The least disliked episode 2021 - TNG Season Six

[BlueStuff]

Our addictive biyearly game of rapid elimination returns - now able to include Disco's third season as well as the debut years of Picard and Lower Decks. It's generally a lot of fun, providing a chance to mentally revisit those episodes you may not have thought about in a while. With that in mind, why not play again?

So, here's the game. The basic idea is your standard elimination game. I'll provide a list of the episodes for each season and you need to eliminate your least favorite or the one you deem the 'worst.' Please provide an EXPLANATION for why you are eliminating your choice and be sure to copy and paste the list with your choice removed. Finally, leave at least 2 eliminations by other posters before you eliminate another episode.

No tactical voting! You cannot remove an episode just because you feel they would threaten your preferred episode's chance to win. Pretty simple. Enjoy!

Hall of Champions
2011 - The Best of Both Worlds I
2013 - The Measure of a Man
2015 - All Good Things...
2017 - The Best of Both Worlds I
2019 - Yesterday's Enterprise
2021 -

Season Six

Time's Arrow II
Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
Rascals
A Fistful of Datas
The Quality of Life
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Aquiel
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Birthright I
Birthright II
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Suspicions
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape
Descent I

 

[Takeru]

Birthright II because Worf lies to a bunch of young klingons and pretends his idealized version of the klingon lifestyle is actually real and basically throws them to the wolfs while he goes back to the Enterpise and sips prune juice while sitting on his artsy chair sculpture.


Time's Arrow II
Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
Rascals
A Fistful of Datas
The Quality of Life
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Aquiel
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Birthright I
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Suspicions
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape
Descent I

 

[BK613]

The later seasons are full of contrivances in order for the regular cast to have something different to do. I'm pulling Descent I for this particular contrivance:

PICARD: And all available personnel, including you and me, will begin to put together four man away teams. We'll leave a skeleton crew on board the ship.
LAFORGE: Who'll be in command of the Enterprise?
(later)
CRUSHER: Any last orders?​

-----------------------------
Time's Arrow II
Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
Rascals
A Fistful of Datas
The Quality of Life
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Aquiel
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Birthright I
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Suspicions
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Qonundrum]

There's very little quality in an episode that goes out of its way to contrive yet another squeezed droplet out of the long worn-out turniped trope of "Hey look hon, the magical technical marvel has sentience!" (Read: "The Measure of a Man") Given all the power that's needed for replicators and other systems, seeing a little dodecahedron flit around the screen, make cutesie contrived chirp noises, and switch screwdriver heads on a whim with flashy glittery effect doesn't begin to sell. Making the token human as the baddie only makes the audience laugh. Data's actions, stuff like putting the Captain's life in danger, are swept away as quickly as the "exocomp", not a failed attempt to sell shiny new action figures because nobody bothered to make them, flies around the room making cute whimpery bleepy noises as if it's an electronic puppy to get all doe-eyed over. Can this episode get any worse? Well, yes. While Trek does the "nothing ever happened" routine at times, but at least the story they sweep it away in had some ideas or scenes that didn't feel so overused or dull -- complete with the muzak from the troupe of farting frogs. (Janeway may have belittled Kirk and co for their actions, but Kirk lost his rank when stealing the Enterprise to fetch a decaying corpse -- how come Data and Worf (per DS9's infamous episode) never lose rank when putting their commanders in danger or wander around disrupting vital weather control equipment and she's not poohpoohing them?! Oops, wrong series... two by now...) Worst of all, "The Quality of Life" doesn't even have Jo, Tootie, Mrs. G., Natalie, or Blair in it.

Spoiler: ADDENDUM and possible spoiler in a CBS sequel show

I thought the return of one in Lower Decks was handled surprisingly well and with the right tone for the show. Used as po-faced in TNG, however, that's another story.

What's left:
Time's Arrow II
Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
Rascals
A Fistful of Datas
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Aquiel
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Birthright I
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Suspicions
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Brennyren]

The later seasons are full of contrivances in order for the regular cast to have something different to do. I'm pulling Descent I for this particular contrivance:
PICARD: And all available personnel, including you and me, will begin to put together four man away teams. We'll leave a skeleton crew on board the ship.
LAFORGE: Who'll be in command of the Enterprise?
(later)
CRUSHER: Any last orders?

