The Least Disliked Episode of TNG - Season Seven

[Spirit of 73]

The thing to remember is once you started caring about the characters, you can get away with doing not getting to the point until halfway or more.

Certainly you can get away with it. That's how series go downhill. Everyone loves the characters, so you start getting away with things. Battlestar Galactica spent most of its last two seasons doing exactly that.