Star Trek starters.... Into the the next generation

[Dark-prophet]

Need some help/advise....

Want to introduce TNG to my girlfriend but which single or two parter episode would get her hooked??.... Any ideas people??....

 

[BetaWolf]

Depends on what she likes (you do know what she likes, right? ). The series has comedy, drama, horror (the Borgs, etc.). The pilot is kind of goofy IMHO.

 

[Overread]

TNG was where Star Trek first started with the idea of a progressive story; that is having stories and events that carry over and not just monster of the week. It's mostly fairly light in the first season (and they never really get any serious ground covered with a long story arc until they started work on DS9 series).

That said much of it is just monster of the week style events and the opening of hte series has Q who is always a bit more comedy than serious when he appears. I'd just say show random episodes and see if she likes the style and stories and general flow of an episode.

 

[Dark-prophet]

I was thinking chain of command...

 

[Daggers]

In general I would suggest introducing someone in around seasons 3-7. Stay away from the Klingon political ones. If she's not 100% into sci-fi there are some excellent episodes to choose from to break her into it slowly.

Here's some of my favourite episodes.

Yesterday's Enterprise, Qpid, The Pegasus, Attached, Parallels, All Good things...(Though I wouldn't suggest starting at the end), Darmok, Conundrum, The Inner Light and Timescape.

I've deliberately left out season openers/finales.

If you're girlfriend is already into sci fi then you have a lot more options. If not then I'm afraid it's going to be trickier but a good character driven story from the series should do the trick. Personally I would go with The Inner Light of the ones I've mentioned.

Hope that helps. I am well aware that this is not an easy task!

 

[J-Sun]

"Yesterday's Enterprise" is my favorite TNG episode but I wouldn't recommend it for a start because a lot of its impact comes from (a) it being so different from the usual timeline and (b) knowing Yar. But I agree with Daggers that it's best to stay away from the first couple of seasons as TNG definitely didn't find its legs right away.

Maybe "Darmok" would be okay. It doesn't rely on past show history too much, has an interesting concept even a non-SF fan could get behind (communication) and has the characters mostly behaving in character. -- I dunno how I read 99.9% of Daggers' post - missed that "Darmok" had already been mentioned: so that's two votes.

I agree with BetaWolf, though, that it primarily depends on your girlfriend and I don't know anything about her.

 

[Droflet]

The first decent episode of TNG I saw was written by a young Ron Moore. It's called The Defector and it's pretty good.

 

[spacepilotsshow]

The first episode, Encounter at Farpoint. It introduces everyone and the concept AND it's a fantastic story.

Plus, Q's in it