Favourite Much-Maligned TNG Episodes

"We'll Always Have Paris". The time displacement moments and concept do it for me, but the romance plot and holodeck recreation are things I could do without. Never a big fan of Casablanca either, except for the La Marseillaise scene and final scenes.

 

I've always liked "We'll Always Have Paris", even the cheesy romance part of the episode works. Gives us some background on Picard. Though I find it odd how many characters have dumped women for Starfleet without telling them: Decker, Picard, Riker.

 

I suppose it's more of that naval imagery thing, where fictional heroes become sailors to get out of a relationship. I've always been mildly surprised Roddenberry didn't pattern what became Starfleet more after the Air Force though. But maybe that's because a lot of scifi that came before did.

 

I honestly never knew there was a problem with Sub Rosa until I encountered complaints on the internet, and i remember watching it first air in Australia (by that i mean when my folks hired it from the video store).

Yes, it's not the best TNG story, but it's kinda like them trying to explain an Edgar Allen Poe story with science fiction, so for me, it's easily watchable again.

Code of Honor is another, i didn't really get the racist thing when i was a kid (couple it as Australia never had colour discrimination and when it first aired i was about 5). It had Yar kicking ass and death gauntlets, so that sold me on it.

I like every other episode of TNG, i can't think of any that are supposedly bad, i enjoy them all.

 

I have bad taste.

I LOVE Genesis. Worf as a venom-breathing werewolf? Fish-troi? Spot the lizard? Riker as... not much different than normal? It's bizarre but fantastic.

I love Sub-rosa, as well... it's like a really terrible telenovela - entertainingly awful.

I even liked Darby O'Gill in Space... ahem, I mean Up The Long Ladder.

 

Genesis is hated?? While I'm not a fan of evolution (but let's not get into that) I found the episode very enjoyable and creepy.


I guess I'm just an unpopular opinion guy.

 

And don't forget those low-mileage pit woofies. They can help you build a memory.

 

Well, I don't know if its exactly maligned, but I'm a fan of The Battle. It was in the generally mediocre season 1, but I liked the back story it gave Picard, and from a starship nerd perspective I also enjoy the Stargazer design.

 

That's one of the stronger season 1 episodes. The only knock against it is yet another "Wesley saves the day" moment, a particularly grating one.

 

I'm a HUGE fan of "The Royale". I just love the concept of it, and yeah I know it's a silly concept, but still. Picard reading the novel is a highlight for me.

Actually I love most of the season 2 episodes where as many people find the entire season to be much maligned.

 

Ditto for me, I've always enjoyed "Genesis", it's another example of how TNG and Star Trek in general can really branch out to almost all genres due to its format.

 

"Genesis" was deeply goofy in some respects and I'd never rank it on my Best Of TNG lists, but it has a very eerie atmosphere and the scene where Worf devolves into a hideous and extremely creepy proto-Klingon and then chases Picard around the shiip is one of the scarier sequences in TNG in part thanks to the background music and the dim lighting conditions aboard the Enterprise.

I like it. It's not going to win many if any awards for excellence, but Season 7 had far worse episodes than this one.

 

I've always had a soft spot for Skin of Evil. I liked how inept Armus was; he was no suave, well-spoken villain with his an infallible plan and his eyes on the prize, but instead just a monster with a lot of power and very little purpose in life.

I also really liked Tasha's death scene. It wasn't beautiful or meaningful; it was quick, unexpected and tragic, as death so often is. No final words (well, except for her eerily up to date holo-will); one moment she was there, and the next she wasn't.
It also gave me the sense that anything could happen, so whenever a character was in danger in TNG, I'd think back on Tasha's death and consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they really wouldn't be getting out alive.

Also, like many others here, I actually really enjoyed Genesis, and wasn't aware that it was particularly unpopular. Sure, it betrays a rather limited understanding of evolution, but it's still a fun, suspenseful story and it was well executed.

 

Yeah, Genesis is a lot of fun if you can overlook the wonky science. It's got a B-movie "haunted house" vibe that I enjoy. I generally like the weirder episodes they did in the later seasons, like Genesis, Schisms, Phantasms ("With mint frosting!"), Frame Of Mind, Parallels, Masks and Timescape.

 

The cellular peptide cake is a lie!

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

 

Yeah I loved that episode as well despite what some people may think of it.

 

Also: "Schisms" from Season 6.

It gets flak from some fans and critics for being mediocre but I always liked the concept of sinister, exotic aliens existing just outside our dimensional plane popping in to abduct and conduct horrible medical experiments on the Enterprise officers. I don't know why the episode doesn't get higher grades and more affection, but I've always enjoyed it.

 

Masks is fantastic. Utterly, totally fantastic. That is all.

 

You are correct, sir.

 

Spiner's tour de force, hands down.