I have tried watching TNG and just can’t. I keep being told to bear it for like 3 seasons till it gets better, but I’m not gonna slog through entire seasons, hoping it improves
Honestly, don’t put up with the slog. Just skip the first 2 seasons, with the exception of a handful of episodes that are big on context or are just really, really good.
Encounter at Farpoint: probably worth watching as it’s the pilot and introduces Q.
S02E08 A Matter of Honor: a great introduction to the Klingon Empire in the 24th century.
S02E16 Q Who?: the episode that introduces the Borg.
S02E19 Measure of a Man: one of the best episodes not just of TNG, but in all of Trek.
Other than those, I’d suggest skipping seasons 1 and 2 entirely. The show gets much better and really does put out some of the best Star Trek has to offer. It’s not a serialised show at all so you can skip episodes with impunity. A few minor threads and general character growth happen, but they’re not significant and the episodes listed above give you enough context.
More importantly, if you’ve watched the great ones they give you a framework from which to really appreciate those minor threads and character growth from the less amazing episodes.
Many of us experienced star trek TNG like that anyway, because in the 90s you saw what was on when you had time to watch it. By the time we had the show on DVD or streaming and could watch it all the way through, we’d already seen and bonded with the characters and universe enough that it was worth it to watch all the episodes in order.
Incidentally, something similar to this is why I would never recommend The Inner Light as someone’s first Star Trek episode. It’s probably one of the best they’ve produced, but it’s a terrible introduction. It relies far too much on you having a pre-established understanding of and feelings about the character. It’s also structurally so different from normal Trek. Something like Measure of a Man feels much closer to normal Trek, and it contains enough in the episode itself to endear you to the characters even if you don’t already know them.
I recommend starting with season 4. Then if you end up liking it, loop back to seasons 1-3. This is old TV where each episode is made to stand on its own.
In that case, you could skip the first two seasons. Season 3 is really where it starts to get better. It’s where the phrase “grow its beard” came from.
Riker grows his beard in season 2. Season 2 might not be quite as strong as the show would go on to be, but it did bring us a handful of excellent episodes, including Q Who? and one of the best episodes of all Trek: Measure of a Man.
I’m currently getting into the Treks. Over the last year, I’ve slowly watched TOS twice, the animated series, and the first 6 movies. TNG was real hard to get into at first. I was coming off Undiscovered Country and had high hopes for TNG, but those first two seasons were a slog, especially in comparison to TOS which I loved immediately despite its age.
Third season is where it started to really find its voice. I’m up to the 5th season and I’m enjoying it. I think the biggest hiccups with the first couple seasons are the attempts to tie back to TOS and then Wesley. Once they reduced Wesley, stopped trying to force relationships within the ensemble, and stopped trying to be more of TOS but actually different from TOS, it really started to shine.
I recommend pushing through it. It’s the same advice given for TV shows like The Office and Parks & Rec. Those first couple seasons are harder to watch, but you are well-rewarded if you hang on for a bit longer.
I’d recommend the same with more modern stuff, because the ratio of good episodes to bad sure as hell hasn’t gotten better despite shorter seasons, but the death of episodic story telling makes it pretty hard to skip episodes.
I get this is a contrarian opinion and you are feeding off of downvotes, but one of the strengths of Star Trek is that the episodes and even seasons don’t matter at all. Watch the best ones, if you like them watch some more, if you don’t, then don’t. The shitty netflix idea of low-effort serialized content with cliffhangers every episode sucks and I’m so glad that Start Trek didn’t do that.
Data’s Day
The Drumhead,
Measure of a Man
Q Who?
Qpid (silly but good)
The First Duty
Relics (if you liked TOS.)
Tapestry.
Anyway that is enough. If you don’t like those, then by all means don’t watch anymore. But sitting down and watching the first season of TNG then declaring that it sucks, is doing yourself a disservice.
