Wow how can you pick just 2?
Mine are Cause and Effect and The Nth Degree
Cause and Effect is just mind blowing at first, as many teasers are but seeing the Enterprise blow up so early in the episode,before the credits even!, was WTF?!?!!?
THen as the episode played out, it was great to be caught in the mystery of what was going on with the crew. However knowing what was the end of the tunnel was nerve wracking until the crew was able to figure it out. Then at the end, upon original first time viewing, raise your hand if you said "Hey was that Fraiser?"
Next is the Nth Degree. Definately a favorite but I never really liked Reg. I always like the A-Team so the actor was OK, but I think that is what initially bothered me about the character of Barclay, I wanted him to be cool and not mousey because he used to be Howling Mad Murdoch, and I wanted good things for him, so I was taken aback by the wishy-washy nature of Baclay. But this was just a great epsidoe all around. So just how smart did he get? He did tell a computer how to make a hypothetical machine, based on assembling different hypothetical parts. That is pretty smart. Created technology that could have gotten Voyager home in like 1 year instead of 70. Too bad we couldn't keep the tech, although witnessing its affects proves that technology like that can exist, so that is positive enough.
But I was somehow mesmerized watching Murdo---- I mean Barclay evolve into this mental Juggerenaught. And the view of the alien Galaxy at the end was fantastic. Such great artist conceptions. Then no more Flowers For Algernon as Barclay goes back to being a n00b. When he was smart wasn't he going to bang Troi? I seem to remember her getting caught in the vapors of Barclay....he would've gone balls deep if he had more time is how I will always remember it.
Honorable Mention is We'll Always Have Paris
A solid first season episode that I have always liked. I just love the scene at the end when the three different Data's are trying to seal the rift. Doesn't Data use a contraction in this one? I recently read that it didn't really matter about him using contractions but I always grew up believing for some reason or another that Data couldn't use them, and when I re--watched this ep years after originally seeing it, I was pleasently surprised when I "caught" Data sneaking one or two of them in. Overall, an enjoyable episode. I would have liked them to being back Janiece Manheim for our bald headed leader, but he was probably busy with Vash at the time.