Does it get better?

[Arpy]

It's really the first two seasons that are difficult to get through, although some of the stuff I love most come from them. 3's very in-between, but I suggest watching straight through.

Here's my suggested watch/skip list based mostly on continuity reasons unless otherwise noted:

SEASON 1:
Encounter at Farpoint: Pilot. Bad, but you have to.
The Naked Now

Code of Honor: the racist one
The Last Outpost: Ferengi intro​

Where No One Has Gone Before

Lonely Among Us
Justice
The Battle: ties into a Season 7 ep, but they're both bad.​

Hide and Q
Haven: bad, but crew family continuity

The Big Goodbye: the original holodeck malfunction ep​

Data-lore

Angel One​

11001001

Too Short a Season
When the Bough Breaks
Home Soil​

Coming of Age
Heart of Glory: meh, but Klingon intro
The Arsenal of Freedom: skippable, but significant

Symbiosis​

Skin of Evil

We’ll Always Have Paris: skippable, but minor continuity​

Conspiracy
The Neutral Zone: Romulan intro


SEASON 2:
The Child: bad, but new character intro

Where Silence Has Lease: skippable but significant​

Elementary, Dear Data

The Outrageous Okona
Loud as a Whisper​

The Schizoid Man

Unnatural Selection: skippable, but controversial​

A Matter of Honor
The Measure of a Man

The Dauphin​

Contagion

The Royale
Time Squared​

The Icarus Factor: bad, but crew family continuity

Pen Pals​

Q Who

Samaritan Snare
Up the Long Ladder​

Manhunt: bad, but crew family continuity
The Emissary

Peak Performance: skippable, but significant
Shades of Gray: clip show when budget ran out​

Let me know if anyone wants me to mark the skippable episodes for quality. Many are bad, some are watchable for different reasons, and some are good but aren't relevant to continuity.

 

[Lance]

I used to buy the 1-2 bad, 3-7 better thing, even though I personally found S2 very palatable, but found myself looking more critically at the later seasons and realizing, yes, they're more consistent, but at the sacrifice of not being as dynamic as the first few seasons. S1-3 frequently take more risks, and yes sometimes those risks fall flat on their face, but the ambition is on display. The show kind of flatlines into become 'curtain television' somewhere during its fourth season, and kind of coasts along being very inoffensive and risk adverse for the rest of its run, with the 7th season in particular having a very "contractual obligation album" feel to it. I've gained a greater appreciation for the first 3 seasons as a result.

 

[Starflight]

Never been able to really appreciate S1 no matter how much I try, it just feels very slow and full of boring shallow scripts, but I agree with the above post for S2. A lot of S2 episodes make space feel truly scary and isolated, which is something no Star Trek show has managed again from TNG S2 onwards. I love Pulaski too.

From A Matter of Honor all the way through to Samaritan Snare is a really strong run of episodes IMO, only broken up by weak but still watchable episodes like The Dauphin.

I'd put the point where the show shifts to autopilot somewhere around the end of S5 or start of S6. Glancing over an episode list now, it's amazing how much weaker S6 seems than S5.

 

[Arpy]

Lance, yeah, I feel you on that. Still, I think seasons 4 & 5 are the best of the series. 6, like 3, is good but transitional. 7, for me, left a lot to be desired.

The first two, as you say, were audacious, and I love them for it. I kinda wish some of the stuff in them was touched on more when they got the ball rolling.

We need to remember that the first two seasons were the first Trek on TV since TOS, so “you’re welcome” all Trek after that for them figuring things out.

Similarly we need to remember effects capabilities of the time (it’s not going to be ENT or DSC). Still it’s more grown up in some ways. It lets you consider things as the characters do (unlike DSC, which, though I enjoy, is more a roller coaster ride, like the JJ movies).

 

[Arpy]

Never been able to really appreciate S1 no matter how much I try, it just feels very slow and full of boring shallow scripts, but I agree with the above post for S2. A lot of S2 episodes make space feel truly scary and isolated, which is something no Star Trek show has managed again from TNG S2 onwards. I love Pulaski too.

“Where Silence Has Lease,” which I marked skippable, I also marked significant in part for this reason. It does make space seem scary and isolated.

 

[Mojochi]

Thanks for all the input. Enjoying my time here way better than reddit everyone there would have made rude and annoying comments instead of helping.

What's good about this site is that as differing as our opinions are, it's still a community, and there's support and tolerance of pretty much all those opinions at some level, because how boring would everything be if everyone had to like what I like and like it in all the specific ways I do?

That said, I honestly think modern times make watching TNG a little more challenging. It's not a binge type show as much as some others. Keeping that in mind, you could move around the franchise, while you watch it, compare & contrast it with the other shows... You know, explore... lol, because the one consistent thing that Star Trek has had to do over the course of beyond half a century, is appeal to all different kinds of viewers

 

[Armus]

I think the so so episodes of seasons 1-3, shows like Up The Long Ladder or The Vengeance Factor have more energy and jauntyness than many episodes of the later seasons, which is why I like them best. The later seasons are good but they can feel so dour in comparison, and seasons 4-7 often feel like a show that happens to take place on a starship, while during the first 2 or 3 seasons, the viewer feels like he or she is on a mission with the Enterprise each week.

