The Worst Star Trek The Next Generation Episodes: The Finale!

 

 

If you've stuck with me this long, well you've probably watched all of Season 1 and have endured much, much worse.

Let's get outta here already!

 

Cost of Living (s5 e20)

 

 

It's hard to properly critique this one since it's (supposedly) a comedy episode, with some themes of age and recapturing lost youth mixed about. Cost of Living isn't as unwatchable as many other entries on this dismal list, rather it is just so damn bizarre for long stretches. 

To quickly summarize: Worf and his son Alexander are not getting along. Lwaxana Troi comes aboard and bonds with the young boy. She's here marrying some alien aristocrat she's been messaging but is only meeting now (hey, TNG predicted Tinder) and the alien's stuffiness makes her feel even older... thus her gravitating to the child Alexander. 

Yeah... it isn't great. While the over-the-top uptightness of the groom is semi-funny the cliched joke runs on way too long. The disruption Lwxana causes in the Worf-Alexander relationship also goes nowhere and is awkward to behold. There's way too much of Majel Barrett with the young actor in this episode and Barrett does the best she can with it, but it's such an odd pairing to begin with. 

The B-plot is about some metal eating parasites that almost destroy the ship and kill everybody. TNG tropes aside, why is something threatening to kill everybody (including these dignified guests from another planet) the B-plot of this story? The imminent mortal danger barely exists in the Lwaxana-Alexander stuff. Nothing here fits, like two body parts forcibly grafted together because armtoes!

Cost of Living is more strange, boring and confusing than actually bad. Wait, that sounds bad. The goofy holodeck stuff goes on way too long (it's Trek meets clownish children's show) and it becomes obvious fast that they didn't have enough of a story with either plot to fill the run time. At least it has a all-time great Worf quote to end it though (my sentiments exactly).

      

Imaginary Friend (s5 e22)

 

  

There's an old showbiz quote (maybe) attributed to W.C. Fields: "Never work with animals or children". Whoever said it must've been predicting this episode.

It's always interesting for the audience to view the Enterprise from a different perspective. Lower Decks (the season 7 TNG episode, not the animated show... haven't seen it and I'm in no hurry) features a quartet of young officers and focuses on seeing the ship from their eyes, making our usual main characters seem larger and more intimidating through those lens. Imaginary Friend goes for a similar take, except through the viewpoint of a young child.

This could've worked, maybe...? Yeah probably not. I appreciate how whoever wrote this was clearly reminding the audience of the children and families on this ship (pretty nuts when you think of all those dangerous missions they get sent on). As presented... this story is just very, very... very not interesting. They went too far with the child perspective thing. 

The gist of the tale is a lonely young girl's imaginary friend becomes real, thanks to an alien-entity-presence-of-the-week from some nebula the Enterprise is exploring. I will give credit for this: her single father has had to change ships/assignments frequently, and so his young daughter hasn't been anywhere long enough to make lasting friends. It's a sad and unfortunate nature of this kind of life, especially within the vast distances of space... a good thing to acknowledge and explore in this seemingly squeaky clean future. And.... that's enough sympathy for this episode!

It's a rough watch because the majority of it focuses on these two child actresses wandering about the ship, and there is only so long you can watch something like that until the minutes feel like days (citing Mr. Spock). The "imaginary friend" character is just so blank... delivering every line with a level of enthusiasm that a corpse would find lifeless. I don't want to pick on this young actress but the final scene where her and Picard discuss what's happening (she's a alien energy thingy from a nebula they wandered into... tropes for days baby!) is just so imbalanced from a dramatic skill standpoint. Matching a world class actor like Patrick Stewart with someone so inexperienced (and bland) in your climax just isn't fair and the scene looks like an rehearsal. "Okay that's done, now when do we film the real scene? Oh."

Definitely one of the worst outings of the later seasons. Just unbearably dull.

      

Man of the People (s6 e3)

 

 

Look, not all Troi-centered episodes are bad okay? Face of the Enemy is a really damn good one, as is... um... uh...

So Man of the People! Another title that seems at best vague with what the episode actually is. Which is Deanna Troi being physically violated by an alien. Again. Come on.

