In an ensemble show, episodes frequently center around a single character in the cast. Episodes which center around a character who is in general poorly written, poorly 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. For any given character, this happens no more than once in the entire series. The canonical Good Troi Episode, featuring
Star Trek The Next Generation's 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.
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:
- Also in Star Trek The Next Generation, "The First Duty" has been called a good Wesley episode.
- Another Star Trek example - 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.
- 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. Tuvok strangling Neelix probably made a decent episode a Good Tuvok episode. "Basics II" was a Good Suder episode.
- 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
- 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 a vampire 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 ([[Your Mileage May Vary by some), but episodes focusing on her are generally loathed. Season 5's "Whatever Happened, Happened" however was generally considered a Good Kate Episode.
- 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.
- 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.
- "Flash and Substance" was the
Good Amazing Flash episode, important for a character that had spent most of the series as comic relief.
- 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.
- Any of the "His Story", "Their Story", or "Her Story" episodes in Scrubs.
- Uwe Boll had a Good Troi Movie: Postal.