Beat me to it! What kind of nimrod would leave the doctor in command of a ship in hostile space so that the captain and first officer could wander around on the planet waving tricorders like any other dumbass could do?!?

But as long as we're talking about things I don't think the chief medical officer should have been doing, how about hosting an engineering conference? And with not a one of the Enterprise's engineers in sight, at that? Honestly, I have my "Suspicions" that this was originally intended to be a Geordi episode, if only because having him host that conference would have actually made some sense, Though in that case we would still have been left with the guy who snuck himself out of a morgue drawer and into a shuttle -- so yeah, this episode was never gonna make it to the end of the round in any event.

Time's Arrow II
Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
Rascals
A Fistful of Datas
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Aquiel
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Birthright I
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Takeru]

Time's Arrow II. Look it's Mark Twain ... I don't care. And if Data's head was in perfect condition and could just be out on his body, why didn't they turn it on in part 1 and asked him what happened?


Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
Rascals
A Fistful of Datas
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Aquiel
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Birthright I
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Removing Rascals. There's just so much wrong with the episode. In previous episodes they set the self destruct to prevent the ship from being captured and in this one they gave up the ship because they got one phaser on one person. They came up with a boring premise, analyzed its implications poorly, and then made the crew look incompetent in its realization.

Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
A Fistful of Datas
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Aquiel
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Birthright I
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Orphalesion]

I'm gonna delete "A Fistful of Datas" from the list. Because I don't like Westerns. And even if I liked them...then I'd be watching a Western Show, not some ersatz version of one on TNG. Plus it's another Worf and Alexander episodes *shudder*

Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Aquiel
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Birthright I
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Qonundrum]

Wouldn't it be more fun just to, for 43 minutes, listen to a repeating loop of The Mamas and the Papas song "Dream a little Dream" while on a LSD trip than to sit through "Birthright I"?

Speaking of medical officers, Bashir seems shoehorned in for little reason, made worse by their working on alien-designed/constructed field generators for plasma hooblies (energy, not blood) for what he believes for no reason is a medical scanner in Sickbay. Um... Okie dokie? Glad they have both 120v and 240v sockets and the power draw from the whateveritis isn't greater than what the power source connected to the desk there can put out. Why wouldn't he just go to Engineering off the bat with the car engine-with-yellow/orange-LEDs-glued-on prop, where they can plug in any number of alien technological bits with perfect ease (the Borg are envious), with Data would be talking with LaForge anyway, where LaForge would rightly point out that connecting anything into the smack middle of the warp core might put out a feedback burst and thus not be a very bright thing to do (unless it explodes, at which point things would get very bright .) Why is Data assigned to go to Sickbay? Where's Dr Crusher, did she approve of his coming in with some alien gizmo and wanting to plug it into any socket ol' without any clue as to what it might do? And is the DS9 mainframe really so slow that it can't begin to analyze anything (despite having better holosuites)? Well, the humans and android shown all act like 0.2-watt light bulbs so they just say "let the computer do it", which is unintentionally amusing in of itself...

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(By 1:34, why the emphasis on the empty tabletop? Not even a burn mark? Maybe it's a bigger surprise that the magical mystery box isn't going to be the threat of the week... Later on, Bashir fawns over Data's emulated abilities, all while forgetting how awesome it is that humans can breathe and stuff and that seems pretty awesome stuff too... Then again, those sites and videos telling how Picard is akin to a sociopath to the crew while Kirk cares is another story too... Plus, if electromigration exists, the positronic equivalent likely exists too. So that helps determine Data's lifespan, should no replacement circuit elements be available. Looks like DS9 has all sorts of stuff littered about. Plug something in, see what happens.)