It's a different method of violation: some top diplomat asshole guy is a key negotiator in some something-something peace talks, but his elderly traveling companion (he lies that it's his mother) dies soon after they both transport aboard. Troi tries to comfort him and he tricks her into holding some crystal thing that establishes a telepathic link between them, wherein he now can dump all his negative emotions into her. Troi rapidly ages and goes insane. I need a drink for this horrible shit.

*pissst

All right I'm back.

It's so fucking creepy: the diplomat guy is such an obvious skuzbag you have to wonder how nobody has caught onto how suspicious his actions are. Once this telepathic link holds, the people he dumps his mental shit into become emotionally unstable and age rapidly. 

You think by now maybe some people might've noticed this trend? "Hey our close friend seems to have suddenly changed! With totally gray hair since last week! Now she's excited to suddenly go off with this stranger, and she's been hostile as hell to us for no reason since that guy got here! What's happening? Oh I dunno let's never report this ever! We're fucking morons!!!" Ah, maybe it's because this stranger carries the low profile position of... intergalactic diplomat??? Do admirals proofread this shit? Bad Trek: where Starfleet has the external thinking of a potato.

Diplomat guy also has the savvy of a potato, and that weird "alien" makeup on his forehead makes it look like someone drizzled gravy in his hair. When Picard confronts him about Troi's worsening condition, ol Potatoface just completely spills what he's been doing and claims his good work justifies it. Since he clearly also only does it to unsuspecting women (young naive ones at that, likely initially duped like Troi was)... well he's one of the most reprehensible characters to ever appear in TNG and frankly I wish Picard had punched him in the face right there (I bet Sisko and Kirk would've... Janeway probably pulls a phaser... so extra points there to all of them). Instead Picard gives a lecture, groans and does that Picard scowl thing. This episode sucks anyway and violence doesn't fit his emotionally restrained character (except in the movies, but those don't count because what movies?)... but I dunno man, it's so hard to watch a great Starfleet hero do so little face-to-face with an evil scumbag boasting of his evil scumbaggery.  

Speaking of scum, why on Earth would Fuckface Diplomat just freely admit this? Isn't the Enterprise his ride back also? If the episode concluded differently but Troi was still restored, don't you think Picard and Riker would go: "Well Number One, I see here's the destination for our guest. Starfleet did say the primitive volcanic planet with lava monsters right? I see you strongly agree, Number One. Energize!"

And logistically, don't you think the Federation would be a bit reluctant to, in the future, work with or even be associated with a guy who has now admitted to manipulating, deforming and consciously murdering unsuspecting victims for his own vague ends? This is info that can now be spread around publicly: "Don't hire the creepy asshole who lures women to literally drain the life out of them!" Feels like the story wants to imply he'd get away with it too without consequence. How nice. This is Season 1 level dweebishness.

I hate this episode. The apathetic logic, the assgravy evil diplomat, the discomfort of watching a main character go insane... blech. The most enjoyment I got was when Troi, possessed by the bad aging mojo... stabs Picard! ...and he proceeds to kinda walk it off. Now that's funny. "Damnit! I'll just shake off this stab wound, good thing it missed my very susceptible artificial heart! Wouldn't want a whole episode about that." 

The dialogue is bland, the blocking (yeah, the bloody blocking) noticeable in awfulness... in one scene, two characters circle each other at 720 degrees for absolutely no goddamn reason. A total nothing burger of a story, with the same level of deep severe discomfort you also find in Season 1. One of the worst episodes of the entire series to suffer through beginning to end.  

 

Sub Rosa (s7 e14)

 

 

Next Gen's final season is notoriously uneven, and really an excellent case of a great show recognizing they'd reached the end. Unlike many other once great programs that live on waaay past any trace of relevance or quality (*cough* Simpsons), TNG went off into the sunset relatively still at the top of their game. A fitting farewell to these great iconic characters. (Movies? What're you talking about? That must be some weird alternate universe, where Picard is some dumb action hero, Data is comic relief and everybody else gets like a dozen lines. What a nightmare that would be!)

