The least disliked episode 2021 - TNG Season Five

[BlueStuff]

Our addictive biyearly game of rapid elimination returns - now able to include Disco's third season as well as the debut years of Picard and Lower Decks. 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 just 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 - The Best of Both Worlds I
2019 - Yesterday's Enterprise
2021 -

Season Five

Redemption II
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Silicon Avatar
Disaster
The Game
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
New Ground
Hero Worship
Violations
The Masterpiece Society
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
The Outcast
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
Cost of Living
The Perfect Mate
Imaginary Friend
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Takeru]

I'll remove Cost of Living, it's so bad. Lwaxana and Alexander in a mud bath, the weird stuff in the holodeck ... what where the writers smoking?


Redemption II
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Silicon Avatar
Disaster
The Game
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
New Ground
Hero Worship
Violations
The Masterpiece Society
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
The Outcast
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
Imaginary Friend
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[BK613]

The Game is an interesting idea poorly executed with its lame game, Wesley-saves-the-day plot and addiction-bad theme. Robin Lefler is the only positive but she isn't enough to save The Game.
----
Redemption II
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Silicon Avatar
Disaster

Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
New Ground
Hero Worship
Violations
The Masterpiece Society
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
The Outcast
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
Imaginary Friend
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Qonundrum]

Hero Worship is "The Bonding" on meth, cocaine, heroin, and a large dose of sleeping pills... complete with some valium on top in contriving harder to get the promotion where the candy bar wrapper mail-in contest of the year winner gets to be on the show or whatever than to tell an original story. Survivor of some disaster*, candy bar addict kid clings to Data and thinks pretending to be like him-- the fact Troi giggles and indulges at the start instead of seeing a bucket full of DSM-V conditions is an even worse red flag. And as Asperger's Syndrome (part of the Autistic Spectrum Disorder umbrella condition) had yet to be officially observed in America (not until 1994, long after this episode of Star Drek was made.) But season 5 didn't know what to do with its allegories half the time anyway... especially as they also just had a kid episode the preceding episode, viewers were probably terrified that the 1701-D would be chock full of young Wesleys by season's end at this point.

* his father, let's call him "Arnold J.", probably put in a drive plate wrong. His real surname is "Rimmer".


Now, here's some hero worship worth watchin':

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What's left:
Redemption II
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Silicon Avatar
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
New Ground
Violations
The Masterpiece Society
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
The Outcast
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
Imaginary Friend
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Brennyren]

I'm eliminating "Silicon Avatar" because I have always been Team Marr. No evidence the Entity had the faintest interest in communication (and at least some evidence that its abilities along those lines were minimal), and a trail of dead bodies behind it. Now it won't kill again. I'm okay with that, and I think Renny would be too.

Redemption II
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
New Ground
Violations
The Masterpiece Society
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
The Outcast
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
Imaginary Friend
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Orphalesion]

Let's get rid of the Outcast. In fact, let's put it into a rocket and shoot it into the sun.
As already pointed out, TNG could be very clunky with it's allegories, but what makes the Outcast stand out is how dumb, tone-deaf and altogether useless and silly and stupid this particular allegory is.
It's supposed to be an LGBT+ episode, but it is in fact an episode about "real man"(tm) Riker teaching a woman how to be heterosexual. F.U. Berman.

Redemption II
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
New Ground
Violations
The Masterpiece Society
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
Imaginary Friend
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Takeru]

The Masterpiece Society, it's incredibly boring and that's a crime when the purpose is to enterrain.


Redemption II
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
New Ground
Violations
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
Imaginary Friend
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Farscape One]

Taking out "New Ground". Worf is not a good dad.


Redemption II
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
Violations
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
Imaginary Friend
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[BK613]

Whom ever imagined that fans would be interested in watching a kid we've never met talk to her Imaginary Friend was obviously smokin' something...
--------------
Redemption II
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
Violations
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate

I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Takeru]

Redemption II because I dislike klingons, Worf returning as if nothing happened after dramatically leaving starfleet in the previous episode was anticlimactic, Sela is a stupid character with an even more stupid backstory ... bleh.


Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
Violations
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[BlueStuff]

Violations is out; it has its fans, but for me it’s a total mess.

Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
Conundrum
Power Play
Ethics
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[BK613]

An alien species uses mind-altering tech to control theEnterprise for nefarious military purposes. Wait, didn't I already axe The Game? Well, it's no Conundrum that the one that followed was too much like the one that came before.
--------------
Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time

Power Play
Ethics
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Takeru]

Ethics, it doesn't work for me because Worf dying or not regaining his ability to walk were never options, we all knew he'd be up and running by the next episode. There was also too much klingon honor, episodes automatically lose points for that.


Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
Power Play
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
I, Borg
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Qonundrum]

Ethics, it doesn't work for me because Worf dying or not regaining his ability to walk were never options, we all knew he'd be up and running by the next episode. There was also too much klingon honor, episodes automatically lose points for that.

The ending is so contrived that it makes the top 3 worst moments of TNG of all time. It'd have been bigger if Worf's loss was permanent, but then we'd never have him on DS9. But using some "stick figure of the week" wouldn't have sold the subplot that works, assisted suicide, at all. Keeping the doctor brawl as a separate episode might have been better; IMHO the episode is doing too much and most of it falls flat as a result.

Let's get rid of the Outcast. In fact, let's put it into a rocket and shoot it into the sun.
As already pointed out, TNG could be very clunky with it's allegories, but what makes the Outcast stand out is how dumb, tone-deaf and altogether useless and silly and stupid this particular allegory is.
It's supposed to be an LGBT+ episode, but it is in fact an episode about "real man"(tm) Riker teaching a woman how to be heterosexual. F.U. Berman.

Clunky, bizarre, has too many other-interpretation means, but not ignoble. For many reasons. And, yes, I dislike this episode too.

IMHO, and before I read up on it back in the day, it always felt to me like a too-contrived tale of "test tube babies versus natural procreation", which was a hot topic at the time and children even a decade earlier would mock others in saying "were you a test tube baby" on top of everything else... but it's always fun to read observations as that's a field completely other and opposite what the episode is wanting and perhaps completely unable to tell. As someone who isn't a total Kinsey 0 heterosexual, I can only ask that if they want to show real life situations that they don't go too much into caricature, unless the whole show is the same over the top nature. (In either direction.) Of course, I'm also a fan of TBBT and they mock MENSA types incessantly as well. It's a sitcom where exaggerations are part of the genre because comedy is based on those, it's inevitable for everyone. But I digress. TNG isn't a comedy and it'd have been worse if they tried to yuk it up because it's already 43 minutes of yuck.

 

[Qonundrum]

People say "The Way to Eden" sacrificed character consistency for sake of plot. Well, fast forward some decades and Guinan now out of the blue has quite an amazing epiphany for no reason. "I, Borg" is novel that it is not another action piece trotted out. It is daring to do something different. Hugh is likable. But at the expense of Guinan if not other characters, who seem to chum up remarkably quickly, is the point that anyone can change? Perhaps. The episode feels clunky in this regard.

Also, would the recursive loop - or TNG's version of an old TOS trope where Kirk nags a computer with a repeating loop of contradictions and it promptly self-destructs out of frustration and other "Earth emotions" it's impossible to have - probably would not worked, even if the Queen had existed. One way or another, any of the drones could and inevitably would (at some point, regardless of timespan) still manage to eke up and squeak out "Um..." and not be steamrollered by the gestalt of zombified lemmings following the command and the rest would start to do the same thing. Sorta like what Hugh was programmed to do. Talk about a plot of recursive looping like fractal art. Still, the last time I saw this, Guinan's turnaround seemed the least convincing, despite believing Geordi and the others warming up to their shiny new pet. Dare I watch it again? I dunno. Either way, hit or miss, season 5 still has better and bona-fide classics better than this one.




What's left:

Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
Power Play
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
The Next Phase
The Inner Light
Time's Arrow I

 

[Orphalesion]

I'm gonna shock people and extinguish The Inner Light Picard gets zapped by a random space drone thing and then we spend a whole episode with some alien farmers/suburbanites dressed in beige who brabble about their gardens drying up and in the end Picard plays a flute.
Also there ought to have been better options to preserve a memory of their culture than just uploading some rando's memories into a space drone thing and inflicting them on some other rando.
Also, in typical 90s network television manner, Picard is neither changed by this experience, nor does it have any long-term effects, except for occasional flute playing.

