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1!!Entries for the television series:
2
3* AccidentalInnuendo:
4** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E6TheGame The Game]]", we get Troi and Crusher discussing something that Riker picked up on his ''latest'' trip to Risa, (a sex-tourist hotspot), before it's revealed they were actually talking about the titular game. Considering the infectious and addictive nature of that game though...
5** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReOw_2f4lpY Star Trek: The Sexed Generation]]'' compiles all such instances of this in the show. A few of them ''do'' directly refer to sex, though, but are by and large outstripped by the sheer amount of the accidental mentions.
6** Missing from that video is the scene from "Code of Honor" where an alien asks to check out the holodeck, which he's heard is used for officer training:
7--->'''Picard:''' It's also used for other things. Perhaps Commander Riker and Counselor Troi can demonstrate for you.
8* {{Adorkable}}:
9** Data's attempts to understand [=/=] imitate [=/=] gain humanity, and his frequent cluelessness in the attempts make him very endearing.
10** A rare moment for Worf when Deanna makes herself at home in his quarters (with him not knowing that they're married). The icing on the cake is a visibly confused (and nervous) Worf peering into his bedroom while Deanna is on his bed.
11* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
12** One can hold that the Federation is actually rather amoral, governed by ethically dubious realpolitik rather than the principles it publicly espouses. In this view, the highly principled Picard is not a luminary of Starfleet but something of a naif whose own optimism blinds him to the increasingly horrific actions of his compatriots (and, later on, something of a hard-nosed idealist who really ''does'' believe in the core ideals of the UFP, becoming something like a Type 1 {{Eagleland}}er for it). This would explain why a startling percentage of the Starfleet high command turn out to be [[InsaneAdmiral total scumbags]].
13*** This especially applies to their treatment of the Bajorans. They allowed the Cardassians to use them as a slave race for fifty years, using their non-interference policies as a justification. While we do get some information about a brief war between Starfleet and the Cardassians, it was apparently unrelated to Bajor's "occupation". Then there's the on-screen treatment of Bajoran Starfleet members that begins in their first appearance - notably their earrings, which are considered an important part of their cultural & spiritual beliefs, yet are generally not allowed to be worn because they violate the '''dress code''' (Tuvok even enforces this against a Voyager crewmember at one point). This might make sense if not for the fact Worf is allowed to wear a heavy piece of chain mail at all times simply because it's part of '''HIS''' cultural beliefs. This makes Starfleet look sympathetic to only certain races, not others. Even some Bajorans are wary of the Federation's offers of assistance after Cardassia withdraws and a lot of them wonder if the Federation is being charitable or simply wants something in return (which may be the case - they want Bajor to join the Federation at some point). There is no apparent effort made by the Federation to apologize for any of this when they all but beg Bajor to join, either, yet a lot of anger when they're talked out of it.
14** Most of Trek fandom believes that the Traveler's interest in Wesley makes him come off as a ''pedophile''. Even Creator/WilWheaton has lampshaded how creepy this was in retrospect, in the review he did of "Where No One Has Gone Before".
15** Captain Jellico inspires a lot of this. Some see him as a micro-managing {{jerkass}} who enforces his own standards just because he can and thereby alienates those who serve him, others see him as a responsible officer who had every right to run the Enterprise as he saw fit and saved the day through his genuine competence. The funny thing is that neither interpretation is actually mutually exclusive with the other. The ExpandedUniverse occasionally references him with both depictions, DependingOnTheWriter.
16** Riker is supposedly an ambitious officer, yet turns down one command after another, remaining first officer on ''two'' versions of the ''Enterprise'' over the span of about 15 years, plus his previous stint as first officer of the ''Hood''. He also reacts poorly when Vice Admiral Nechayev reassigns Picard and installs Captain Jellico to command of the Enterprise. The flattering interpretation is that he wants to stay with his friends and continue learning from Picard. The unflattering implication is that he refuses to command any starship less cool than a ''Galaxy''-class and perhaps nothing less than command of the Enterprise. Either suggests he's gotten a bit too comfortable. Even Picard had previously served as captain of the ''Stargazer'', a ship which by his own admission was plagued by mechanical problems and nowhere near top-of-the-line, before being given command of the brand-new ''Enterprise-D''.
17*** It is worth noting that one of the seventh-season episodes, as well as nothing less than [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds the most pivotal two-parter in the entire show]], address this pretty much on the nose, and both try to come down with a combination of the former interpretation and also Riker being somewhat haunted by certain earlier moments in his career that he doesn't discuss much, but even Riker is ''conscious'' of what's going on and at times isn't sure how he feels about it. [[spoiler:And when it's looking like he might just get to "inherit" the ''Enterprise'' following Picard's apparent effective ''death'', he feels absolutely, and understandably, miserable about it.]]
18** Data [[TinMan does have emotions]], his programming just bypasses them deliberately. This is the cause of his ''almost'' emotional moments throughout the series, the times where he states a desire to do things (like become more human, serve in Starfleet, paint), expresses friendship for Geordi and the others, and lies about trying to kill Kivas Fajo. The emotion chip just removes the overwrite and allows Data to experience full emotion. Given that his predecessors turned out to be incapable of growth beyond his most basic programming (B-4), and then turned out to become sociopathic when given free rein over their emotions (Lore), [[ItMakesSenseInContext there is a certain progression in Soong designing Data to be capable of limited emotion, but with an inhibitor in place to suppress its excesses]].
19** Is Geordi [=LaForge=] merely an unlucky-in-love GadgeteerGenius, or does his biomechanical augmentation isolate him from other human beings and make him feel more attracted to machines and computers? The producers once characterized his "romance" with holo-Leah Brahams as a guy falling in love with his car. In other words, is he a closet robosexual whose attempts at romance with flesh-and-blood women are forced?
20** Q. CharacterDevelopment aside, it's easy to look at his seemingly immature meddling and misuse of godlike powers as a Film/MaryPoppins act. There are hundreds of possible interpretations for Q out there; is he a maladjusted PsychopathicManchild who uses mortals as toys for his amusement, FauxAffablyEvil, a harmless childish prankster, a [[invoked]]ChaoticGood rebel struggling against his people's repressive society, is he in love with Picard, is he a supremely alien being following some BlueAndOrangeMorality only he understands, humanity's self-appointed TricksterMentor, is he all? None? Is it even possible to give him labels? The appearances he's made throughout the franchise strongly imply that Q is acting as a TricksterMentor, as he shows up with a purpose of making those he encounters more aware of the world around them and better for it. Rarely does a Q episode not result in this ending.
21*** For all of Q's [[SmugSuper arrogance]], when Picard [[ScrewYouElves calls out him and the rest of the Continuum as having no real morality]] in "True Q", Q doesn't actually deny a word of it. When Picard says that Q have no right to judge whether humanity has the right to exist in "All Good Things..." Q responds with a LameComeback, and in the same episode reveals he had been going out of his way to help Picard. Does Q actually agree with Picard's claims about the Continuum's lack of morality, and the moments he abuses his powers he justifies by [[AtLeastIAdmitIt acknowledging he has no moral high ground]]? His first appearance in Voyager lends credence to this viewpoint, as it puts him in a position where he has to genuinely defend the moral decision-making of the Continuum, and eventually going behind their backs to shake up the status quo.
22** Worf sparing Toral at the end of the Klingon Civil War. Was it an act of mercy or Worf unconsciously condemning him to the same FateWorseThanDeath that he received from Toral's father?
23** Dr. Crusher, is she a genuinely caring person with a calm bedside manner but an unwillingness to use patients as guinea pigs, or is she too soft, a bit incompetent and too afraid of deviating from the established norms of her profession? Some of her attitude is often brought into question by fans, especially her objection to replacing damaged organs with cloned copies when Worf's spine was broken. She refused to even offer the treatment to him and another doctor had to do it, and she seemed wholly unconcerned with and unsympathetic to Worf's cultural beliefs over being paralyzed (to a Klingon, they may as well be dead). She was willing to ignore her patient's wishes or a colleague's interest in creating new techniques solely because it was experimental. Despite the risk of death involved, real medicine is constantly creating new drugs or new surgical treatments that MUST be tested on live patients who are offered the choice to undergo an experimental procedure that may save their lives. In some ways Dr. Crusher seems unwilling to venture into unknown territory unless she's forced into it and even then sometimes seems weak. Compare her attitude with Dr. [=McCoy=] (who lacked the bedside manner but got the job done), Dr. Bashir (a man who tried to remain optimistic but knew that he may sometimes have to push himself), the EMH (who was constantly coming up with new medical procedures because he HAD to and a god-awful bedside manner to boot) or Dr. Phlox (a nice, cheerful man but his own medical science was vastly behind that of the others, and he had to experiment when the usual treatments did not work).
24** Sela as an incompetent who only got where she is because of {{nepotism}} (her father Volskiar is a general in the Romulan Imperial Fleet). She has a ComplexityAddiction, displays serious BondVillainStupidity, and sincerely expects 2,000 troops carried in freighters to be able to invade Vulcan. Yes, as in "Spock's homeworld, second founding world of the Federation, 16 light years from Earth" Vulcan. To put that in the proper context, the United States sent 192,000 troops to invade Iraq. Of course, it's also difficult to tell how much of this is just the writers forcing her to hold the IdiotBall due to being a villain and [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale the classic no-sense-of-scale problem]].
25** Is Deanna Troi's real job a Soviet style Political Officer, stationed on the bridge to keep Picard and Riker in line? Her empathic abilities seldom seem to provide more than rather obvious readings of alien contacts, but likely work quite well on the human bridge staff. And seated right beside Picard helps her ensure he stays with the party line... She explicitly wears casual clothing instead of a uniform to make her appear non threatening.
26** When Guinan implies to Q that she's also omnipotent, is she telling the truth, or bluffing?
27** In "Thine Own Self", when Gia says that her dead mother is apparently in a place where everybody gets along and no one gets sick, then asks an amnesiac Data if he thinks such a place is possible, he looks at the sky and affirms. Is he subconsciously remembering Earth, the ''Enterprise'', or the Federation in general (albeit a bit wrongly, since, for instance, people still get sick in those places just not as often), is he referring to an afterlife just as Gia is, or is he just saying that such a place was ''hypothetically'' possible?
28** Did the baby alien who was feeding off energy the way mammalian babies feed on milk actually think the ''Enterprise'' was its mother, or did it just seek out the nearest source of "food"?
29** Admiral Pressman is clearly meant by the writers of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E11ThePegasus The Pegasus]]" to be in the wrong, but whether the episode sticks the landing is a subject of some debate. On the face of it, giving up cloaking technology for peace certainly sounds foolish, and the Romulans are clearly established before and after to have a NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught attitude to TheNeutralZone, so one could argue that the Federation is under no obligation to uphold the treaty, making Pressman UnintentionallySympathetic. However, there's an alternate viewpoint: being banned from using cloaking devices doesn't inherently prevent the Federation from developing technology to ''defeat'' them, and given the previously established limitations of cloaking devices, they're most useful in a preemptive strike scenario--something that is generally very against the Federation's ethos. Especially given their present alliance with the Klingon Empire, the Federation can potentially afford to cede the tactical initiative in the interests of maintaining the peace, since the Romulans cannot possibly defeat both Starfleet and the Imperial Klingon Defense Forces simultaneously.
30* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: The announcement of a ''Star Trek'' series without Kirk and co. was met with revulsion by some fans. The production issues and uneven quality of the first two seasons didn't help, either. In fact, Creator/PatrickStewart was so convinced that the show would fail, that for the first six weeks he was in America, he refused to unpack any of his suitcases. Nowadays, it's one of the most popular and beloved series, ''almost'' reaching the original series' iconic status.
31* {{Anvilicious}}:
32** Having Creator/WhoopiGoldberg talk about the trajectory of the arguments around Data leading to the creation of "disposable people" in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan The Measure Of A Man]]" is about as subtle as knocking down a wall by driving an 18-wheeler truck into it, especially for an episode produced in 1988/89. This is also exactly ''why'' the episode is as effective as it is.
33** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E11TheHunted The Hunted]]" is an allegory about neglected war veterans (specifically veterans of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, but really applicable to the veterans of any war), and in true ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fashion, it is ''not'' subtle about making its point.
34** Some viewers were put off by Picard's angry speech in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E4WhoWatchesTheWatchers Who Watches the Watchers]]", which appeared to be suggesting that a mere belief in a higher power amounted to superstition, ignorance and fear. This was probably a case of MisBlamed, because he was specifically talking about the cast-off religion of the Mintakans, whose belief in the "Overseer" did in fact lead to those very things. Some fans take issue with the episode since aspects of Picard's speech still sound as if they're applicable to religion in general.
35--->''"Horrifying... Dr. Barron, your report describes how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? No!"''
36** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E6LonelyAmongUs Lonely Among Us]]" explicitly compares non-vegetarians to slave owners, with Yar getting a horribly condescending speech that the writer is clearly expecting us to agree with.
37** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E21Symbiosis Symbiosis]]" is heavy-handed enough, but the scene where the bridge crew explain to Wesley why people get addicted to drugs crosses the line into outright lecturing the audience. And when combined with the feature that ''Series/ReadingRainbow'' did on the episode, it makes it seem like a clunky after-school special.
38** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E12TheHighGround The High Ground]]" gives us Alexana Devos, whose dialogue frequently consists of ham-fisted, pithy propaganda about the evils of terrorism.
39--->''"In a world where children blow up children, everyone's a threat."''
40** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E8ForceOfNature Force of Nature]]" reveals that excessive use of warp capable ships and other subspace technology is damaging the fabric of subspace itself, slowly creating an approaching environmental collapse and will only increase exponentially over years. The allegory there was heavyhanded and everyone knew it, which was a detriment to the episode.
41** The two-part episode "Chain of Command" drops a massive anvil against [[ColdBloodedTorture the use of torture]]. It shows the experience of torture is so absolutely dehumanizing and horrific that it can break even the strongest person. People like to quote Picard's "THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!" but tend to forget that he said this ''after'' another Cardassian came in with orders for his release, and what he said to Troi after he was back on the ''Enterprise'':
42--->'''Picard:''' What I didn't put in the report was that at the end he gave me a choice -- between a life of comfort or more torture. All I had to do was to say that I could see five lights when, in fact, there were only four. \
43'''Troi:''' You didn't say it? \
44'''Picard:''' No! No. But I was going to. I would have told him anything. Anything at all! But more than that, I believed that I could see five lights.
