Worst TNG episodes ever

[GalaxyX]

To each their own I guess. That's why I find these 'Worst Ep' threads interesting. For instance, you'd probably rather watch paint dry than sit through Half A Life, while I enjoy watching the interaction between Majel and David Ogden Stiers. Plus without that ep, we probably wouldn't have gotten Forbes as Ro Laren later on. A good part of why she landed to part of Ro was due to her performance as Dara. Do I expect any of that to sway anyone? Hell no. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, likes, and dislikes. I'm good with that.

Well I can tell you why I hate the episode. It doesn't gel with me that someone would so casually just kill themselves because society has decided you have no use anymore. Not only that, but to do it in such a calm and cool manner, like nothing is wrong at all, and this is the way things are supposed to be.

I can understand that if a culture has been like that for centuries, then the people experiencing it probably don't see anything wrong with it. I still can't stomach it.

Are saying is the problem is with you and not with the episode?

Hmm, yes I would have to agree.

Keep in mind that most of the other posters who hate whatever episodes they hate would probably be classified the same way.

Example, The Royale. I can't see the hate for it. It was a great fluff piece, something they might have done on the holodeck, but decided to do it as an alien story instead. I didn't find it boring at all. I loved Data's scenes, and I loved Worf watching the guy that died in his sleep and commenting "What a horrible way to die".

 

[dooky]

Angel One is so astonishingly bad that I've become perversely fond of it. Everything about it is just so misjudged, from Picard's seeming incredulity in his log entry that a planet could be run by women, to the women themselves looking like something out of an eighties music video, to the ludicrous way that the Angel One men are presented to the audience. If the episode is about a fight for equal rights, then why are the only men fighting for it apparently the humans?

And then you have Riker apparently solving everything by seducing the leader of the planet. The episode is trying so very hard to make a point about gender and equality, but ends up being more sexist than TOS at its worst. As racist as Code of Honor was, that was simply due to questionable casting and directing decisions. Angel One was doomed from the start. The sad thing is that the core concept could have made for an interesting episode. It was just explored in the worst possible way.

 

[RandyS]

The Inner Light.

 

[mrsmica]

I'll probably have a different answer later, but out of the first 10 episodes, I say "Lonely Among Us" was the most dull and pointless. That episode so failed at dramatic irony, and I didn't get that the Anticans and the Selay were just a joke until it was too late to laugh.

 

[CoveTom]

There are many episodes that I like less than others, and there are several that I think are overrated. But if I were to pick the ones that I actually consider bad episodes, rather than just "less good than others," I think I'd come up with this (in no particular order):

Shades of Gray
Aquiel
Interface
Force of Nature
Sub Rosa
Journey's End

 

[Arpy]

There are episodes like Darmok and Masks and Genesis that people can hate or like for different reasons - "so bad it's good" as I think of "Rascals"...plus, I had a crush on the kid who played young Picard.

But does anyone *like*:
Force of Nature
Lonely Among Us
Liaisons
Bloodlines
others...?

Btw, I think of Angel One and Code of Honor as epically bad but fun seeing just how entirely the opposite an idea can turn out. Plus, the fight for gender and racial equality's basically almost over whereas that for environmentalism took a blow in Force of Nature.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

I'll probably have a different answer later, but out of the first 10 episodes, I say "Lonely Among Us" was the most dull and pointless. That episode so failed at dramatic irony, and I didn't get that the Anticans and the Selay were just a joke until it was too late to laugh.

Isn't that the one where Picard makes the "[highlight]P[/highlight]" on the transporter console? That was [highlight]P[/highlight]riceless.

 

[mrsmica]

I'll probably have a different answer later, but out of the first 10 episodes, I say "Lonely Among Us" was the most dull and pointless. That episode so failed at dramatic irony, and I didn't get that the Anticans and the Selay were just a joke until it was too late to laugh.

Isn't that the one where Picard makes the "[highlight]P[/highlight]" on the transporter console? That was [highlight]P[/highlight]riceless.

Yes! It is. By that point I was already "done" with the episode. Then at the end Tasha comes to tell them that the Anticans are going to eat one of the Selay, and everyone is like "whatever. Let them." Totally uncharacteristic.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Why did they go ahead with Shades of Grey anyway. Could they just have had a 21 episode season and ended it with Peek Performance (Or Q Who which would have been a great season ender)? I mean I'm not has hateful on Shades of Grey as most are, but with the writers strike and the uncertainty of that year, was that episode really necessary?

Yes it was, they had a commitment to do 22 episodes and you do not go into breach of contract to avoid using a clip show. It only took 3 days to complete and brought the season in for less money. You can be over budget for the season at episode 21, but by making the 22nd episode a clip show, actually come in under budget for the year. I don't know if that was the case here, but I think I read that since the studio supported them for the expensive "Q Who" Borg show, they made up for it by doing a cheapie.

