Star Trek The Next Generation: Every Season One Episode Ranked From Worst To Best
18. When The Bough Breaks
This was one of the first 'nice' episodes in the Next Generation's run. Will Wheaton has received undue criticism for his portrayal of Wesley, yet this episode is a good example of, when used correctly, Wesley could be a compelling character.
When a group of children are stolen from the Enterprise by the people of Aldea, Picard and the rest do everything that they can to get them back. Meanwhile, Wesley leads a passive revolt by the children on the planet's surface to encourage their captors to let them go.
While the episode does not offer much in terms of long term plot points, it serves as an exploration of the families that are on board the Enterprise. As the Galaxy class ship was effectively a floating town in space, the writers had the opportunity to introduce these familial stories to show a bit more of shipboard life, outside the exploits of the main crew.
This episode the first written by Hannah Louise Shearer, who would stay with Star Trek on and off through until Deep Space Nine's first season. This was her favourite episode, particularly singling out Wheaton's performance. She comments that he managed to lead the group of children in a such a way that he got the best performances out of them. This was helped by the fact that two of the children, Tara and Mason, were played by his real life brother and sister, Amy and Jeremy.