If the original Star Trek proved that space was the final frontier, it also suggested that maybe it was a frontier too far for mainstream American television. It got canceled after just three years. Apparently, a lot can change in two decades: When Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in 1987, it launched not only a series that would last for seven glorious seasons, but an era of television dominance for the franchise that would stretch out for decades to come.
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House of CardsThanks to the J.J. Abrams relaunch of the franchise, however, the future of Next Generation has been consigned to limbo to some extent. Now that the new Captain Kirk, Bones, and Spock are exciting audiences on the big screen, new fans might be going back and discovering the original Star Trek, but do they know there's so much more beyond that? It's possible there's an entire ... wait for it ... generation out there that's never really spent time watching what happens Next.
We're here to fix that. If you're one of those folks whose never experienced the joys of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), and—yes—even Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), now is the time to get familiar. Get ready to rock your very own "Shut up, Wesley" jokes—here's WIRED's binge-watching guide for Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Number of Seasons: 7 (178 episodes)
Time Requirements: If you watch a couple of episodes a day every day it'll take you just over three months. Sure, there are times where that might seem like a little bit too much, but Starfleet isn't for the weak-hearted.
Where to Get Your Fix: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes
Best Character to Follow: The answer to the question of which character you'll follow throughout the series' long run really depends on what you want from the show. Do you want the straightforward Star Trek experience? Then you should stick with Picard, the man in charge of this version of the Enterprise, or Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), playing the Spock role in these proceedings. But perhaps you're looking for something a little more off-base. In that case, Riker provides both the self-aware over-the-top acting and a refusal to take the show too seriously that made the original so appealing. You also might also want to follow Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), who provides a horrifyingly clear lesson of the ways in which gender equality really hasn't reached the fictional 24th century just yet.
For our money, though, the best characters to follow are the recurring guests that pop up throughout the show's run: Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney), before he ships off to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, for example, or Ensign Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes). Hell, even following omnipotent know-it-all Q (John de Lancie) has its charms. But if you're looking to follow one of the regular cast no matter what, then it really has to be Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn). Not because he's the show's most interesting character (he's not), but because you can always tell roughly where in the series' run you are based upon the length of his hair, which slowly grows over the course of the whole thing.
Seasons/Episodes You Can Skip:
The easiest, and shortest, way of putting this is "just avoid the first season altogether, and prepare to have a bumpy ride through the second, as well." The first year of The Next Generation is almost legendarily uneven, with more poor episodes than great ones, and some downright terrible ones thrown in for good measure. Things improve in the second year, but the show doesn't really hit a sustained run of good stuff until Season 3.
That said, if you're determined to watch as much of the show as possible, here are some episodes that you really will want to avoid.
Season 1: Episode 3, "Code of Honor" There's probably some way to describe this episode without using the phrase "a surprisingly racist piece of trash," but we're not going to waste time looking for it. Quite how nobody involved in this production realized they were making an episode wherein an all-black alien planet was depicted as tribal savages is baffling, but if only they had...
Season 1: Episode 8, "Justice" If ever there was an episode to make you convinced that the addition of a teenage Wil Wheaton to the cast was not the wisest of moves, this might be the one. Teenage wunderkind Wesley Crusher accidentally breaks the rules of an alien planet by crushing flowers and launches a diplomatic incident. Kids, amirite?
Season 1: Episode 14, "Angel One" Hey, here's a great idea: What if you tried to make a parable about the inhumanity of apartheid, but changed it from racism to sexism and then made the women the sexists? If your response is "that sounds like a terrible and potentially offensive idea," then congratulations: You're more farsighted than the people in charge of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Season 2: Episode 18, "Up The Long Ladder" The Next Generation record when it comes to comedy is, admittedly, more than a little spotty, but no comedic episode is worse than this one, which has to have been created as the result of a dare along the lines of "I bet you can't create an episode based on space stereotypes about Irish people, who end up being the punchline to a joke about their need to keep breeding." Yes, it really is as bad as that sounds, amazingly.
Season 2: Episode 22, "Shades of Gray" Almost definitely the least favorite episode of Next Generation aficionados, "Shades of Gray" commits a cardinal sin for any television program: It's essentially a clip episode. Worse yet, it's the clip show that finished off the show's second season. Based on the tackiness of this, it's impressive that this show returned for Season 3 at all, never mind doing so in such a strong manner creatively.
Seasons/Episodes You Can't Skip:
The strange truth about Star Trek: The Next Generation's appeal is that, once it hits its stride in the third season, it's remarkably consistent throughout the rest of the series. What that means in practice is that, once you reach the third season, you pretty much know what you're going to get for the next five years' worth of programming, for better or worse. That said, there are still some peaks to be found in there, like these episodes.
Season 3: Episode 26 and Season 4: Episode 1, "The Best of Both Worlds"/"The Best of Both Worlds Part II" The first of the show's big season-finale/season-opener two-parters, and easily the best, "The Best of Both Worlds" brought the crew of the Enterprise against an unstoppable foe and... watched as they lost. Or, at least, that's how things got started; the second half offers a far more satisfying climax that suggests resistance may not be entirely futile after all.