This only counts for TOS and TNG I think. DS9 certianly needs to be watched in order and Voyager benefits too. By Enterprise S3, it’s pretty much serialised.
The baseball episode is probably the best comedy/holodeck episode Trek have ever done so I disagree it should be skipped. All the Quark/Ferangi episodes set up the changes in Ferangi society we see by the end of the show and Roms ascention to Grand Naugus.
In 7 seasons of TNG they made about 3.5 really good seasons of TV, and yeah the first two seasons you’d be okay watching less than 6 episodes.
Hell even extremely serialized shows like Babylon 5, there are episodes that I skip on rewatch, especially in Season 1. The weird insectonazi episode (someone smuggles an artifact onto the station and it turns him into this weird super soldier who is concerned about being “PURE!” and they solve it by convincing him he’s not pure enough and he shoots himself) yeah skip that one. I also skip the religious parents kill their child because they think his soul leaked out during surgery episode too. Oh and that stupid boxing episode that shouldn’t have been made.
I totally get you about those episodes. They’re clunky and really really heavy handed. But I feel like the first time you watch through the show they drive home some important ideas really hard. Because of their cringeyness you just can’t get them out of your head, and they make sure you keep those ideas in your head as you watch.
B5 is obviously campy as hell and not as realistic as something like battlestar Galactica. I’ll always wonder if it could have been a timeless masterpiece if it had been made a few years later, but I also wonder if it would be as human and relatable if it was more real, less 90s idealistic. It’s definitely a show you have to view in the context of the time it was made.
Talking about the specific three episodes I mentioned of Babylon 5…
“PURE!” my memory of the episode boils down to my above description, plus I think that’s the one at the beginning where Dr. Franklin’s archeologist friend walks in and talks to him over his shoulder like he’s on a really shitty soap opera. It…might add some subtle notes to the B5 aroma but it’s not that important. When I re-watch the series, I skip it. Maybe, if trying to preserve the impact of Season 2 when the actual story gets going, I’d play this episode for someone going in blind to kinda trick them into thinking they’re watching hokey old adventure-a-week, But someone who knows generally where this is going, skip it for time.
Dumbass parents kill their healthy child…I guess it has some merit as a Star Trek TNG episode that TNG never filmed. Try mentally sliding Dr. Crusher into the role of Dr. Franklin in this episode. But…did this episode ever get a black and white flashback later on? I think you could safely remove it.
The boxing episode is just plain filler. Most of the cast isn’t in it; it’s about Geribaldi’s father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate, competing in the sacred alien underground bare knuckle match that’s racist against humans because of course, he draws a long fight against an alien that doesn’t matter, and the credits roll. I’d rather have watched Vir fold his laundry.
Infection:
We see a transformation of a human into a fighting machine capable of incredible destruction, and the human’s will is subverted. Meanwhile delenn and sinclair are both going to have their own radical transformations, and Sheridan is going to become that fighting machine. His will gets subverted as well ‘damn me for agreeing to it and damn you for asking’. We also see that this is a universe where humans are ripe for being taken advantage of by the enemy and their tech. It’s the 4th episode. We haven’t learned anything about earthgov or the technomages or anything at this point, but he’s giving us the context with which to understand what’s coming.
Believers:
The child is terminally ill. Franklin saves him, but it doesn’t take. Even with the best intentions and the necessary tech he still fails. You can win and still lose, which is basically the whole setup for crusade. There are many reasons aliens don’t ask outsiders for help. We see it again with the Marcab, but the difference is how delenn and Lennier choose to accept that there will be loss. This is the lens JMS wants us to see the narn and the centauri through. They are both dying races and how they accept it or not is extremely important for everyone.
TKO:
It’s about determination and acceptance, but it’s also about why we do things. This is the battle John goes through with the shadows and the vorlons. What Garibaldi’s friend is being asked is ‘what do you want’ and ‘who are you’. He starts out with the first question, and gets rebuffed. When he ultimately answers the second and things go better for him. But crucially, not because he obeys anything. It’s because he’s strong and independent and true to himself.
