From Warp Cores to Q Shenanigans: What's Your Most Iconic TNG Memory

[whacks]

Let’s take a trip down memory lane. What’s that one moment, scene, or episode from Star Trek: The Next Generation that just sticks with you?
Whether it’s Picard’s inspiring speeches, Data trying to understand humanity, or Q causing absolute chaos—there’s so much to love about Trek.

For me, it's the two-part episode "The Best of Both Worlds," where Captain Picard is assimilated by the Borg and becomes Locutus. The tension and stakes were incredibly high, and it showcased the resilience and unity of the Enterprise crew. It's a storyline that still gives me chills!!

Let’s hear your favorite TNG moments!!

 

[HotRod]

Let's make sure history never forgets the name Enterprise.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Spock swimming in the whale tank.

 

[1001001]

Let’s take a trip down memory lane. What’s that one moment, scene, or episode from Star Trek: The Next Generation that just sticks with you?
Whether it’s Picard’s inspiring speeches, Data trying to understand humanity, or Q causing absolute chaos—there’s so much to love about Trek.

For me, it's the two-part episode "The Best of Both Worlds," where Captain Picard is assimilated by the Borg and becomes Locutus. The tension and stakes were incredibly high, and it showcased the resilience and unity of the Enterprise crew. It's a storyline that still gives me chills!!

Let’s hear your favorite TNG moments!!

I’m going to move this to the correct forum.

Please take some time to explore the board and see where things go.

Thanks

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Dang, I missed the title. Okay...TNG memory...drawing a blank here.

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

The Offspring -- Lal dying.

The Offspring was the first episode of any Trek I watched and the one that got me hooked after it was shown to me by my mum and stepdad. Despite me having no attachment to the series or characters, I cried for Lal's death, which surprised my mum and stpedad because, as previously stated, I had no attachment to the show or characters.

 

[DonIago]

I might have gone with, "I am...Locutus, of Borg..." but the OP covered that.

I still remember Picard stepping out of the shadows in the opening shot of "Encounter at Farpoint".

"Most iconic" is kind of a weird turn of phrase for me, but maybe Picard playing the flute at the end of "The Inner Light". I lost it as, in his own way, he mourned for the people of Kataan.

 

[CoveTom]

Cellular peptide cake... with mint frosting.

 

[Qonundrum]

Season 2 opener - the shot of the camera panning down from the outside of Ten Forward into it was pretty fantastic; one of the few times the TNG TV series tried showing a sense of scale, and here it's done well.

Another scene is when Q relocates himself and Dororhy Amanda atop the hull.

Locutus is surely a given. Even I, who - like so many - had guessed that his transformation would be the outcome as they weren't inviting him over to a picnic except the Borg is the collection of ants - was still jaw-dropped (in a good way!) over that reveal, that's how good it was.

The gruesome deaths of Riva's Chorus still sticks; it's oddly nice to see a weapon effect that is more than "zap zap vanish". The idea is conceptually nasty, and may have been an influence for Fajo's weapon that gets described then used in "The Most Toys".

"Datalore" is loaded with iconic moments as the evil twin goes about pummeling everyone. Talk about adding to the Lore...

The Borg Cube's first appearance is definitely iconic -- in a way it's a headscratcher because... it's a big cube. But the more you think about it, the more it makes sense and one is quickly believing the threat that it is. Again, the presentation and everyone playing it straight helped.

Conversely, for all its faults, "Descent" has some moments with the new ship design as well as named Borg being sufficiently vicious, letting the viewer think all they want of how much worse they would be. It's Hitchcockian.

Lastly, "Evolution" in season 3, has a terrific opening of the ship malfunctioning and being drawn into the Stellar event. Season 2 largely had its mojo going on and really is majorly underrated (despite the few clunkers that warp the perception), but the season 3 premiere was the icing on the cake and TNG more than found its own way.

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

Cellular peptide cake... with mint frosting.

Watched that episode for the first time with family in a different province. None of us even knew that TNG was even going to be on the old-school cable TV and the fact that it was this episode made it even weirder.

 

[Mojochi]

Picard telling the tale of Gilgamesh still moves me to this day

And Gilgamesh wept bitter tears, saying, "He who was my companion through adventure and hardships, is gone forever... "

 

[markoid the android]

This is maybe an odd choice but I was really young when TNG came out and I was absolutely fascinated by the Ferengi, the alien planet and the guardian in The Last Outpost. It was the strangeness of it all that I think was in large part really compelling for me and got my imagination going (season 1 was actually perfect for me).

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I've been struggling with this, but I can think of one moment that's stuck with me: Worf slicing through hologram Skeletor in The Emissary.