45** "Tapestry": Don't be too regretful of your past. Through better or worse, it shaped you into who you are today.
46* AssPull: The ending to [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E17SinsOfTheFather "Sins of the Father."]] The whole episode practically sledgehammered the premise that Worf's actions could only end in success or his death. [[spoiler:Then at the very last minute, Worf matter-of-factly brings up a third way that everyone can live with.]] There is ''a'' justification for this (Worf only brings it up once he is trying to survive rather than achieve his initial goal), but it can still feel jarring.
47** The "Bridge Commanders Test" that pops up late in the run of the show to act as a B plot to a Data-centric episode, that Troi takes and upon completion is promoted to full Commander. It makes her the 4th highest ranking officer on the ship behind Picard, Riker and Beverly, while being a ridiculous idea that makes no sense at all in a SpaceNavy with a highly advanced officer academy. Previous episodes have shown that in an emergency situation, when there is no explicit chain of command, the highest ranking officer is in charge even if they are a Ships Counsellor. The test that Troi took should be a mandatory element of becoming a Starfleet Officer.
48* AudienceAlienatingEra: While the series managed to drag itself out of an early AudienceAlienatingEra by around the second or third season depending on who you ask, many fans feel that it fell back into the Dork Age in its seventh and final season. The writers were running out of ideas, resulting in many bizarre and {{technobabble}}-laden plots, which was compounded by the new showrunner demanding more episodes focusing on Dr. Crusher and Troi, despite those being the two characters the writers had always had the most trouble dealing with. It didn't help that ExecutiveMeddling closed off the two most obvious story arcs for the characters -- the implied UnresolvedSexualTension between Crusher and Picard, and the romantic history between Troi and Riker -- resulting in the former getting a very perfunctory subplot in one episode and never being mentioned again, while the latter was spurned in favor of pairing Troi with ''Worf'', with the subject of her and Riker not being revisited until years later with ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection''.
49* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
50** Ron Jones, one of the composers for the first four seasons, was actually ''fired for being too good at his job'', as Rick Berman thought his music was too distracting from the writing.
51** Besides the theme, several instances in the episode [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E17Lessons "Lessons,"]] when LTCMDR Darren and Picard are playing together. Of particular note were turning the simple melody of "Frere Jaques" into a remarkable duet, and the beautiful rendition of the Ressikan theme from "The Inner Light."
52* BaseBreakingCharacter:
53** Lwaxana Troi. Some fans think she's a really fun, vivacious character. Others hate her and dread watching any episode she's in. It doesn't help the split that just how stuck-up and insufferable she is tends to vary--one fan described her as "a pain in the ass in the first half of the episode, then lovely and understanding in the second half."
54** Captain Edward Jellico from the TwoPartEpisode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E10ChainOfCommand Chain of Command]]" is one of ''Franchise/StarTrek'''s most polarizing characters. His fans see him as a bold, effective officer who magnificently outwitted the Cardassians and justified in taking Riker off duty because Riker did a really bad job of hiding his dislike of the new captain, who as a new commander in a crisis ''needs'' supportive officers. His detractors consider him a huge JerkAss who had no business [[ReplacementScrappy filling in for Picard]] and [[TyrantTakesTheHelm making changes to the way things were run]] on the ''Enterprise'', especially during a crisis when the crew was antsy to begin with and Riker was acting on the complaints of other senior officers. Fans who aren't invested in the argument think that he is basically both.
55%% Please refrain from adding your arguments about why Jellico or Riker was in the right. We know. Given how Nattery this discussion gets, we should probably leave it as a summary.
56* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:
57** In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E13DejaQ "Deja Q,"]] after regaining his powers, Q decides to return with a mariachi band!
58** In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E10Haven "Haven,"]] the "[[FanNickname Quark-in-the-box!]]" that informs Deanna she's about to get married, then dumps jewels everywhere.
59** During the Klingon Civil War, Romulan commander Sela, who's supporting the Duras family, shows up, explains she's the daughter of an alternate timeline's Tasha Yar, tells the story of how that Tasha died, and... that's it. It means nothing to the rest of the episode or even the rest of the series. The main cast doesn't even talk about it amongst themselves or appear to think about it at all, much less angst over their friend's fate. As to Sela's role in the Klingon conflict and her later role in the "Unification" two-parter, she could have been replaced by any generic SmugSnake Romulan and it wouldn't have changed a thing.
60* BizarroEpisode: "Sub Rosa", aka the Scottish ghost episode. It's got the corpse of Beverly's grandma force-lighting Geordi and Data, Bev having sex with a ghost (who lives in a candle!) on network television, and conversations about reading your grandmother's erotic journal entries. It was written by Jeri Taylor, who was also responsible for Janeway's holonovel subplot in early VOY episodes. Maybe she just really wanted to write Gothic-Romance Sci-Fi.
61* CharacterPerceptionEvolution: For years, Wesley Crusher was infamous for being one of the worst CreatorsPet (the former {{Trope Namer|s}}, in fact) characters on television. While [[BaseBreakingCharacter he's still divisive]], there's a significant number of fans who [[CriticalBacklash find those criticisms overblown]], arguing that most instances of him being truly obnoxious occurred in the early seasons and that there are more episodes where he's being dismissed and called out by the cast. Not to mention that in later years, Wesley's actor, Creator/WilWheaton, has been more upfront about [[HateDumb the vitriol he had experienced from fans during his time on the show]], making people more inclined to cut his character some slack nowadays. [[spoiler:To whit, Wheaton's appearance as Wesley (now a Traveler) in the season 2 finale of ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' was widely praised by fans.]]
62* CommonKnowledge:
63** Probably one of the most "common" bits of common knowledge surrounding this series is that Wesley Crusher was the character to always solve the problem, save the ship, etc., and that he was excessively praised by the other characters. The truth is, while Wesley has earned much of his [[TheScrappy scrappy]] reputation, the extent of his "saving the ship" has been greatly exaggerated, including on this very wiki. He actually was only the one to solve the problem of the week six times, which is still probably more times than he should have, but hardly "every other week", as he has been accused. He also had his fair share of episodes where he screwed things up, or was called out by other characters, though that came more with the show GrowingTheBeard.
64** Deanna Troi has stemmed a few bits of "common knowledge":
65*** The idea that she "states the obvious" all the time. While this is sometimes true, more often than not, it's simply ViewerMyopia at work-- it's obvious to the viewers, who know the ins and outs of the genre, but not to the characters, who don't.
66*** Some people online describe her as "whiny"-- while she is very expressive and her voice does [[CharacterTics crack when she cries]], she actually has quite a positive attitude most of the time.
67*** The idea that she's useless and/or crashes the ship all the time. She doesn't get as much screentime as other characters but is shown to be very competent at her job when she is seen doing it. As for crashing the ship, she only crashed it twice-- and the first time was during a serious situation where a crash was the best option and the second time was a ram attack.
68%%
69%% Bring CompleteMonster examples to this thread before adding any: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=6vic3f9h1cy5qivsenw8llok&page=1. Check the FAQ first to see what would qualify characters for the trope, and if there has been previous discussion on the work.
70%%
71* CompleteMonster: See [[Monster/StarTrek here]].
72* CreatorsPet:
73** Wesley Crusher, the former TropeNamer, also [[ExaggeratedTrope an especially severe case]] since, by varying amounts, he fits ''EVERY'' criterion of both Creator's Pet and TheScrappy. In the case of Wesley himself, they alternated between praising Wesley for no reason and [[NotNowKiddo rudely dismissing]] Wesley for no reason, depending on which would make Wesley look better. He might have been more tolerable if he hadn't been given an "important" role in so many episodes. Indeed, the episodes that actually focus on him are SoOkayItsAverage, so he's a lot better when he's not shoehorned into the spotlight in everyone else's episodes. Wil Wheaton himself was well aware of how much the fans hated the character, and eventually asked the writers to cut it out or write him out of the show, resulting in both.
74** While often beloved by viewers, Guinan was still a fairly textbook example. The creative staff all adored Whoopi Goldberg, and thus turned her character into arguably the most powerful and important person on the ship (when she was there). Besides typically being portrayed as being not only the most wise but the most morally superior person on the crew who everyone (including the captain) came to for advice, she was also heavily implied to be capable of somehow thwarting an omnipotent being ([[TakeOurWordForIt not that they ever explained how]]). If any character was shown to be good with something, she was either implied or outright stated to be better than them at it (better at romance than Riker, better at combat than Worf, better at expounding on important issues than Picard). Likely had it just been some never-heard-of-them actor in place of Goldberg, the character would be more reviled than Wesley.
75* CriticalBacklash: After being hyped up for years as being the absolute most annoying character in television history, newer fans... don't find Wesley that annoying. He was at his worst in the first seasons as too much of an author avatar, but he got better with each season. Which, really, goes along with the fact that the whole show was pretty weak to start with and got better over time. Newer fans getting into Next Generation don't quite understand the amount of vitriol directed at Wesley.
76* DesignatedHero: The show's main cast in most of the first two seasons. They were regularly shown to be smug, sanctimonious and occasionally even bigoted towards other cultures, regularly harping on about how perfect the Federation was and that all other societies were primitive by comparison. And yet the show would constantly praise them for how "enlightened" and "open minded" they were, portraying anyone who disagreed with them or challenged their viewpoints in anyway as aggressive and incompetent straw men. Thankfully their characterization improved when the show's writing got better.
77* EnsembleDarkHorse:
78** Both Data and Worf came to share the spotlight with Picard among fans. Originally the series focused more on Picard, Riker and Dr. Crusher.
79** Then, there's Miles O'Brien, a completely minor character, but got so much fan attention, he became a main character in ''Deep Space Nine''.
80** Q seems to have a good fanbase despite him appearing in only eight episodes on TNG and then four episodes outside of it.
81** Lore, Data's psychopathic "[[EvilTwin twin brother]]". Only appeared in four episodes, but he's beloved by the fans both for allowing Brent Spiner to show off the sheer range of his acting talent and because the character is so damn ''[[EvilIsCool fun]]'' [[EvilIsCool to watch]].
82** Reg Barclay, who was initially written as a one-shot character but then kept coming back, ended up featuring briefly in ''Star Trek: First Contact'', and played a significant recurring role in ''Voyager''.
83** Ro Laren, big time. She made such an impact that both ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' and ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' used the Bajor/Cardassia/Maquis political situation as jumping-off points, and Kira Nerys and B'Elanna Torres were both {{Suspiciously Similar Substitute}}s for her when Michelle Forbes twice turned down the opportunity to reprise the character. Ro appeared in all of eight episodes. However, she has since become a more BaseBreakingCharacter for the exact thing that made her initially famous - her brash personality. Turning traitor and joining the Maquis didn't help her image, either.
84** The Borg as far as alien species go. Talk about the famous aliens in the franchise, they're bound to be among them, rivaling the popularity of the Klingons and Romulans (and arguably more well known than the latter), and they only appear in four episodes in this series and one movie. They got featured more prominently in ''Voyager'', though in that they suffered from massive VillainDecay.
85** For specific Borg, there's [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E23IBorg Hugh]], who, in a time on television where one-off characters were rare, was popular enough to be brought back for two episodes afterwards '''and''' will be appearing in ''[[Series/StarTrekPicard Picard]]'', almost thirty years later.
86* EscapistCharacter:
87** ''Data.'' Socially awkward fans (and, notably, [[http://www.geekwire.com/2013/brent-spiner-star-trek/ autistic fans]]) tend to gravitate toward Data, for being incredibly smart, strong, and universally accepted by his peers even though he struggles to understand social nuances. Of course, it helps that episodes that focus on him tend to be above average.
88** Barclay, in the same vein, for his painful shyness and tendency to escape into a fantasy world.
89** Also, for many folks of color, ''La Forge''. Even with all the issues around the other person of color on the main cast (as much of the rest of this page details), La Forge was, for a whole generation of nascent [[BlackAndNerdy blerds]], practically revelatory: here was a black man who had a "nerdy" interest in engineering, and he was ''successful'', he had a career, people who respected him and his work and his insight, he had a three-dimensional character over the show's run, he was good friends with (the fairly caucasian-presenting) Data, and no one on the main cast mocked him or made fun of him for his skin color or his interests. Sure, his superiors were white dudes, but especially in-context it was easy enough to believe it was simply a matter of experience (and later ''Trek'' works ''loved'' teasing a captaincy later in his career). Years before [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Ben Sisko]] was on anyone's radar, La Forge provided an escape and hope to young folks of color with "nerdy" interests -- which, ''especially'' in the Eighties, was often still (wrongly) seen as "not appropriate" for African-Americans in particular.
90** Wesley was intended to be this kind of character. [[TheScrappy By and large, it failed.]]
91* FanNickname:
92** Picard's habit of straightening his uniform is called "the Picard Maneuver" by fans (not to be confused with "the Picard Maneuver" from "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E8TheBattle The Battle]]").
93** Riker's... Unconventional method of sitting down (where he appears to mount the chair like a horse, caused by an old back injury and Johnathan Frakes' excessive height) is similarly known as the "Riker Maneuver."[[note]]Jonathan Frakes did this on purpose though the actual reason has been debated & unknown, but the common fan idea is that he had minor back problems that caused him to sit that way[[/note]]
94** The ''Galaxy''-class starship is often abbreviated to "GCS".
95** "Cleavage" for Troi.
96** After the episode ''[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E16StarshipMine Starship Mine]]'', Picard got the name Jean-Luc [[Film/DieHard McClane]]
97** You'll occasionally come across Picard being referred to as "Space Dad" (though Shiro from ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'' seems to have usurped the nickname as of late).
98* FashionVictimVillain:
99** Ooh boy, the Romulans of TNG wore truly hideous uniforms with [[ShouldersOfDoom massive shoulder pads]] in patterns that looked like they were taken from curtains. And in the two-parter "Unification", we see this fashion sense extended to the civilian population. Fortunately, ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' would give [[SecretPolice the Tal Shiar]] better-looking uniforms, and ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'' got rid of them for good.
100** The Cardassians were no better in their first appearance. The strange brown armor could have been passable in a ''function over looks'' kind of way, but it was the addition of headpieces made out of bent wires that pushed them within the bounds of this trope. The borderline Fu-Manchu facial hair was also thankfully dispensed with.