I get that you don’t need to rewatch them because you have the context. But I wonder if I wouldn’t have viewed the rest of the series the same way without these campy, heavy handed storied. He really slams home the message and I think that’s on purpose.
My vote goes to that episode in season 1 of TNG where they’re fighting black people on like a jungle gym.
Either that or just…all of Sub Rosa.
Ah yes the African planet. Real TOS reject episode vibes.
What’s hilarious is the same writer got away with the same episode in SG1s first season just with Asians rather than Black people.
Shut up Wesley!
I have tried watching TNG and just can’t. I keep being told to bear it for like 3 seasons till it gets better, but I’m not gonna slog through entire seasons, hoping it improves
Honestly, don’t put up with the slog. Just skip the first 2 seasons, with the exception of a handful of episodes that are big on context or are just really, really good.
Other than those, I’d suggest skipping seasons 1 and 2 entirely. The show gets much better and really does put out some of the best Star Trek has to offer. It’s not a serialised show at all so you can skip episodes with impunity. A few minor threads and general character growth happen, but they’re not significant and the episodes listed above give you enough context.
Measure of a Man is an incredible episode of TV, and it’s more relevant today than ever before.
If I could only save one Trek episode that would be it.
More importantly, if you’ve watched the great ones they give you a framework from which to really appreciate those minor threads and character growth from the less amazing episodes.
Many of us experienced star trek TNG like that anyway, because in the 90s you saw what was on when you had time to watch it. By the time we had the show on DVD or streaming and could watch it all the way through, we’d already seen and bonded with the characters and universe enough that it was worth it to watch all the episodes in order.
Incidentally, something similar to this is why I would never recommend The Inner Light as someone’s first Star Trek episode. It’s probably one of the best they’ve produced, but it’s a terrible introduction. It relies far too much on you having a pre-established understanding of and feelings about the character. It’s also structurally so different from normal Trek. Something like Measure of a Man feels much closer to normal Trek, and it contains enough in the episode itself to endear you to the characters even if you don’t already know them.
I recommend starting with season 4. Then if you end up liking it, loop back to seasons 1-3. This is old TV where each episode is made to stand on its own.
In that case, you could skip the first two seasons. Season 3 is really where it starts to get better. It’s where the phrase “grow its beard” came from.
Riker grows his beard in season 2. Season 2 might not be quite as strong as the show would go on to be, but it did bring us a handful of excellent episodes, including Q Who? and one of the best episodes of all Trek: Measure of a Man.
I’m currently getting into the Treks. Over the last year, I’ve slowly watched TOS twice, the animated series, and the first 6 movies. TNG was real hard to get into at first. I was coming off Undiscovered Country and had high hopes for TNG, but those first two seasons were a slog, especially in comparison to TOS which I loved immediately despite its age.
Third season is where it started to really find its voice. I’m up to the 5th season and I’m enjoying it. I think the biggest hiccups with the first couple seasons are the attempts to tie back to TOS and then Wesley. Once they reduced Wesley, stopped trying to force relationships within the ensemble, and stopped trying to be more of TOS but actually different from TOS, it really started to shine.
I recommend pushing through it. It’s the same advice given for TV shows like The Office and Parks & Rec. Those first couple seasons are harder to watch, but you are well-rewarded if you hang on for a bit longer.
With anything made when 20+ episode season was the norm, I’d recommend just searching for a skip list. I remember the /r/DaystromInstitute skip lists being pretty good: https://old.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/wiki/index#wiki_episode_guides
I’d recommend the same with more modern stuff, because the ratio of good episodes to bad sure as hell hasn’t gotten better despite shorter seasons, but the death of episodic story telling makes it pretty hard to skip episodes.
