The Least Disliked Episode 2025 - TNG Season 4

[BlueStuff]

Our addictive biyearly game of rapid elimination returns - now with more shows than ever. It's generally a lot of fun, providing a chance to mentally revisit those episodes you may not have thought about in a while. With that in mind, why not play again?

So, here's the game. The basic idea is your standard elimination game. I'll provide a list of the episodes for each season and you need to eliminate your least favourite or the one you deem the 'worst.' Please provide an EXPLANATION for why you are eliminating your choice and be sure to copy and paste the list with your choice removed. Finally, leave at least 2 eliminations by other posters before you eliminate another episode.

No tactical voting! You cannot remove an episode just because you feel it would threaten your preferred episode's chance to win. Pretty simple. Enjoy!

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Hall of Champions
2011 - The Best of Both Worlds (I)
2013 - The Measure of a Man
2015 - All Good Things…
2017 - The Best of Both Worlds (I)
2019 - Yesterday’s Enterprise
2021 - Q Who
2023 - Q Who
2025 -

Season 4
The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Suddenly Human
Remember Me
Legacy
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
The Loss
Data's Day
The Wounded
Devil's Due
Clues
First Contact
Galaxy's Child
Night Terrors
Identity Crisis
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
Half a Life
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Brennyren]

"The Loss" is one of my least favorite episodes of TNG, period. Troi was exceptionally whiny and unpleasant, completely defeating any desire one might have to feel bad for her. You're right, Deanna, life sucks, you suck, you should leave already. The airlock's over there.

The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Suddenly Human
Remember Me
Legacy
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Devil's Due
Clues
First Contact
Galaxy's Child
Night Terrors
Identity Crisis
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
Half a Life
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Qonundrum]

Two episodes easily come across as the stinkeriest ever, but after finding a couple of clips, one of them had a bit more going for it. So the one that follows is just... not my cup of tea derivative trash that's surprisingly unbecoming of season 4, yet is a harbinger of what TNG will become.

The title reminds me of a popular salad mix packet circa 1990:

Suddenly Human

♪ Jono was not a bullfrog, nor a good friend of Troi. ♫ (With apologies to "Jeremiah is a Bullfrog"...)

I can dig some of the ideas in this conceptually, but the presentation is just limp water dripping off a plate that somebody dropped in a puddle because they were bored and felt littering was cool. Not to mention that Jono is not a patch on Nomad, nor are the Talarians a patch on Klingons! Even Jono's dinner knife there looks awfully Klingon proppy-like...

Especially as it's yet another take on the "kidnapped human relates to the captor" shtick and as another frickin' plot crutch as well, this one is an utter zero. Previous episodes had facets of that trope, but this one's just puttering on fumes. Imagine if the rest of the season started in variations of this rut, guh'k...

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Wow. Even the Ferengi from season 1 were better acted and they spouted some of the same jibber. On the plus side, Jono wasn't taken in by Ferengi so it's nice to see more universe-building. Then again, some universe-leaning that other season 4 episodes did it far more refreshingly than this...

Worse, it's melded with Teen Wolf and other tales of lycanthropy. I'm sure one of the clips on this episode on some video clip site actually shows it in all its lamentable inglory, but I'd much rather look up rewatch "Heart of Glory" with the far more effective Klingon howl that warns of an incoming soul. In fact, here it is:

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Far better story, on every level...

If I find a clip of Jono and his pals howlin' like real warriors, I'll edit this post as it's got to be watched firsthand to be disbelieved. If nothing else, there's this:

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(Woohoo, get the soundproof headphones off by 1:05! Or maybe on, it's pretty awful...)

Deffo a D- episode for sure...

Even the name, Talarian, is a hop skip and jump from the exponentially more interesting Tarellians (from "Haven") where their backstory was far more fresh, original, and intriguing than yet another take on the Locutus syndrome that early season 4 simply wallowed in. Whine whine whine whine whine!

