10 Most Hated Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes
These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise that we dare not embark on.
Star Trek the Next Generation is beloved by Trekkies all over the world and with good reason. It gave us an incredible cast of characters led by the morally upright Captain Jean Luc Picard, the iconic Data, and the charming William T. Riker. It contains a bevy of classic episodes showcasing Star Trek principles and humanity at its finest while expanding on an optimistic future that filled viewers with hope.
It’s thus easy to forget that throughout its seven-season run, there were a ton of clunkers, especially in those rough first 2 years.
Now, with an older Jean-Luc having returned to the past in the ongoing Picard season 2, let us also travel back to the rough early days of the USS Enterprise to see just how far we have come.
These adventures were so bad that casual viewers puzzled over why Star Trek had such a following while veteran fans wondered if Star Trek should have ended with the original series adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and Spock.
From misguided holodeck adventures, half-baked aliens, and meme-worthy entries, these ten Star Trek TNG adventures definitely made us never want to boldly go where no one had gone before.
10. Manhunt (Season 2, Episode 19)
While undergoing a Betazoid phase that quadruples her sex drive, Lwaxana Troi comes aboard the Enterprise and sets her sights on Captain Picard.
Aiming to be a light comedic episode, Manhunt has some promising setups like Jean Luc inviting Data to be a third wheel during his dinner with Lwaxana, but stretches the jokes and scenes to embarrassing lengths until all the humor has been drained away. For example, it's initially amusing to see Data drone on about various scientific theories, but it soon begins to feel like being trapped with a jokey uncle who won't stop bombarding you with puns. It’s also tough to be entertained at Picard’s clear discomfort at Ms. Troi's advances making us wish the awkwardness would just end.
This leads to a second-half set mostly on the holodeck where Picard decides to have some fun in a detective simulation while hiding from Lwaxana. It begins nicely with a fun bit about the scene being too violent for Picard when a gangster pulls a machine gun prompting the captain to reset the program to a milder setting. Yet this gag, including the entire setup with the secretary telling Jean Luc he has a client, gets redone three whole times. It’s like watching the opening minutes of a wrestling match on a loop. Adding a simple mystery for Picard to solve could have given Patrick Stewart some fun material to play with and made this entire sequence more entertaining. Instead, the entire holodeck sequence feels like a desperate attempt to pad out the running time.
Manhunt might have worked as a half hour comedy, but there just isn’t enough here for a whole hour ultimately making it a giant piece of filler.