Season 7 has some truly great episodes, plenty of "meh" ones, some ????? ones, and a few real stinkers. One consistent theme throughout the season (beyond the obvious "we ran out of ideas") is discovering/connecting with long lost family members! Worf's human brother from his foster parents! Data's "mom"! Picard's long lost son? Maybe! Troi's sister she never knew she had! Geordi's mom! (that episode really sucks too). Only Riker didn't get a story like this, only because they already did the father episode in Season 2 (which also sucked) and the transporter accident clone brother thing with Thomas Riker. 

And of course Dr. Crusher's grandmother, briefly mentioned in the Season 1 episode Arsenal of Freedom (bam! 100 Trek nerd cred points). Which brings us to Sub Rosa. 

Dear god... why did it have to bring us to Sub Rosa... 

Now, I think this is definitely a Top 5 all time worst TNG episode, and it deserves that slot with honours... yet there's also a silliness to it in certain parts that redeems it slightly. The whole concept of some alien world terraformed to resemble Scotland, weather and all, is so delightfully stupid and absurd. Likewise the trope character warning Dr. Crusher of danger in the old house, complete with cartoonish accent: "Do nah light tat candal, it'll brin tha Gooohst!". For crying out loud, there's a scene with rolling fog on the bridge of the Enterprise. How can you possibly take this seriously?  

Well you shouldn't, and if this really was a self aware genre comedy (like Fistful of Datas) it would be a lot better for it. But it isn't. The concept is of a gothic horror/romance story, with Dr. Crusher becoming more and more under the romantic influence of this mysterious stranger only she can see. This fails so completely because the process of getting to that romance is just so damn weird and gross in several places. Lets count them off!

Gross Weird #1: Dr. Crusher is getting involved with somebody who had also been intimate with her grandmother. Look, as an only child it's never been possible for me to potentially hook up with the same girl as my brother, or vice versa, but regardless I'd feel somewhat weird about it. If it was my grandfather? That's weird x100.

Gross Weird #2: The age difference. Dr. Crusher's late grandmother is described as being almost 100, while the mysterious stranger (or "Ronin", I'm tired of typing "mysterious stranger") described as being 34. Yeeeeaaaah. No matter how you slice it, that's eyebrow raising, despite the futile attempts to quickly smirk it off as a healthy libido. Love is love, sure, and maybe things are different in 300 years with longer lifespans and eternal youth, but as somebody who is almost 34 I can't possibly imagine myself being that physically attracted to a person born before Babe Ruth was even a Yankee. Likewise, I can't imagine anybody who grew up in the 90s being physically attracted to me if I'd been a paperboy during the Great Depression. The episode is being playful with this (even Picard says to himself "30s? Hmmmph") and it just doesn't work. It feels off because it went too extreme, accidentally leading the audience to think, in the back of their minds, that something about this relationship isn't on the level. Which it wasn't, so good job episode! Way to sabotage your own point of ageless love. 

Gross Weird #3: The journal. Future or not, this is fucked up. Dr. Crusher discovers her grandmother's journal, which is filled with descriptions of her romance with Ronin. Okay, so far that's fine. Good method of exposition and establishing a character we don't know yet. Then... well here's Crusher's line to Troi: "I fell asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter of my grandmother's journal". Yeah... there's no saving that. GEEEEZUS. What the hell is wrong with you? You think maybe your grandmother wrote that in her PRIVATE JOURNAL, not possibly imagining her nosy doctor granddaughter would go off reading it and then tell her friends? Was Crusher... getting off on it? Because that's also suggested in this scene. Holy fuck I cannot describe my revulsion... Nerd help me out!

Gross Weird #4: Dr. Crusher slowly falls for the ghostly Ronin, first when she has a sexual dream (shown by an invisible something lowering her blanket and touching her garments while she sleeps... how not creepy). There are a lot of Crusher-Troi scenes in this episode and you know what? I don't mind them, only because Sirtis' reactions are subtly hilarious. Troi quickly tries to change the subject in the erotic grandmother journal scene, bless her. Anyways, groping somebody while sleeping is obviously not romantic, you hear that League of Pervy Ghosts?

