Star Trek: TNG Episodes, Ranked

Seven seasons, 178 episodes, and one flute.

Entries
10
Category
TV
Updated
  1. A small android painting easel in a laboratory with an unfinished painting and a child-sized chair.

    10. The Offspring

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1990

    Data builds a daughter, Lal, and Starfleet immediately wants custody. Jonathan Frakes's first time directing the show, from a spec script by René Echevarria. Patrick Stewart and Michael Dorn both named it among their favorites. Nobody makes it to the end composed.

  2. A white void containing only a single glowing mechanical heart and a broken barstool.

    09. Tapestry

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1993

    Picard dies, meets Q in a white void, and gets to undo the youthful bar fight that cost him his heart. He does, and wakes up a forgettable junior officer. Ronald D. Moore called it one of his best scripts. It is It's a Wonderful Life with a stabbing.

  3. Several identical playing card hands laid out in a row on a felt table, each one slightly fading like a repeated memory.

    08. Cause and Effect

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1992

    The cold open blows up the Enterprise, then the episode does it again, because the ship is in a time loop with a starship captained by Kelsey Grammer. Jonathan Frakes directed. Brannon Braga credited a pancake sugar rush for the idea. It shows.

  4. Poker chips and a fanned deck of cards on a starship table, an empty chair pulled out at the head.

    07. All Good Things...

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1994

    The finale bounces Picard among the pilot, the present and a vineyard future, with Q holding court. It drew a 17.4 Nielsen rating, the series record, and won a Hugo. It ends with Picard finally joining the poker game. Seven years to sit down.

  5. Two daggers stuck in the dirt beside a campfire on a rocky alien planet at night, a strange sky overhead.

    06. Darmok

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1991

    Picard is stranded on a planet with Paul Winfield's Captain Dathon, whose people speak only in references to their own myths. The universal translator is no help. It is a whole episode about failing to communicate, which made it the most quotable hour the show produced.

  6. Four glaring white lights mounted on a bare interrogation room wall, a single metal chair beneath them.

    05. Chain of Command

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1992

    Picard is captured and interrogated by David Warner's Gul Madred, who insists there are five lights when there are four. The writers consulted Amnesty International material on torture. Meanwhile, Captain Jellico rearranges the shifts upstairs. Both are hard to watch.

  7. A battered older starship emerging from a swirling purple rift in space, scorched hull glowing.

    04. Yesterday's Enterprise

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1990

    A time rift drops in the Enterprise-C, history flips into a Klingon war, and Tasha Yar is alive again. Five credited writers stitched two spec ideas together and shot it in a week. Only Guinan notices the universe is wrong, which tracks for a bartender.

  8. A pale gold android hand resting on a wooden courtroom table beside a gavel and a stack of legal folders.

    03. The Measure of a Man

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1989

    Starfleet decides Data is property and orders him dismantled, so Picard takes it to a hearing and Riker is forced to argue the other side. Written by former attorney Melinda Snodgrass as a spec script during the 1988 writers' strike. Her first TV credit. Some people peak early.

  9. A vast dark cube-shaped spaceship hanging in space, a bright energy beam lancing toward it from offscreen.

    02. The Best of Both Worlds

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1990

    The Borg assimilate Picard, Riker orders fire on the cube, and the screen says to be continued. Fans then waited from June to September. Michael Piller wrote it partly as a hedge against cast contract talks. Television has been ending seasons on cliffs ever since.

  10. A simple brass flute resting on a stone windowsill in a rustic village house, a red sun swelling in the sky outside.

    01. The Inner Light

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1992

    A probe gives Picard an entire life as Kamin, a scientist on a dying planet, in 25 minutes of ship time. It won the 1993 Hugo, the first TV winner since the original series. The flute prop sold at auction for $190,000. Grief has never been better merchandised.

Honorable mentions

  • A tiny spaceship dwarfed by an enormous dark cube in deep space, its tractor beam glowing green.

    Q Who

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1989

    Q flings the Enterprise across the galaxy to meet the Borg, a giant cube that does not negotiate. It introduced the franchise's best villain, won two Emmys for sound, and ran $50,000 over budget. The bill came due later in the season.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A medical bed with a tangle of wires running to a stack of old television monitors, a single thorny vine on the pillow.

    Shades of Gray

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1989

    Riker gets pricked by an alien thorn and lies on a bed remembering older, better episodes. A clip show made to pay for overspending, including Q Who. Its own co-writer Maurice Hurley called it terrible. It holds the lowest IMDb rating in Star Trek. Earned.

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