2021 marks the 55th anniversary of Star Trek, thrilling millions of fans worldwide for over five decades as the franchise's various television series and films chronicle the United Federation and Starfleet exploring the wonders of the cosmos and defending it from otherworldly threats. One of the most celebrated series in the franchise is Star Trek: The Next Generation, which ran for seven seasons from 1987 to 1994 as Captain Jean-Luc Picard led the latest crew of the Enterprise to delve into the unknown.
With Star Trek: Picard Season 2 currently filming and Star Trek's extensive catalogue available to stream on Paramount+, here are all the best new-viewer-friendly episodes of The Next Generation for audiences looking for a great starting point, with the crew of the Enterprise-D.
Boasting the first Klingon bridge officer in Lieutenant Commander Worf, The Next Generation spent considerably more time delving into the nuances of Klingon culture and society throughout the series. An early glimpse into the Klingon Empire from the perspective of an outsider took place early on the show in the Season 2 episode "A Matter of Honor."
Commander William Riker participated in a temporary officer swap with a Klingon vessel, forced to prove himself among his new crew mates while immersing himself in their culture. The treaty between the Enterprise and Klingons would be tested over the course of the adventure as Riker experienced firsthand how much the Klingons value honor above all else.
The most unique member of the Enterprise crew is android officer Lieutenant Commander Data, a synthetic being serving as the ship's Chief Operations Officer. The Season 2 episode "Measure of a Man" had the Enterprise visited by Federation cyberneticist Bruce Maddox, who sought to dismantle and examine Data in order to build an entire line of androids based off his design.
The episode dealt directly with the moral and ethical implications of what constitutes being human and sentient, as Picard and Data debate with Starfleet whether Data is an individual or glorified Federation property without agency of his own. The episode would set the philosophical bar for the series moving forward and would have major implications on Data and cybernetic life in the franchise that continues to echo in Picard.
While Q is largely known for taking on a more playfully antagonistic role with the Enterprise and any other Federation vessels that happen to cross his path, the omnipotent trickster played an important role introducing Picard and the Enterprise to the worst villains they would ever know in the Season 2 episode "Q Who."
Annoyed by how seemingly overconfident Picard is, Q whisks the Enterprise deep into an uncharted part of the galaxy where they encounter the Borg Collective for the first time. While demonstrating a surprisingly helpful side to Q as he continued to judge humanity, the introduction of the Borg and their antagonistic dynamic with Starfleet would shape the franchise for years to follow, even after The Next Generation's eventual finale.
One of the best episodes that leads into the hard science fiction possibilities of Star Trek is the Season 3 episode "Yesterday's Enterprise," as the ship encounters a mysterious rift in time and space itself. Coming across the long-lost Enterprise-C from years past, the mission results in distortions to reality, causing visible shifts.
The Next Generation would bend the rules of time and deal with its crew caught in changing timelines on more than one occasion but "Yesterday's Enterprise" handles the subject matter, perhaps, the best while revealing more about the franchise's unseen history between the original run of films to the launch of The Next Generation. And with Whoopi Goldberg's Guinan joining the cast in Season 2, the episode provides an excellent showcase for her inclusion on the crew.
While Starfleet's conflict with the Borg was steadily building after their first contact in Season 2, things would come to a head in the two-part story "The Best of Both Worlds," closing out Season 3 on a cliffhanger that was resolved in the Season 4 premiere. As Riker deals with his private concerns over his career ambitions, Picard is captured by the Borg, with the Collective intended to rout Starfleet and assimilate the Federation.
"The Best of Both Worlds" served as the climax to Starfleet's war against the Borg Collective -- at least until the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact -- and would shake the Federation to its core. Similarly, Picard would be deeply traumatized by the ordeal he endured being temporarily assimilated by the Collective and used as a weapon against Starfleet; a trauma he never completely recovered from as seen in Picard.
While Starfleet and the Federation have prided themselves in evolving past humanity's baser instincts and propensity for violent squabbles, the Season 4 episode "The Drumhead" revealed how constant its officers needed to maintain their vigilance.
After an accident on the Enterprise, Starfleet investigator Admiral Norah Satie is dispatched to search for any signs of foul play, resulting in a witch hunt that implicates several crew members, including Picard himself. Staged like a courtroom drama, "The Drumhead" is a morality play that continues to resonate decades after its initial airing as it examines the high cost of freedom, even in the enlightened future.
The idea of a ship being caught in a temporal loop, with the crew alone remembering fragments of the past loop, is one that has shaped science fiction television for years, most recently on series like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Legends of Tomorrow. Decades earlier, The Next Generation popularized this trope in the Season 5 "Cause and Effect."
This Star Trek twist on the Groundhog Day premise -- a year before Groundhog Day's premiere -- had the Enterprise caught in a temporal loop with the time-displaced U.S.S. Bozeman, resulting in both ships' cyclical destruction. As the crew members began to develop a sense of deja vu as they continually lived out this explosive loop, it took the timely intervention of Data to save the day.
Not every episode of The Next Generation put the fate of the entire galaxy at stake; oftentimes, the adventures were much more personally intimate in scale. Picard would get a particularly emotional adventure in the Season 5 episode "The Inner Light," after being struck by an energy beam from a strange alien probe and awakening on the extinct planet of Kataan in the final days of its native civilization.
A beautifully understated episode that captures just how heartfelt and sentimental Star Trek can be amidst all the sci-fi action and philosophical posturing, "The Inner Light" remains one of the strongest episodes from the entire franchise and cleanly accessible standalone story.
While Doctor McCoy would appear in a cameo appearance for the series premiere and other familiar faces would appear sporadically throughout the series, The Next Generation largely forged its own path apart from its predecessor. One of the more memorable crossovers between the original series and The Next Generation occurred early in Season 6 with the episode "Relics."
The Enterprise discovered a crashed vessel on the surface of a Dyson Sphere, with the original series' famous Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott found alive, surviving by storing himself on the ship's transporter buffer for decades before being rescued. Scotty would learn just how much of a man-out-of-time he was while Geordi La Forge and the Enterprise would learn a few old tricks themselves from the innovative engineer.
Some of The Next Generation's best stories were told across two-part episodes, including the Season 6 story "Chain of Command." Picard is assigned to an undercover mission to learn more about the Cardassian Union, leading to his eventual capture and torture. In the meantime, Riker and the Enterprise crew are left to contend with replacement commanding officer Captain Edward Jellico, leading to a crisis of leadership on the ship.
"Chain of Command" shows how integral Picard is to the Enterprise crew and how Riker reacts to someone with a differing command style than he is normally accustomed to. The episode firmly establishes the Cardassians as a threat to the Federation, which is expanded upon significantly in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, while pushing Picard to his breaking point in a battle of wills with his torturer, culminating in a legendary showdown.
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