And now, it's time for a musical:

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It's probably the best bit in the episode, though it's still nothing as good as late-70s postpunk, like this:

WC3 - Poupée be bop

WC3 / A3 dans les WC à l'émission de TV Studio 3 en 1981http://a3dansleswc.com/

www.youtube.com

P.S. I waited 30 minutes before typing, then kept refining and clip searching.

P.P.S. The other craptacular episode was "The Loss", though it did introduce a cool spatial phenomenon.

P.P.P.S. Now get Jono and Troi in the same room to belch out loud howls together. Can two wrongs make a right? Answer in spoiler below:

Spoiler

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

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What's left:
The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Remember Me
Legacy
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Devil's Due
Clues
First Contact
Galaxy's Child
Night Terrors
Identity Crisis
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
Half a Life
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Farscape One]

Season 4 of TNG... quite probably their best season. Hardly any duds here. Among the best seasons in the franchise. A lot of my eliminations will likely be down to a matter of which I simply like slightly less than the others.


I'll take out "Galaxy's Child" first, mainly because Leah started off too aggressive about how Geordi 'fouled up her engines' and was pretty negative for a lot of the episode.


The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Remember Me
Legacy
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Devil's Due
Clues
First Contact
Night Terrors
Identity Crisis
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
Half a Life
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Seven of Five]

Devil's Due is a very weak episode.

The sham Ardra is a part of is just a boring way to go about it.

The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Remember Me
Legacy
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
First Contact
Night Terrors
Identity Crisis
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
Half a Life
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Victoria]

I found "Legacy" a dull episode. Going to Yar's planet of origin made me expect some kind of filling-in of her background. What we seemed to get a generalised "dystopian planet" episode with added "previously unknown relative"...Now,where have I heard that one before?

The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
First Contact
Night Terrors
Identity Crisis
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
Half a Life
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Qonundrum]

I found "Legacy" a dull episode. Going to Yar's planet of origin made me expect some kind of filling-in of her background. What we seemed to get a generalised "dystopian planet" episode with added "previously unknown relative"...Now,where have I heard that one before?

"Generalised" is too right.

I used to really like this one because of the action, after many episodes of theme-variation draaaaama for one of the main characters, only Yar's home planet isn't as terrifying as Yar made it out to be and probably because of 90s censors not being able to go too far. The bit from WNOHGB does a far better job, partly by keeping it minimal and any detail left unexplored on screen, leaving the viewer to think into it.

But rewatches? It's cornier than the canned vegetable section at the market.

If they hadn't the first time and they didn't, the reuse and (very slight) redress of Borg corridor sets just wasn't helping matters as they'd pull the audience right out of the story for their too-iconic nature. Anyone flipping channels and seeing those would immediately think "Borg so soon?!" and then be quite disappointed.

Ironically, squeezing in Ishara feels the least contrived of every main cast character regarding the magical mystery relative out of the blue, and the one time I bought into any of Picard's alleged kids was still a stretch. Which isn't saying much, but with Tasha killed early on, she never had a chance to lament on her sister, parents, Uncle Arthur, etc. Unlike Spock and having a little too much development in TOS (and TAS but that episode doesn't count, apparently), so Sybok and Michael and Greg and Peter and Bobby and Marcia and Jan and Cindy and Cousin Oliver and everyone else related to Spock should.

Also, it's amazing how shoulder pards in 1990 didn't double as personal shield generators or solar panels or something.

 

[Oddish]

No hesitation. "Half a Life" is, IMO, Trek's worst episode, because it treats planetary genocide in a sympathetic light.

The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
First Contact
Night Terrors
Identity Crisis
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Qonundrum]

Whew, being lost in space and with a limited-powered transmitter, it's sheer luck that a group of Pakleds steered their way to expand the Lore...

Brothers

I mean, outer space and all 360 degrees x360 degrees isn't as large as the map showing your home city now is it? Space is big, any signals emanating from Lore would be too small, especially if near a planet relatively speaking...