I get this is a contrarian opinion and you are feeding off of downvotes, but one of the strengths of Star Trek is that the episodes and even seasons don’t matter at all. Watch the best ones, if you like them watch some more, if you don’t, then don’t. The shitty netflix idea of low-effort serialized content with cliffhangers every episode sucks and I’m so glad that Start Trek didn’t do that.
Data’s Day The Drumhead, Measure of a Man Q Who? Qpid (silly but good) The First Duty Relics (if you liked TOS.) Tapestry.
Anyway that is enough. If you don’t like those, then by all means don’t watch anymore. But sitting down and watching the first season of TNG then declaring that it sucks, is doing yourself a disservice.
This only counts for TOS and TNG I think. DS9 certianly needs to be watched in order and Voyager benefits too. By Enterprise S3, it’s pretty much serialised.
There’s episodes of ds9 you can skip. The baseball episode, anything focused on quark, anything where the entire plot is just O’Brien torture porn
The baseball episode is probably the best comedy/holodeck episode Trek have ever done so I disagree it should be skipped. All the Quark/Ferangi episodes set up the changes in Ferangi society we see by the end of the show and Roms ascention to Grand Naugus.
In 7 seasons of TNG they made about 3.5 really good seasons of TV, and yeah the first two seasons you’d be okay watching less than 6 episodes.
Hell even extremely serialized shows like Babylon 5, there are episodes that I skip on rewatch, especially in Season 1. The weird insectonazi episode (someone smuggles an artifact onto the station and it turns him into this weird super soldier who is concerned about being “PURE!” and they solve it by convincing him he’s not pure enough and he shoots himself) yeah skip that one. I also skip the religious parents kill their child because they think his soul leaked out during surgery episode too. Oh and that stupid boxing episode that shouldn’t have been made.
I totally get you about those episodes. They’re clunky and really really heavy handed. But I feel like the first time you watch through the show they drive home some important ideas really hard. Because of their cringeyness you just can’t get them out of your head, and they make sure you keep those ideas in your head as you watch.
B5 is obviously campy as hell and not as realistic as something like battlestar Galactica. I’ll always wonder if it could have been a timeless masterpiece if it had been made a few years later, but I also wonder if it would be as human and relatable if it was more real, less 90s idealistic. It’s definitely a show you have to view in the context of the time it was made.
Talking about the specific three episodes I mentioned of Babylon 5…
You’re looking at them too literally.
Infection: We see a transformation of a human into a fighting machine capable of incredible destruction, and the human’s will is subverted. Meanwhile delenn and sinclair are both going to have their own radical transformations, and Sheridan is going to become that fighting machine. His will gets subverted as well ‘damn me for agreeing to it and damn you for asking’. We also see that this is a universe where humans are ripe for being taken advantage of by the enemy and their tech. It’s the 4th episode. We haven’t learned anything about earthgov or the technomages or anything at this point, but he’s giving us the context with which to understand what’s coming.
Believers: The child is terminally ill. Franklin saves him, but it doesn’t take. Even with the best intentions and the necessary tech he still fails. You can win and still lose, which is basically the whole setup for crusade. There are many reasons aliens don’t ask outsiders for help. We see it again with the Marcab, but the difference is how delenn and Lennier choose to accept that there will be loss. This is the lens JMS wants us to see the narn and the centauri through. They are both dying races and how they accept it or not is extremely important for everyone.
TKO: It’s about determination and acceptance, but it’s also about why we do things. This is the battle John goes through with the shadows and the vorlons. What Garibaldi’s friend is being asked is ‘what do you want’ and ‘who are you’. He starts out with the first question, and gets rebuffed. When he ultimately answers the second and things go better for him. But crucially, not because he obeys anything. It’s because he’s strong and independent and true to himself.
I get that you don’t need to rewatch them because you have the context. But I wonder if I wouldn’t have viewed the rest of the series the same way without these campy, heavy handed storied. He really slams home the message and I think that’s on purpose.