Ranking the 11 Worst Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes, From Boring to Unforgivable

The Next Generation is my favorite series of all time, and it gave us some of the greatest episodes in Star Trek history. These are not those episodes. These are the ones that were boring, embarrassing, offensive, or involve Dr. Crusher becoming romantically involved with a Scottish space ghost who already hooked up with her grandmother. Here are my 11 worst episodes of TNG, ranked from disappointing to completely unforgivable.

11. Cost of Living turns a parasite infestation into a mud bath with a gong

Cost of Living feels like three unrelated episodes fighting for control of the Enterprise. Lwaxana Troy is preparing to marry a man she barely knows, Alexander is having discipline issues, and the two of them spend time inside one of the strangest holiday programs in the series while parasites slowly eat the ship. Majel Barrett always committed completely to Lwaxana Troy, and some people enjoy this one, but the parasite plot sounds urgent and then mostly disappears.

Most of the runtime is Alexander taking a mud bath with Lwaxana while somebody wearing a giant face plays a gong. There is a meaningful idea buried in here about living for yourself instead of meeting everybody else's expectations. Unfortunately, it is buried underneath 45 minutes of aggressively annoying nonsense.

10. The Child never addresses how horrifying it is that Troy is impregnated in her sleep

Season 2 opened by mysteriously impregnating Deanna Troy with an alien life form while she was sleeping, and the episode never seriously addresses how horrifying that actually is. Troy becomes pregnant, gives birth within days, and raises a child who rapidly ages before voluntarily dying. He then explains he was an alien who wanted to understand humanity, so he implanted himself inside her to experience life as her son.

Nobody gets upset. Nobody gets angry. Nobody holds him accountable. The Enterprise crew basically responds like this was an unusual scheduling inconvenience. Deanna is given almost no control over what happens to her own body, and the episode treats a deeply disturbing violation like a sentimental science experiment that has aged terribly.

9. Justice gives Wesley Crusher the death penalty for stepping on some flowers

I actually just watched this one again the other day. The Enterprise visits a supposed paradise populated by extremely healthy people wearing approximately eleven square inches of fabric, everyone jogging and pairing off constantly. Everything appears perfect until Wesley accidentally damages a greenhouse and learns that every crime on the planet carries the exact same punishment: death. Jaywalking, death. Stealing, death. Improper flower bed etiquette, also death.

There could have been an interesting Prime Directive debate here, but the Edo are written like confused children, and their mysterious god is basically a glowing object floating above the planet. Picard eventually delivers a speech about absolute laws being unjust, everybody stares at one another, and the problem goes away. Wesley surviving is the correct outcome. Making us watch this entire episode to achieve it feels like the actual punishment.

8. The Last Outpost introduced the Ferengi as jumpy, shiny-object-obsessed goblins

The Last Outpost was supposed to introduce the Ferengi as the next great Star Trek villains. Instead it introduced them as angry goblins who hiss, jump around, wave energy whips, and become distracted by shiny objects. The basic setup was not terrible: the Enterprise and a Ferengi ship are both trapped by technology left behind by the ancient Tkon Empire, so Picard and the Ferengi have to cooperate long enough to convince the entity guarding the outpost to release them.

But the Ferengi are impossible to take seriously here. These were supposed to become the new Klingons, and within five minutes they look like three children who ate an entire bag of sugar and broke into the costume department. Armin Shimerman later helped completely redefine the Ferengi through Quark, but he has openly acknowledged that this early appearance did the species no favors. That was not an outpost. It was a warning sign.

7. Angel One is more fascinated with Riker's chest than with its own gender-swap premise

The Enterprise visits a matriarchal planet where women are physically larger and men are treated as inferior citizens. There is an obvious Star Trek story in this premise: reverse the gender roles, expose the hypocrisy, force the audience to confront how discrimination becomes normalized. Angel One handles that idea with all the subtlety of Worf walking through a glass table.

Riker immediately puts on one of the most revealing outfits in Starfleet history and begins sleeping with the planet's leader, while a group of male fugitives faces execution because they refuse to accept their assigned social position. Instead of delivering a sharp examination of sexism, the episode becomes awkward, preachy, and weirdly fascinated with Riker's chest. It wanted to challenge gender stereotypes and ended up creating an entirely new collection of them.

6. Up the Long Ladder mixes offensive Irish stereotypes with a nonconsensual cloning plot

Up the Long Ladder introduces two human colonies that developed in completely different ways. One consists of advanced clones who can no longer reproduce normally. The other consists of stereotypical Irish farmers who bring livestock onto the Enterprise, start fires in the cargo bay, and seem to believe personal hygiene is an attack on their culture. Subtle.

The episode then reveals the clones stole DNA from Riker and Pulaski without their consent, so Riker responds by destroying the developing clones with a phaser, an unbelievably dark moment the episode just breezes past. The final solution is to combine the two colonies into large family groups to rebuild the population. So we go from offensive Irish stereotypes to reproductive violations before ending with Picard politely assigning everybody a breeding schedule. There may have been three separate good science fiction ideas here, and the episode somehow found the worst possible way to combine all three.

