Beloved episodes you hate/Reviled episodes you love

[Starflight]

I'm another who really hates Conspiracy, probably the worst episode of the entire show.

I don't "hate" The Inner Light, but I'm confused to this day about the overwhelmingly positive response people have to it. It's good, but it's in a season with many better episodes. Same for The Best of Both Worlds, which is great but not really the absolute best of TNG, especially since the second half is unsatisfying.

Not a huge fan of Lower Decks either and never felt the need to rewatch it.

As for episodes I love, Night Terrors is amazing and I have no idea why the consensus seems to be so down on it. I love Sub Rosa too, even though it's absolutely awful. Oh, and The Royale is a great episode and one of the best of season two, by a long shot, silly though it is.

 

[Vger23]

I'm sorry, but "Measure of a Man" is really fucking boring and I think waaaaaaaaay overrated. I don't hate it though. It seems like lots of people like "Datalore" which is easily In the bottom 5 for me. Absolutely fucking abysmal.

On the other side, I really love "The Royale" and I liked "Encounter at Farpoint" way more than most people.

 

[Mojochi]

Cause and Effect has constantly repeating scenes.

OR! It doesn't. What it does have, is continually repeating moments in time, that alter in subtle ways, which are marvelous to experience imho. Just the alterations of scene & camera work alone makes it cool as hell. Then you get into the slowly emerging character realizations, leading to divergences, & watching how they unravel a weekly mystery from within the very prison of it. I don't remember ever having seen anything like it on tv before then. They had us all thrown there for a minute, & that's hard to do

 

[at Quark's]

^agreed. I think it's quite an challenge to be constrained in your story-telling to repeating (almost) the exact dialog and events 4 or 5 times, and still keep it interesting.

As for myself: I love Where no one has gone before. Yes, it's cheesy and it suffers from Super Wesley syndrome. But it also conveys a deep sense of mystery about what the universe actually is, and what wonders might be 'out there'. The introduction of the Traveler, who I felt could actually be a member of a genuinely old race (admittedly ignoring the 'pedo' vibe here) - much more so than, say, the members of the Q continuum. All this back in a time when TNG didn't have any 'success formula' yet, so even if the storytelling feels somewhat haphazard and clumsy at times, it also feels very fresh.

I hate... well, hate is much too strong a word - I just like it less than when I saw it as a teenager the first time: Measure of a man (even if I'm not the first one to mention it here). While I still think it's a 'great' episode in the sense that it deals with great ideas and tackles important ethical concepts, I also feel now that this episode takes itself too seriously, deals with those issues in a very heavy-handed manner. The courtroom scenes feel stilted and artificial to me, as if they were only inserted into the story to make the lengthy expositions of Picard, Riker, and Maddox at least somewhat credible. I think the best scene of this episode is when Guinan makes Picard see there are even deeper issues at stake - at least that scene felt natural to me.

 

[tomalak301]

Beloved Episode I don't like (Because hate is too strong a word): The Inner Light

When people on here were talking about Picard being mind raped I thought about it some more and realized they had a point. The emotions were there and Stewart did a great job, but that was mind rape.

Reviled Episode I like: Masks

I always thought this episode was really really interesting and Spiner did a great job.

 

[Kirks_Flying_Wig]

"The Royale".

Worf talking to room service, Picard's phobia of revolving doors, Data gambling. So much to love. I guess the episode is disliked because it's part of season two, got rewritten by Hurley, and isn't particularly Star Trek-y, but I think it's a lot of fun.

 

[suarezguy]

Ones I am rare in liking a lot: "Too Short a Season", "Lonely Among Us", "The Neutral Zone", "Coming of Age", "The Price", "Suddenly Human", "The Outcast", "Birthright" I and II, "Suspicions" and "Dark Page". I guess honorable mentions to that as a kid I thought "Masks" and "Genesis" were really average, not good but nothing particularly bad, but now I think they're really bad.

Ones I uniquely not like: "Schisms" is the only one I really dislike/hate, but I think a few others are average and really overrated, "Frame of Mind", "Darmok", "Brothers", "Face of the Enemy", "Lessons" and "Lower Decks".

 

[Armus]

I always liked A Matter of Perspective, or Rashomon on the holodeck. There's both humor and sensitivity in this episode, where Dr. Apgar, in three different versions takes a swing at Riker and misses and falls down, receives two punches in the gut from a real bastard version of Riker, and kicks Riker's ass (in the most unlikely of scenarios). This third version leads to the hilariously over-the-top "You're a dead man, Apgar!" line.

