4. Encounter at Farpoint
Alright, now let's be fair, everyone who watches TNG enough to read this article has probably seen the pilot episode so it's not necessarily overlooked in significance. Quality? Well, yeah. The newly commissioned
Enterprise is intercepted by Q in their first encounter and are told to return to Earth or face demise; Captain Picard challenges Q to a test to show that humans are ready for space travel, a challenge which Q happily accepts in the form of a sentient space station on Deneb IV called Farpoint Station, challenging the
Enterprise to discover its true nature. The cast is very outspoken about how amazed they are that the show even got picked up whenever they watch the pilot. Marina Sirtis has said she is still amazed to this day that she wasn't fired for her performance in the pilot; Michael Dorn has said that because it was just another acting job at the time, everyone was "so serious." They're both right, and it was almost funny to watch because their characters are virtually nothing like what we see in later years once they got their feet wet in the franchise.