TNG:Condensed
based on the original blog post at http://blog.thorx.net/2011/01/tng-condensed/#more-218 which got more comments on it's fb version: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150370454285430
A friend recently noted he was lacking in cultural awareness of Star Trek:TNG, and so struck up a conversation about what eps should be watched.
And I got thinking about that. I watched all of TNG many years ago, and have long held the view that I wont watch it all again. Just not worth it, too many crap episodes. But there are many good episodes too, and so it solidified a thought I’d had for a while – to compile approximately a season worth of episodes from the 7 seasons produced, that would cover the best that TNG had to offer.
So beginning with the opening and closing episodes, it was pretty logical then to include the entire Q arc. Not a difficult call since Q is arguably the most entertaining recurring character. Q’s arc intersects with the most famous of TNG aliens, the Borg, so the entire Borg arc was then also an easy choice. Continuing in this style, the Borg arc intersects with Lore’s arc, and with one additional non-Lore episode, this arguably covers the main Data character arc. I then included the episodes with cameos from the original series… and a few bonus that are notable for being of high quality anyway, or just personal favourites.
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Season 1
- Encounter at Farpoint
- Introduction, Q
- Hide and Q
- Q
- Datalore
- Data / Lore
Season 2
- The Measure of a Man
- Data
- Q Who
- Q, Borg
Season 3
- The Survivors
- Personal favourite episode
- Deja Q
- Q
- Yesterday's Enterprise
- Guinan, Star Trek universe notability
- The Best of Both Worlds – Part I
- Borg
Season 4
- The Best of Both Worlds – Part II
- Borg
- Family
- Picard (and Worf) after Best of Both Worlds
- Brothers
- Data / Lore
- Qpid
- Q
Season 5
- Darmok
- Notably good episode, Picard
- Unification – Part I and II
- Spock
- Cause and Effect
- Sure, it's a technobabble anomaly-of-the-week, but it's as an example of that, this has clever tension building and story telling
- watching guideline: This episode is paces to tie in with the enforced ad breaks that broadcast television dictates. It's worth replicating those to a small degree when watching. Especially at the first (~48s in)
- I, Borg
- Borg
- The Inner Light
- Notably excellent episode, Picard
Season 6
- Relics
- Scotty
- True Q
- Q
- Chain of Command – Part I
- Picard
- Chain of Command – Part II
- Picard
- Tapestry
- Q, Picard
- Frame of Mind
- Riker
- Descent – Part I
- Borg, Lore
Season 7
- Descent – Part II
- Borg, Lore
- Lower Decks
- Interesting episode
- All Good Things (double length ep)
- Q, series conclusion
So what have I missed? The main arcs left uncovered would be Wesley Crusher character arc, Worf’s character/Klingon Empire story arc, and Romulan Empire arc. I've only touched briefly on Guinan and she was rather great, and I've got no Barcley story arc, which is also a shame - he was a fun character too. The above episode list is intended to be a base introduction to the 7 years of TNG - if you want to see more, I suggest following with these story and character arcs just mentioned - but I'm afraid you'll have to investigate yourself to find the episodes. (Star Trek is actually largely non-arc based, so I don't think watching episodes out of order is any great loss)
So this posts asks… are there any truly notable TNG episodes or arcs that would be worth including for the sake of a watchable TNG:condensed “season” of episodes?
Bonus
So here are some episodes which seem to be notably good and standalone, and so could be worth some followups without getting into the other arcs...
- The Drumhead (4x21)
- Time's Arrow (5x26 and 6x01)
- Data, Guinan, timetravel
- A fan-created Trek-dedicated wiki is great for further research: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation
