Season 1 is hit or miss, but definitely not the pure trash people - including me - thought of it at the time.
A brief synopsis, based on memories from the last time I saw them (all of which were on blu-ray, either on initial release or as a second viewing because the wider color palette due to the original 35mm film in tandem with blu-ray's encoding gave them a vibrant new life that transcends the muted dullness...)
* Encounter at Farpoint: Hokey in spots, such as space jellyfish engaging in foreplay for audiences nationwide to enjoy, but Q mocking humanity was pretty novel for 1987. That and the x-rated jellyfish look a LOT better on blu-ray, even having actual hue to their glows - I no longer remember the original airing/DVD releases where the glow was far more muted... 7/10
* Naked Now: They took one of the better TNG episodes and turned into the sort of empty, soulless drunken sexfest that would have been deemed too tame for my ex... chief engineer MacDougal or whatever her name was comes across more like a first grade schoolteacher than someone believable in Engineering. Needless to say, season 1 is loaded with Engineering filled with a bunch of unconvincing engineers... 0/10
* Code of Honor: Picard is so much out of character - right down to threatening a whole planet with destruction via photon torpedoes (WTF)... the director hired all black actors for the Ligonians and Roddenberry hated it despite none of the dialogue being changed (what else was going on behind the scenes?!)... Yar vs Yareena was an interesting conflict but "Yareena" must have been a first draft name since she is Yar's opponent? A mess topped with racism, but what if the actors were all white and the dialogue and story otherwise remained unchanged? 0/10
* The Last Outpost: Ferengi get a bit too caricatured but there's potential. TOS tropes of magical mystical incorporeal being rear yet again. 5/10
* Where No One Has Gone Before: Pretty good episode by any standards. There's the typical season 1 unpolished, unrefined dialogue, but this one's pretty solid. Of interest, Eric Menyuk also played a more lively character in an episode "Married with Children" in 1990. 7/10
* Lonely Among Us: Another TOSscapade. It's not a bad romp in all fairness, but the end is way too convenient. Singh is the least memorable chief engineer so far. 6/10
* Justice: It's no less racist or condescending than Code of Honor (and all the people here are all blond hair/blue eye yet nobody complains, oddly), allegedly the original storyline took the "death penalty for any crime" a lot more seriously. And certainly for more than stumbling into a flower garden as being the accident of choice. And without Roddenberry's insistence for the biblical sexcapades - at least what the Bible alludes do before someone ate the apple. 0/10
* The Battle: Houston, we have a winner. Picard gets some backstory, there's a Ferengi who isn't a comedy routine but looking out for revenge. One of season 1's best stories. 9/10
* Hide and Q: Hokey, but worthwhile. Playing on Riker's humanity with the girl and Geordi getting vision are standout scenes that still work well. Typical season 1 dialogue problems reduce the quality of the story. Right down to describing the alien soldiers that stab everybody, though anyone at a convention seeing the clip of Wesley will always cheer - which is a bit mean, it's not Wil Wheaton's fault that early TNG made him the magically most intelligent know-all character by dumbing everyone else's dialogue down... 6/10
* Haven: The living briefcase, Lwaxana being annoying, Yar's hair, "Bill", and the mishandling of the plague ship (space herpes really is common and treatable, folks) quickly tear down the only scene in the story that has interest: Lwaxana and Troi telepathically communicating.
