Star Trek: The Next Generation

What happened to the uss bozeman's crew after TNG cause and effect? How, when, and where were they reeducated to be part of the 24th century?

7. Season 1

Wow! What a shock, the incredibly infamous first season, a season that newcomers to the franchise are often advised to avoid, is ranked last on this list. However, in it's defence I will say it's actually narrowly in dead last and I don't even consider it bad overall. The first half is borderline unwatchable at times. Stiff acting, stiff writing, largely boring visuals and tons of awful cringe that is sure to turn a newcomer away on the spot. The characters are mostly fairly bland and it was clear that both the cast and crew were still struggling to define them as people. There's a couple episodes that explore the intrigue and adventurous spirit of the show (Where No One Has Gone Before, Lonely Among Us) and a couple more that have good characterization (The Battle, Datalore) but the rest is pretty boring and baffling aside from Q. Luckily, after the season highlight (absolute banger!) that is 11001001, the season actually kinda picks up and delivers a very solid run of episodes. I honestly wouldn't call any of them bad overall, even though there's definitely still mediocrity. I think that while I wouldn't give any of these episodes a score higher than a 7 out of 10, there's some underrated gems. I think by the end of the season the show has a better sense of its characters, and its strengths in general. So overall the season's pretty mediocre, but there's stuff to be enjoyed.

6/10

6. Season 7

Honestly, this might as well be tied with Season 1 as my least favourite season because I constantly changed my mind about which one is worse, but I'll rank it above for now. Notably, it has two massive strengths that the first season doesn't. First, it has quite a few undeniable bangers. I'd argue that some of these highs are higher than those of Season 6. Gambit is a total banger, Parallels is easily one the best multiverse episodes in all of Star Trek, The Pegasus is fantastic, Lower Decks is straight up one of the best of the show, and despite some problems All Good Things is a very strong finale to the series. Second, the characters are much stronger and more defined at this point in the show. Sure Geordi is pretty lost at times and Troi is absurdly shafted in the finale; but the overall characterization is night and day compared to Season 1. Aside from the cast and handful of fantastic episodes though, this season is just a mess. Credit where credit's due; there's a lot of creativity in here. But most of it is just awful. Half of this season is actively bad, done in by baffling writing and world building. This season doesn't get enough credit for the way it just introduces new technobabble concepts that mess with the world every episode before forgetting they exists just as quickly. Obviously this is not new to Star Trek, but this season takes it to 11. Just so many terribly written episodes with baffling plotting and insane implications that are never addressed. Genesis is honestly a contender for all time dumbest Star Trek script, period (and even then it's not my least favourite of the season if only for Gates McFadden's directing). In my opinion, the lows of this season are mostly the lowest of the whole show. So while this season has some obvious highlights and because of the strength of the production and acting I don't think it's fair to say it's worse than Season 1, it's still got a lot of garbage that I probably won't ever rewatch if I can help it.

6/10

5. Season 6

Maybe this is a bit of a controversial ranking because I know this a very well liked season, but to me this is where the show really started coming loose to me. I just don't think a significant chunk of the episodes are any good. Starship Mine, The Chase, Aquiel and Suspicions are bottom tier episodes in my opinion and there's a ton of mediocre episodes. In general, while there are episodes I really like, I also don't think the best episodes of this season are as good as the best episodes of the previous or subsequent season. I don't know, I'm struggling a bit to write about it honestly. I certainly don't dislike it and had a good time watching it overall, but I'm not super wild about a lot of the individual episodes, and I think the character development is noticeably weaker than Season 5. Not bad, but a bit underwhelming to me.

