In an ensemble show, episodes which center around a character who is in general poorly used, written, acted, or otherwise
disliked by the fans, are almost always themselves poor episodes.
The exception — when an episode centered around a poor character actually turns out to be a good episode — is a Good Troi Episode. If they're unlucky, this will be their
only good episode. Quite often the reason this happens is because the character is not as conductive to the entertaining plot of the main show and are often held in the background. This episode uses the actors talents and the characters' established skills in the most effective way... although often they return to their previous status by the end of the episode.
Now there is usually a large difference between
The Scrappy and an underused character. In fact, quite often they are opposites as
The Scrappy is disliked for being
overused.
A
Bottle Episode, which has to use good writing to cover for a reduced budget, may end up as a Good Troi Episode. Compare this to
The Greatest Story Never Told. Not to be confused with
A Day In The Limelight.
Examples:
- Star Trek The Next Generation (Trope Namer): The canonical Good Troi Episode, featuring Counselor Troi herself, is "Face of the Enemy". It's the one where Troi has to pretend to be a Romulan, and she manages to come across as resourceful, clever, and even ruthless, a stark contrast to her usual role of stating that she senses anger from the Klingon who is smashing furniture and cursing loudly.
- "Half a Life" is kind of a "Good Troi's Mom Episode," mainly due to David Ogden Stiers giving such a powerful performance. Lwaxana Troi was also given a significant level of vulnerability that you hadn't seen in any other episode.
- "The First Duty" has been called a good Wesley episode.
- "The Game" is also well liked, even though it was another 'Wesley saves the day' episode. It was well balanced with a believable romance between him and Robin Lefler as well as him behaving genuinely intelligent and not just an Informed Ability at Techno Babble.
- Although most fans agree that when the spotlight was on Wesley, they were decent episodes. It was being shoved into other characters spotlight episodes that made him so disliked.
- "Suspicions" is the good Dr. Crusher episode - although she's not fan-hated the way Troi (and especially Wesley) is, it showcased her dedication to help people even at the risk of her medical license and proved to be a gripping story with an exciting climax. She also gets a good one in "The Host", where her attempt to reconcile her love for the Trill Odan is explored in a truly touching way.
- Quark in Deep Space Nine. Armin Shimerman, the actor who played Quark, once noted that when his character was in the A-story, his IQ seemed to jump by about 50 points.
- Although in that case, "Quark" episodes are generally rather good, if of a rather different tone from the rest of the series. And Quark is a very appreciated character of DS 9 anyway.
- Ferengi-centric episodes and Klingon-centric episodes, on their own, tend to elicit Love It Or Hate It reactions from the fans. But "The House of Quark," in which Quark is accidentally engaged to a Klingon woman, is one of the more successfully comic episodes of the series.
- Each Harry Kim in Star Trek Voyager tends to have an episode focused on insightful, interesting, sacrificing, or uniquely different viewpoint in the episodes he dies. Timeless is considered by many to be the good Harry Kim Episode. (The one where he makes it back home but goes back in time to save the rest of the crew.) Then Future Harry has a Heroic Sacrifice. "The Chute" is also well liked.
- "Scorpion" is the good Chakotay episode.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer lampshades this to an extent in the episode "The Zeppo," where Xander Harris is outed as one of Buffy's close friends with neither the intelligence nor talent to fight vampires like the others. So while not a disliked character, he is still given his own episode in which he saves the day. Most fans think "The Zeppo" is one of the series' best episodes.
- There's also the fact that the episode's story should by all rights be consigning Xander to yet another comic relief B-plot, as everyone else is averting another apocalyptic rise of the Hellmouth. That his story is treated as the A-plot with only brief glimpses of what everyone else is up to as they try to save the world is a big part of the fun, with the scenes of the bigger story seeming quite funny without context (especially as their scenes lampshade the show's adherence to a previously unacknowledged formula).
- The Lost episode "Exposé" is the only episode that focuses on the intensely loathed pair Nikki and Paulo. It's basically a Filler episode, but it's a very fun Filler episode. And it features the deaths of the two characters! And the fans rejoice.
- Though Charlie was a popular character, his flashback episodes were poorly received until "Greatest Hits."
- Kate is popular (by some), but episodes focusing on her are generally loathed. Season 5's "Whatever Happened, Happened" however was generally considered a Good Kate Episode.
- De facto main character Jack's flashback episodes were notoriously boring and repetitive, to the point that one of his episodes is the most loathed episode of the series. When it was announced that the season 3 finale would be Jack-centric, the fanbase groaned with anger. But producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse told fans that this episode would be the most important of all—and they were right: the flashbacks in the episodes were actually flashforwards of Jack's time after being rescued. The episode, "Through the Looking Glass," is now considered one of the greatest in the series.
- Digimon Tamers had a very cute and funny episode in which Juri/Jeri wandered around the city chasing after Leomon, declaring (in the dub, at the very least) that it was their destiny to be Tamer and Partner, making googly eyes at Leomon and other such nonsense. At one point, Leomon actually sees her going into a Love Bubbles-filled anime crush zone, and asks her to please stop doing that. It's basically thirty minutes of a Hulk-sized lion Digimon who thinks nothing of taking on villains of higher stages than he running in terror from a preteen girl. Also, this Leomon is very different from the Leomon we knew before the Continuity Reboot, being irreverent and snarky and just not the perfect hero you were expecting when he arrived. A pity how their partnership ends...
- The whole episode is a rather sadistic bit of writing (especially for a kids' show!) as it lulls the viewer into thinking Juri and Leomon are going to be the show's resident comedy relief duo, and of course nothing seriously bad ever happens to the comedy relief duo, right? Then of course, Leomon dies and the final arc of the series centers around Juri's tremendous despair at his passing.
- The Doctor Who serial "Earthshock", in which companion Adric is killed by performing a Heroic Sacrifice, is generally considered a great triumph for a character that was The Scrappy in his previous appearances.
- Torchwood Toshiko was generally seen as just there to act as Exposition Girl for any technological plot points but the two Toshiko-centric episodes were well received.
- In the animated Justice League Unlimited, "Patriot Act," in which the League's weakest members (previously usually seen getting their butts handed to them) have to take on a general menace to the city all by themselves.
- Hey, the Seven Soldiers of Victory are cool, no doubt about it.
- Matsuda from Death Note, a comic relief if there ever was one in the series, had his one spotlight episode, aptly named "Matsuda". This troper was expected to hate it and was pleasantly surprised when it was actually pretty good.
- Uwe Boll had a Good Troi Movie: Postal.
- Four words: Your Mileage May Vary.
- Any successful scenes in Postal are probably the result of the excellent on-screen chemistry between Zach Ward and Dave Foley. Every scene that requires any form of serious input from a director (such as all of the action scenes) fell back in to standard Boll levels of awfulness.
- Might also have to do with the source material not being of not the best of quality.
- Under Siege (the first one) is this for Steven Seagal films. A lot of people hate all of them intensely but still like this one. The sequel on the other hand...