Later seasons would achieve the same result using bottle shows and not clip shows. But you know, sometimes well chosen flashbacks are more exciting than 45 minutes of conversation in the ready room.

 

[siskokid888]

Rascals.

The kid playing picard is awful. Punch myself in the face awful.

And the bridge crew are a bunch of idiots.

A painful show to watch.

Yes, yes a thousand times yes. High on the list of worst Trek of all time.

 

[erastus25]

Later seasons would achieve the same result using bottle shows and not clip shows. But you know, sometimes well chosen flashbacks are more exciting than 45 minutes of conversation in the ready room.

100% agree. I may be in a clear minority here but I think Shades of Grey is far from the worst hour of TNG.

 

[Jack Bauer]

Force of Nature was probably the worst TNG episode and might even be the worse episode of Star Trek ever produced. I despise that episode. i can't think of a single redeeming thing about it.

 

[CoveTom]

"Force of Nature" suffers because it violates some of the basic storytelling rules of trying to convey a message in drama. First, it beats the audience over the head with its message, rather than weaving it seamlessly into the plot. Picard might just has well have done a "G.I. Joe" style tag at the end where he sits around and explains to LaForge and Data about how we shouldn't be destroying the ozone layer.

Second, it attempts to show the need to sacrifice to solve the problem by using a contrivance that we know will be promptly ignored, namely the Warp 5 speed limit. There was simply no way that Trek was going to stick to a restriction like that, so they shouldn't have introduced it in the first place. The remaining episodes of TNG consistently had some admiral authorizing the exceeding of warp speed limits, and all other Trek (DS9, Voyager, and the movies) just ignored it totally. Yeah, I know, Voyager's nacelles move up and down and that fixed it. Sure.

 

[Alrik]

^

So you're saying that it was more 'in your face' than Let That Be Your Last Battlefield?

 

[CoveTom]

^ Actually, I think "Force of Nature" makes "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" look like an exercise in subtlety.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

But does anyone *like*:
Force of Nature

I think it's OK. Bit boring and the subplot didn't link up well with the rest of the episode, but it was a lot more competently executed than many first and second season episodes, I thought.

 

[TedShatner10]

"In Theory" is a bit meh, I've completely forgotten about it, and ditto for "Starship Mine". But "The Game" is a guilty pleasure.

Season Seven is a bit ropey, but I don't think it was much worse than Season Four, roughly comparable to Season Two, and still better than Season One or the weaker seasons of Voyager.

 

[DevilEyes]

Worse than Code of Honour? Nope.

Indeed. The likes of Justice and Shades of Gray might be bad, but Code of Honor is not just bad, it's also an offensive exercise in racial stereotyping. A travesty of an episode that is truly beyond redemption.

Lots of season 1 episodes are awful - Code of Honor, Angel One, The Neutral Zone, Justice, The Last Outpost, but season 2 has its contender for the worst episode ever with Up the Long Ladder. Not only it contains a really stupid attempt at an abortion metaphor that backfires, a very lame aborted (no pun intended) romance for Riker (lame even for Riker standards, that's something) and extremely disturbing message about eugenics and treating humans as breeding stock, but it's also more offensive and full of ethnic stereotypingthan Code of Honor (since Up the Long Ladder was actually written that way). It's amazing that TNG in its first 2 seasons managed to unintentionally offend women (Angel One), black people (Code of Honor), immigrants and Irish people (Up the Long Ladder). As well as to intentionally offend 20th century humans in general (The Neutral Zone).

 

[BillJ]

Worse than Code of Honour? Nope.

Indeed. The likes of Justice and Shades of Gray might be bad, but Code of Honor is not just bad, it's also an offensive exercise in racial stereotyping. A travesty of an episode that is truly beyond redemption.

Lots of season 1 episodes are awful - Code of Honor, Angel One, The Neutral Zone, Justice, The Last Outpost, but season 2 has its contender for the worst episode ever with Up the Long Ladder. Not only it contains a really stupid attempt at an abortion metaphor that backfires, a very lame aborted (no pun intended) romance for Riker (lame even for Riker standards, that's something) and extremely disturbing message about eugenics and treating humans as breeding stock, but it's also more offensive and full of ethnic stereotypingthan Code of Honor (since Up the Long Ladder was actually written that way). It's amazing that TNG in its first 2 seasons managed to unintentionally offend women (Angel One), black people (Code of Honor), immigrants and Irish people (Up the Long Ladder). As well as to intentionally offend 20th century humans in general (The Neutral Zone).

Loved Up the Long Ladder.

 

[Alrik]

^

I've said it before, one of my guilty pleasures.