Star Trek The Next Generation: Every Season One Episode Ranked From Worst To Best

The Next Generation's first season was a massive milestone in Star Trek history. While the movie franchise was nearing its fifth outing, it was enjoying the resurgence that these films were bringing in terms of popularity. Gene Roddenberry approached Paramount with the idea for a new series and was given the green light.

Many episodes in the show's first two years vary in quality, which is normal for any new show. Some of the episodes on this list are a little less forgivable than others but, overall, season 1 holds up to a surprisingly high standard. While the cast and crew would settle more comfortably into their roles as the years went by, many of these first episodes had both the challenging and fun of introducing plot points that would pay off down the line.

The staff behind the scenes seem to have had an interesting year in terms of getting the show off the ground. Many examples of inter-office politics and drama bogged down some of the episodes, eventually costing two cast members their jobs by season's end. That the show would rise from the strife of year one to become one of the most beloved science fiction television series of all time stands to the passion that was poured into it by all involved.

This list breaks down all 25 episodes of the Next Generation's first season from worst to best in terms of quality, background information and overall impact. Let's begin with one of the worst episodes of the franchise overall...

Code of Honour is perhaps one of the more infamous episodes of the Next Generation's first season. As it came so early in the running order, there was not much in the way of good will built up by the audience, so to drop an episode that fails so badly so early could have resulted in dire outcomes for the rest of the series.

The episode just stinks of racism, regardless of the original intent by the writers. The Ligonians are depicted as a tribal people and are played by coloured actors down to the last extra. Tasha is forced into ritual combat with Yareena to secure a vaccine and the almighty Prime Directive prevents Picard from doing much to stop it.

However, Roddenberry's original rewrite of the script had the Enterprise firing at full power at the planet. Gene was a little more bloodthirsty than some give him credit!

The director Russ Mayberry left/was fired midway through production on the episode, being subsequently replaced by Les Landau. The cast remember the episode as 'truly sub-par' and with other, more strongly worded descriptions. Brent Spiner offered a glass half full take on the episode, saying that it was good to get some of the worst of the Next Generation out of the way early.

The novel Dark Mirror takes a different approach to the episode. When the mirror Enterprise D is faced with the Ligonians demnds, they just sterilise the southern continent. Not that genocide is ever a good thing but it sure would have made for a more engaging episode than this one.