* The Big Goodbye: the holodeck, and all its inconsistencies, return. More backstory for Picard. Holographic items can inflict damage. TOS homage by Data that doesn't begin to work. Episode has a TOS feel to it but that's okay, TNG should be its own show but also feel not dissimilar to the original that spawned it. As always, Picard makes it all work at the end despite not having the time needed to study the language and master it properly. Good ideas but wet around the edges. 6/10
* Datalore: Data! has a brother! In the 24th century, Geordi thinks Lore's use of "brother" is cool! Golf terms are used! Brent Spiner as Lore saves the day since Brent Spiner almost ruins it with the number of contractions he uses as Data, which nobody picks up on because he was acting Data at the time. Even after Lore is dispatched, just how strapped was the budget given the number of retakes that they couldn't do? Good split screen direction, even if the red alert lights in one scene were not in perfect sync. Data has nipples showing. Wesley is written up by having everyone else written like complete nincompoops. Lore knocking out Worf is genuinely a scary scene. So is Lore kicking Data's head. What's truly scary is Chief Engineer Polkadot or Argyle Socks or whatever his name was. Obvious Scotty ripoff but they forgot to copy the personality along with the accent. But that's okay. Argyle patterns are Scottish so it's all okay. *facepalm* Crystalline entity is a cool concept. Great incidental music, better than what this sub-first draft of a story deserved (why did they fire Ron Jones??!) 4/10
* Angel One: Okay, holodeck virus escapes the holodeck and almost kills everyone thanks to Wesley. Usually it's Riker getting it on and spreading space herpes around, but that's not a fatal virus. Picard gets a great line about letting Wesley die, out of place as it is. Otherwise it's big 80s shoulderpads and big 80s hair on display, even mullets. Even beige/spangley silver outfits. OMG, this episode is as sexist as certain others were blatantly racist. But, man, I need to take a couple of cold showers now. 2/10
* 11001001: I'll just get to the problems: 1. It's written as happenstance, which even Minute admits to, that Picard stayed. If the Bynars do things in pairs, then two people were needed. The "happenstance" is dropping the ball. 2. Riker's love life now extends to holograms, Judging by the texture of the floor and if he got his way based on Minute's assertion he could go as far as he wanted (eww), he'd be very quick to slip on it after finishing, eww... (forget the janitors, think spatial physics and really wince.) 3. Season 1 dialogue remains unpolished and sticks out at times. And yet from this point forward TNG gets consistently if not slowly better and this episode is halfway into season 1, past "the first thirteen" or half-season's worth in terms of production so obviously there's been a shakeup somewhere. 4. Data limits bus speeds to groups of 8 or 16 bits, despite 64-bit being available at that time, with 128-bit technology already defined in the 1970s but made real in the 1990s. 5. Geordi's pretending to be chief engineer! Where's the real one, chillin' out with Argyle and Singh and MacDougal out of boredom? They couldn't get Argyle MacTightshirt back? But all things considered, it's a tight and near-perfect episode that uses real science (solar flares EMP konking out their computer system and needing the Enterprise) and some philosophy, anthropomorphized by the Bynars (0 or 1, no or yes). 10/10
* Too Short a Season: TOSscapade, yes, but feels like an unspoken followup to "A Private Little War". There's some good acting, and even the "fountain of youth" plot would have been dealt with a lot more hokier if made six episodes prior. It's an underrated gem. 7/10
* When the Bough Breaks: Hannah Louise Shearer brings in a rather nice style to her episodes. I like the idea of a planet that is slowly killing its own people due to the advanced technology created as means to save it - the cloaking device and the advanced and magical tools. (A possible allegory to the CFC/Ozone crisis at the time, I'm not even going to make hairspray jokes. Great, now I want to watch Angel One again and then take another cold shower...) What's even more interesting is how the radiation is only temporary and reversible. A neat solution. But let's face it, sci-fi rarely discusses procreation and genetics. This episode does. Maturely. That alone wins big points. Also, as a kid, the idea of a magic pen shaped thing that could carve out what I thought of would have been cool. And, yes, the Custodian - even down to dialogue - feels like Zen from Blake's 7 at times. 7/10
* Home Soil: Sweet, hard sci-fi! Terraforming! And General Gogol!! The actress who seems wooden early on when describing the great joy in terraforming a planet emotes fantastically in later scenes. Silicon life that sees humans as bags of water! Another underrated gem! 9/10
* Coming of Age: One of Wesley's best stories for season 1. But how Starfleet can add to its ranks with what must be the most inefficient process in the galaxy begs many questions. The subplot with the guy stealing the shuttle, which ties into a mini-arc, is decent. The bit between Wesley and the Starfleet officer who doesn't respond to human social graces is a pretty cool scene. Surprised this story doesn't get the kudos it deserves. 8/10
* Heart of Glory: Given the scope of the mission, why are they tinkering (complete with 80s elevator muzak) with Geordi's visor? It's a good scene in its own right, but placed next to a scene requiring a little thing known as "MASSIVE URGENCY SINCE THE SHIP IS ABOUT TO GO ALL SPLODEY-BOOM-BOOM", it's ill-placed. Still, it's mainly Worf's episode and what the episode needs to do it does really well. Even the death scream was a fantastic touch. 8/10
