20 Most Cringeworthy Star Trek: The Next Generation Moments

7. Little Guinan And Ro From Rascals (1992)

Speaking of limited appeal... The Star Trek Animated Series did an episode in which the crew were de-aged and the Enterprise's first captain Robert April had to take over the ship. What, you forgot about Robert April? We think the writers of this episode forgot about all of it, or else they might have decided against going back to this particular well and poisoning it. There's a lot that's good about this episode, including David Birkin's turn as the young Picard, despite being a few years too old for the role, and his scenes with Riker. But there's so much more that's bad, and the cherry on top of this untasty sundae is the series of interactions between Ro and Guinan. Ro had no childhood, don'tcha know, and Guinan hasn't been a child in centuries, so the episode's central message of appreciating your childhood while you can is delivered to us via the scenes between these characters with all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the face. By the time both of them are jumping on the bed, we're cringing not only because of the silliness of it all but out of the fear that these two are going to fall off that ridiculously thin mattress and crack their heads open at any moment. This episode does get a +1 bonus for the final scene, though. In what appears to be an unscripted bit of business, Whoopi Goldberg, having just done a scene with the young Ro in which Ro is talking about drawing pictures, asks, "Did you draw this one?" to which the young actress responds, "I drew all of them!" Stupid old person.