And I enjoyed Data as Picard's art critic.

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[GeordiFan]

I love alot of season seven, it's actually one of my favorite seasons of tng.... on the other hand, while i don't hate "The Inner Light" and "Tapestry", they aren't my favorites

 

[Brennyren]

I am always surprised when I find out people didn't like "Rascals." Sure, there were parts of it that didn't make much sense (the Ferengi captured the ship way too easily, for one), but honestly, I thought it was a hoot. And David Tristan Birkin absolutely nailed boy Jean-Luc.

Do people actually like "Brothers"? Wow, that one makes me grind my teeth. "They're brothers, Data. Brothers forgive." Well, considering Data's brother has a penchant for killing people, that seems a little glib, doncha think?

 

[Starflight]

Oh yeah, I love Rascals too. The casting is pitch-perfect, and Birkin is incredible as Picard.

I get the feeling the reason most people don't like it is because Riker, about five minutes after taking command, manages to lose the Federation flagship to like three badly-armed Ferengi. Never bothered me because I always thought Riker was a hyper-incompetent loser.

 

[Noname Given]

TNG's - "Inner Light" <--- Can't stand it.

If I wanted a Twilight Zone episode, I'd watch that show. I don't get where people see 'Star Trek' in this one.

I can't think of any of the 'reviled' episodes I honestly like though. When TNG is bad, it's BAD.

 

[GeordiFan]

I like Rascals as well

My personal favorite episode is Starship Mine, which is an episode i don't see alot of people talk about

 

[gakelly]

I used to work at a few casinos, and The Royale's realism on the way the games are played are ridiculous. Other than that, I really enjoy the episode.

I don't like Time's Arrow, I, Borg, The Emissary.
I absolutely hate A Fistful of Datas.
I really don't think Code of Honor is as bad as most of the season 1 shows. I like the main guest stars. It's much more interesting than trash like Home Soil, Arsenal of Freedom, Angel One, etc. It's also better than boring episodes like Evolution.

 

[Verteron]

Echoing some posters already: I really like The Royale and Captain's Holiday. TNG wouldn't be a great series if every episode was like them, but they're fun breaks in the routine.

I also think Homeward is a nice little episode with an ethical dilemma and a bit of family backstory for Worf. I've always thought Emergence was a fun little story too.

At the other end of the spectrum, I'm not a huge fan of The Offspring. The storytelling feels very dull and expositional at times and don't buy that a cascade failure would lead to humanesque emotions in an Android or that Data could just download her memories without lasting effects. Plus if he can download her memories in to his neural net, why can't he download her memories in to a new neural net and try again?

Not a big fan of The Ensigns of Command (though it's highly rated on IMDB) - the colonists and the Sheliak both behave like idiots, and the Data love subplot falls flat.

 

[Armus]

Too Short A Season is one of my favorite episodes, a kick ass terrorist story about a tragic Admiral who wanted to redeem his past sins on a war torn planet. Great guest stars and stylish direction. That actor made me believe he was an 85 year old man getting younger and younger. To me this is what TNG should have aimed for more often.

I always liked The Vengeance Factor. It has that memorable climax, where Riker is forced to incinerate a woman programmed to end an ancient tribal fued. I also enjoyed Picard as peacemaker diplomat between the gatherers and the butch actress from Porky's.

"You people haven't changed in a hundred years!"

 

[Nakita Akita]

I rewatch the entire series every few years,
But there are episodes I completly skip.
"Masks"for sure and the one where they are on a train going to New Veriform city. ( I don't know the title and always end up seeing part of it before I remember that I detest it.
Sometimes I watch SubRosa just so I can see the shocking difference in Bevetly's eyes from blue to green or whatever.(kidding, never noticed her eye color)
I have to many favorites to even list.

 

[Verteron]

the one where they are on a train going to New Veriform city. ( I don't know the title and always end up seeing part of it before I remember that I detest it.

That's Emergence, the one I said I quite liked two posts up

By it's IMDB rating it's certainly not a beloved episode, so you're not bucking the trend there!

 

[Armus]

Man of The People is highly entertaining camp nonsense I don't care what anyone says .

 

[Vger23]

I, Borg is painfully dull and I don't agree with the decision made in the "moral dilemma" either.

Without question, I would have pulled the trigger on that virus and not lost a wink of sleep at night.

No apologies.