101* FairForItsDay: With the passing of decades, even ''TNG'' is starting to feel some of the bite of this, especially with the increasing awakening to and consciousness of longstanding Anglo-American social problems in the [=21st=] century... an awakening which, ironically, was helped along by shows like ''TNG''. Still, the problems will definitely stick out to viewers three-plus decades on:
102** At the time, it was a huge deal that Roddenberry and the writing staff wanted to push the Klingons away from being the "Planet of Black Hats" and some of the obvious racial connotations that came with that (most specifically, the fu-manchu'd ''TOS'' Klingons coming across as YellowPeril stand-ins). So, not only was Worf going to be a senior staff member[[note]]and, it's worth pointing out, this meant that ''two'' of the leads on the show would be African-American, and one of them would even be, basically, ''a huge nerd'', something still basically unheard of in entertainment in 1987... which leads into the coming point[[/note]], but the Klingons themselves were going to get a massive ReTool into what would become ''the'' classic ProudWarriorRaceGuy. Which, in practice, meant... the Klingons, very often portrayed by either actors of color or caucasian actors so heavily made up as to be in effective {{blackface}}, were transformed into a species of [[ScaryBlackMan big Scary Black Men]] who are outright ''stated and shown to be inherently violent''. At the time, especially with similar stereotypes cropping up in media all over the place, very few people batted much more than a single eyelash at this (especially with some of the early episodes having, uh, [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E3CodeOfHonor bigger problems]]) but in UsefulNotes/TheNewTens and beyond, with much greater consciousness of how such stereotypes are used to justify the ''killing'' of "threatening" African-Americans even in the [=21st=] century, the entire concept and narrative thrust comes across as incredibly unfortunate and uncomfortable.
103** There's also how the show just doesn't seem to have much... ''respect'' for women, still, continuing an issue ''TOS'' always struggled with. Crusher and Troi struggle a bit as characters at times partially because, when you get down to it, a lot of the writers just don't seem to know how to write women, ''period''. Troi, Crusher, and Guinan, the three women on the regular main cast, are ''all'' in supportive roles, to boot; Troi does eventually achieve a rank that puts her fourth in command, but that takes years and the show still can't seem to help but humiliate her on the way. And many of the other times women appear on the show, even in positions of theoretical authority, it can't help but seem to make them foolish (even the writer of many of the TurnOfTheMillennium ''ST'' novels, Keith [=DeCandido=], was uncomfortable with how "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E21TheDrumhead The Drumhead]]" treated Admiral Satie, and had "Picard [quote] her father, at which point she turns into a crazed, blubbering mess; and then, all of a sudden, it's over"). In a still-male-dominated Hollywood in 1987, when the show was formulated, though, the way things were set up and written week-to-week was still ''de rigeur'', and ''Trek'' as a whole would be working through its gender issues, and the gender issues of TV as a whole, on-air throughout the entire [=90s=] and beyond.
104*** Look no further than Tasha Yar - Denise Crosby specifically left because of not feeling like she was getting enough to do, and, when it comes to her characterization, the thing most audiences remember about her, besides her abrupt death, is that she fucked Data under the influence and that she's from a colony where there were rape gangs. She's basically defined by her trauma and never given a chance to explore any of the effects of it. She ends up coming across as a FauxActionGirl from a modern perspective, but it was AN ATTEMPT, after the women of ''TOS'' were mostly kept out of action scenes, and definitely out of the role of security officers.
105* FetishRetardant: "Sub Rosa". Crusher being spunk buddies with her granny? Why ever not?
106* FoeYayShipping:
107** The relationship between Q and Picard. It would be very difficult to explain away a lot of Q's behavior without attributing it to a crush he's harboring for Captain Picard. Q makes it a point to pester Picard with numerous challenges and snarks at the man every chance he gets, ostensibly making him Picard's nemesis. However the level of chemistry and familiarity that Q has with Picard makes the tests seem like an excuse to flirt. This is '''not helped''' by Q's violation of Picard's personal space. Additionally, Q's punishments directed towards Picard's rejections often come off as the reaction of a scorned lover. In "Qpid", Q makes the observation that the feminine wiles of women are a weakness that Picard is vulnerable to; showcased by how embarrassing his interactions with Vash were around his crew. Q muses that had he known this earlier he would have shown up as a woman to exploit Picard's weakness (as an {{Energy Being|s}} Q isn't a he or a she, because he lacks a biological gender). Also take a gander at [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXefQxyMj_A this scene]] from "Tapestry" shown out of context. [[note]]In context Q has saved Picard's life from a fatal injury received during a mission, and has taken him back in time to fix any mistakes he regrets from his past. One of the changes Picard makes is the decision to pursue a romantic affair with a female friend of his he knew right before his career started. After having sex with her Picard wakes up the following morning to the sensation of a hand touching his face, but when he turns around Q has taken her place. Despite a brief jolt, Picard stays in bed and proceeds to have a quite civil chat with Q while lying naked under the covers.[[/note]] Without context one would think the chat they have is about a relationship ''between them''. For what it's worth, [[WordOfGod John De Lancie and Ronald D. Moore were of the opinion]] that Q was in love with Picard, but it never really goes beyond subtext.
108** Fajo and Data in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E22TheMostToys The Most Toys]]" is a one-sided example. Fajo is obsessed with possessing Data, and comments that he'd prefer it if Data was naked.
109* FranchiseOriginalSin:
110** The CliffHanger ending of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds The Best of Both Worlds]]" [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants was written with no idea of how anything would be resolved]] (mainly because it was unknown until after filming whether Sir Patrick's contract would be renewed for the next season, so they gave themselves the option to kill him off). It worked out amazingly well, but it unfortunately encouraged the crew to keep doing this across the whole franchise, with increasingly diminishing returns.
111** Many of the things that have been attributed as negative traits of [[Film/StarTrekGenerations the less]] [[Film/StarTrekInsurrection well received]] [[Film/StarTrekNemesis TNG movies]] were elements present in the season six-seven cliffhanger episode [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E24S7E1Descent Descent]], which is in places almost like a prototype for those later movies.
112** ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' and ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'' get a lot of flack for the fanservicey catsuits worn by Seven of Nine and T'Pol, respectively, and the characters are accused of only being there for the fanservice. Of course, the first such crew member to wear [[CustomUniformOfSexy sexy outfits instead of the expected uniform]] was Deanna Troi - and her version showed a lot of cleavage to boot. Also, while Seven and T'Pol had a great deal of CharacterDevelopment, ADayInTheLimelight was once known as "Good Troi Episode," which is when forgotten or minor characters get the spotlight - Deanna mattering was such an exception to the rule that you name a trope after it and it's still joked by fans that her job was to state the obvious. This is a case where the original sin was greater ''before'', but forgiven because FirstInstallmentWins.[[note]]Of course, there was more fanservice in the ''actual'' first installment, but TOS gets a pass because of ValuesDissonance. Plus, this show can at least point to having Troi start wearing a normal uniform early in Season 6, whereas Seven and T'Pol wore catsuits throughout the entire runs of the shows (albeit Seven later showed up in more normal-looking clothing in ''Series/StarTrekPicard'').[[/note]]
113** As mentioned below, Season 7 is widely thought to be the weakest post-Beard season since the producers were simultaneously working on ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' and ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'', as well as laying the groundwork for ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In hindsight, this was probably the first sign of "franchise exhaustion" that became obvious in the early 2000s with the lukewarm reception of ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' and ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'', which would drag the Star Trek franchise to a standstill for several years until [[Film/StarTrek2009 the reboot films]].
114** Season 2's "The Measure of a Man" and "Q Who" are seen by many as the two stories that started moving the show towards fully growing the beard. However, they also happened to be the first two episodes of the show that really pushed back against Gene Roddenberry's vision of an evolved humanity -- the former episode by showing humans can still be bigoted against beings they don't consider equal to themselves, and the latter by portraying the ''Enterprise'' crew as arrogant and over-confident until Q gives them a Borg cube-shaped wake up call -- presaging ''many'' future debates in fandom whether the franchise should stay absolutely true to Roddenberry's vision even if it comes at the cost of some creative sterility, or if anything (within reason) should be permitted if it makes for good storytelling.
115** On a similar tack, while [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries the original series]] has been noted as having more friction between the ship crew and Federation officials than folks might have considered at the time of airing, ''TNG'' is absolutely where the trope of "[[InsaneAdmiral corrupt or incompetent Starfleet admiral makes trouble for the Enterprise]]" settled in to the franchise lexicon. Later shows are accused of making the Federation seem amoral and imperialistic, but as noted above in Alternate Character Interpretation, ''TNG'' is so rife with corrupt, pointedly amoral, or otherwise incompetent flag officers that at times it feels like a miracle Starfleet works at all. Of all the flag officers that the Enterprise has contact with, a grand total of ''one'' - Admiral Haden from "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E10TheDefector The Defector]]" and "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E12TheWounded The Wounded]]" - provides clear, reasonable guidance, advice and orders, and is suitably horrified at what Maxwell is doing in "The Wounded", all without any other subplots or strings attached. He's never seen again after that episode. Even otherwise-reasonable admirals, such as Hanson in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds Best of Both Worlds]]", still make foolish mistakes like wildly underestimating the Borg and get blown away for their trouble. It's ''really'' not hard to see where some of the modern writing attitudes about the Federation come from when going back and taking the Corrupt Admiral Episodes, and the sheer number of them, on their face, especially with the overall fiction of the show ''still'' trying to posit that the Federation is unambiguously and openly Goodâ„¢ in the face of all this.
116* FriendlyFandoms: Pre-Internet, there was an informal trading network. The British were airing ''TNG'' at least a season behind the Americans, and Americans only got to see ''Series/DoctorWho'' if their local PBS station was begging for cash. Queue some quasi-formal tape exchanges across the pond.
117* GeniusBonus:
118** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E5Phantasms Phantasms]]", Data has a holodeck session with the hologram of Sigmund Freud, who quickly interprets his dreams as meaning he wishes to possess his mother and find a (possibly violent) outlet for his sexual desire. When Data tried to explain he had neither a mother nor a sex drive, Freud wouldn't listen. This is a classic demonstration of unfalsifiability, a problem that many modern psychologists have with Freud's theories.
119** Also a CMOF. At the end of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E24MenageATroi Ménage à Troi]]", Picard has to convince a Ferengi he is in love with Lwaxana Troi, who he actually finds extremely overbearing and annoying. So, Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart starts reciting sonnets. Specifically, the first lines of [[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56227/sonnet-147-my-love-is-as-a-fever-longing-still sonnet 147]], "I am going crazy because I fell in love with someone who turned out to be awful", [[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50276/sonnet-141-in-faith-i-do-not-love-thee-with-mine-eyes sonnet 141]], "you're ugly, your voice is annoying, and you smell bad, but I still love you", and [[https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/shall-i-compare-thee-summers-day-sonnet-18 sonnet 18]], which isn't a love poem at all, it's Shakespeare bragging about how great his poems are. Then she suggests that he'll shoot down the Ferengi ship if he can't have her, even with her on it, so he pulls out a line from [[http://nfs.sparknotes.com/othello/page_270.html Othello's]] speech right before he kills his wife for cheating on him before finishing up with some [[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45336/in-memoriam-a-h-h-obiit-mdcccxxxiii-27 Alfred, Lord Tennyson]]
120* {{Glurge}}:
121** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E2WhereSilenceHasLease Where Silence Has Lease]]". Once again, Picard is happy to set off the auto-destruct but it takes Pulaski (of all people) to remind him what an overreaction that may be. Rather than 50% of the crew being killed, Picard will merrily slaughter 100%. (This is also one of those episodes that ignores the fact that there are civilians -- including ''children'' -- on board the ship.)
122** From the two-part episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E15Birthright Birthright]]", "Children should learn about their heritage, and if it includes bigotry, then they should accept that as part of their heritage."
123* GrowingTheBeard: The TropeNamer. After a half-baked effort of a first season, the series started to improve dramatically beginning with Riker getting away from his Kirk clone image by suddenly sporting a full beard. Consensus with both fans and critics is that Season 2 was a definite, if somewhat shakey step forward after a very lackluster Season 1, and that the show first truly starting hitting its stride with Season 3.
124** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Q, after he materializes two scantily clad women to fawn over Riker.
125--->'''Riker:''' I don't need your fantasy women.\
126'''Q:''' Oh, you're so stolid. [[CharacterizationMarchesOn You were never like that before the beard]].
127** In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E1TheChild the first episode of season two]] Geordi and Worf received promotions to Chief of Engineering and Chief of Security, which allowed their characters to grow and arguably had a much greater impact on the show's quality than Riker's beard (since, even beardless, Riker already had a reputation as a badass).
128** It's broadly agreed that the first bona-fide unquestioned 10/10 classic episode for the series was season 2's "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan The Measure of a Man]]".
129** The addition of Michael Piller was a huge boon for the franchise, one you can thank Maurice Hurley for. (See? He wasn't totally useless.) With him came Ron Moore, who had been rubber-necking around the set for a while and finally sold his first script, "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E5TheBonding The Bonding]]", to Piller in season 3.
130--->'''[[http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/tng-season-three.html Joe Ford]]''': Hang on one cotton-picking minute…isn’t season three of TNG when Michael Piller joined the show? And suddenly it's really rather good! In exactly the same way when he left ''Voyager'' it turned shite! Maybe, just maybe there is a trend here.
131** Somewhat more morbidly, some of the writers felt the series improved after the unfortunate passing of Creator/GeneRoddenberry - although they were saddened by his death they often complained that he shot down too many of their ideas and didn't give them enough room to expand and develop the characters properly, and that the one silver lining to the situation was that the series was now effectively theirs to write however they saw fit.
132** An echo to the series as a whole as well, as Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine was written and developed after Gene's passing, and depicted the Federation in a much more pessimistic light.
133* HarsherInHindsight:
134** During Data's comedy routine in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E4TheOutrageousOkona The Outrageous Okona]]", there is a scene where Guinan asks the comic (Joe Piscopo) "And you made a living doing this?" Modern viewers cannot help but feel a little bit of pity for Joe, considering the imminent collapse of his career.
135** Guinan's discussion of the implications of the Federation creating "disposable people" in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan The Measure Of A Man]]" comes off a lot darker given the backstory of ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', where the Federation indeed did build humanoid "synths" as industrial laborers based on Dr. Soong's own work with Data, Lore, and [[Film/StarTrekNemesis B-4]].
136** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E2Family Family]]" ends with Rene, Picard's nephew, declaring that someday, he'll enter Starfleet, following in his uncle's footsteps. In ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'', we learn that Rene, as well as Robert, [[spoiler:both burned to death in a fire at the vineyard.]] What's worse is that the closing shot in "Family" has ''a burning fireplace'' in the background!
137** The first season episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E20TheArsenalOfFreedom The Arsenal of Freedom]]" has the ''Enterprise'' and its crew under attack by automated drones [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard that inadvertently destroyed the civilization that created them long ago]]. Today, with things like [=UAVs=] and computer-guided missiles becoming indispensable parts of modern warfare, it becomes less amusing.
138** Sure, it may seem silly that in "Unification," the Romulans were planning to use only two ''thousand'' troops (essentially a single regiment) to annex an entire planet...until 2014, when {{UsefulNotes/Russia}} quickly annexed the Crimean Peninsula by using small groups of special forces to secure key areas and force out the Ukrainian military. Perhaps this is where UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin got the idea.
139** Watching Picard break down while bonded to Sarek in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E23Sarek Sarek]]" is a bit more difficult to watch knowing that Picard may very well share the same fate in his future. Additionally, a year after his encounter with Sarek, Picard revealed in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E17NightTerrors Night Terrors]]" that his grandfather suffered from a degenerative mental disease and that the idea of losing his mind has always terrified him.
140*** The producers themselves recognized the larger implications of the episode, as the {{applicability}} to similar real world figures was painfully obvious. The episode was also made about the same time Creator/GeneRoddenberry's health really went into decline.
141*** Indeed, although the cast learned about Gene's death during a later episode, the episode that ended up being dedicated to Gene Roddenberry's passing was the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E7Unification1 Unification, Part 1]]", the episode where Sarek died.
142** During "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E23TheHost The Host]]", there is the usual conference room scene where there are discussing Odan's deteriorating condition and the need for a new host for the Trill symbiont. Worf looked either impatient or bored with the conversation. Come [=DS9=], he probably wished he paid a little closer attention.
143** "The Chain of Command, Part 2", in a deeply disturbing way. With the exception of the pain device, everything the Cardassians do to torture Picard ''was'' taken from Amnesty International archives in a terrifying case of ShownTheirWork. Stripping for the purposes of humiliation? Check. Deliberately acting to dehumanize the prisoner and negate their identity and dignity? Check. "Stress positions", aka suspending the prisoner by their arms in such a way that their feet barely touch the floor, for long periods of time? Check. Idea that non-official combatants aka "terrorists" are not covered by conventions forbidding torture? Check. Objective of breaking the prisoner through distorting their perception of reality, successful to the point of producing hallucinations? ''Check.'' Patrick Stewart carefully studied the behavior of the victims to get the broken, defeated look just right and even insisted on being naked on set.
144** The episodes involving Romulus have gained a little bit of a bittersweet overtone since their airing. "The Defector" had a disgraced and banished Romulan general who'd defected to stop an all-out Romulan/Federation war [[spoiler:(actually part of a ploy by Romulus to ''start'' said war, albeit the general didn't know that)]], leaving behind a suicide note to be delivered to his child; the ending played up the hopes that, one day, relations would eventually be good enough between the two sides that the Federation could deliver it personally. The two-parter "Unification" ends on a hopeful note that the young of Romulus will eventually replace their warmongering elders and embrace their relationship with Vulcan on far more friendly terms. [[spoiler:Neither will happen; the Romulus of this universe was canonically vaporized by a supernova in ''Film/StarTrek2009'', giving Nero the impetus to go back in time and screw around with the alternate universe of the Abrams films. Though ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has a slightly more hopeful take on the situation, with the Romulan "commoners" off-world building a new, democratic government, and allying with either the Federation or the Klingons. And ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' would eventually confirm that, despite the planet's destruction, there are still plenty of Romulans about.]]
145** The four major Original Series actors who appeared on the show, Creator/DeForestKelley, Creator/JamesDoohan, Creator/LeonardNimoy, and Creator/MajelBarrett, signifying in all but the last case that their characters had survived to the 24th century, happened to be the first four to die in real life. And, sadly, Kelley was the only one who didn't live to see the 21st century. This makes the scene in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E4Relics Relics]]" where Scotty drinks a toast ToAbsentFriends all the more heartbreaking as a result.
146** The portrayal of Picard's issues with his father and his post-traumatic stress disorder from his Borg assimilation in "Family." Years later, Patrick Stewart revealed that his father suffered from PTSD after his service in World War II, which wasn't understood at the time and went untreated, causing him to become abusive towards his family.
147** It has been [[http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Database/Query-ST.php?EpName=Face%20of%20the%20Enemy pointed out]] on Website/StarDestroyerDotNet that there are some interesting parallels between Deseve from "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E13FaceOfTheEnemy Face of the Enemy]]" and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_Lindh John Walker Lindh]].
148** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E26S5E1Redemption Redemption]]", when the Enterprise crew first encounters Sela, Dr. Crusher initially believes she was Tasha Yar's clone created to try to undermine Starfleet. In ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'', Picard learns the Romulans had created a clone of ''him'' meant to KillAndReplace him, hoping to undermine Starfleet.
149** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E16QWho Q Who]]", the away team finds an infant on the Borg ship, which they leave as is; they assume it's simply a Borg child. But it turns out the Borg don't reproduce sexually, they forcibly assimilate. Meaning the baby was abducted by the Borg, and they just left it there instead of rescuing it and removing its implants.[[note]]This was a result of {{retcon}}, as originally the Borg were a single organic species who embraced cybernetic enhancement and were only interested in the technology of other races; "assimilation" was something the writers came up with in later appearances.[[/note]]
150** In "The Drumhead", InsaneAdmiral Satie persecutes Simon Tarses for being part-Romulan instead of part-Vulcan as he claimed. It's presented as baseless paranoia; however, with TheReveal in ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' that [[spoiler:a Romulan agency called ''Zhat Vash'' has an agent posing as a Vulcan officer in Starfleet]], Satie may be ProperlyParanoid to a degree.
151** The arguments over cloned organs in "Ethics" and Dr. Crusher's sheer unwillingness to even consider them as viable hits a lot harder now that cloning replacement organs using a patient's own stem cells is a very real possibility, but one often hindered by not only money needed to research the process, but moralistic arguments that seemingly make no sense by those who have power to hinder the research needed.[[note]]Though, admittedly, Crusher's objections stem more out of how the specific research in question hasn't even been approved for live testing, with a two in three failure rate in just the holographic models, as well as the doctor proposing the option acting in a manner that effectively treats the patient as less important than the research, in violation of the Hippocratic Oath.[[/note]]
152** In the show, a mysterious entity called Q plays pranks on the ''Enterprise'' and highlights threats to the Federation because he craves attention. Talking about the character becomes more awkward with the growing popularity of "[=QAnon=]," an insane conspiracy theory in which a mysterious person called Q claims to have special knowledge about insidious threats to the USA and has attracted a cultish following of devotees, but most people outside of the cult believe that it's a giant prank. Fortunately, there is a bright spot; [=DeLancie=] agreed to reprise his role as Q on ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' specifically because he wanted the name "Q" to be associated with something fun and entertaining again, and reclaim the title from the conspiracy theorist group.
153** Remember what a nasty, sadistic piece of work Armus was? Well, future installments of the franchise occasionally make reference to "''an'' Armus". In other words, there are ''more'' of these things.
154** In "Where No One Has Gone Before," Picard sees a vision of his mother as an old woman, offering him tea. His facial expression is utterly bereft when he turns after answering Will, to find her gone - which makes sense given that, in ''Star Trek: Picard'' we discover that [[spoiler: she committed suicide when he was a boy, and he prefers to imagine her as having lived to become an old woman, to deal with the trauma of her death]]. That scene has even more resonance now as a result.
155* HeartwarmingInHindsight:
156** As the first of the original seven of the series to pass on, it seems so fitting that Creator/DeForestKelley would the one who would pass the torch to the Next Gen crew.
157** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E20Qpid Qpid]]", one of the first things Q says to Picard is, "How 'bout a big hug?" [[spoiler:Come the Season 2 finale of ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', he finally got it.]]
158** Remember that embarrassing "Captain Picard Day" banner from "The Pegasus"? ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' reveals that he kept the banner in his archives.
159** In "Redemption," Commander Hobson tried to justify his prejudice against Data by saying a Klingon wouldn't make a good ship's counselor. [[spoiler:In ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'', he is proven wrong when Captain Ma'ah helps Mariner sort through her problems.]]
160* HilariousInHindsight:
161** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E10NewGround New Ground]]", Geordi is excited to try out the experimental soliton wave due to its historical significance, saying "it'll be like being there... to watch Zefram Cochrane engage the first warp drive!". In ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', Geordi actually takes part in Cochrane's first warp flight.
162** If you just started watching the show recently and are aware of how awesome Creator/WilWheaton's post-TNG career became, ''it's actually hard to dislike Wesley''.
163** The dialogue as the Enterprise tries to instruct a drunken captain how to repair his shuttle in "Symbiosis" sounds ''uncannily'' like a transcript from an IT support call.
164--->"Captain, we are beaming over a replacement coil."\
165"That's great! And that'll fix us up?"\
166"Yes, once it's installed."\
167"Right, and how do we do that?"\
168''[Despair, grief, and silence]''
169** In "Measure of a Man", the JAG officer says to Riker (to convince him to act as prosecutor against Data): "Then I will rule summarily against him as per my findings. Data [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 is a toaster]], he is to report to Commander Maddox immediately."
170** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E21ThePerfectMate The Perfect Mate]]" Creator/FamkeJanssen played a self described mutant with mental abilities sharing many scenes with Creator/PatrickStewart playing Picard. Eight years later she would do the same thing in the first X-Men film. What makes it even ''funnier'' (in a squicky sort of way) is that Janssen played Picard's love interest in that episode. [[TeacherStudentRomance And Xavier was secretly in love with Jean...]]
171*** Earlier that season, Stewart crossed paths with another future X-Men costar, Creator/KelseyGrammer (Dr. Hank [=McCoy=]/The Beast) in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E18CauseAndEffect Cause and Effect]]".
172** In "Phantasms", in Data's dreams, he finds himself having a telephone inside him. So that makes Data an Android phone.
173*** Combine this with "A Fistful of Datas". Mr. "Android Phone" comes with unlimited Datas.
174%%Needs explanation** No fan of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' will ever look at Picard's "next of kin to chaos" line toward Q the same way again.
175** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E26S6E1TimesArrow Time's Arrow]]", the crew are temporarily stranded in the nineteenth century. Their cover is that they're a troupe of traveling performers putting together a production of ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'' [[ActorAllusion Data takes the part of]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}} Puck]].
176** After Kim Kardashian and her family became household names around the late-2000s, the fact that TNG included an alien race named the "Cardassians" led to more than a few {{obligatory joke}}s from the Trekkie community. Including a [[http://media4.teenormous.com/items/www.tshirtbordello.com/images-keeping-up-with-the-cardassians-l1_thumb_400x300.gif pretty sweet t-shirt]].[[note]]And considering the media's obsession with certain of Kim's..."physical features", she probably still would have gotten the nickname "Kim [=KardASSian=]" even if the writers of ''Star Trek'' hadn't come up with the name first...[[/note]]
177** [[Series/Warehouse13 Saul Rubinek]] as a villainous CollectorOfTheStrange in "The Most Toys".
178** In "Deja Q", after being rendered mortal, during his check-up with Dr. Crusher, Q [[DeadpanSnarker snarks]] that he's "been under a lot of pressure, family problems". Ironically, Q would later start a family during his appearances on ''Voyager'', where his son proved to be as much trouble as he was!
179*** Doubles as HarsherInHindsight for fans of ''Series/BreakingBad'', where Creator/JohnDeLancie plays an air traffic controller [[spoiler:whose daughter dies of a drug overdose, causing him to become distracted and inattentive when he returns to work too soon, leading to a midair collision that kills hundreds.]]
180** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E12TheRoyale The Royale]]" we see Picard sitting at his computer console trying to confirm Fermat's Last Theorem, and he briefly waxes philosophical to Riker that after 800 years and after all their advancements, no one had managed to decipher it. [[ScienceMarchesOn Apparently nobody told him that Andrew Wiles figured it out in 1995]].
181** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E11ShipInABottle Ship in a Bottle]]", Barclay says "There must have been [[AGlitchInTheMatrix a glitch in]] [[Franchise/TheMatrix the matrix]]" (diodes). The episode culminates in a [[Film/{{Inception}} holodeck simulation within a holodeck simulation.]] The episode even closes with the question of whether the characters are still in the holodeck or not.
182** Despite being a FakedRipVanWinkle scenario, "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E8FutureImperfect Future Imperfect]]" seems strangely prescient about future Trek developments:
183*** Riker comments about how unlikely it was to see a Ferengi Starfleet officer. On ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Nog became the first Ferengi to serve in Starfleet.
184*** Similarly, Riker is surprised to see a female Klingon officer. ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' would feature Lt. B'Elanna Torres, the female half-Klingon/half-Human chief of engineering.
185*** Geordi no longer has his VISOR, his eyes having replaced with cloned implants. In ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', we see Geordi had replaced his VISOR with cybernetic implants, and in ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection'', [[ThrowingOffTheDisability he temporarily gains real eyes]] regenerated by the Ba'ku planet.
186*** Set 16 years in the future, Admiral Picard tells Riker that the Federation has been in peace talks with the Romulans for the last 4 years, which is right around the time ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'' takes place. And Riker's ship was in charge of the task force handling the negotiations with the Romulans.
187*** Troi is seen in a standard uniform. She would start wearing a standard uniform again in season 6's "Chain of Command".
188** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E22SkinOfEvil Skin of Evil]]", [[http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x23/skinofevil_hd_462.jpg the holodeck program]] where Tasha Yar's memorial service is held looks very much like [[http://www.hdwallpapers.in/walls/windows_xp_bliss-wide.jpg the standard wallpaper]] of [[UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows Windows XP]].
189** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E15YesterdaysEnterprise Yesterday's Enterprise]]", the planet the crew is headed for is called [[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Archer 4]]. And a plot-significant officer on the Enterprise-C is named "Richard Castillo". In English, Richard Series/{{Castle|2009}}.