6/10

4. Season 2

Maybe another hot take, but I really enjoy this season. Yes, it's very inconsistent. Yes, Shades of Grey is totally worthless. But in my opinion, this is where the show starts getting exciting. This season's highs are leagues above those of the first season. The Measure of a Man and Q Who are two all time classics and I also quite like The Schizoid Man, A Matter of Honour, Pen Pals and The Emissary. The rest of the episodes range from pretty good to pretty bad, which the one abomination being the mentioned Shades of Grey. The characterization of the main cast is also an incredible improvement. I'm not a big fan of Geordi honestly but I think he's best in this season and the following one. Michael Dorn's acting and writing significantly improves, even if he gets much better yet. Riker and Troi both have much better defined personalties, Data and Picard continue being the best and get tons of interesting things to do, and Q is great as ever. And here's another hot take; I like Polaski much more than Crusher and thinks she brings an interesting dynamic to the crew. So yes while the season is inconsistent overall and rarely achieves the highs of the following seasons, it's still a massive improvement on Season 1 and really sends this show forward in my opinion.

7/10

3. Season 5

I have slightly mixed feelings on this season simply because I think it could've been a bit better than it is. Coming off of the high of the previous two it definitely falls short a bit. There's quite a few great episodes, particularly at the bookends of the season, but not as many as the previous two. I think out of all the seasons, this one has the biggest portion of middle tier episodes. But it also might have the smallest portion of bad ones; only three episodes fall below a 6/10 to me; Cost of Living (which is mediocre but overhated) The Outcast and Imaginary Friend. The latter two are bad but not even the worst the show has to offer. So really this is just a mostly super solid line up of episodes, with tons of highlights and plenty of mediocrity in between. The character work in this season is very strong; Worf really shines in particular, and everyone else is well defined and well equipped to each story. I really like Ensign Ro and think her title episode is fantastic. I like how this season tips it's hand into more bizarre and high concept sci-fi (Power Play and The Next Phase in particular) without going absolutely crazy the way Season 7 did. So yes, overall this is very strong season with a ton to like, but it does still underwhelm a bit compared to the strongest seasons of the show which preceded it.

7/10

2. Season 4

I absolutely love this season, and well I think it's slightly weaker than it's predecessor, it's still banger in its own right. The only things that make it worse than Season 3 are the following; Geordi is much more inconsistently written and his much maligned romantic storyline plunges a potentially great episode, and it has only one 10/10 episode compared to Season 3's three. Otherwise it might be even more consistent than Season 3; half of the season is actively great. Too many good episodes to name them all. Tons of fantastic character development; Picard, Data and Worf are the obvious highlights but this is also the season I started to really love Riker and I think Troi's character crisis in The Loss is actually good, fight me. I haven't talked about the directing a lot so far, but it is tiiiight this season. Cliff Bole, Les Landeau and Jonathan Frakes all bring their A Game, as does Winrich Kolbe whenever he's around. This season really embraces more serialized aspects of the show and continues the Klingon saga brilliantly from the previous season, leading to some of the best episodes of the season; Reunion (the 10/10), The Mind's Eye and Redemption. Just an outright fantastic season and one of the best in all of Star Trek.

9/10

1. Season 3

I mean like, yeah. I think this one is almost universally considered the best season of TNG and it's not hard to see why. First of all, while the directing and production had already improved considerably from Season 1 to Season 2, the improvement here is next level. The uniforms no longer look like PJs, the makeup and hairstyling is leagues better, the lighting is much more dynamic, the scores are far more cinematic and hummable; the whole thing is just a magnificent improvement. But the production isn't the only massive improvement; this is also the best written season of the whole show. While it gets off to a weak start with Evolution, the season quickly kicks into gear from there and delivers banger after banger as the season goes along, from the epics of Yesterday's Enterprise and The Best of Both of Worlds, to the sociological Who Watches the Watchers, to the quietly dramatic and masterful The Defector and Sins of the Father, to the comedic riot of Deja Q. There's even more episodes worth listing. There's a slight mid stretch later in the season and Evolution, The Price and A Matter of Perspective are all pretty bad, but the best episodes of this season are so good that they are almost entirely made up for. The character development continues to improve and solidify after the second season (even with the Polaski-Crusher exchange). Overall, it's just a totally fantastic season, easily one of the best seasons in all of Star Trek, and my personal favourite of TNG.

9/10

Happy belated 84th birthday to Patrick Stewart, who is well-known for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

What do you think of the crystalline entity? Is it an interesting villain? What's your favorite, or least favorite thing about it? Are there other crystalline entities in the galaxy, or just the one from TNG?