 

[Qonundrum]

The first time I saw the 1701-D warp core set -- it had a weird plastic look to it... but it was TV, 1987, it shouldn't look as grand as the TOS 80s movies, even if they borrowed the corridor sets. Plus, it grew on me...

Then came the TNG films; the reveal of the 1701-E warp core was pretty memorable, in being extremely underwhelming. Instead of something really snazzy, it's just more and bigger plastic that now has flashing red lights along with blue, and it still looked unabashedly like a bunch of light bulbs. Even Blake's 7's ORAC computer didn't look as plain. Then add in the easily-punctured viewports on tubes containing plasma matter. Anyone in high school physics knows that the states of matter are: Solid, liquid, gaseous, plasma. I mention this because there's a thrill in how plasma being the hottest form of ionized gas, possibly emitting ionized radiation too (whee!). It's the sort of thing you probably don't want leaking out of those rubber seals because now we need to be able to look at it from a window instead of having sensors determine plasma quality, and if the Borg improved on the engine and changed plasma by using other elements that gave it that lovely green glow because their systems are more efficient and can travel faster than any Federation ship, why change it all back?

 

[Gaith]

My memory of first seeing it is inexact, but Q showing Picard the start of life on Earth in "All Good Things" was pretty mind-blowing. I was pretty young when I first saw it, and I was pretty young when I started wondering whether the Bible stories I was hearing in church were true, or fairy tales like the Easter Bunny and Peter Pan. So, even in the context of sci-fi, which I understood was fiction, to see my hero captain witness the start of life on Earth, and to take it at face value - not even thinking of asking where the garden, naked people, and talking snake were - well, it made a kid think.

My opting out of monotheism was a process, not any one epiphany, and I don't know if that scene played an important role, or just blended into Trek's overall message (intentional or not) that "these awesome future science people don't believe ancient fairy tales, so why should you?" I'm sure I would have become an atheist even if the Enterprise crew diligently attended church services once an episode, but the fact that they didn't was... suggestive.

 

[DonIago]

The first time I saw the 1701-D warp core set -- it had a weird plastic look to it... but it was TV, 1987, it shouldn't look as grand as the TOS 80s movies, even if they borrowed the corridor sets. Plus, it grew on me...

Then came the TNG films; the reveal of the 1701-E warp core was pretty memorable, in being extremely underwhelming. Instead of something really snazzy, it's just more and bigger plastic that now has flashing red lights along with blue, and it still looked unabashedly like a bunch of light bulbs. Even Blake's 7's ORAC computer didn't look as plain. Then add in the easily-punctured viewports on tubes containing plasma matter. Anyone in high school physics knows that the states of matter are: Solid, liquid, gaseous, plasma. I mention this because there's a thrill in how plasma being the hottest form of ionized gas, possibly emitting ionized radiation too (whee!). It's the sort of thing you probably don't want leaking out of those rubber seals because now we need to be able to look at it from a window instead of having sensors determine plasma quality, and if the Borg improved on the engine and changed plasma by using other elements that gave it that lovely green glow because their systems are more efficient and can travel faster than any Federation ship, why change it all back?

The E-E's core never made much sense to me. As set-dressing for FC the design makes sense, but that's about it. Like, how do they service the dilithium crystals with that core? Do they keep a ladder around?

 

[Golden]

Picard looking ships certificate before decide.

 

[Golden]

Riker dramaticly set phaser to destroy and killed. Other one too is death of Yar was one of very saddest for me.

 

[Oddish]

"Mr. Worf... fire."

TO BE CONTINUED...

 

[Johnny Luck]

I loved Riker's reactions in the episode "Where Silence Has Lease". After he & Worf return from visiting the false starship Yamato, Riker storms onto the bridge demanding of Picard that we use all this technology to figure out a way to get the heck outta here! Then after realizing that Nagilum had indeed released them, Riker's response to the computer's inquiry of cancelling the ship's self-destruct sequence: " Yes, absolutely, I do indeed concur, wholeheartedly!"

Q's speeches/debates with Picard especially in the early episodes. Such great banter delivered with passion. The argument in Ten-Forward from "Q-Who" is quite remarkable as is the entire episode, one of my all time ST favorites.

There's also a scene from "Q-Who" that I wish I could get as a poster. It's the shot of Q sitting at the end of the observation room table, leaned back in the chair, feet on the table, his fingers steepled over his chest. The lighting, how the the shadows drape across him, Q looks quite menacing in that pose as he tells Picard of the dangers the Borg still represent.

And of course, as everyone should know, every serious horse rider should have their own saddle.