What's left in the fish barrel:

Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Aquiel
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Qonundrum]

I'm gonna delete "A Fistful of Datas" from the list. Because I don't like Westerns. And even if I liked them...then I'd be watching a Western Show, not some ersatz version of one on TNG. Plus it's another Worf and Alexander episodes *shudder*

^^this

Is the idea itself bad? Not necessarily. IMHO, the execution is where it falls flat. TOS did the Old West Shtick trope better in "Spectre of the Gun" though one more likely has to be a fan of the genre to like it, I'm a fence-sitter on that. So did Red Dwarf in "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", which was oddly highly enjoyable and grew on me much since... Maybe TNG was trying to reinvent the use of the old west trope...? And bringing in Cousin Oliver Alexander just felt like a cliche they couldn't reinvent either. (His introduction was novel but follow-through fell through, IMHO, YMMV. )

 

[Takeru]

Aquiel is out. They know shapeshifting aliens exist, they know the killer slime can perfectly imitate another lifeform and no one suspected the dog? I also thought it was unbelievable starfleet would dump two officers on that relay station and have them live in college dorm conditions for months, that thing can't be automated? And if it's so important it has to have its own crew why isn't it better protected? A klingon in a shuttle was considered to be a threat to the station. They wanted a two person crew to make Aquiel the prime suspect by default, it felt very contrieved.


Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
True Q
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Farscape One]

"True Q" is truly gone. Not a bad episode, per se, but I wasn't that convinced of Olivia d'Abo's character portrayal.


Realm of Fear
Man of the People
Relics
Schisms
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Qonundrum]

Troi grows old in a new mystery, complete with new mystery character. This time it's Dorian except the ship isn't Scorpio in a cool crossover with Blake's 7. No immune discussion alterations or anything. Just another magical guy. So "Man of the People" is just a receptacle of trodden out plot ideas done already far better earlier (e.g. possessing Troi, aging people to death, trade route tax negotiation sleep inducing star wars prequel fun, Picard's awkward scripted speech of the week*, et cetera.)

* that said, Stewart could make reading ingredients lists captivating...

What's left lurking in the bottle of fish-flavored beer on the wall:
Realm of Fear
Relics
Schisms
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Rightful Heir
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Takeru]

Rightful Heir is out because it's more uninteresting klingon stuff.


Realm of Fear
Relics
Schisms
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Starship Mine
Lessons
The Chase
Frame of Mind
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Qonundrum]

Rightful Heir is out because it's more uninteresting klingon stuff.

I disagree. It retconned Kahless from "the Klingon devil" in TOS to someone far more noble. Far more important, he opened up a shoe store:

 

[Spock .]

I vote The Chase out. I thought that the plot was unbelievable. I didn't think that it was plausible for all of the different races to just happen to be in the same area at the same time with the right piece of the puzzle. I liked the background about Picard's archeology hobby, though.

Realm of Fear
Relics
Schisms
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Starship Mine
Lessons
Frame of Mind
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Swedish Borg]

"Lessons", because if Romeo and Juliet were Picard and whatshername they wouldn't have needed to kill themselves they would have died of boredom!!!

Realm of Fear
Relics
Schisms
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Starship Mine

Frame of Mind
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Qonundrum]

Oooh, flying saucers and abducting the crew* - happens on something as big as an easily-charted planet all the time, so why not once every six years on a tiny spaceship in the middle of nowhere that'll be light years distant the moment warp drive is engaged? (Seriously. That's all there is.)

* into a magical alien dimension, sans sunshine and bubblegum, and mostly off-screen for good measure, where all we do in the end is hear people back on the ship complaining about feeling funky. Granted, the clique of clacking aliens was suitably creepy, but does sitting through the rest of the episode to get to this hold up? Probably not. It's a mixed bag, but despite it all the bad episodes of this season are far, far, worse. Which is amazing as some of those tried to be more original than "alien abduction... in space..." but it's sorta bold and audacious to try such "alien abduction" like this as well. It's a weird mixed bag. I hate ambivalence, apart from when I like it... I'll get back to ya on that...

What's left:

Realm of Fear
Relics
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Ship in a Bottle
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Starship Mine
Frame of Mind
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Orphalesion]

I'll smash the "Ship in the Bottle" because it's a return of a character I had no interest in to begin with.

What's left:

Realm of Fear
Relics
Chain of Command I
Chain of Command II
Face of the Enemy
Tapestry
Starship Mine
Frame of Mind
Second Chances
Timescape

 

[Orphalesion]

Is the idea itself bad?

Sorry...but to me the idea IS bad. Why would you make a Western Episode when your show is set on a space ship in the future. I really don't like it when Star Trek does those genre shifts.