"The Measure of a Man" tries hard, but it ultimately flops hard for me as well. The on/off switch is a giveaway, as much as the ultimate qualifier of sentience. I vaguely recall posting that bit before, but as much as the script is almost there and as much as the acting actually is, it just doesn't fully work for me. It didn't help that every subsequent story looking to this one as inspiration got increasingly and by-the-numbers dumber as the seasons went by. Doesn't help that everyone lets Data create new subroutines and code without anyone taking a look to make sure, never mind - if we're going to play with allegory in the same way the episode was trying to equate a machine build with a biological construct - that you or I don't write up our own prescriptions or have our own alchemy tables to directly alter our brain functions, or any other functions, with. That's yet another difference.
Seconding
@Sakonna with "Death Wish", the humanization of Q and the Continuum to eke out plotting possibilities is just feeble and contrived, and the dog mention is most apropos.
"The Inner Light" is just so stupid on so many levels. Yes it tugs at the emotional hamstrings with rubber stamp plot points, and in the right mood won me over briefly, but the story would have been more effective if the probe had more put into it than "Well, we are so egocentric that we will put this out into space, complete with mind probe thing that will force our memories into one and only one person, then it will deactivate and hand out a flute and we don't even know if the mind probe will cause irumotic syndrome or cancer or cavities or cooties or anything else."
"I, Borg" is said to be one of the greats. I appreciate the idea that it's trying not to be a copycat of TBOBW and to do something original and it's not a total failure (the Worf scenes, save for the dumb surgery, are by far the best), but it would have helped if it didn't go out of its way to mushify Beverly (who's often written as a nitwit in this season) as well as altering characters for the sake of the plot rather than having their changed attitudes feel authentic. Picard, maybe, but there's nothing there that convinced me that Guinan would have changed her mind, and given the relative lifespan and incidents, 3 years between "Q Who" where she's quite adamant that they are unstoppable and now... can't buy into it.
"Darmok" - this isn't a race where the universal translator turns a real alien race into mixed up metaphor, they're using actual English metaphors. No real explanation, just an hour of Picard's cool new coat plus a ton of jibber. "The Ensigns of Command" did a far better job of exploring communication and it kept it limited to one scene involving a cup of hot brown tea!!
"Brothers"
"Disaster" is another contrived piece where, typical of season 5, the letdown of real science continues to disappoint and grate. Ditto for forgetting how Geordi's VISOR could have warned them of a big issue a lot sooner. And Beverly (yup) tells us to fully inhale before depressurizing. It's the other way around and this show isn't Doctor Who so there's a proper standard for real science usage here. Geordi also says "sucked into space" when EVEN SEASON ONE CORRECTLY KNEW THE DIFFERENCE.
And that's in one of the poorest scribbled out storylines recycled from a far better one made 21 years earlier!!
What the heck happened in four years to drop the ball, apart from switching from trying to be sci-fi to "90210 But in Space"?
Seriously. Geordi, of all people, Chief Engineer, should know such as basic difference. Never mind Beverly, Chief Medical Officer. Never mind the other groupings and problems therein (broken ankle? No problem, Picard has built-in springs and can easily jump to the top of the turbolift he easily screwed the top off before, Data's half-baked voltage situation, Troi can't sense where the living people are, yet in 50% of the other episodes she can detect life from several planetary systems away, etc. I'm sure one of the injured guys is probably thinking "Dang stupid corridor, pickles, sex onions, sex, I'm in holodeck 4 near the cargo bay so why don't I crawl there and replicate up a bandage and burger, sex" and how Troi can't pick up any of that, I have no idea...)
Speaking of holodeck four and cargo bay and all, "The Perfect Mate" - another alleged great - is another recycled plot from TOS ("Elaan of Troyius") and fails miserably.
"The Offspring" is just a twist on "The Measure of a Man". Great acting, true, but it gets a bit ropey. I'd rate it higher than "Measure" in some ways, but it's coasting on the "hand her over to Starfleet" trope and, yup, on cue the admiral o' the week is suitably driven to sadness because that's the power of plot.
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