Though it was a nice touch to have the alien flautist's son be played by Patrick Stewart's real son.

What's left:

Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
A Matter of Time
Power Play
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
The Next Phase
Time's Arrow I

 

[Takeru]

I'm gonna shock people and extinguish The Inner Light ...

Eh, you dislike what you dislike. I'm already sharpening my knives to take out The Visitor when we get to DS9 because I hate that episode with a passion.

I'm taking out A matter of time because Rasmussen was an idiot, the crew believed that he was from the future, there was no need for him to steal anything, he could have asked for some stuff for his personal collection and they probably would have handed over a tricorder etc. without asking questions (Picard would have been like "I get it, I have an interest in archeology and history myself") or he could have asked the computer for some files on older technology that's outdated in the 24th century but still advanced in his time, that also would have had the benefit of being easier for him to reverse engineer and "invent" back in his own time.


Darmok
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
Power Play
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
The Next Phase
Time's Arrow I

 

[Qonundrum]

I'm eliminating "Silicon Avatar" because I have always been Team Marr. No evidence the Entity had the faintest interest in communication (and at least some evidence that its abilities along those lines were minimal), and a trail of dead bodies behind it. Now it won't kill again. I'm okay with that, and I think Renny would be too.

An episode with some potential, Marr was very certain... but so was Data and based solely on recorded content potentially out of context, much less any tied-in emotional response. Data was so certain of how Renny might react that he put in the equivalent of "Les Miserables" out of one stored memory into Renny's gaping maw. Not unlike how I react to a Windows 10 BSOD where it gives me a superficial code and emotional flapdoodle about " Sorry, we encountered a problem and other ersatz warm fuzzy blah blah (and who are "we" since it's a machine and a singular one at that, but I digress) but the real underlying cause often has little to do with the code shown. But I digress. Both individuals had their viewpoints, but Marr had the greater points involving planet after planet being used as happy meal after an all-you-can-eat buffet, not to mention the silicon entity would have the intellect of the form that Picard is assuming. Not to mention how many years it would take to get communication on par and how to feel the thing until then. Just tap on the glass and hear it go ding and that clearly means there's brains behind the glass and not just a nervous system impulse like what a jellyfish might do. But we're supposed to feel bad, right on cue. Trek has done the "sympathy for the villain" so much better and so often that they should have kept this one being evil for the sake of it. After all, all the divers that tapped on the head of a hammerhead shark did the same thing and as a result ended up going out to dinner once a week. Or, rather once that the shark enjoyed for a week before fertilizing the sea anemones living near Spongebob's domicile below... Ugh... (Could the underlying ideas worked? Arguably but a handful of minutes in one episode is, well, too much to swallow...)

 

[Qonundrum]

Darmok and Captain Tennille fell thanks to the Quaalude-spiked Tamale sauce on teh disco'k. (That makes about as much sense...)

While there is some merit regarding understanding of others, and the story tries a new take on exolinguistic communication... except "The Ensigns of Command" (despite its quibbles and more simplistic take) did a more readily digestible job at this with the Troi/Picard ready room scene, with "Darmok" feeling like 30 minutes of padding that's designed to be extra absorbent yet doesn't feel that way when actually needed to be. (So food input and output metaphors cease I will before Chaka Khaaaaaaaaan's walls fell. At Xanadoodoo.) The use of metaphor at a literal level seems more an unintentional 4th wall gag (we have to sit there and try to figure it out too and if we figure it out by the end there is something neat to behold, but doesn't seem as great on repeat viewings) and, while the idea of someone else setting up a test via a reenactment of some event deemed historical for one and a moment of clueless-WTFery-and-I-hope-I-don't-misinterpret-it by the other, it's not season 5's best. But laudable. And not bad for being so ambitious and experimental in its own ways, especially given what else season 5 contains. But there are better balances beholden to bask in, by the ocean.


What's left:

Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
Power Play
Cause and Effect
The First Duty
The Perfect Mate
The Next Phase
Time's Arrow I

 

[BK613]

Say good-bye to the nerd fantasy that is The Perfect Mate.
-------------
Ensign Ro
Disaster
Unification I
Unification II
Power Play
Cause and Effect
The First Duty

The Next Phase
Time's Arrow I