190** "Devil's Due" starts with Data playing Scrooge in a holoprogram of ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' with Picard directing him. Creator/PatrickStewart would perform in a one-man version of ''A Christmas Carol'', which he later made into ''Film/AChristmasCarol1999'' in which Stewart starred as Scrooge.
191** The adult Wil Wheaton looks absolutely nothing like the actor playing adult Wesley in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E9HideAndQ Hide and Q]]". They didn't even get the hair or eye color right.
192** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E26S5E1Redemption Redemption]]", Picard criticizes the JustFollowingOrders excuse. In ''Film/XMenFirstClass'', Xavier (whose older counterpart is played by Creator/PatrickStewart) tries to use that to stop Magneto from killing two navy fleets.
193** Creator/PatrickStewart would go on to star in [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion a video game]] that featured him providing the opening narration (with one sentence even starting with "These are the..."), an eccentric PhysicalGod with reality-warping abilities, and characters that had French names but British accents.
194** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E18UpTheLongLadder Up The Long Ladder]]" Riker makes a little speech demonstrating to the Mariposan Prime Minister stating exactly why he objects to being cloned, stating that one William T. Riker might be unique and even special (or words to that effect) but multiple Rikers would not be. Four seasons later in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E22SecondChances Second Chances]]", we find out that due to a transporter accident, there in fact ''is'' now more than one William T. Riker and he ain't so unique after all.
195** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E7Justice Justice]]", Worf tells Riker rather emphatically how he could only ever have a Klingon woman as a LoveInterest. Then [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]] happened.
196** The plot of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E6TrueQ True Q]]" involves a young orphan raised by others who discovers that she is not a regular person, but in fact has magical powers. Furthermore, the deepest desire of her heart is to know what her birth parents looked like. All of this also applies to Franchise/HarryPotter.
197** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E20TheEmissary The Emissary]]", Worf and ambassador K'Ehleyr end up making love after a calisthenics program where they fight off aliens. If you watch [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS05E03LookingForParMachInAllTheWrongPlaces a DS9 episode seven years later]], you learn of the story of the legendary Klingon ruler Kahless and his consort, Lukara. They fought off an army of aliens single-handedly, then made love that night. Were Worf and K'Ehleyr accidentally playing out that romance?
198* InformedWrongness: Worf is depicted as wrong for refusing to donate tissue to save a wounded Romulan officer. He has plenty of reason, ''and'' the Romulan states he would rather die than "pollute [his] body with Klingon filth."
199** Worf again! This time, he kills Duras in revenge for killing his lady love. This earns him a severe dressing-down and a formal reprimand from Picard. But when Worf points out that he acted according to Klingon law and tradition, Picard concedes that the High Council agrees and considers the matter closed. So it's not like Worf caused a diplomatic incident. There seems to be no real reason that Worf is wrong other than Picard's human disapproval of settling disputes by dueling to the death, and such a diverse body as the Federation would have to require respect for other cultures and their traditions.
200*** But Worf also explicitly abandoned his post in order to seek his revenge and did not consult with Picard before doing it. Picard probably would have allowed Worf's actions had he been consulted before hand.
201* IronWoobie: Captain Picard. "Chain of Command" alone shows how much he can suffer through and still come out strong.
202* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: One of the common criticisms of Season 1, and much of Season 2, is that they were attempting to tell TOS stories twenty years too late. Part of this is to be expected, as much of the creative staff were veterans of TOS. Many of the episodes were recycled TOS plots, or even unused scripts from the never-realized ''Phase II'' series (considered necessary because of a poorly-timed writers' strike). Dr. Pulaski was even introduced to serve as a female Bones, right down to the banter with the logical bridge member (in this case, Data). Fortunately, the show began to develop its own character by Season 3 and finally managed to emerge from its predecessor's shadow.
203* JerkassWoobie:
204** Armus from "Skin of Evil", especially if he ever got free. He's a black liquid of pure evil made of the discarded negative emotions of an ancient race of highly advanced aliens, but he had no choice in his own creation and his constant state of undirected rage and hatred actually pains him as well. He wants nothing more than to be reunited with his creators for leaving him on a dead planet for millennia, but he will never get the chance. Both Picard and Troi express their pity for him while acknowledging his malevolence, but he angrily rejects it.
205** Gul Madred, Picard's Cardassian torturer in the two-part episode "Chain of Command", grew up on the streets as a poor boy, once beaten up over some food. Picard, however, calls him out on it in light of how he became a brutal torturer:
206--->'''Picard:''' When I look at you now, I won't see a powerful Cardassian officer... but a small boy weeping because he was powerless to protect himself.
207* MagnificentBastard:
208** [[TricksterMentor Q]] is a clever [[PhysicalGod transcendent being]] who [[ObfuscatingStupidity masquerades]] as a [[PsychopathicManchild rambunctious psychopath]], demonstrating his powers by teleporting the ''Enterprise'' across the galaxy. Forcing the ''Enterprise'' to confront the terrifying Borg and for Jean-Luc Picard to beg for Q's help, Q saves them out of respect for Picard's humility. After the Q Continuum strips him of his powers, Q asked to be teleported to the ''Enterprise'', knowing that Picard's nobility will force Picard to protect him against his various enemies. After regaining his powers Q uses his gifts on Picard to let him change his past so a series of events will allow him to avoid an untimely death, though at the cost of not being as highly-promoted within the Federation, in order to teach him the importance of learning from mistakes and taking risks. In his final appearance in the series, Q is tasked by the Continuum to destroy humanity, but Q does so in a way that Picard can prevent, where Picard creates a TimeParadox when Q shifts him through time and Q provides hints to Picard to resolve the paradox and save humanity.
209** Ensign Ro Laren, is a Bajoran and disgraced former Starfleet officer approached by Starfleet Admiral Kennelly, who says he will help arm Bajoran rebels against the Cardassians if she helps stop Bajoran terrorist attacks against the Federation. Ro uncovers a conspiracy by Kennelly to deliver the Bajoran rebels to the Cardassians and uses a Bajoran ship that is piloted by remote to fool the Cardassians into thinking they killed rebels and reveals the Cardassians were behind the terrorist attacks against the Federation. Later, when the ''Enterprise'' is damaged by a natural disaster, Ro is able to get a bridge control panel working by dumping power from the phaser array into the Bridge and suggests they separate the saucer section from the drive section and fly away when it looks like the Warp Core is about to explode. Later Picard has Ro join the rebel group, the Maquis, to undermine them, with Ro pretending to be on the run from Starfleet officers and gains the Maquis' trust by stealing medical supplies from the ''Enterprise''. Eventually, Ro decides to [[BecomingTheMask really join the Maquis]] and reveals a Federation Fleet hiding in a nebula to ambush the Maquis, deciding to become a rebel over being a Starfleet officer.
210** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E3ElementaryDearData Elementary Dear Data]]": The hologram of [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Professor Moriarty]], created to be [[WorthyOpponent an opponent capable of defeating Data]] at Holodeck games accesses the computer to learn of his past and the ship, ''Enterprise'', then kidnaps Dr. Pulski, revealing he is self aware, and taking control of the ship's computer. Sealed away until the crew finds a way to free him after making an agreement with Picard, Moriarty returns years later in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E11ShipInABottle Ship in a Bottle]]" when he's accidentally released. Angry at the crew's failure to free him, Moriarty demands to be released along with his [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes beloved]], Countess Regina Barthalomew. Taking control of the ship when Picard refuses, Moriarty threatens to crash it unless he and his loved one are set free. Although Picard wrestles back control of the ship, Moriarty traps Data and Barclay in an illusion on the Holodeck, before accessing Picard's access codes to the real ship, willing to die alongside everyone on board unless his dreams are granted. Although eventually trapped in virtual reality with the countess, Picard had to compromise by allowing Moriarty to live in the bliss of exactly what he wanted to save his crew from the brilliant criminal.
211** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E11TheHunted The Hunted]]": Roga Danar was one of many volunteers who fought in a war when his home planet Angosia III was attacked. The Angosian government altered the volunteers with [[BioAugmentation genetic engineering]] and [[BehavioralConditioning psychological conditioning]]. Danar and his fellow {{Super Soldier}}s were exiled to a lunar prison after the war. Danar escapes the prison while the ''Enterprise'' is in orbit of Angosia III who are asked by the Angosian government to capture him. Danar outwits the ''Enterprise'' crew several times before being captured. Conservations between Danar and Data and Troi reveal Danar to be a clever, charming, and tragic figure. When Danar is about to transferred back to lunar prison, Danar again escapes and outwits the ''Enterprise'' crew again, creating several [[WeNeedADistraction diversions]] until he escapes the ''Enterprise''. Danar frees the other super soldiers from the lunar prison and plans to attack Angosia III's capital so that the government will be forced to welcome them back into society.
212* MemeticMutation:
213** Picard has become an image for the {{Facepalm}} (Gallifrey Base actually has a Picard facepalm {{Emoticon}}) and general disbelief on the stupidity of a situation.
214** A ShoutOut to [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]: '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THERE... ARE...]]''' '''''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis FOUR...]]''''' '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis LIGHTS!]]'''
215** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6oUz1v17Uo Picard Song]]. It also more or less works as his ImageSong. Which is also linked to the [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duckroll Duckroll]], the precursor to the JustForFun/{{Rickroll}}.
216** On-set example: "The Picard Maneuver," tugging the lower part of the sweater to fix its appearance on-camera. It has since been performed by many other cast members in many other versions, including [[TheSpock Spock]] in [[Film/StarTrek2009 the 2009 movie]].
217** According to YTMND, [[TheBigGuy Worf]] can't pronounce "bacaruda."
218** The Tamaranian sayings from "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E2Darmok Darmok]]", especially "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!" and "Shaka, when the walls fell."
219** "[[TakeThatScrappy SHUT UP WESLEY!]]". Creator/WilWheaton jokes that people have put their kids through college with how much money the fans made selling homemade t-shirts emblazoned with that phrase. However, in 2016, Wil has confirmed that [[DiscreditedMeme he insta-bans people that tweet "Shut up, Wesley!" to him on Twitter, even if it's in jest]].
220** Due to both characters being played by Creator/JohnDeLancie (and one being directly based on the other), there is a running gag on the internet involving Q and [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Discord]] being the same person. "Q got bored and decided to troll ponies!" It helps that Picard once described Q as "next-of-kin to chaos." Now he really ''is'' the embodiment of chaos.
221** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVIGhYMwRgs Riker sits down]]. A fan decided to make a supercut of the odd way Riker sits down (by stretching his leg over the chair, much like mounting a horse), and it quickly took the internet by storm. Tall Trekkies were quick to point out that Creator/JonathanFrakes ''had'' to sit down like this, due to how short the chairs were in comparison to himself (and that the one-piece uniforms, and injuries from Frakes' old job moving furniture, probably didn't make it any easier).
222*** Alternately, there's the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjQ8yt33l14 Riker Lean.]] Which, even though it accommodates Frakes, fits his character well, and tends to lend itself to the CaptainMorganPose.
223** [[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f3/b5/be/f3b5beaf7befa644b8a4235d26f8b006.jpg Fire at "Will"...]]
224** From "Relics", Scotty's description of the original ''Enterprise'': "NCC-1701, no bloody 'A', 'B', 'C', or 'D'!" Since ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', fans also add "Or 'E'!" to that line.
225** Riker's outburst from [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E8FutureImperfect "Future Imperfect"]]: "No you ''CAN'T,'' don't even try!!!"
226** "Blazin' Bev": Doctor Crusher is portayed as [[TheStoner a massive pothead]], inspired by a scene in "Sub Rosa" where Crusher is [[ItMakesSenseInContext swooning over a ghost]], portrayed as a cloud of technicolor-green smoke.
227** [[{{Technobabble}} "Using multimodal reflection sorting..."]]
228** "Roddy Doyle's ''Star Trek''", which takes O'Brien and gives him the personality of Creator/ColmMeaney's characters from ''Film/TheCommitments'', ''Film/TheSnapper'', and ''The Van''. This also spills over into ''[=DS9=]''.
229* {{Misblamed}}: The racist undertones of "Code of Honor" have been pinned on near everyone on the production staff, but it has been shown that the script only called for a few token ScaryBlackMan bodyguards. The director of the episode (who was fired mid-way) decided to cast every guest star as black and make the alien race an African Tribe InSpace. Creator/WilWheaton mentioned in his blog that if it wasn't for that, the stereotypical accents and their [[HumanAliens human appearance]] it might have been a rather good, if derivative, episode.
230* MoralEventHorizon: See [[MoralEventHorizon/StarTrek here]].
231* MyRealDaddy: The series truly came into its own after Michael Piller took over the writing staff in Season 3. Ronald D. Moore is also credited with raising the bar.
232* {{Narm}}:
233** In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E2WhereSilenceHasLease "Where Silence Has Lease"]], we have a frustrated Worf crying out "There is one bridge. ONE BRIDGE. ''ONE RIKER. ONE BRIDGE.''" Then proceeds to gargle some sort of growl as he fights with a door to keep it open.
234** In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds "The Best of Both Worlds"]] part 1, when the ''Enterprise'''s engineering section is under attack, Geordi epically rolls under the door sealing off engineering... which was still high enough for Geordi to simply crouch under. This scene has been [[MemeticMutation memetically mutated]] on Website/{{YTMND}} as the "[[http://epicgeordi.ytmnd.com/ Epic Geordi Maneuver]]".
235%% ** The audience reaction to the Ferengi introduction as the BigBad of the series in [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E4TheLastOutpost "The Last Outpost"]] was so much this, that the writers dropped them as villains in favor of the Borg, and made Armin Shimerman feel so badly that his entire purpose playing Quark in Deep Space Nine was to wipe away the awful introduction in those first episodes.
236** The infamous "You shall have NO treaty, NO vaccine, and NO Lieutenant Yar!!" line in "Code of Honour". While it's meant to be serious, since he's got Lt. Yar captive, it comes off as funny due to how he emphasises "no" each time.
237** In "Lonely Among Us", Worf gets electrocuted while using an LCARS display with his stylus. His reaction to lightning surging through him is to growl ferally and glare defiantly at the display until he passes out.
238%% ** "Oh no. Oh PLEEASE no!!"[[note]][[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E17EyeOfTheBeholder "Eye of the Beholder"]][[/note]]
239%% ** The producers were never thrilled by the final appearance of the abductor aliens from [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E5Schisms "Schisms"]]. Creator/BrannonBraga said "I felt they looked like monks - fish monks, [[AndThatsTerrible and monks aren't terrifying]]."
