Find solution
Which is the best Star Trek season?

Which season of Star Trek: The Next Generation is the best?

  • Answer:

    For me, TNG peaked around seasons 4 and 5.  I actually feel that the single best episode of the series had occurred the previous season, with Yesterday's Enterprise.  (And ironically, it was only effective due to a screechingly bad episode the previous year; it's very lameness was a key plot point).  That was the season that Ron Moore joined the writer's room, and Yesterday's Enterprise was one of his first efforts.  He remained there through seasons 4 and 5, at which point he largely left to go start Deep Space Nine, the most thoughtful (and most un-Trek-like) series of the franchise.  (He did end up writing some of the best episodes of the last seasons, including Pegasus, full of tense conflict.) He took with him writers like Peter Fields, who wrote the fifth season episode Inner Light.  Many people consider it the best of the series: it was far downplayed and very human, featuring a wonderfully human performance by Patrick Stewart.  He also took Ira Steven Behr, who helped on Yesterday's Enterprise, and wrote the slight-but-charming Qpid in the fourth season. The sixth season had a few good episodes, but by the end of it, I was done with the series.  A lot of people like the Data-centric episodes that bridge 5 to 6 and 6 to 7, "Time's Arrow" and "Descent", but the character never worked for me and always seemed cartoonish.  That's despite the best efforts of Brent Spiner to make the character work; the writers took his broad range and used it to sap the character of continuity. I watched season 7 only because I'd made it that far, and episodes like Genesis made me really wish I hadn't.  (OK, I admit I enjoyed watching Patrick Stewart going through the acting exercise of being a lemur, but he seemed to be the only one having any fun at all.) There were many howlers in seasons 4 and 5 as well, and great episodes sprinkled through the other seasons.  The bridge between the two, Ron Moore's Redemption, was complex and interesting.  If I were forced to pick, I'd say season 5 was a bit more mature than season 4, but only by a coin flip.

Joshua Engel at Quora Visit the source

Was this solution helpful to you?

Other answers

I think it's impossible to say. Many seasons have excellent episodes (personal favorites being "All Good Things", "The Inner Light", "Best of Both Worlds", "Yesterday's Enterprise"), but these same seasons have AWFUL episodes (too many to list).

David Minkin

They don't really divide that way. The show really hit its stride in the middle of season 3 and remained strong until the middle of season 6. If you really need a smaller grouping, I'd start with Yesterday’s Enterprise in season three and watch the next twenty episodes.

Robert Frost

It would be great of TNG was so consistent. Most fans agree that it finally figured out what it wanted to be as Roddenberry began to pull his hands off the series. He had a tight grip for the first season, continued producing but at a lower level in the second and finished being involved in the third (thereafter, he died within a year).It could be correlation, but Roddenberry was not a joy to work with. At any rate, the show really became “great”, as said, about Yesterday’s Enterprise (3:15, a general fan favorite, and mine). The season ended with what is widely considered one of (if not the) best Trek episodes, Best of Both Worlds.While it continued strong until the end, within its seventh season, the cracks began to show in the exhausted (and weird) writing and some really horrible episodes (nothing Shades of Gray, bad, but pretty bad). I’d say, setting All Good Things … aside, the last marvelous TNG episode was Parallels, though Pegasus was a good one (which was the very next episode).For me, Seasons 4 & 5 were the best. They contain the most episodes that I love. But to be honest, for me all of the seasons (unlike DS9, Season 1) are worthwhile. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate the stand alone episodes in the first season more.

Dan Holliday

This is a difficult question to answer. In pretty much the entire thing, there are great episodes mixed with bad ones.The first season is pretty poor, but I let them off since they were just finding their feet and still working out how to differentiate themselves from the original series. The episodes are fun in a campy kind of way. And I kinda like annoying Wesley. I don’t understand the hate that so many have for him. He is clearly a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue but he has a certain charm.The second season was only marginally better, held back by having the awful Dr. Pulaski. Urgh! However, season2 does contain what I consider to be one of the best episodes in all of TV, “The Measure of a Man”.Season three showed improvement and I have to agree with the others who say seasons 4 & 5 were the high spots. That’s when they really hit their stride and fully understood what they were doing with the characters.After that there were some strong episodes of very high quality writing and production values, but as Dan Holliday says, it did start feeling a bit tired.But they really went out blazing with the phenomenal final two-parter, “All Good Things”.

Dale Thomas

I would say middle of the 3rd up to about the end of the 6th with some great episodes in the 7th. The thing is TNG was cancelled after the 7th because they wanted it to become the movie franchise. It is another reason why they decided to destroy the Enterprise in Generation. The stories are more involving and they go deeper than the simple one episode story act. By the sixth season, there were more and more interference by the studio. The last episode of the season was supposed to see the Enterprise being destroyed in the same way it is in Generation. I have to admit it would have made a great cliffhanger. The studio wanted to play it safe so they didn’t. And then the cancellation came in and they had to rush toward an ending. Fortunately for them, they didn’t start an extremely complicated and long story arc like DS9 and VOY so they didn’t need to rush to find a believable way to finish the story. But seriously, anything between middle 3rd and and 6th is usually the best.

Yannick Caron

Any but the first. Some of the worst episodes of the series took place in that season, as the writers and actors were still finding their way. I am not fond of season 2 either, because I did not like Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur, on the other hand, is great).

Kelli Halliburton

Related Q & A:

Just Added Q & A:

Find solution

For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.

  • Got an issue and looking for advice?

  • Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.

  • Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.

Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.