The least disliked episode of TNG - season one

This is a game that we play every two years, and 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 because you feel they would threaten your preferred episode's chance to win. Pretty simple. Enjoy!

Winners
The Original Series - Mirror, Mirror
The Next Generation -

Season One -

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
The Last Outpost
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
Angel One
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

Probably a controversial choice but I disliked "The Arsenal of Freedom" the most, except for Stewart and somewhat McFadden all the acting felt amateurish and the story stretched-out.

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
The Last Outpost
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
Angel One
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

My choice is Angel One. It exemplifies my problem with the first season of the show, namely that a lot of the episodes feel like scripts from the 1960's. Planet of the Super-Feminists where all they need to convince them of the worth of men is a good loving from Riker.

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
The Last Outpost
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

Symbyosis is gone. A dull, forgettable affair, this clunky junkie story wanders around, filling it's time with cliches and the crew acting as if they are morons. Finally the penny drops that every one in this system is a smack-head, and the (until this point amazingly stupid) crew go in to full preach mode. Add to that a tedious b-plot and we have a really crap episode.

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
The Last Outpost
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

The Last Outpost is out for its excrutiatingly annoying portrayal of the Ferengis. Certainly not a successful introduction as a credible foe. Thankfully DS9 would later undo a lot of the damage that TNG did to Ferengis.

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

The Big Goodbye - I never cared for the first Holodeck-focused episode, and I actually like some other holodeck installments. I simply find the Dixon Hill stuff dull and uninteresting.

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Haven
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

Next is "Haven," very plotless and Lwaxana is very annoying.

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Code of Honor
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

The Naked Now for two reasons: ripping off TOS, and also for having Wesley save the ship. It's the second episode, and already both the writers and the crew have become lazy.

Encounter at Farpoint
Code of Honor
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

I'm surprised Code of Honor wasn't the first to go. Even taking the racism out of the equation, it's yet another lame rehash of a classic TOS episode, Amok Time.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

Next is "Home Soil," had potential but buried by too much technobabble.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle
Hide and Q
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

Yet another TOS rehash too.

 

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
The Battle
Hide and Q
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

Goodbye Justice. Can't believe it survived this long. So many reasons to bump it, but "I'm with Starfleet. We don't lie" is a good enough reason.

 

Really? Which episode was that?

 

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
The Battle
Hide and Q
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone


The "Bough" has broken. A forgettable and perhaps regrettably children-focused episode. If the show had done more with the families or the planet-cloaking technology had ever come up again, perhaps I would have looked elsewhere.

 

I am stabbing Hide and Q firmly in the chest, and removing this mess of a show, with very little plot.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
The Battle
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

Devil in the Dark.

 

Hmm. I never thought of that, but I guess you're right. Interesting.

 

The Neutral Zone. The Ferengi didn't work out, so they need to bring back a familiar villain, the Romulans. With awful shoulderpads. But only introduce them at the very end of the B-plot and devote the majority of the episode to some "backwards" 20th century caricatures, a hillbilly country singer, an arrogant Wall Street banker, and a sobbing housewife, making sure to point out how superior 24th century humans are, by comparison.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
The Battle
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy

 

I'll remove We'll Always Have Paris. I always find it boring when I watch it, and wasn't that keen on Picard's love interest.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
The Battle
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
Conspiracy

 

"11001001," not bad but a bit too implausible especially the half-hearted feel-good ending.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
The Battle
Datalore
Too Short a Season
Coming of Age
Heart of Glory
Skin of Evil
Conspiracy