Season 4: Episode 5, "Remember Me" One of the things that later-era Next Generation did particularly well was do-over high-concept episodes: ones that seemed to be based around one big idea, only to slowly let on that something else is happening after all. "Remember Me," which opens with members of the crew disappearing one by one with no one remembering them except for Crusher, is one of the best.
Season 4: Episode 24, "The Mind's Eye" Sure, the idea of "What if one of our heroes got brainwashed by the bad guys?" sounds like it's something you've seen before, but this episode manages to play everything just right and create a surprisingly unsettling psychological drama in the process. Geordi, you always seemed so nice before...!
Season 5: Episode 2, "Darmok" Based around a suitably high-brow idea (communicating with aliens who can only speak through metaphor), what makes "Darmok" so engaging are the performances of Stewart and guest star Paul Winfield as the two stuck trying to bridge the language gap. For those who aren't into that kind of thing, there's always the first on-screen appearance of Ashley Judd, playing Wheaton's on-screen love interest. (Let that sink in. We'll wait.)
Season 5: Episode 24, "The Next Phase" For a character so often in the background of stories, La Forge certainly got some great spotlight episodes to show off his chops. In "The Next Phase," he gets to see his own funeral after an accident is believed to have killed some of the Enterprise crew—except that they're actually still alive, but invisible and intangible to everyone around them. (Yes, the use of "phase" in the title is a pun.)
Season 6: Episode 4, "Relics" A handful of faces from the original Star Trek showed up in this second series from the franchise, but none so effectively as James Doohan, playing Scotty as a man literally out of time and unsure about his place in the universe. Both funny and touching, this episode—written by Ron Moore, who'd go on to run Battlestar Galactica years later—is a charming celebration of Star Trek as a whole, and the differences between the original series and Next Generation at the same time.
Season 6: Episodes 10 and 11, "Chain of Command, Parts I & II" Picard gets tortured and interrogated behind enemy lines and his replacement decides that the Enterprise crew has been far too relaxed in its behavior until now. Next Generation might have been a serious show, but it was rarely a dark one—which makes this two-parter a welcome break from the norm and far more effective as a result.
Season 6: Episode 12, "Ship in a Bottle" Another fun episode that isn't all that it appears to be, "Ship in a Bottle" is probably the best of the series' Holodeck episodes, exploring the limits (and lack of limits, from a certain perspective) of the show's virtual reality playroom in a way that went beyond the "our characters play dress up" method it traditionally opted for. What is reality, anyway...?
Season 7: Episode 15, "Lower Decks" After six-and-a-half seasons of showing what the upper echelon of Enterprise staff gets up to, "Lower Deck" flipped things up and gave us an adventure as seen by the grunts: the ones who don't really know what's going on. For those looking for an episode in which everything is explained away easily and ends happily, this isn't going to do it for them, but if you've been wanting more of an idea of how the Enterprise works, then this really is a pretty good place to go.
Season 7: Episodes 25 and 26, "All Good Things..." The show’s final episode (a two-parter) is, impressively, one of its strongest, looking back at the earliest days of the series as well as the far-future of the characters while simultaneously retroactively imposing a structure and coherence on the last seven years that hadn't been there before. Part fan-service, part nostalgiafest and part solid episode, All Good Things..." let the show go out on top. It's something that, let's be honest, is a rarity for most shows that go on this long.
(For those who are continuity-conscious, you can't skip "Encounter at Farpoint" (Season 1, Episode 1) or "Skin of Evil" (Season 1, Episode 23) and "Q Who" (Season 2, Episode 16), either. Also, way back in 2012, WIRED readers picked their own favorite episodes, so check that list out as well.)
Why You Should Binge:
After a rough start, Star Trek: The Next Generation proved to be a worthy successor to the original show, eschewing Star Wars-esque action and escapades in favor of television that tried to be thought-provoking and entertaining in a more cerebral manner. In the process, it became a phenomenon that didn't just set the tone for the next three Star Trek shows, but also for a lot of science fiction that followed for the next decade or so. There's a lot to enjoy in this series, and enough of it to find yourself getting sucked into the minutiae in the best ways. Before too long, you too will find yourself believing that the only way to order tea is to demand "Earl Grey, hot," and be unable to rise from a chair without self-consciously tugging down your sweater.
Best Scene—"I Am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is Futile"
The first half of the "Best of Both Worlds" two-parter has a great cliffhanger that the show never quite lived up to ever again: The Captain of the ship has been kidnapped and turned into one of the emotionless enemy, and his second-in-command has given the order to fire! How could anything be the same again after this? (Spoilers: They find a way.)
The Takeaway:
Binge-watching a show that defined the childhood of so many nerds and ne'er-do-wells? Make it so.
If You liked Star Trek: The Next Generation You'll Love:
Both of the Next Generation spin-off shows, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager play with the core DNA of the show in different ways and come up with twists on the formula. Just remember that, while the show inspired a raft of sci-fi shows in the early '90s, none of them are worth your time or attention. No, not even SeaQuest DSV. Trust us on this.