Gross Weird #5: Being a pervy ghost wasn't enough for this episode, and here's where it really goes off the cliff Wil E Coyote style. Crusher finds herself back in her grandmother's house and there are dozens of flowers everywhere (the flower thing had been foreshadowed in the funeral scene). Seriously, I think they blew most of the budget on flowers and didn't have enough left for a decent story, or actors, or proofreaders, or ACME mallet to bonk some sense into these people. This is where Ronin reveals himself as a centuries old ghost, an intimate companion of the female Crushers since the 1700s. He begins doing... something... that turns her arousal up past 11, but she tells him to stop... MULTIPLE TIMES... and then boom! It's the next scene! Everything is fine! She's totally happy with this new man/ghost/whateverthefuck in her life now. 

Hey episode! You mind maybe showing your work on that one? I mean this belongs in the [Scene Missing] hall of fame. Maybe going from 'a woman is writhing in pleasure against her will' into 'I'm blissfully happy with my new love' in the span of ten seconds is... hear me out here... REALLY STUPID AND BAD??? As Chuck Sonnenburg put it in his video review: this isn't a love story, it's Casper the Rapey Ghost.

Gross Weird #6: Nothing gross, I just wanna talk about Troi again because her reaction in that "I'm so happy now" scene is perfect. Probably the most relatable thing in this episode. Troi suggests Crusher's personal loss is driving her to act irrationally in the wake of that (good advice) but Dr. Crusher brushes it off insisting she knows what she's doing. The way Sirtis says "I'm very happy for you" and her expression is so obviously "You've lost your fucking mind. I'm gonna leave now" that I simply love it. 

Gross Weird #7: At the core of it, Sub Rosa isn't a love story. It wants to be, but it can't because it's a story of Dr. Crusher being manipulated, physically used and mind controlled by some energy being... I mean green ghost... I mean Ronin! Mind control is a staple of Science Fiction and a scary one, the idea of somebody now under the influence of some other power and maybe not even aware of it... so many great narrative possibilities! But mixing it with a love story? Now you're slipping into sleazy fan fiction territory, and probably a website that asks what year you were born. This episode wants to play Ronin's destruction (spoiler but who gives a shit) as a tragedy, like a flawed character who just wanted to love. Ummmm... mind control, molestation, physical manipulation (Crusher's eyes change colour) and basically nothing consensual are a pretty fucked up definition of "love". I dunno what dictionary you're using episode, but burn it. With fire.

Gross Weird #8: It's just so goddamn obvious Dr. Crusher isn't herself once Ronin, ummmm... gets inside her. *Cough*. Her blissed out scene with Troi, the sudden resignation from Starfleet and departure (no goodbyes to anyone) from the Enterprise, and just how shaky she acts until she can be with him again so he can send that green fog inside her. Yikes. This episode is like the Sci-Fi version of Trainspotting: Crusher doesn't act like a woman eager to be with her new love, she acts like a hardcore junkie. She's sweating, desperate, snappy... all she can think about is that sweet fix. 

Again, I have to ask.... HOW THE FUCK IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A LOVE STORY? Because silliness aside with the dumb Scottish stuff, the romance is played straight. It tries to be spooky with the ghost stuff, the haunted house, climax at the graveyard... all the well worn cliches, but this "romance" is what propels the story. Propels it into a pit full of spikes, which wouldn't be nearly as agonizing as trying to make sense of this catastrophe. The only credit it deserves is that it haphazardly alternates between deeply disturbing and so dumb it's hilarious. Surely no sane mind could achieve such a feat.   

            

Journey's End (s7 e20)

 

 

Many consider Masks the nadir of the inconsistent final season of TNG, but I've always had a soft spot for that one (it's probably the bad episode I like more than most people). Journey's End, meanwhile, is an episode I've always hated. Re-watching it for this article? I am unmoved. I probably dislike it more now.

One thing torpedoes it for me: Wesley Crusher. If you've read this far,  you must not be surprised. I'm definitely a Wesley hater but most of that is based on how damn insufferable he was in the early parts of the show. It could've worked out better: maybe starting him as a supporting character with obvious raw potential, but also so young, wide-eyed and inexperienced that he needs to be wrong more often than he's right. That way you can see his growth from a child with vast technical knowledge into an adult able to apply it, so his talents seem more well deserved and nurtured as time passes. First Duty is a wonderful episode that does this with Wesley, and the show needed more of that to ground the character once in a while. 

Or... he can just save the ship in the second fucking episode of the damn show because wonderkidz gotta wonderkidz and also everyone else there is an idiot! What do I know.

Journey's End is a very mediocre story completely destroyed by that Season 1 interpretation of Wesley. Will Wheaton left the show halfway through Season 4 but came back in a pair of pretty solid episodes (plus a cameo in Parallels, more Trek cred points). These returns really helped the character finally not be some writer's cheap deus ex-machina/get out of plot jail free card and instead seem like a real person.

This one though.... fuck off. Journey's End is godawful because it undoes all that positive character progression by falling back on the whole "Wesley's so good his ability transcends reality" bullshit. Great. Just fucking great. I love when Star Trek sabotages it's own character backstories (that definitely hasn't happened recently) and plus Wesley acts like an annoying entitled teenager this whole story. Oh good, that's totally what I tune into this legendary Sci-Fi show for... teenage moping. I'm surprised he didn't dye his hair jet black and wear eyeliner halfway through this (Emo Crusher! Bah... Emo Riker had more hits in the 80s).

Oh yeah the... story? Is that what you'd call it? This thing is painfully so much about angsty Wesley I just tune out and pray for death. The Enterprise is faced with potentially having to forcibly remove colonists (who happen to be entirely 'insert North American Indigenous tribe here' because planet of hats ahead at Warp 9). You know Native Americans aren't a "one size fits all", right episode? There are many distinctive cultures, all with fascinating histories, distinct traditions and... oh right, they blew the research budget on the flowers in Sub Rosa. Great. Tepid political message and racial generalization at Warp 6, engage!

How could this episode ever be good? The one sliver of credit I'll reward it is how it sets up the Maquis storyline, though that's DS9 stuff anyway and they did a way better job with it over there. Here though, lets mix our potential Trail of Tears analogy with Wesley Crusher acting like somebody should just play Meat Is Murder for him already so he can conceptualize his melancholy (would've saved this episode for me at least, The Smiths rule). Nah... this dweeb cadet shithead betrays Worf in a critical dangerous situation, acts snotty to Picard and you know what? Fuck Wesley Crusher. There are some moments he's okay... but by this example you know what his exit should've been? Impaled with a spear like in that Season 1 episode. That Wesley didn't really deserve it, but this pompous ass? I'd give this episode 8/10 if that happened.

Sigh... instead his character arc rolls all sevens because at a critical moment he's thrown out of time because that creepy Traveler guy returns to tell Wesley he's like a God or something and FUCK YOU GO TO HELL EPISODE. Seriously. There's even a goodbye scene where Dr. Crusher tells him to be careful out there in unexplored dimensions of consciousness. 

.... 

....

....I'm done. Holy fuck. Seriously... who would actually like this? Did any long time watcher of the show, at the time... sticking through the hideous foul terrain of Season 1 and onward... really wanted this 'Wesley Crusher as a transcendent being' arc to be fulfilled? And what arc??? This Traveler guy only shows up twice before, it's always hackneyed and screws up an otherwise somewhat interesting episode... but this shit? Awkward and corny and barf inducing and pissing on character evolution and lazy and WHY THE DUCK ARE WE QUACKING ABOUT THIS? 

The ducks are right. It's a very, very bad Season 7 episode. Don't watch it. I hope you don't. Not even enjoyable in a "bad equals good" way, just tedious and if you're me, rage induing. It's even worse than my mad rant makes it seem.

 

------

 

Wait... dear goodness I'm free at last! Free of the terribleness! I mean, there are plenty of other underwhelming episodes of TNG I haven't addressed... but geez this has been hard enough to endure watching the worst of a show I love. 

Hey you know what though, I still love it, because it was a great damn show, despite these awful episodes I've talked about, because while the lows were pretty damn low (like core of the Earth) the highs truly were another galaxy of great storytelling and possibilities of a distant future. I'm not sure if we'll ever see another Trek show with this much depth instead of surface spectacle (Discovery and Picard don't fill me with confidence) and even if not, the episodes of Next Generation will always be there to be watched. To make us laugh, feel welcome at the poker night, tremble at the sight of the Borg cube or argue against the screen that Data is not a toaster. It took a while to find itself, and even afterwards wasn't always a 10/10, which I'd say is the most human way to describe the journey.