240%% ** [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E13SubRosa "Sub Rosa."]] Let's just say this sentence is no less crazy ''in'' context.
241%% --->'''Beverly:''' I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter in my grandmother's journal.
242* NarmCharm: In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E7Reunion "Reunion"]], as Gowron confronts Duras, he says "You will die slowly, Duras...", suddenly turning his chair mid-sentence to face him directly, capping off with a SlasherSmile. It's so silly but so entertaining.
243** In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E2WhereSilenceHasLease "Where Silence Has Lease"]], the Nagilum entity looks...[[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/1/1e/Nagilum.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/350?cb=20121216004711&path-prefix=en a bit goofy]], and the early-80s CGI hasn't aged well, but it's fairly creepy in context, given how it looks [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith almost human]]...[[UnintentionalUncannyValley but not quite.]]
244** "A Fistful of Datas". Patrick Stewart was hardly the ideal choice to direct a Western, as you can tell by the inclusion of the Paramount parking lot (in the episode's ''only'' wide shot). The teaser in Picard's quarters is more self-aware: Dr. Bev tells Picard that he won’t be playing one of the leads in her play because he isn’t much of an actor.
245** "Q Who". The Borg costumes and special effects are pretty rough compared to how impressive they look in later installments, but they're so [[OutsideContextProblem alien]] and so ''[[TheJuggernaut unstoppable]]'' in their first appearance, they still manage to be a terrifying foe.
246* NeverLiveItDown:
247** Deanna Troi, AKA CaptainCrash. Interestingly, no one mentions the fact that neither of those times Deanna was to blame - in ''[[Film/StarTrekGenerations Generations]]'' the core breach disables all helm controls and in ''[[Film/StarTrekNemesis Nemesis]]'' Picard gives the command for the ''Enterprise'' to be rammed into the ''Scimitar''.
248** Wesley Crusher being the one who "saves the ship every other episode." Actually, the total number of times that Wesley came up with the solution to that week's scenario was six, not dozens, as people like to remember. It's just a little irritating that on a ship that contains a captain known for strategy and a freaking ''android'' with total recall, a little whiny kid saved the day even ''once''.
249** It probably really didn't help Wesley that in the second episode, [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E2TheNakedNow "The Naked Now,"]] really the first time he got any significant screentime, he spent the first half of it whining that he wasn't allowed on the bridge, even making a device that mimics Picard's voice so that he can ''pretend Captain Picard is giving him orders'', and the second half "drunk" and having taken over the ship and declared himself Captain.
250** Picard's difficulties in relating to kids is often exaggerated by fans into him despising all children.
251** Geordi's approach to dating will forever be characterized as "creepily cyber-stalks women that he's never met", even though he didn't cyber-stalk them; he had to find out about them for professional reasons, and didn't start crushing on them until after the fact.
252** Dr Crusher's romance with the candle ghost alien from "Sub Rosa" would somehow become common knowledge throughout Starfleet by the time WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks takes place.
253** Behind the scenes, Rick Berman frequently gets criticized for firing composer Ron Jones after season 4 and adopting a much less memorable "sonic wallpaper" approach through the rest of his tenure with ''Star Trek''.
254** Tasha Yar sleeping with Data in "The Naked Now" and being killed by a tar-like monster in "Skin of Evil".
255* OlderThanYouThink: Though non-canon, Worf wasn't the first Klingon in Starfleet or even onboard the ''Enterprise''. In ''ComicBook/StarTrekDCComics'', there was a Klingon named Konom, who was made an honorary Ensign onboard the ''Enterprise''-A after defecting from the Empire. He would appear about three years before ''TNG'' first aired.
256* OnceOriginalNowCommon: It can be so very hard to understand how hard-hitting and ''terrifying'' the {{Cliffhanger}} ending of "The Best of Both Worlds Part I" was, especially after ''TNG'' and the subsequent ''Trek'' spinoffs ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'', ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'', and ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'' started making regular use of such endings, and then pretty much every dramatic television series after that. Hell, it's easy to forget now that viewers had to wait ''three months'' just to see how the two-parter would resolve and whether Creator/PatrickStewart really would be returning! It was all nerds talked about over the summer of 1990 and made "[=BoBW=] Part 2" a ratings goliath when it aired. Today, the idea of such cliffhanger feels outright ''cheap''.
257* OneSceneWonder:
258** The Goddess of Empathy. The other characters' reactions to her are ''priceless'', especially the contrast between Deanna's outrage and Riker's amusement.
259** Admiral Thomas Henry from [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E21TheDrumhead "The Drumhead"]]. [[TheVoiceless He doesn't have to speak a word onscreen]]; instead, he casts a DeathGlare upon InsaneAdmiral Norah Satie during her paranoid rant against Picard before he silently [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere gets up and leaves the room]].
260** Sarek in [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E7Unification1 "Unification I."]]
261* ReplacementScrappy: Dr. Pulaski in season 2 for Dr. Crusher (Crusher was PutOnABus to take a position as head of Starfleet Medical). Disliked not so much for the fact that she was not Dr. Crusher as for her [[DrJerk abrasive, unsympathetic and arrogant personality]] despite characters [[CreatorsPet regularly claiming otherwise]]. She did have her moments, though.
262* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap:
263** Wesley, once he got older and enrolled in Starfleet Academy. In fact, some find him much less annoying if they simply skip the first season. He still has his whiny moments in the second, but he grows up pretty quickly, and by the third season, he's actually pretty bearable. Wil Wheaton's having become such a popular nerd icon who never misses a chance to assure us he ''also'' hated Wesley really helps too.
264** Counselor Troi improved significantly during the sixth-season two-parter "Chain of Command", where the substitute Captain orders her to put on a standard uniform. She continues to appear in uniform when on-duty for the rest of the series... and apparently started taking her career in Starfleet seriously beyond being just a counselor, beginning to take command training and becoming certified for conn duty. Troi wearing one of her little jumpsuits or a uniform is usually an indicator of if you're getting "I sense emotions, Captain!" Troi or "Emergency power to shields, return fire!" Troi.
265** Lwaxana Troi was described by some critics as like a dentist drill in her first few appearances, with both "Haven" and "Manhunt" cringeworthy episodes (like most of the first few two seasons) and her overbearing personality contributing to that. Starting with "Menage a Troi" in the third season, she became a lot more tolerable, even sympathetic while also being quite funny. Her last TNG episode "Dark Page" is considered one of the biggest {{TearJerker}}s of the franchise.
266* RetroactiveRecognition:
267** Creator/ColmMeaney's occasional bit parts in the first season naturally stand out a lot more after getting to know him as O'Brien.
268** Creator/TeriHatcher, all of 23 years old, appears as a transporter operator in "The Outrageous Okona". Complete with EightiesHair.
269** Suzie Plakson is known to Next Gen fans as K'Ehleyr, Worf's witty lady love, but younger TV audiences probably know her better as Judy Eriksen, Marshall's mom on ''Series/HowIMetYourMother''.
270** Noted hottie Nikki Cox is unrecognizable in "Pen Pals", not only because she's in heavy alien makeup, but because she's ten.
271** Creator/FamkeJanssen as Kamala, the empathic metamorph who bonds with Picard in "The Perfect Mate." Famke Janssen and Patrick Stewart would later star together in the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'' as Jean Grey and Professor X, respectively.
272** The late Andreas Katsulas, who played Romulan Commander Tomalak, was Ambassador G'Kar on ''Series/BabylonFive'', as well as [[Film/TheFugitive the One-Armed Man]]. It doesn't help that Katsulas' Tomalak feels like "evil G'Kar" in a few episodes in tone and performance.
273** Creator/DarrenAronofsky fave Mark Margolis as Dr. Nel Apgar in "A Matter of Perspective." ''Series/BreakingBad'' fans know him as "Tio" Hector Salamanca.
274** Creator/ChristopherMcDonald as Lt. Richard Castillo in "Yesterday's Enterprise", years before starring as Shooter [=McGavin=] in ''Film/HappyGilmore''.
275** Creator/TonyTodd as Worf's brother, Klingon Captain Kurn.
276** Creator/AshleyJudd as Ensign Robin Lefler, Wesley's main squeeze. It's like the show is poking the eye of everybody who damned Wesley as a geeky nuisance with no balls.
277** Creator/TerryOQuinn, aka [[Series/{{Lost}} John Locke]], was Riker's previous CO, now an admiral, in "The Pegasus", with a bit more hair.
278** Jerry Hardin ("Deep Throat" in ''Series/TheXFiles'') plays Radue in "When the Bough Breaks" and Samuel Clemens in "Time's Arrow" Pts. 1 & 2.
279** Vaughn Armstrong ([[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Admiral Forrest]]) played Captain Korris in "Heart of Glory."
280** In "The Royale": Noble Willingham (''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'') and Creator/SamAnderson (''Series/{{Angel}}'', ''Series/{{Lost}}'').
281** Here's an obscure one: Beth Toussaint, who played Tasha's surviving sister in "Legacy", was the first actress to play Sheridan's wife on ''Series/BabylonFive''
282** Creator/DiedrichBader (billed as "Dietrich"; ''Film/OfficeSpace'', ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'') plays a tactical crewman in "The Emissary."
283** [[Series/{{Scrubs}} Dr. Bob Kelso]] as Dr. Paul Stubbs in "Evolution."
284** Julie Warner, who played Christy Henshaw, Geordi's love interest in the season 3 episodes "Booby Trap" and "Transfigurations", later played the love interests in ''Doc Hollywood'' and ''Film/TommyBoy''.
285** A 26-year-old Barbara Alyn Woods (Deb from ''Series/OneTreeHill'') has a guest role in "The Schizoid Man".
286** Madchen Amick, now playing Alice Cooper on ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'', appears in "The Dauphin" as one of the forms Anya takes, at the age of eighteen.
287** From within the franchise:
288*** The captain of the Ferengi ship in "The Last Outpost", the episode in which they were introduced, was Creator/ArminShimerman, better known as Quark.
289*** Marc Alaimo played the first Romulan to appear in the series (Commander Tebok) in "The Neutral Zone" and ''then'' the first Cardassian to appear in the franchise (Gul Macet) in "The Wounded", before being cast in his best-known role, Gul Dukat.
290*** Ethan Phillips (Neelix) played a Ferengi in "Menage a Troi".
291*** One of the technicians who tries to take over the ''Enterprise'' in "Starship Mine" is played by Tim Russ before we knew him as Tuvok.
292*** A well-known example is Robert Duncan [=McNeill=] playing Nicholas Locarno in "The First Duty". Depending on who you ask, Tom Paris was either created as an {{Expy}} of Locarno so they wouldn't have to pay royalties, or there were other reasons, such as that the creators of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' felt Locarno was irredeemable. For what it's worth, [=McNeill=] has said they're very different characters; "Locarno seemed like a nice guy, but deep down he was a bad guy. Tom Paris is an opposite premise in a way. Deep down he's a good guy. He's just made some mistakes."
293*** Max Grodenchik puts in a couple of appearances as two different Ferengi before playing Rom on [=DS9=].
294** You can absolutely spot the seeds of the storytelling style that Ron Moore would bring to his ''Battlestar Galactica'' reboot in his scripts for this show, with their greater emphasis on character examination (his very first story is basically "What if a RedShirt died and people actually cared?") and long term story arcs (he was entirely the brains behind Worf's discommendation storyline).
295* RoboShip: Tasha Yar and Data, [[NeverLiveItDown but only that one time]]. The ExpandedUniverse novel ''Q Squared'' pretty much states outright that, had Tasha lived, "one time" would have turned into "[[FriendsWithBenefits a regular thing]]", as it did with at least two other Tashas and two other Datas in alternate timelines.
296* TheScrappy:
297** Dr. Pulaski. Pulaski replaced Wesley's mother as the ship's doctor for a single season before fan outcry got them to bring Dr. Crusher back. As often happens in life, first impressions are everything. Not only was she a ReplacementScrappy, but the writers made a major miscalculation in their attempt to make her a DistaffCounterpart of [[TheMcCoy Dr. McCoy]] from the original series. Since [=McCoy's=] arguments with Spock were such a fan favorite aspect of the character, the writers tried to duplicate it by having Pulaski take a dislike to [[TheSpock Data]] and toss him similar insults about being so logical all the time. Unfortunately, unlike Spock, Data couldn't even really understand that he was being insulted and could not respond in kind -- they missed that at least half of what made the Bones/Spock relationship so great was that Spock would zing [=McCoy=] right back, Vulcan-style. Also, Data is very rarely wrong, so Pulaski's mockery of Data's aping of human traits makes her come across like a bigot bullying a neurodivergent person. Other than Pulaski, every TNG character who has expressed doubt in Data's sentience has been labeled a villain. Worse, Pulaski behaved boorishly to Captain Picard in her very first scene. If an incoming department head tried that in a naval ship, she'd probably be tossed overboard. The character mellowed out by her second episode, but the damage was done. Diana Muldaur left the show on less-than-harmonious terms; a mess all around. However, some fans at least acknowledge that she was a competent and intelligent doctor (and a good actress, as her two parts in classic ''Trek'' show).
298** Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher. A classic case of a (and former {{Trope Namer|s}} of) CreatorsPet. He could have been a fun character, embodying a dream of many a fan. A geeky teen genius who's allowed to be a part of the crew and explore the universe. He could have provided insights and solve some problems, but no. He had to meddle in everything, he had to be shamelessly praised by everybody and he solved virtually every major problem or crisis, which at times occurred in part because of him. As with Muldaur, Wesley's reputation as a Scrappy can be traced back to his first appearances: As early as Season Two, Wesley was portrayed as fallible and prone to self-doubt. Referenced in ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' when Sheldon referred to [[AdamWesting actor]] Creator/WilWheaton as "the [[TheScrappy/{{Film}} Jar-Jar Binks]] of the ''Star Trek'' fandom".
299* SeasonalRot:
300** Season 2 suffered from the writer's strike forcing several scripts from the never-made "Phase 2" series having to be dusted off and awkwardly reworked to fit the show's characters, as well as a continuing struggle over escaping the shadow of the original series without even the novelty value that let season 1 get away with it.
