The Epic Moments of Star Trek: TNG (10/13)

[Idril Mar]

Next in our survey of the epic moments of Star Trek is the Next Generation. When TNG first came on the air, no one thought that the show would work without the original crew. One, maybe two seasons, most predictions said, and it would be gone. However, it went on to seven excellent seasons largely on the power of its writting and the special moments that it created for its fans and how it connected them to the cast and to the changing world around them.

What moments from the Next Gen affected you? Which ones do you think have entered society's consciousness? While there are more than we can include here, here are a few of my favorites.

[Idril Mar]

Here's the new poll annnnnnnnd.... GO!

[+ Kamoyo Aleksandrov]

The borg always made me uneasy. To have everything thought and action controlled, but for some, on some deep level the individual still exists.

[Jalana]

There has been so much of TNG that has affected me. It was the very first Star Trek I saw when I was 8. It was first airing at that time and I remember running home from school to not miss it - homework had to wait. I was fixed from the first episode, even if I did not understand everything.

There are several choices in that list up there that were super hard to choose from, but Darmok had taught me so much that despite language barriers and differences, that we can understand and be sympathetic towards each other. That has inspired my since the first time seeing that episode and also brought me towards trying to understand others and looking at things from their side and not to forget working together, even if the other person is a stranger with different views.

But it is really hard to choose any particular, since almost everything in TNG has shaped the woman I am now. Sounds cheesy, but it's true.

[+ Rune Jolara]

It's hard to choose just one.. Darmok, Sarek and Inner Light were the most powerful to me.

[Leland Bishop]

I've recently been re watching TNG, and what strikes me is how many times Picard seems to fall prey to some mind-altering effect. I'm still in season one (not finished) and it's already happened several times lol. Love the series. Love Picard.... But c'mon now...

[+ Johanna MacLaren]

I loved TNG and found so many of the episodes moving. I was tempted by Darmok; but in the end I selected "Other." The episode that I found extremely touching was one called, "Family." In it Jean Luc returns home to France for the first time in twenty years after his assimilation by the Borg. The family home is just as it was when he was a child, something he needs desperately. It is clear from the beginning that he and his brother have a troubled relationship, but in the end, it is home and family who get him (and us) through the tough times. In a subplot on board the Enterprise, Worf's family visits him to help him deal with his discommendation. Like Picard, he can only find real healing nurtured by the people to whom he is still part adult and part child, not a Starfleet officer.

"Family" was a really insightful program that demonstrated that the bonds formed in childhood, no matter how thorny, tend to be those that sustain us through a lifetime. While we abandon damaged friendships, the call of blood is deeper. Jean Luc and his brother have shared more than anger; they have the common memories of childhood and life before the demands of adulthood and the universe have intruded. Picard can shed the dignity of being a captain and scrap with his brother, letting out the anger he cannot in his official life.

Maybe it is because I no longer have family that I find this episode so particularly moving, but I found it very special.

[Hannibal Parker]

Darmok is perhaps the best metaphoric episode of TNG. Two sides working desperately hard to understand each other to deal with a common foe rings so true even today. Johanna hit it perfectly on the head when she stated how important family was to the fabric of a being, whether it was Jean Luc and his brother, Worf and his family, or even Geordi hoping beyond hope his mother was still alive. Family is the tie that binds.