10 Star Trek Episodes That Completely Ignored Convention
9. Shades Of Gray
Star Trek: The Next Generation remains the only incarnation of the franchise to include a clip-show. Judging by how Shades Of Gray has been received over the years, that is a very, very good thing. To be fair, the second season of the series was interrupted by the Writers' Guild Strike, which meant they weren't able to write new scripts to finish out the year.
So, the producers felt they should do a clip-show, something the franchise had never resorted to in the past. Star Trek would not be the only show to attempt this, but a clip-show is a gamble. They rarely advance the arc, they're often simply lazy, and trying to work in a reason for their existence can be more problematic than the plot of the episodes themselves.
The episode tries to use a framing device to give a reason for the various clips on show, but none of it really works. In the worst sense, it takes strong scenes from better episodes and retroactively makes those episodes worse by connecting them to this misfire. It truly would have been better to end the season one episode early.