301** Season 7 is widely agreed to be by ''far'' the show's weakest season post-GrowingTheBeard. Although some have blamed this on new showrunner Jeri Taylor abandoning the show's previous "anyone can submit a script" policy, TNG veteran Ronald D. Moore has admitted that the writers were just plain running out of ideas by that point, along with early work on the upcoming ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' and ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' causing the staff to be spread too thinly.
302* SequelDisplacement:
303** For a lot of viewers (especially Gen-Xers and Millenials), ''TNG'' is '''the''' definitive ''Star Trek'' series over ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries TOS]]''.
304** Music/JerryGoldsmith's main titles score for ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' is nigh-universally known as the ''Next Generation'' theme now, due to the length of time ''[=TNG=]'' used it and the original film's less-than-stellar reception compared to its sequels.
305* SoBadItsGood: [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E17NightTerrors "Night Terrors."]] C'mon, the flying Troi scenes are unbeatable.
306* SpecialEffectsFailure:
307** An android being played by an actor who ''ages''? [[SarcasmMode What were they thinking?!]] ''Star Trek'' was big in season one; but it wasn't the world-spanning multi-billion dollar Goliath it is now. Casting Data with an actor who ages as an immortal android is pretty easily explained by the fact the producers had no reasonable way of knowing just how long-running the series would eventually become.
308** [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E15TooShortASeason "Too Short A Season"]] has Admiral Jameson, who is an eighty-something man played by 27-year-old actor Clayton Rohner, wearing an inch of wrinkly makeup. It's ''painfully'' obvious.
309** For a more obvious example, the episode [[https://youtu.be/g_Vr9LnogLM?t=1m26s "Conspiracy"]] has a very laughable puppet that bursts out of [[spoiler:Dexter Remmick's]] chest. The fact that it was bluescreened atrociously into the scene makes the effect even more laughable than it already was. The bluescreening was made less obvious in the remaster, but the puppet used still looks hilariously bad.
310** It's also worth noting that despite being credited in every episode, Creator/IndustrialLightAndMagic only worked on the opening, ThePilot and the last episode. This is mainly due to Enterprise flybys from the pilot being reused throughout the series. One even shows up in ''Film/StarTrekGenerations''.
311** [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E16Ethics "Ethics"]] bases its entire plot around Worf breaking his spine when a heavy barrel falls on him in the storage bay. The plot treats it as an appropriately dramatic event, with Worf even asking Riker to kill him to free him from the shame of being so gravely injured in such an undignified way. Well the injury certainly seemed more undignified than the show's staff intended, because the episode uses what is very obviously a hollow plastic prop for the barrel, which outright ''bounces'' off of Michael Dorn's back. The sheer dissonance between the visible lightweightedness of the prop and the show's portrayal of the resultant injury as enough to paralyze Worf consequently makes it very difficult to watch much of the episode with a straight face.
312** A recurring one is the "[[https://i.imgur.com/BkQXzoU.jpeg black paper.]]" The Enterprise sets made heavy use of reflective plexiglass to give it that future-y look, especially the bridge set. However, this meant that the fixtures used to keep the set well-lit would risk reflecting off that glass. To solve this problem, especially in early seasons, they'd paste sheets of black construction paper over spots where the light was reflecting. This looks relatively fine on an older TV, but in the modern era of HD, it becomes ''very'' obvious the moment you're looking for it, especially since sometimes the paper didn't fully cover up the light.
313* {{Squick}}:
314** In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E20CostOfLiving "The Cost of Living"]] Lwaxana (an older woman played by an actress at 60) and Alexander (a little boy whose actor was 11) take a seemingly-naked mudbath together. It's entirely platonic, but while this sort of behavior might be more acceptable by the twenty-fourth century, it's rather disgusting to some viewers ''now.''
315** In "Conspiracy", the alien-controlled conspirators eat live maggots for lunch.
316** Invoked in "Rascals" where Keiko O'Brien, having been reversed-aged to a child, asks her very perturbed husband what it means for their marriage when he points out that he can hardly treat his wife like a wife when she’s in a child’s body.
317** The premise of "Sub Rosa" is that Dr. Crusher dates an alien manifesting as the ghost of ''her grandma's boyfriend''. And they go all the way. Worse is when she has an EroticDream and thinks it's because she read her grandma's diary, and Troi seems to think this is normal!
318* StrangledByTheRedString: In Season 7's "Parallels", Worf is sent multiverse-hopping, and he briefly winds up in a world where he and Troi are very HappilyMarried. While he had never considered this before he decided to give it a try when he got back, leading to a romantic subplot between the two that took place across the entire second half of the season. This was the result of the new showrunner demanding more of a focus on Crusher and Troi, and a romantic subplot for the latter, only for Rick Berman to throw a wrench in the works by forbidding that any such subplot be with Riker. The writers therefore decided that Worf was the "least bad" of the remaining options,[[note]](Picard had always had better chemistry with Crusher, Data wasn't suitable due to his lack of emotions, and La Forge, the only realistic alternative to Worf, had interacted far less with Troi across the series than Worf had)[[/note]] as there had been a bit of foreshadowing in the previous year's "Fistful of Datas", and Troi had served as a mother figure to Worf's son, Alexander. In what's probably an AuthorsSavingThrow, none of the TNG films have any mention of the relationship, despite the Series' finale including a possible future where Worf and Riker are at odds over Troi even after her death. Creator/JonathanFrakes (Riker) and Creator/MarinaSirtis (Troi) apparently disliked the idea as well, and were quite happy to have their characters get married in [[Film/StarTrekNemesis their last film]]. Creator/MichaelDorn (Worf), on the other hand, refused to forget it, and, when given a line about how Riker and Troi's feelings for each other had never gone away, subtexted it like mad. The Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse novel ''Triangle: Imzadi II'' by Creator/PeterDavid tried to draw a line under Worf[=/=]Troi. It involves Lwaxana Troi putting him through the paces, and a complex plot involving Sela and Thomas Riker.
319* StrawmanHasAPoint:
320** Back when the Federation forcibly relocating people was considered a ''bad'' thing, Picard had to relocate some people descended from American Indians from a planet that was about to become Cardassian territory. The problem for the aesop was that the Federation really was doing this for the colonists' own protection and was not some thinly-veiled excuse, as the episode tried to imply by historical comparison, but because the Cardassians were brutal to the inhabitants of planets they occupy. The Federation citizens in question opted to join the Cardassians so they wouldn't have to relocate, but had acknowledged the dangers involved.
321** In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E13TimeSquared "Time Squared,"]] Dr. Pulaski (who, to put it mildly, was not well-liked by the crew) tells Troi that she's concerned Picard's fear and doubt over the situation with the future Picard could be potentially paralyzing, and says the time may come that she'd have to relieve him of duty. Troi basically tells her to shove it, but when the vortex shows up, Pulaski is proven right: Picard, uncharacteristically, keeps going back and forth with himself out loud about what to do.
322** In "Chain of Command", the audience is expected to side with Riker against Captain Edward Jellico, who's making many radical changes to the way the ''Enterprise'' is run, culminating with his decision to refuse to negotiate with the Cardassians for Picard's release. In fact, being the captain, Jellico has every right to make alterations as he sees fit, and to negotiate with the Cardassians that way would leave the Federation at their mercy, and actually make it less likely to get Picard back. (By the way, any mention of the disagreement between Jellico and Riker tends to generate huge amounts of Administrivia/{{Natter}}, so perhaps we should just leave it at that.)
323** Worf. As noted in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edflm7Hh3hs this compilation]], Worf's frequently the OnlySaneMan in ''any'' situation by suggesting they be prepared for hostile or belligerent aliens that might threaten the ship, only for the others to [[IgnoredExpert ignore him completely]], then suffers an [[TheWorfEffect ass-kicking]] for his trouble when it invariably turns out he was ''right'' all along. Michael Dorn even mentioned having seen the video in a Q&A and found it ''hilarious''.
324** In "Descent, Part I" Admiral Nechayev has the events of "I Borg" explained to her. She [[PunishedForSympathy dresses down Picard]] for letting a potential opportunity to destroy the Borg Collective slip past, that being using the rescued Borg drone Hugh as a TyphoidMary to destroy the Collective with a cyberweapon, and leaves him with standing orders that if he gets another such opportunity he is to bury his conscience and take advantage of it. While Picard had done it because he had come to see Hugh as a person, and the episode is framed for us to agree with him and treat Nechayev as yet another InsaneAdmiral, consider this: The Borg have killed billions, minimum, and are inherently required to do so by their core programming, and thus represent an apocalyptic threat to every thinking creature in the entire galaxy. [[GodzillaThreshold At that point]], one must consider Spock's old standby that "{{the needs of the many}} outweigh the needs of the few or the one." [[spoiler:If the events of Literature/StarTrekDestiny were canon, then Picard's refusal to use Hugh in this way did in fact have dire consequences - the final Borg/Federation war resulted in the deaths of over 70 ''billion'' sapient beings.]] ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' will go on to [[BrokenAesop zig-zag insanely]] over whether the Borg are redeemable or whether they should be wiped out without compunction. Either way, given how many similar Borg-destroying ideas (including the plan to use Hugh's newfound individuality as a weapon instead) prove to only have limited results, it's [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption highly doubtful that the plan would have worked anyway]].
325** From "The Pegasus", many long-time viewers find themselves agreeing with Admiral Pressman's belief that the Federation is unnecessarily handicapping itself by not developing cloaking devices. The Klingons and Romulans are constantly shown to have a tactical and strategic advantage thanks to cloaks while the Federation isn't really shown investing in any sort of stealth technology. All this in the name of preserving a treaty that the Romulans constantly violate without serious repercussions. There's a point where HonorBeforeReason becomes TooDumbToLive[[note]]The real reason for this is because Roddenberry decreed that "Good guys don't hide themselves"[[/note]].
326** In "The Price", Devanani Ral is set up as a "gun for hire" with no morals other than achieving the upper hand in whatever negotiation he's been hired to negotiate. He even has an argument with Troi regarding when it's ethical to use empathic senses to gain an upper hand: Is it more ethical to use them during negotiations for property without telling the other side (as Ral does) or wait until you're in a life or death situation and just tell your side what you sense (as Troi does)? Ral does have a point: When he does it, all that is won or lost is property; however when Troi does it, a lot more is at stake (i.e. lives at risk during a confrontation with the Romulans). Troi's reveal at the end of the episode that [[spoiler: that Ral had been using his empathic senses to manipulate the negotiations for the wormhole]] can came across as a little high handed.
327* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: While ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' was good, it wasn't consistently good and still had out-there episodes, particularly toward the end. This show, especially after GrowingTheBeard, has little to none of the camp factor of the original series, and has more actual continuity and story arcs. In fact, its pre-beard episodes (often derided as the worst) are the ones with the ''most'' resemblance to the original, including plenty of space hippies and woodenly-delivered aesops.
328* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: Some fans have noted that the Ressikan melody from "The Inner Light" sounds very similar to the Scottish folk song "Skye Boat Song".
329* TakeThatScrappy:
330** One mistaken example is in the episode [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E12Datalore "Datalore."]] At one point Picard yells a big loud "Shut up, Wesley!", but only so that it [[CreatorsPet makes Wesley look more heroic]] [[NotNowKiddo when he insists on being heard]], and when he's ''still'' ignored, he goes against Picard's orders and as a result, and saves the ship and everyone on it from being killed. None the less, it was just about one of the funniest scenes that season, and satisfying to hear. (Wesley himself, Creator/WilWheaton, wrote that there are ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fans who put their children through college on the proceeds of selling t-shirts and badges reading "Shut up, Wesley!")
331** [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E8TheBattle The Battle]] has one. Whereas most of the reprimands that Wesley receives in the first two seasons are at best for things that aren't his fault, or at worst designed to make him look good at the expense of everyone else, he does get a rare legitimate yelling-at when he identifies the Stargazer on long-range sensors, then runs up to tell everyone on the bridge of his discovery, instead of using ship communications. Picard immediately reprimands him for his transparent glory-seeking and trying to engineer an excuse to be around when the Ferengi beam on-board. He is allowed to remain on the bridge anyway.
332** [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E9HideAndQ Hide and Q]] has an unintentional one as well, Wesley Crusher gets gorily stabbed through the stomach by a "vicious animal thing". The image was popularly captioned "Wesley gets the point", which became an AscendedMeme in the CCG with a card of that title that kills Wesley and [[{{Pun}} gives the player a single point]].
333** Yet another one appears in [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E1TheChild The Child]] During the awkward turbolift conversation between Picard and Wesley. Picard barely even makes eye-contact with the lad, and after Wesley says how hard it will be for him to leave the Enterprise, Picard delivers the line "Mixed feelings for all of us" with what can only be described as a sense of irony.
334** Don't forget what Kurn says in [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E17SinsoftheFather "Sins of the Father"]] when Wesley is whispering while Kurn is talking: "Do you wish to '''SPEAK''', Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher?"
335** [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E23Sarek "Sarek"]]: Similarly to "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E12Datalore Datalore]]," this episode features two example of Wesley getting abused by other characters--firstly when Geordi calls him a loser who has no chance of getting anything out of his date, and then when Beverly hits him--that aren't his fault in any way, shape or form, but are considered satisfying moments by those fans who aren't overly fond of him. The latter incident in particular became one of the first animated [=GIFs=] to be widely circulated on the developing internet.
336** [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E19TheFirstDuty "The First Duty"]] is the episode where Wesley's CreatorsPet status finally gets shattered. The episode is one long Take That to Wesley, showing that he's no longer in any way a Creator's Pet who can never do any wrong and for whom the scripts will bend over backwards to make look better. After discovering Wesley has been covering up the circumstances behind the death of a fellow Starfleet cadet, Picard is ''pissed,'' and [[WhatTheHellHero chews him out]] [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech something fierce]] in a [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome particularly memorable scene.]]
337--->'''Picard:''' [[TitleDrop The first duty]] of every Starfleet officer is to the truth! Whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth! It is the ''guiding principle'' upon which Starfleet is based! If you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, '''you don't deserve to wear that uniform.''' I'm going to make this simple for you, Mister Crusher. [[IfYouWontIWill Either you come forward and tell Admiral Brand what really took place, or I will.]]
338--->'''Wesley:''' Captain--
339--->'''Picard: [[GetOut Dismissed!!!]]'''
340** In the novel ''Contagion'', Troi and Worf are assigned to investigate a murder, and enlist Wesley to assist. He gets stuffed into an airtight container and left for dead. He does manage to rig up an alert from the inside, but it's a near thing.