* The Arsenal of Freedom: Fantastic action piece where Geordi gets command, Picard stupidly beams down, and the threat and buildup of these killing machines - even against the Enterprise - is top notch. Nice to see the saucer separate again. The latest Chief Engineer going through the revolving door, Logan, is a nitwit but at least his angled collar/shoulderpads look cool. Remember when one-name star "Wesley" was in Land of the Lost? Or "Jackee" from 227? Well, Logan is so cool his one-name status is just as iconic. I can't keep up count with the official bland engineers and up to and including this point they've all been a bunch of dingbats. Just get Geordi down to Engineering and make him chief, he's been down there far more than any other Engineer by this point and then some. 7/10
* Skin of Evil: Why is it that the baddie, named Armus, is named after producer Burton T Armus? Yar's death didn't feel forced but her holodeck program with the Windows XP background image absolutely feels forced. And assumptive; how would Troi know that, by the time she's offed, the same crew would be there? Okay, she's head of security and is the first to be in danger so she probably would update it periodically. But Dr Crusher, try using amps instead of volts next time... The latest chief nimrod, Roscoe P Coltrane -- oops, I mean Leland T Lynch, or was it Leland Timmy Lallygagger? Leland Lollypop Licker... whatever -- is no more convincing than the previous parade of chief stick figures, for which MacDougal wins. By now, TNG has to realize that playing "Wheel of Engineer" isn't getting them anywhere. Nor the audience. Especially as Geordi has been in Engineering more often and always comes across far more engineeringey by far. Not because of the eyewear, either. But, yeah, I liked Armus and how he's described to be. I'm surprised Picard wasn't egged on by Troi to help the creature out. He's helped far more malevolent beings in other episodes. Particularly Hugh, in the least convincing of ways. 3/10
* Symbiosis: Always aired after "Skin of Evil" and Yar has that onscreen blooper where she waves, I liked the anti-drug message. It's more heavyhanded than "Mudd's Women" (which is pretty raw with its themes of drug use and prostitution), but noble. I'm amazed TV of today doesn't encourage drug use because doing so is "cool" as opposed to TOS and TNG being "nerdy dweeb corny" in speaking against it. Drugs do screw up lives. So "corny PSA" or whatever, I'll side with these episodes. The Tasha/Wesley speech is indeed impassioned. and another bridge crewmember emotes (Dr Crusher) in the ways most on the show never would, since back then the old adage of "Data was the most human character on the show" was mentioned by viewers of the time. 7/10
* We'll Always have Paris: Well, one of the singers from The Mamas and the Papas is in it but that's no reason to treat this as being TNG's bestiest best besty bestiest best best bestest best episode evah. There's some fun with time, Manheim steamroller experiments, Picard and Riker and Data see themselves outside the turbolift while Picard and Riker and Datra see themselves inside the turbolift where I'd swear the perspective and camera angles are really off because the trio outside the turbolift are now super small, at the end where the one Data that realizes he is the one for the correct time continuum emotes big-time... best of all, there's no engineering chief officer. Or maybe that's worst of all, which explains "Transport Chief Herbert" as the episode really needed a chief engineer to do the technobabble talk and the name "Herbert" would be ripe for the pickin'... Um... yeah... meh. 4/10
* Conspiracy: Tryla Scott beats James Kirk as being the youngest captain. The arc started in "Coming of Age" is concluded satisfactorily. Giant crabs that look pepto bismol pink and look like something that was taken from Riker's pants and put into an enlarging chamber (I think that became a Voyager episode, taking a microscopic critter and giving it a macrouniverse size and hilarity ensues) don't make for the most memorable enemies, even if they use human hosts - that part was cool, how they could infiltrate and spread as such. It's borderline cliche of "We are your friends, we seek peaceful coexistence" - one that the 1995 movie "Mars Attacks" would use to great effect - and yet it all works. 9/10
* The Neutral Zone: Along with the snake people from the earlier episode, we're treated yet again to superior 24th century people telling us how superior they are in a typically season 1 heavyhanded done. I love these fish out of water stories and how TNG is playing it absolutely straight, despite the heavyhandedness and how out of sync the alcoholic guy is, though the Enterprise people discussing how they got into their cryo-freeze and the sappy 20th century fad and the rest of it was hit or miss, it's still "charming". Having the first six actors who played Doctor Who be the progenitors for the female survivor was a nice in-joke as well (one of many over the years, and even DS9 refers to "Traken 2" in "For the Uniform"), sadly removed for the blu-ray and not even kept as a bonus feature (boo!) What's really cool is that Outbacksteakhouse or whatever that dude's name was -- who wandered onto the bridge during a red alert because the computer lets any old person wander throughout the ship and obliges when said stranger tells the computer where he wants to go -- pulls a Troi and cues Picard in as to what's going on. (Obviously what was going on is the Borg, but that wouldn't be revealed until Q-Who, a fun season 2 episode whose title alludes to Q's presence and personality (a comparatively chaotic version of the 7th Doctor Who, ha!)...) 7/10
Yeah, season 1 has a lot of great moments but, man, it's loaded with a lot of pure drek too.
