This episode is really horrible not because it insults or demeans men (the only thing it insults and demeans is the craft of storytelling) but that it's so blatantly hamfisted in its execution. By magic coincidence, the Enterprise gets infected with a virus (again??? Think of something else fellas) from the holodeck(huh????)... making the crew sick while apparently the Romulans are stirring up trouble near the Neutral Zone. Don't concern yourself with that though, it takes them like 11 more episodes to eventually get around with that "urgent" matter. 

It's all poorly manufactured drama that exists solely to make you groan aloud, leave the room multiple times in frustration and then question your choices in life. If there is one nice bit here, it's when La Forge gets to take command for a while because everyone else is too sick with the plot virus. Enjoy it, because it occupies maybe two minutes of this 46 minute show. Actually don't enjoy it, because never watch those 44 minutes. 

 

The Neutral Zone (s1 e25)

 

  

When the original series introduced the Romulans in Balance of Terror, it was an tension filled suspenseful thriller, equally fleshing out Kirk's perspective as that of the Romulan commander (brilliantly portrayed by Mark Lenard, who soon later played Spock's father Sarek). 

When TNG re-introduced the Romulans (after jerking the audience around for the whole season by mentioning but never actually revealing them) they're on screen for barely a minute, while 80 percent of this episode focuses on three strawmen characters from the 80s found cryogenically frozen in a satellite. 

Sigh... if Season 1 TNG teaches you anything (and this is the final episode of that pitiful season) it's that genuine intrigue is less important than farting around with characters that we don't care about and who never get mentioned again. Or, that the best crew in Starfleet can be easily thwarted by drunk people. Or that the all-white planet is filled with peaceful horny innocence while the all-black planet is tribal and barbaric. Please don't learn anything from Season 1 TNG. Holy flying fucks in a bucket, this show sucked donkey's ass in those early days.

The Neutral Zone doesn't quite reach those low depths of suckage as other those truly awful entries do because of some background (and here underdeveloped) elements that are successful, such as the tension of the destroyed Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone... or whether the Romulans are testing some kind of super weapon again in preparation for an invasion (again a call back to Balance of Terror, truly a wonderful TOS episode). The plot point of these destroyed outposts do also lead us to the later revelation of the Borg, which is clearly a major win for the series. 

But that's it as far as quality goes. Too much of this story focuses on these three randoms from then-modern day America, a flat attempt by the writer to criticize those modern morals by contrasting them with the more 'enlightened' Federation. Look I was still in a diaper when this first aired, and Canadian, so I can't really comment firsthand on the state of America in 1988.  My bigger question is: why is that critique of whatever-the-hell in this story? Geez, you could graft this B plot onto almost any other episode in Season 1 and it wouldn't make any difference. Instead... lets throw it into the one where we bring back a classic enemy and so distract from that compelling threat. Brilliant now where's my money???

I don't want to get too much into why this doesn't work, mostly because this awful story is so thin you think you'll lose your balance while analyzing it. What sticks out most is how you groan multiple times at how condescending our heroes are to these frozen newcomers from the 80s: lines like "it's a wonder our species survived the 20th century" are just gruesome. I'm certainly no fan of unfettered capitalism, but hey episode! You're telling me that after spending five minutes with wannabe Gordon Gecko here I'd be more disgusted by humanity in this century than Stalin's Gulags, Hitler's Final Solution, lynchings in America or Mao's Great Leap Forward? Get.. The Fuck... Outta Here. 

 

It's a wonder we survived the 20th century? It's a wonder this show survived beyond Season 1 because frankly with all this sanctimonious crap, tone-deaf approach to racism and sexism, annoying characters and plain pathetic stories... it didn't deserve to. But it did! And that was very much a good thing, but still with some dreadful garbage ravines throughout the rest of their run...

Which I'll discuss next time in Part Two! Yeah, I've been through a lot of Trek pain. Until next time.