I recall posting something about how dumb the parents were to leave kids unsupervised in an alien mall where the trees that grow free fruit on them in said mall might not be safe for every species to eat. Plus, since these trees freely have parasites that are dangerous to humans crawling on them, or lack of janitorial services or who the heck knows, said trees were crawling with parasites that would be deemed harmf-- what the flying fig is any frigging human doing in this freakin' mall where there are no signs warning humans in front of the dang tree that it's got critters and poison using the tree as their host?! Sheesh, this is just the first 3 minutes of story for goodness' sake and it's wretched. Oh yeah, it wasn't the parents who were off to that motel in Encino, Riker said he'd take care of them -- and Riker almost did. (No worries, Riker almost takes care of the whole of Starfleet and their Academy next season, too!!) I know latch key kids were a thing back then, but this plotting just exemplifies new levels of stupidity in a species that's been exploring and making friends with enough species on planets to know dang well that the frickin' trees are not good for humans to touch or eat fruit off of.

Then we get to the soap opera with Brent Spiner carrying no less than three roles. Technically proficiency makes most scenes seamless, right down to the massive lipsync password scene, and Brent manages to carry it perfectly, but... eh... why? Is sweeps week encroaching too soon already?

And it's all about an emotions chip for Data, aren't we lucky someone found Data and activated him after the Crystalline Entity stopped by?

Lore was constructed first, but disassembled and source code recompiled without the angsty bits, with microchip containing the subroutine worked around, like the Nintendo 10NES chip whose bypass allowed Tengen and other companies to make unauthorized games. Never mind "Datalore" where anecdotal evidence suggests they've got all the same fully functional bits, save for this bit of programming difference. No worries, the next time we see Lore, nothing's made of any of it since Lore wasn't any different in behavior and Data palmed it before running off. Which also seemed pointless since Lore was thrusting emotions into Data for Troi to somehow figure out that this walking circuit-driven construct has actual emotions usually limited to biological/chemical creatures. Ugh.

It's all style over substance.

What's left:
The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
First Contact
Night Terrors
Identity Crisis
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Farscape One]

I'm going to eliminate one on my wife's behalf... "First Contact".

She found the episode rather dull because we never see the people again and it didn't focus on our crew much.

(I personally love the episode because it focused so much on the Malcorians, but I know she would take this one out before almost any other episode, despite her opinion of it improving slightly on a rewatch. It's definitely one of the multiple episodes we complerely disagree about.)



The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
Night Terrors
Identity Crisis
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Seven of Five]

Identity Crisis is a poor take on the fun-with-DNA Trek Trope.

Genesis from S7 was better.

The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
Night Terrors
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Host
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Qonundrum]

Some are bland and can mostly be spared, but speaking of parasites...

The Host

The big drama shuttle scene where the shuttle is about to break up but they can't beam out because of the Trill revelation followed by Riker shuttling back as if there's no problem, all in the same scene, is so pitiful that that alone makes it near the bottom, no matter how well any other aspect of the episode is.

RIKER: And both backup stabilisers, I'm losing control!​

PICARD [OC]: We're bringing you in.​

(the tractor beam grabs them and the other ship veers off)​

RIKER: Captain, the shuttle hull has been weakened. We're breaking up. You can't tow us. You'd better beam us directly on board.​

ODAN: No, don't do it!!​

RIKER: I can't stabilise the shuttle!​

ODAN: If you transport me, it will kill me. Please!!!!​

PICARD [OC]: Number One we're ready to beam you aboard.​

RIKER: Belay that order, Captain. I'll bring her in manually​

Seriously. That's the scene and it plays on screen far worse as it feels like all the big drama and urgency was a load of old tosh. And it is.

I also find it hard to believe that Beverly doesn't mind banging every body that Odan wiggles into, agreeing with the notion that she's really going at it with Odan... All except for one, go fig, but there's four minutes left to the episode so now they need to wiggle their way out of the episode before the end credits roll.

