Which was the first decent episode of TNG?

[Vandervecken]

I am a bit iffy on the Naked Now, although it is fun. But Where No One Has Gone Before (s1, e6) is certainly good and really stands up well decades later I think, better than many later eps. So this one for sure if nothing in the first 5. Loved the effects they didn't mind spending on early on.

I think Encounter At Farpoint was decent. I enjoy a lot of the crappy episodes because of how dumb they are. In that respect I thought The Naked Now was decent because of how out of character everyone was. The first really good episode for me was Conspiracy.

I have to admit this one was the first to really blow me away. It was the whole secret captains' meeting at the beginning. That was so goooood....much else was in that ep but that meeting really set the big-story tone.

But "decent" is a somewhat lower bar to meet than being blown away.

 

[mos6507]

Naked Now should have been destroyed. It wasn't even about hidden traits coming to the surface, so nothing compelling happens. They trivialized the virus's effect by making it be like that of alcohol. So everyone gets a bit giddy and loopy and uninhibited. So what? No inner turmoil coming out. They might just as well have shown everybody drunk from a party.

Naked Now is infamous for the Data/Yar hookup. You can't remove it from canon without really chopping out a huge part of Data's arc.

 

[UnknownSample]

Naked Now is infamous for the Data/Yar hookup. You can't remove it from canon without really chopping out a huge part of Data's arc.

I don't see the continuity problem. The problems I have with TNN are the most awkward lines of dialogue ever, and everything in it seeming to be pointless filler. But then, without Mr. Nimoy's addition of that classic scene, Naked Time would also be fairly pointless, though better written and more entertaining.

 

[Isolinear]

I enjoyed Datalore, 11001001 and Symbiosis, but where good-TNG really started for me was 'The Neutral Zone'. Love that episode.

 

[Shalashaska]

The early seasons of TNG aren't even that bad when watching them for the first time, especially coming off of TOS (not a dig at TOS, I love both shows). They're at least better-paced and a little easier to swallow than the 60s television.

I was hooked from the very first episode, but that was more because of it being a newer, bigger and better-looking sequel to TOS. I enjoyed the first two seasons as I watched them for the first time, but If I go back and watch Encounter at Farpoint now, as I did before finishing the series with All Good Things recently, it's very hard to watch. The flaws stand out more, the 80s look to everything makes it look dated, and the whole look of the show is much cheaper than season 3 onwards.

I think the first episode that I can truly say was "good" would have to be Code of Honor...... just kidding. Where No One Has Gone Before is probably the first episode that I can still look back on and enjoy.

 

[JeffinOakland]

Encounter at Farpoint always gets bagged on. I always enjoyed it. I thought they introduced the characters and ship well. The FX were very good for 80s tv.

 

[Seven of Five]

I think Where No One Has Gone Before was the first one that was good. I enjoyed The Naked Now to some extent, but some of the dialogue is cringeworthy, and of course we have the first Wesley-saves-the-ship moment.

There are other episodes I thought were good such as 11001001, Coming of Age, Heart of Glory, The Arsenal of Freedom and Conspiracy.

 

[urbandefault]

TNG started getting good when the actors were allowed to act. Some of the early episodes seem like the cast were just walking through the script with the director doing the "acting." Maybe they were just more comfortable in their roles and with each other later, but that shouldn't be an issue for professionals.

That thought really just occurred to me as I was reading this thread, and is probably completely off the mark.

 

[DigificWriter]

Encounter at Farpoint. While not as good as the Pilot episodes for its 24th Century compatriot series Deep Space Nine and Voyager, Encounter is still a solid episode and introduction to the TNG characters and the show's basic premise, and is better than people give it credit for.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

Since we're just setting the threshold at "decent", The Naked Now. Never cared for Encounter at Fairpoint.

 

[Crazyewok]

I enjoyed Datalore, 11001001 and Symbiosis, but where good-TNG really started for me was 'The Neutral Zone'. Love that episode.

The problem with the neutral zone was what complete uncaring patronizing arse holes the crew were to those 20th century humans. Only descent person was data!

If thats Genes idea of 24th Century society, i tnink id rather stay in the 21st.

 

[locutus101]

The big goodbye. I am glad I didn't see the racist ep. first or I might have stopped watching for good.

 

[BlueStuff]

Where No One Has Gone Before for me. Some naff Wesley stroking aside, it was the first highly compelling story with a truly Trek concept and some quaint effects, even now. So, quite early on. Encounter at Farpoint was serviceable; Naked Now a lazy TOS retread; Code of Honor regrettable; The Last Outpost a laughable failure of an attempt to introduce a new antagonist.

 

[kirk55555]

"Encounter at Farpoint" was good, but not counting that I'd go with "Where No One has Gone Before" as the first decent regular episode.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

"Unnatural Selection"

 

[Balok's Decoy]

I watched it when I was a kid whenever I caught it, and those episodes were from just about every season at random, so I don't have a clear memory of that. However, this year I'm rewatching all of Star Trek, and coming straight off the heels of TOS and the first six movies, it took a while for TNG to click with me again. Certain episodes like "The Measure of a Man" were amazing and reminded me why I loved the show so much. But it wasn't until I hit the season 3 episode "The Defector," and there's that scene with Jarok and Picard in the ready room. That's when the show clicked. That episode began a string of several very good episodes, including The Hunted, The High Ground, and Deja Q. Since then I haven't felt a longing to go back and watch 2 or 3 episodes of TOS for every 1 episode of TNG.

 

[UnknownSample]

Well, that's the best NG season. It's a sort of very slow coasting downward toward mechanical time-filling after that...

 

[Balok's Decoy]

The Last Outpost a laughable failure of an attempt to introduce a new antagonist.

The Ferengi in TNG are unbearable and embarrassing. I thought it would get better as the show went on, but even in S5, they're intolerably annoying. I doubt I'll have anything good to say about them until I get to DS9.

 

[Cyke101]

I didn't get into the show until the second season because I disliked the show title. "The Next Generation" just seemed terribly derivative.

I'd been thinking the other day, how perhaps TNG would have failed (maybe not even greenlit) if they picked a title that was consistent with the naming conventions of the revival nostalgia wave of the 80s: "The New Star Trek".

It would be a distant memory like The New Leave it to Beaver or The New Gidget or The New Monkees. The vast majority of those revivals were pretty terrible.

 

[Nyotarules]

Good episode - Conspiracy, I can see that head exploding now.
Deep episode - Measure of a man