 

[gakelly]

Honestly, once Gene Roddenberry stopped having control over the series, the show took a huge step forward in quality
One, the writers moved away from the superhuman Wesley arc, which dominated the episodes in the first half of season 1; Roddenberry viewed himself as Wesley.
Two, the quality of the writing improved. The dialogue was so bad in the first season, it can be difficult to watch without laughing. Rewatch Datalore. It is such a bad episode because it focuses on the cliched evil brother, and the dialogue is so bad, it's hard to even know where to begin. Without Roddenberry changing the scripts, the stories were much better.

 

[at Quark's]

Honestly, once Gene Roddenberry stopped having control over the series, the show took a huge step forward in quality
One, the writers moved away from the superhuman Wesley arc, which dominated the episodes in the first half of season 1; Roddenberry viewed himself as Wesley.
Two, the quality of the writing improved. The dialogue was so bad in the first season, it can be difficult to watch without laughing. Rewatch Datalore. It is such a bad episode because it focuses on the cliched evil brother, and the dialogue is so bad, it's hard to even know where to begin. Without Roddenberry changing the scripts, the stories were much better.

I always felt Datalore was primarily aimed at rather young viewers (with Wesley being the only one to understand what's happening, and even in details such as Lore accidentally revealing his "advanced" knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem) .

 

[Armus]

Datalore may have been the turning point in season 1 where Roddenberry relinquished rewriting over to Maurice Hurley. It's the last Star Trek episode credited to Gene Rodenberry. It feels like a transitional episode between the overemphasis on Wesley during the early episodes and the more polished scripts that followed. The best part of the episode was the early scenes on the planet, the discovery of Soong's lab, before the episode became an evil twin show.

 

[at Quark's]

^I agree, those early scenes of the ep are good ...

 

[Unimatrix Q]

A lot of S2 episodes make space feel truly scary and isolated, which is something no Star Trek show has managed again from TNG S2 onwards. I love Pulaski too.

I'd put the point where the show shifts to autopilot somewhere around the end of S5 or start of S6. Glancing over an episode list now, it's amazing how much weaker S6 seems than S5.

Couldn't have said it better.
The only difference is that i love season 1 too. The show was anything but bland during the early years imo. Wish the later seasons had more of the dangerous and haunting tone of season 2.

 

[suarezguy]

I think the biggest problems with the first two seasons, especially the first (though they overall weren't that bad), was that a few characters were overdone, trying too hard for humor and instead being annoying, and also there was at times too much technobabble. In Season 2 and then yet more in Season 3 those overdone-annoying characters as well as the technobabble were very toned-down and the show was a lot better, until then Season 7 declined in large part due to the technobabble again being too much.

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I think the biggest problems with the first two seasons, especially the first (though they overall weren't that bad), was that a few characters were overdone, trying too hard for humor and instead being annoying, and also there was at times too much technobabble. In Season 2 and then yet more in Season 3 those overdone-annoying characters as well as the technobabble were very toned-down and the show was a lot better, until then Season 7 declined in large part due to the technobabble again being too much.

Which technobabble? Technobabble only started bigtime in the later seasons...

One of the elements i liked from the early show was actually the lack of it...

 

[suarezguy]

Maybe it wasn't as frequent as I remember; the early episodes which memorably had a lot were "Home Soil", "Unnatural Selection" and maybe "11001001", pretty much hurting potential for drama (though the latter was still pretty good).

 

[Vger23]

It gets better and it gets worse.

The narrative style gets tightened up in later seasons, as do the production values.

On the other hand, the stories get way more soap-operatic and become less and less about the wonders of exploring space and have this weird effect of making everything seem very routine and ho-hum.
Like the Enterprise's mission is to go pick up some groceries and drop the kids off at the sleepover. That's how a lot of the later seasons feel.

 

[Armus]

Technobabble didn't start until season 5 or 6. Often times the science was so silly, and the technobabble was just an excuse to tell a high concept Brannon Braga story. Most these episodes were good save for the technobabble, which took the awe and believability out the story.

In Yesterday's Enterprise the rift in time and space is explained as the result high levels of energy centered in a single area of space, created by intense phaser fire. If it was a Season 6 episode there would have been some long BS fake science explanation involving tachyon emissions or subspace dampening fields.

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[Unimatrix Q]

Technobabble didn't start until season 5 or 6. Often times the science was so silly, and the technobabble was just an excuse to tell a high concept Brannon Braga story. Most these episodes were good save for the technobabble, which took the awe and believability out the story.

In Yesterday's Enterprise the rift in time and space is explained as the result high levels of energy centered in a single area of space, created by intense phaser fire. If it was a Season 6 episode there would have been some long BS fake science explanation involving tachyon emissions or subspace dampening fields.

That's one of the big differences between early TNG and what it became later. During the first seasons the writers actually tried to explain things and thought of logical solutions instead of inventing more and more terms for technological processes that actually don't explain anything at all.

A good example is Season 2's "Time Squared". I don't wanna think about what the writers would have done with that episode if it were made during Season 6 or 7...

By the way, i actually think the inflated use of technobabble already started at the end of season 4. Not exactly sure, because it's been some time since i last saw it, but i remember "Identity Crisis" to be one of the first technobabble heavy episodes.

Edit: I forgot about "The Loss" happening before that episode.

 

[at Quark's]

Actually I think the technobabble in that 2nd clip is quite functional to the story ... it shows that even Riker cannot follow the technical explanation that Barclay gives so casually (but doesn't want to admit it) - and Barclay who still seems completely oblivious to the fact he is becoming too smart for other people at this point.

 

[JesterFace]

I got to say, technobabble is basically unavoidable on a series that takes place on a starship in the future.

Almost like trying to write a soap opera without disagreements.