What was TNG's very best 'Mindscrew Episode'?

[Angel4576]

Another vote for Frame of Mind, but I also loved Dark Page.

[T'Cal]

I remember watching Cause & Effect for the first time with my wife and we were actually tempted to call the local network to let them know that they had started the episode over twice... D'oh!

In Second Chances, that they found a second Riker and then that they didn't kill off at the end surprised the heck out of me.

Face of the Enemy was a bit of a shocker in the teaser. It was a great Deanna episode, too.

[Nightdiamond]

Cause and Effect, because they didn't reveal what was happening until about halfway through, so you actual thought the Enterprise got destroyed in the first few minutes. Clever.

The last moments of Redemption when "Tasha" suddenly appears out the shadows wearing a Romulan uniform was a true 'wtf' moment.

"Parallels" where certain things seemed really odd and out of place until they explained why a bit later.

The best ones are where they wait until later to explain what's happening. The longer they wait, the better the suspense.

[Dale Sams]

No mention of Timescape?

I'm still not sure what happened. Some aliens took the form of Romulans, then beamed over to the Enterprise while the Romulans gave chase onto the Enterprise? Was that it?

edit: And yes, at the time I gave TNG a great deal of credit for having me saying at the 45 minute mark, "I have no idea what is going on!"

[Tora Ziyal]

Lance wrote:

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For my money, "Frame Of Mind" is the king of them. An excellent performance from Jonathan Frakes is icing on the cake for a story where we, along with Riker, begin to honestly believe that Number One has gone insane. Still gives me chills every time I rewatch it.

Another vote for "Frame of Mind" here. Gives me such chills that I don't watch it any more.

I don't watch "Violations" for the same reason, but I don't think it's that good an episode anyway.

[WhitneyKay]

BillJ wrote:

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Night Terrors from season four.

Agree

[Mojochi]

Dale Sams wrote:

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No mention of Timescape?

I'm still not sure what happened. Some aliens took the form of Romulans, then beamed over to the Enterprise while the Romulans gave chase onto the Enterprise? Was that it?

Not really

The Romulans' warp engine failed when the aliens tried to use it as an incubation chamber for their young, mistaking it for a naturally occurring quantum singularity (a black hole)

The Enterprise responded to their distress signal, assumed they needed power for their engine & initiated a power transfer beam, which ruptured space/time, caused catastrophic failure on the Romulan ship, endangered the alien young, & eventually overloaded the Enterprise's warp field causing a breach.

Romulans began evacuating to the Enterprise. One of the aliens in Romulan form went along to try to stop the power transfer, while the other one gained access to the Romulan ship's weapons & opened fire on the Enterprise, for the same reason

This is the point the runabout crew found them, incapsulated in a bubble of decelerated time, just shortly after Picard had to trim his fingernails