5. Man of the People turns Deanna Troy into a psychic dumping ground for a villain's rage

An ambassador named Alkar uses Deanna Troy as a psychic dumping ground for all his negative emotions, causing her to rapidly age while becoming angry, jealous, and sexually aggressive. Once again, TNG violates Deanna's mind and body and uses her suffering as the mystery everybody has to solve. The episode is basically The Picture of Dorian Gray, except instead of a painting absorbing the corruption, it is Counselor Troy.

Alkar gets to remain calm and youthful while his female receptacles carry all his rage until they die. There is a potentially disturbing villain in that idea, but the execution is repetitive and uncomfortable, with Deanna acting completely out of character while everyone takes far too long to recognize what is happening. By season 6, TNG was producing episodes like The Inner Light, Chain of Command, and Tapestry, so there is no excuse for Man of the People feeling like a rejected season 1 script.

4. Masks buries a possessed Data performance under confusing alien mythology

I will give Masks credit for ambition. An ancient archive transforms the Enterprise into a temple while Data becomes possessed by multiple personalities representing characters from the civilization's mythology. Brent Spiner plays an old man, a frightened child, a laughing servant, and eventually the sun goddess Masaka. The man works harder in this episode than the script does.

The problem is almost none of it makes sense until Picard suddenly understands an entire alien religion after looking at a few symbols, puts on a moon mask, sits across from Data, and convinces Masaka to go back to sleep. The ship returns to normal, Data apologizes, and the audience is left wondering what exactly just happened. Masks is not offensive like some of the episodes above it. It is just an exhausting collection of symbols, voices, and archaeological nonsense that mistakes confusion for mystery.

3. Sub Rosa has Dr. Crusher fall for the same candle ghost who seduced her grandmother

Dr. Crusher attends her grandmother's funeral and discovers that the women in her family have been romantically involved with the same mysterious man for generations. That man is Ronin. Ronin is also a ghost. Ronin is also an alien life form living inside a candle. Beverly Crusher eventually quits Starfleet so she can remain on a fake Scottish colony with the candle ghost who seduced her grandmother. I swear I did not make any of that up.

There is a scene where Ronin attacks Geordi and duels with green lightning, Beverly reanimates her grandmother's corpse, and Picard has to stand there and gradually realize his chief medical officer left the Enterprise for her grandmother's dead boyfriend. Sub Rosa has become entertaining because of how completely insane it is, but that does not make it good. As I put it, "it feels like somebody accidentally submitted erotic ghost fanfiction to the Star Trek writer room and nobody had the courage to ask where it came from. They just went with it."

2. Shades of Gray is a clip show that recycles memories instead of telling a story

Riker is infected by a poisonous plant, and Dr. Pulaski attempts to save him by forcing his brain to relive memories from previous episodes. That is the entire story. Shades of Gray is a clip show made after TNG had only completed two seasons, so we spend most of the episode watching scenes we had already watched from episodes that aired less than two years earlier.

The memories start positive, which strengthens the infection, so Pulaski switches to negative emotions, and when those fail she makes Riker remember moments involving desire and survival. Riker essentially defeats an alien infection by remembering every time he was angry, afraid, or attracted to somebody. This was not made because somebody had an incredible Riker story to tell. The production had run out of money, the writers' strike had created problems, and they needed to finish the season on a budget. It is boring, pointless, and widely considered one of the worst episodes in franchise history. But somehow there is one worse.

1. Code of Honor is Star Trek's most embarrassing episode, built on racial stereotypes

This is not just the worst episode of The Next Generation. It is one of the most embarrassing episodes Star Trek has ever produced. The Enterprise visits Ligon II to obtain a vaccine, and the planet's leader, Lutan, kidnaps Tasha Yar because he is impressed by her strength. Tasha then has to fight Lutan's wife, Yareena, in a death match using spiked weapons that are poisoned.

The problem is not simply that the story is bad. The Ligonians are portrayed almost entirely by Black actors and presented through a collection of insulting racial stereotypes, depicted as primitive, aggressive, superstitious, and obsessed with possession and tribal customs, while the mostly white Enterprise crew attempts to reason with them. Members of the cast have criticized it: Jonathan Frakes has reportedly wanted it removed, Michael Dorn called it "the worst episode of Trek ever filmed," and Brent Spiner described it, in his words, as "racist."

There is no clever science fiction idea saving it and no great performance that makes it worth revisiting. It was uncomfortable, boring, and completely opposed to everything Trek claims to represent. To me, Shades of Gray is worse television from a purely structural standpoint, and Sub Rosa is more ridiculous, but Code of Honor is the only episode on this list that actively makes the entire series look worse simply by existing. That is why it earns the number one spot.

What is the worst TNG episode ever made, and which one on this list did I unfairly put here?