The least disliked episode of TNG - Season One

This is a game that we play every few years or so, 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!

Hall of Champions
2011 - The Best of Both Worlds (I)
2013 - The Measure of a Man
2015 - All Good Things...
2017 -

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

 

I was just posting in another thread about how I think Code Of Honor is the worst episode of the series, so I'll start by taking that one off. So racist! And also kind of a dull story. And I'm galled by the lack of imagination that comes up with Yareena as the name of Yar's rival. ("Code Of Honor" was also one of the first eps I ever saw, after discovering the show during season 5 and immediately wanting to see as much of it as possible. I was too young and naive then to grasp how offensive it was)

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
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

 

"Justice". A great idea turned into a 40 minute mindless wasteoftimewank, Wesley's most infamous bit of dialogue is given (about Starfleet won't lie), the prime directive stuff is shoved to the side at the end (it's virtually antithetical to the show, complete with Picard's cheap and hollow speech!!), and the aliens of the week are no less boring or racist (they're all deliberately cast as being blond hair/blue eye).


Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
The Last Outpost
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
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

 

I'll get rid of The Last Outpost for its cringeworthy planet scenes and embarrassing portrayal of the Ferengi. It took until DS9 before the Ferengi had any semblance of credibility or interest left after this one...

Encounter at Farpoint
The Naked Now
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
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

 

The Naked Now. A remake of an old TOS episode as the new show’s second episode? Give me a break! And some of the performances are really cringeworthy bad!

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lonely Among Us
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

 

Coming Of Age This is just a jumble of WTF moments for me, and I don't understand why they thought it was a good idea to do so many Wesley (and Riker) stories about how that character should be leaving the Enterprise. Don't hang a lantern on that, show! The stolen-shuttle plot is undercooked. Sometimes the Remmick thread seems OK, but I think that's really a retroactive association with "Conspiracy" elevating it -- as it's own piece here, I do not care for it. But most of all, I hate the depiction of the Academy admissions process, everything about it is either nonsensical or contrived.

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

 

Angel One; the story as a whole is a bore, any message that might be there is muddled to the point of incoherence, the "alien virus" suplot has absolutely no purpose, and the outfit that Riker wears... just, no.

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

 

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Battle
Hide and Q
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

Lonely Among Us for being basically rubbish.

 

Knocking off When the Bough Breaks. Hamfisted, overly simplistic nonsense with a whole lot of annoying children

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Battle
Hide and Q
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Too Short a Season
Home Soil
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

Too Short a Season has left the building. Clayton Rohner playing an old admiral with all that bad aging makeup. Ugh.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
The Battle
Hide and Q
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Home Soil
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

"Worf, is this your idea of sex?" Animal things. "Hey Wes -- not bad." Q as Three Snakes Growing Out Of A Light Ball. "When one is in the penalty box, tears are permitted." And probably one of the cheapest planet sets they ever threw together. It's a mess all around -- I'm tossing Hide And Q

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
The Battle
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Home Soil
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

Home Soil. One of the few first season episodes I can't motivate myself to rewatch. Probably saw it once in syndication 25 years ago.
Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
The Battle
Haven
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone
Edited-by-MutaiSho-Rin-to-restore-the-list

 

Haven. A largely forgettable story overall, and the writing staff really, really didn't have Lwaxana Troi's character down yet.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
The Battle
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

The Battle is done. I always find it boring, and the Ferengi simply aren't credible as villains in the way the writers intend here.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
We'll Always Have Paris
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

We Wont Have Paris Much Longer, just very dull.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
The Big Goodbye
Datalore
11001001
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Skin of Evil
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

The Big Goodbye is a least favorite. Didn't find it interesting to watch.

 

Skin of Evil is now gone the way of Lt. Yar. Sorry, but I think the whole "meaningless death" idea was just a flat-out horrible concept. There's a good reason why it's generally expected (or at least, was expected at the time) that major characters in an action-adventure TV series go out with a memorable death, ideally involving them making the ultimate sacrifice.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
Datalore
11001001
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Symbiosis
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

It's a tough call between Datalore and Symbiosis, but Datalore at least succeeds as comedy. Symbiosis is just dull. The only thing I -- enjoy isn't the right word -- but the only thing that touches me about the episode is seeing Merritt Butrick's guest performance, with his death from AIDS imminent, and reflecting back on what those times were like. His presence is the only thing that gives this ep any weight it has.

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
Datalore
11001001
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone

 

I'm going to sack The Neutral Zone. It's by no means a bad episode, but there's a lot that misses about it, The reintroduction of the Romulans falls kind of flat. That the ominous tech scooping attacks never again get touched on, in any significant way, leaves the episode seeming pointless, & the ancient Humans are not enough to sustain the rest of the episode. In fact, they are pretty much all, in some manner or another... annoying. The mixture of all these elements together is very odd indeed

Encounter at Farpoint
Where No One Has Gone Before
Datalore
11001001
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Conspiracy

 

Varying degrees of "not bad" left but I'll boot Encounter at Farpoint for the manskirts.

Where No One Has Gone Before
Datalore
11001001
Heart of Glory
The Arsenal of Freedom
Conspiracy