That said, the new Trill species is not uninteresting (DS9 improves on the Trill species very well indeed), and some good acting helps elevate some cringe at times, but some of the script's moments are so wretchedly awful that this almost deserves to be the worst of the list. (Hmmm, was the rot already setting into this show in season 4 and not 5??)

But, yeah, some bland ones I thought of removing aren't as in-the-same-scene inconsistent as the one I'd just mentioned.


What's left:
The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
Night Terrors
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Mind's Eye
In Theory
Redemption (I)

 

[Victoria]

In theory, I quite like the Data/D'Sora "romance" of "In Theory". It's the b plot that seems odd. Whatever the crisis-of-the-week was, it seemed tacked on and uninteresting.


The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
Night Terrors
The Nth Degree
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Mind's Eye
Redemption (I)

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

The problem I had with "The Nth Degree" is that you can summarise the entire plot in one sentence. There isn't a whole lot of substance to it or anything to hold your attention on a rewatch, at least for me.

The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Brothers
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Final Mission
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
Night Terrors
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Mind's Eye
Redemption (I)

 

[Qonundrum]

I sorta really like all that remain (plus one or two of those preceding), but the least effective of the bunch is this:

Final Mission

It's just boring. I can't even dislike it and I dislike that!!

There's Wesley, a desert, nice cinematography that ruins the story from being a nice nap into 40 minutes of lesser boredom, a line about dirty uniforms, and magic shields for water that tries to be evocative of TOS but doesn't quite work.

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"Brothers" had been removed above but returned later to the list (overlapping postings, hehe), hence the corrected list below.


What's left:
The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
Night Terrors
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Mind's Eye
Redemption (I)

 

[Brennyren]

"Night Terrors" had the worst special effects on Trek since the 1960s. You did not believe a woman could fly! Normally, I wouldn't ding an episode for something technical, but the shots of Troi flying were so godawful they're the only thing I remember about the episode.

The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Mind's Eye
Redemption (I)

 

[Takeru]

Qpid, it feels like they wanted to use Q but didn't have an idea what to do, so they repurposed a holodeck malfunction idea.


The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Data's Day
The Wounded
Clues
The Drumhead
The Mind's Eye
Redemption (I)

 

[Qonundrum]

Interesting ideas, but being worthy of a second chance or not, the moment they'd end up at a starbase or doing a captain's log, they'd see the datestamp would still be screwed up, and they'd hopefully realize soon enough when the disparity occurred thanks to the same amount of

Clues

and then they're return and the Paxons, whose leader is named "Bill", would get upset again.

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(The heck are they all lookin' at in the thumbnail?!)

Plus, any chance to hear Troi as a baritone - oh yeah! Then again, all that green gas wafting up out of her just reminds me to never eat too much brussels sprouts or broccoli in one sitting - the result would render everyone in the room unconscious too...


What's left:
The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Data's Day
The Wounded
Qpid
The Drumhead
The Mind's Eye
Redemption (I)

 

[Detached Nacelle]

Strong entries left naturally. I suppose I will eliminate The Mind's Eye from the running, it has a couple of pacing issues and is a bit inconsequential compared to the others. Now would have been a good time to decide the visor was a security risk but no let's keep it around and let it get hijacked again which gets the Enterprise destroyed. And far as I remember Geordi never really brings this up again it sort of just ends like there's no lingering psychological effects no journey after this episode in relation directly to Geordi.

The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Remember Me
Reunion
Future Imperfect
Data's Day
The Wounded
The Drumhead
Redemption (I)

 

[Oddish]

Some very strong episodes. I think that "Future Imperfect" is probably the weakest of these, though not by much.

The Best of Both Worlds (II)
Family
Remember Me
Reunion
Data's Day
The Wounded
The Drumhead
Redemption (I)