What are the best seasons of Star Trek The Next Generation ?

I loved watching Star Trek TNG in it's original run. I was probably 10 or 11 years old when the show started.

I've since tried to watch a few random episodes as an adult, and most of them have been mediocre and not very engaging.

I understand the show took some time to build steam and that some seasons are considered by many fans (in hindsight) to be just plain bad.

So, which seasons are sure bets?

 

1 and 2 are awful. 3-6 are the best, with a few stinkers sprinkled in. 7 has its moments, and goes out with a bang.

As always, opinions vary.

 

End of discussion really. They really found their groove with Season 3, and mostly maintained it from there.

 

For me it's 3, 4 and 5. Most of 6 and half of 7 are great, but not all. 1 is largely awful, and 2 isn't much better. (When it was first aired, I watched "Encounter At Farpoint" and "The Naked Now" and promptly gave up, not returning until friends talked me back in during season four. It wasn't until much later that I went back and watched seasons 1, 2 and 3.

Or, to put it another way: if the uniforms have collars and no piping in the black areas, chances are you're watching one of the better episodes.

 

I was going to say 3, 4, and 5, and it looks like several of you have already beat me to it. 6 is all right, but that's when the series began to dip. The first season had a few decent episodes, and the second had a few more good ones, but season 3 really kicks the series into high gear.

 

I'm cool with seasons 3 thru to the end. There are moments in the first two seasons, but they didn't get their rhythm until season 3.

 

I'm voting 3 and 4.

My "TNG" experience is probably unusual. Though I saw all the "TNG" movies when they debuted, I'd never seen an actual episode of the series until the DVDs came out in 2002.

And then I watched all seven seasons in nine months!

So I had a real crash course in "TNG". No spreading all 180 episodes out across seven years for me!

I liked seasons 3-7, but I thought 3 and 4 worked best. 5-7 all were still good, but I think the quality dropped a wee bit over that span...

 

3 and 4 by far! Then 5, 6,7, 2, and 1 in that order.

 

I like season 2-5 best. I like season 2 where Dr. Crusher was off, presumably having an alien baby.... By season 2 the actors had figure out how to play their characters. Season 1 really looks awkward. I dislike about every other episode by seasons 6 and 7.

 

I agree with a couple of others here. They were at their peak with seasons 3 and 4. "Best of Both Worlds", especially part 1, was intensely brilliant.

 

Seasons 1&2 were definitely not well done - the characters and even the makeup were still in flux, not to mention that the FX were pretty poor IMO, but I still liked the story lines on several of the shows. By S3, most things were settled in and they switched head writers and Roddenberry stepped back a bit giving Berman more control.

I watched pretty faithfully for the first 3-4 seasons, but then my schedule changed and I could no longer watch it live. Taped some shows, but frequently forgot. I think I eventually saw them all (although I'm not positive). I'm one of the weirdos who thought the show got better when they gave us the back story on Worf, Sins of the Father being among my very favorite episode(s). I thought they got a bit carried away with the Borg though......

Basically, S3-5 were very good as everybody has already said.

 

I just don't understand why so many folks don't appreciate season 2. Dr. Pulaski helped develop Mr. Data's character. Q Who and Elementary Dear Data are two my fav' episodes of the entire series. Geordi emerged as an important character.

 

I remember when it debuted and I hated it and wanted it to fail. I was a TOS geek/purist. I was probably 16-17 when the first season started. Then friends were talking about how good it was so I decided to check it out. Started watching around season 3 and fell in love with the show. If you're skipping around on Episodes, Yesterday's Enterprise is excellent as is Relics



I think my personal favorite is Darmok. Just loved that episode! Season 5 I think.



Last summer my wife and I went back and watch the last few seasons of DS 9 that we missed when we didn't have cable or access to it on local TV. It was also not very good early on but I think it became an excellent SciFi show as time went on. The last few seasons of DS 9 are excellent as well.

Edit: Oh yeah, I loved this one too!


Chain of Command, if you haven't seen that one you need to check it out.

 

For me, seasons three, four, and five were the best. Personally, I believe there were a few excellent episodes in season two (especially "Elementary Dear Data") , and a few in seasons six and seven but overall I think the majority of the episodes were declining in quality.

 

That's one of the few episodes I remember from when it first aired.

 

But Dr. Pulaski herself was a horrible character, and all of the forced similarities to Dr. McCoy were complete groaners.

The episode w/ Riker's father? Pathetic. "The ultimate evolution of the martial arts" my fanny...!

 

I'm a Pulaski fan. She definitely made the most of her time aboard the ship.

 

Also "Reunion" from season 4. I never really cared for Worf until this episode. I always thought he was a wimp until I saw this:

 

Seasons 3-4-5 for me too, but I also have a soft spot for the 2-part series finale.

 

I thought that the series finale was awesome. One of the best series finales ever for any show! I like it better than any of the Next Gen movies.

 

As Lenny said in last week's episode of The Simpsons "Season 3 of anything is the best!"

 

But the good seasons still have bad episodes, and the bad seasons still have good episodes. A year ago my teenage son and I came up with out list of our top 40 episodes of the show. Here's what we came up with:

All Good Things
Chain of Command
Darmok
Measure of a Man
The Inner Light
The Offspring
Unification
Yesterday's Enterprise
Best of Both Worlds
Frame of Mind
The Defector
Time's Arrow
Preemptive Strike
Face of the Enemy
Redemption
Cause and Effect
Arsenal of Freedom
Parallels
Time Squared
Coming of Age
Remember Me
Sins of the Father
Conspiracy
Family
A Matter of Honor
Reunion
Timescape
Disaster
I, Borg
Ensign Ro
Night Terrors
The Next Phase
Second Chances
The Game
A Fistful of Datas
The Battle
Ship in a Bottle
Conundrum
Evolution
Relics

 

The second season is definitely better than the first, but it's still considerably lower than most of what follows.

A lot of praise for 3 here, and while it was immediately better than its predecessors, I think it it (the third season and the show itself) really only hit its stride about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the season.

Four, fix and six and the most consistently good seasons, though none are immune to clunkers,

Seven is downright schizophrenic. When it's good, it's good, but there are a couple of episodes that the word clunker doesn't cover. ''Sub Rosa' feel like a first season story, and in 'Emergence,' the Enterprise does crazy and has a baby.

 

Wow, thanks!

 

I also would have to say that they really got into their groove with season 3, very few duds in 3 or 4, a few more in 5 and 6 but still loads of excellent stuff to watch.

A few of my faves:
Deja Q (my fave of the Q episodes)
Best of Both Worlds (what can you say....the cliffhanger at the end of pt 1 was done superbly...when Picard/Locutus says "Number 1" it's just chilling)
Conspiracy (one of the best from the first 2 seasons...it ends with them finding the species having sent a homing signal....I'd have thought they might follow up on it at some point but never did)
The Inner Light (sure, some plot flaws, but still a very good storyline with some excellent work by Patrick Stewart)
A Matter of Time (I'm a bit of a sucker for the time travel stories and Matt (Max Headroom) Frewer played his role so well I couldn't help but enjoy it)
Time's Arrow (again, the time travel, and the episode answered a few questions of how certain relationships came to be i.e. Picard & Guinan)