341* TearDryer: In "Ethics", the doctors are trying to help Worf and at one point they think there's no hope and he's going to die. Luckily, he wakes up.
342* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter:
343** Tasha Yar. She was originally conceived as a no-nonsense ActionGirl with a very dark past, but ExecutiveMeddling made it so this vision of her would never be realized. Her actress, Creator/DeniseCrosby, was so irritated by Tasha's lack of development that she wanted out by the end of the first season.
344*** And poor Crosby got hit by it again when she herself came up with the idea of Tasha having a Romulan daughter so she could come back to the show. Her creation Sela only appeared twice after her introduction in the final scene of Season 4, and aside from a scene where she explains her backstory to Picard, her role could have easily been filled by any random Romulan. Crosby had to wait more than twenty years for Sela to finally get some good stories of her own in ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline''.
345** Deanna Troi. Yes, Troi had her share of fans ([[Blog/MarkDoesStuff Mark Oshiro]] often expressed a fondness for her during his run-through of the franchise), and you'd think that an empath, who serves as a counselor mind you, could have made for some pretty good story fodder. The fact that she managed to keep Picard sane, after all the shit he'd been through, means that she must have been ''very'' effective at what she did. But the show often didn't know what to do with her, and had her come off like a CaptainObvious and MsFanservice more often than not (as Marina Sirtis would be the first to tell you), and that's when she wasn't that episode's victim. Starting with "Disaster" - where she gets command of the ship by unfortunate circumstance - they gave her a little CharacterDevelopment, plus a proper uniform, and her increased ambition culminated in her becoming a bridge officer in season 7. And even then, her disastrous experiences on the bridge resulted in her getting a CaptainCrash reputation among fans. Deanna just can't win. (On the up side, the extra focus on female characters like Troi would thankfully carry over to Janeway and B'Elanna on ''Voyager.'')
346* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
347** The two-part episode "Descent" is a direct sequel to "I Borg", and it features Geordi and Hugh, but not both of them together. They should've had at least one scene together, since Hugh had become resentful of what the ''Enterprise'' crew made him, and Geordi was the one he was closest with.
348** "The Outrageous Okona": A Han Solo-style pilot comes on board the notoriously dull season 2 Enterprise, has sex with 1980s Creator/TeriHatcher, teaches Data about humanity, nearly starts an interplanetary war and at the end has to come to terms with his responsibilities... completely ruined by some of the flattest and cheesiest jokes of the entire franchise.
349** "A Matter of Time" might have been better if Dr. Rasmussen [[spoiler:actually was a historian from the 26th century instead of being a 22nd century conman.]]
350** "The Child" is generally considered to be a weak episode, but the basic premise (a sufficiently advanced alien, who discovers a civilization, becomes curious about said civilization, and decides to satisfy its curiosity by pretending to be a member of the civilization) is a very intriguing science fiction idea. However, the alien did a poor job of hiding the fact that it was an alien in a humanoid body (for one thing, the alien practically "rapes" Troi). Compare this episode to [[spoiler:''The Survivors'']] where a sufficiently advanced alien is able to ''successfully'' hide among humans, [[spoiler:until the alien's wife is killed]].
351* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Creator/PatrickStewart; his greatest strength as an actor, as the old cliche goes, is his ability to deliver bad dialogue with utter conviction. And while this is nowhere near a bad show, there were more than a few embarrassing points in the series, where Stewart's ability is showcased frequently.
352* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
353** The series tried hard to avoid this (the music avoided any style that had been popular since the end of the [[TheRoaringTwenties Jazz Age]], for example), but the hairstyles, the spandex costumes ("spacesuits" as the cast called them), the set design (especially the oft-criticized "hotel lobby" look of TheBridge and the infamously bland beige and rust carpeting and wall paneling), the "Dustbuster" phasers and the presence of a psychotherapist as a command-level officer firmly fix the early seasons of the series in the 80s. Later seasons went to a wool gabardine two-piece spacesuit, a more angular and weapon-like phaser and modified Counselor Troi's duties in an effort to try to bring the show out of the 80s, but some of the more aggressively period-fixing design choices were stuck through the entire show.
354** Troi's ''style'' of psychotherapy is very dated as well, focusing on Rogerian "talk therapy" which was popular at the time (although at least it wasn't AllPsychologyIsFreudian). Ironically the TOS concept of far-future psychotherapy (with Bones described more than once as an expert in "space psychiatry") is more accurate to our modern understanding of the role neurochemistry plays in mental health.
355** Creator/JoePiscopo, along with most of his jokes. "Tip O'Neill in a dress?"
356** The doomed science vessel in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E2TheNakedNow The Naked Now]]", the ''SS Tsiolkovsky'', has a plaque stating that it was [[FailedFutureForecast built in the USSR.]]
357*** Possible, despite real-world politics, given Trek's timeline with the Eugenics Wars and World War 3.
358** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E12TheRoyale The Royale]]", Picard refers to Fermat's Last Theorem as having been unsolved for over 800 years. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wiles Whoops.]] This was later corrected in the [=DS9=] episode "Facets".
359** Also in "The Royale", debris from a NASA spacecraft, which according to this episode took part in a mission in the mid 21st century, are beamed aboard the Enterprise. However, the NASA [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/NASA_Worm_logo.svg/256px-NASA_Worm_logo.svg.png "Worm logo"]] seen on the debris was actually replaced by the [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/NASA_logo.svg/300px-NASA_logo.svg.png "Meatball logo"]] in 1992.
360*** [[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/the-worm-is-back The Worm was reinstated in April 2020,]] to be used alongside the 'Meatball'.
361* ValuesDissonance:
362** Roddenberry created Wesley out of belief that kids like him needed a role model to deal with the bullying they were receiving. Now that nerds have become far more socially accepted, seeing one of them portrayed as so good is even more off-putting than it was originally.
363** In "Timescape", Deanna tells the others about an older professor making inappropriate advances on her in the guise of "research" as a funny story, and Geordi notes that the professor is knowledgeable enough about his subject (interspecies mating rituals) to get away with it. Two decades into the 21st century, women in academia are their own subset of the [=MeToo=] movement because they're sick of being harassed (or worse) by men who are institutionally protected because of the money and/or prestige their research generates.
364*** Speaking of the [=MeToo=] movement, Lwaxana Troi's behavior comes off as much more predatory and disgusting to a modern audience. Lwaxana uses her position as an ambassador to flirt with men beneath her who aren't able to say no. She specifically continues to romance Picard, despite her actions making him visibly uncomfortable and even ''specifically asking her to stop.'' All of this is PlayedForLaughs, but since the show's run people have become more aware of sexual harassment and how it can by committed to and by people of any gender.
365* ValuesResonance:
366** Any issues with the writing of Satie aside, the themes of "The Drumhead" have been frequently cited in light of UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror.
367** Having a psychologist as a main cast character and a bridge crew member came in for a lot of mockery. However, now that attitudes towards mental health issues are (gradually) improving and the effects of trauma are better understood by the public, the question has become why other Star Trek shows ''don't'' have [[ThereAreNoTherapists real counselors around]], given the {{Trauma Conga Line}}s everyone goes through on a regular basis. Picard even points out, in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E2Family Family]]", that Troi has been incredibly helpful in his recovery from his abduction by the Borg and it's pretty clear he'd have been an even bigger mess without her.
368** And of course, "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan The Measure of a Man]]" ''not only'' serves as one of the best forty-five minute anti-slavery arguments ever committed to film and possessed of almost timeless resonance there, but in the evolving discourse around labor, it's been noted that the episode makes the very good point that society, if not cajoled otherwise, can often seek to find a new source of "disposable" labor -- be that sci-fi synthetic people or any other kind of "new" disposable labor source like new immigrants or a new, more exploitable generation or whatnot, and we must always be vigilant about people being taken advantage of along such a line.
369** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E10ChainOfCommand Chain of Command]]", meanwhile, picked up a resonance in the [=21st=] century that the cast and crew probably didn't even imagine it would when they made it: in the new century, particularly around debates concerning the Iraq War and UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, any question of "well why shouldn't we torture people to get information or keep ourselves safe?" (a question that comes up with depressing regularity) can pretty much be answered by putting on this pair of episodes and pointing at the screen for the next hour and a half.
370** The miniskirts that certain men are wearing in season 1 were massively ridiculed at the time and ended up being quietly dropped. Come the 21st century however and with it the increased awareness of gender and trans issues; it actually makes complete sense that in the liberal utopia that is the Federation that the double standard of only women wearing skirts would be a thing of the past. No one on-board makes an issue out of it because there is nothing to make an issue out of.
371** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E17TheOutcast The Outcast]]" was commonly criticized and mocked as [[CluelessAesop a clumsy and wishy-washy metaphor for sexual orientation]], but by the late 2010s and the 2020s, some trans people have expressed finding that it is more straightforward and works better as a story about gender identity.
372* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The Crystalline Entity, first seen in "Datalore", was the second ever CGI effect in the Franchise/StarTrek franchise after the Genesis video from ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan Star Trek II]]'', and it stills looks as impressive today as it did in 1988 (although this didn't stop them from replacing it with a shinier modernised version for the blu-ray release). Even more so when you remember this was before the CGI revolution started by ''[[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay Terminator 2]]'' and ''Film/JurassicPark''.
373* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: A subtext that makes the Borg effective villains (particularly for when ''TNG'' originally aired at the tail-end/immediate aftermath of the Cold War) is that they are simultaneously the excesses of communism ''and'' capitalism taken to their extremes. Borg society dispels any notion of individuality, to the point that all Borg are mere cogs in the greater machine totally lacking in any free-will, while the Collective also sees anything and anyone as a mere resource to be consumed, no matter the consequences.
374* WTHCostumingDepartment:
375** Civilian fashion of the 24th century is odd to say the least. It typically looks quite old-fashioned, with an abundance of tunics that make many Starfleet officers look like Medieval peasants in their off hours. Voluminous pants, ugly sweaters and [[http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x13/deja_q_hd_045.jpg unflattering jumpsuits]] seem to be all the rage.
376** The Starfleet miniskirt uniforms would have looked silly even they ''hadn't'' been [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEJ0XlX9Kbo unisex]]. It didn't take long before they quietly disappeared.
377** Don't even get Creator/MarinaSirtis started on her costuming. Her outfit in the first episode was described by her as "a Wendy's waitress with a very short skirt." But that's nothing compared to "The Ugly Grey Spacesuit" for the rest of the first season. And she ''hated'' the green dress, for one simple reason - she had to wear a corset under it.
378** The producers grew to hate the [[ShouldersOfDoom overly-broad shouldered]] uniforms worn by the Romulans.
379* TheWoobie:
380** Simon Tarses, from the season 4 episode "The Drumhead", is a medical assistant to Dr. Crusher and enthusiastic young Starfleet crewman. When J'Dan, a Klingon exchange officer, is found to be spying for the Romulans by transmitting information through medical injections that Tarses helped administer, Tarses is immediately seen as a co-conspirator for J'Dan. Admiral Norah Satie, a high ranking Starfleet admiral who seeks out conspiracies, immediately wants him, his family, and friends investigated. Satie accuses Tarses of causing an explosion in the Enterprise's warp core, despite that explosion being proven to be an accident. Satie continues to hound Tarses, discovering his grandfather was a Romulan, rather than a Vulcan, with Tarses having lied on his application. Satie and her team use that as proof of her allegations against Tarses. Even though Picard publicly discredits Satie, Tarses's mistake is something he has to live with and his career is ruined in the process.
381** Data. You'd think an android couldn't ''have'' a DarkAndTroubledPast. You'd be ''very'' wrong. A human would probably [[HeroicBSOD break]] after everything that's happened to him.
382** The crew takes pity on Hugh once they discover how he reacts to being removed from the HiveMind.
383** Troi has been raped no less than three times throughout the franchise (once when she was impregnated by an energy being and twice [[MindRape mentally]] but still represented as a sexual assault) and frequently falls victim to the psychic powers of the VillainOfTheWeek. The truly terrible irony is that the same empathy and compassion that makes her a great counselor means that she's usually trying to help the VillainOfTheWeek and gets violated and abused for her trouble instead and sometimes ''because'' she's such a great empath. It really is amazing that she's still such a nice person by the end of the series considering how many times she was violated and outright [[BreakTheCutie broken]].
384** Barclay. The episode "The Nth Degree" seems to imply that the crew actually likes him better when they're able to beat up on him.
385** Worf. After all the times he's been beaten by encroaching enemy invaders, you just want to give him a hug. He gets better on ''[=DS9=]'', though.
386** The [[EnergyBeings Douwd]] Kevin Uxbridge manages to be a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. Seeing the broken corpse of his beloved wife caused him to break his non-violence principles and commit galactic genocide with a single thought. Out of shame and guilt, he undergoes self-imposed exile with only a hollow replica of his wife for company and a reminder of his crime. There's a bit of RealitySubtext to this. John Anderson, the actor for Kevin, lost his wife only a few weeks before filming the episode and does an amazing job making you feel for a grieving, embittered widower.
387** Creator/WilWheaton is a rather impressive example of a meta-woobie. A child actor at the time whose career had for the most part been carefully shepherded through some excellently chosen roles (most notably Gordie in ''Film/StandByMe''), Wesley Crusher was chosen to be a role to cap out his childhood career and launch him as an adult actor. Instead, he found himself written into some of the worst scripts in the show, made into a walking example of everything wrong with TV at the time, and subjected to unconscionable abuse for writing decisions that were in no way his fault. No wonder he dropped out of acting entirely for a number of years after leaving the show.
388----
389!!Entries for [[Pinball/StarTrekTheNextGeneration the pinball machine]]:
390
391* AwardSnub: Creator/JohnDeLancie did not receive a free pinball machine like the other stars did.
392* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: While not intended to be a comedy fest, the game can be rather funny at times for juxtaposing the ''gravitas'' of Creator/PatrickStewart's enunciation with game instructions.
393-->'''Picard:''' "All hands, prepare for multi-ball!"
394* GameBreaker: Super Spinner, in which the spinner is worth 10 million points per spin. There is an option to turn off Super Spinner.
395* GoodBadBugs: If you start multiball during "Q's Challenge" (or simply have "Q's Mission" lit when multiball begins), the shots won't time out. This is an easy way to get an obscene Q score.

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