Star Trek: The Next Generation Primer

A couple years ago, a buddy of mine fool-hardily jumped into Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix on his own, based on the strength of his love for Patrick Stewart in the old BBC I, Claudius.  Needless to say, he found himself lost in a mess of season 1 awkwardness, campiness, and borderline racism.  (It's a testament to the dedication of '80s-era Trekkers that they supported the show through two straight craptastic seasons before the show finally got its act together).  Now, I'm a big fan of the series; but even I'll be the first to admit that although TNG's highs could be dazzlingly high, its mediocres were also be aggressively mediocre, and its lows could be...yeesh, just don't start with "Sub-Rosa!"

Fortunately he did not turn away from the series, but instead asked me to curate a list of the "actually good" episodes for him.  Below is the list I slapped together for him, which did in fact result in him falling in love with the series. 

Season 1

• Encounter at Farpoint (series premier; a bit hokey--OK, quite a bit hokey, they were still ironing out the kinks--but necessary to understand Q, the series' trickster god...not to mention the majestic series finale) 
• Where No One Has Gone Before (come, let us see the edge of the Universe together!)
• Datalore (Data has an evil twin!)
• The Skin of Evil (On a completely unrelated note, this episode may help you better understand the climax to Louis Erdrich's The Round House, if you are so inclined to read it).
• Conspiracy (something's amiss at Starfleet HQ...)

Season 2

• The Measure of a Man (does Data the android actually count as a real person with rights and self-determination?? Maybe.)
• Q-Who (Q introduces the Enterprise to the Borg, the unstoppable zombie-cyborg race that subjects all in its path to the same dull, gray, nightmarish conformity.  They are either a stand-in for communism or globalist capitalism, or both, depending on who you ask--in any case, they are the most terrifying antagonist of the series.)
  

Season 3

• Yesterday's Enterprise (temporal rift in the space-time continuum, and suddenly the Enterprise is a hardened warship in a losing war against the Klingons!)
• The Survivors (so why is this old couple the only survivors of a destroyed colony?)
• The Enemy (Geordi and an enemy Romulan, crash-landed on a hostile planet, must put aside their differences to work together)
• The Defector (a Romulan defects!)
• Sins of the Father (Worf defends his family honor against charges of treason)
• Best of Both Worlds Part 1 (The Borg assimilate Picard!  Arguably the series high point)
  

Season 4

• Best of Both Worlds Part 2 ("Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated...")
• Reunion (sequel to Sins of the Father; sets up for Redemption)
• Future Imperfect (Riker awakes 15 years into the future...or has he?!)
• Devil's Due (something to warm your atheist heart!)
• Brothers (Data hijacks the Enterprise without warning...and Lore reappears!)
• The Nth Degree (socially-awkward crew-member attains near god-like mind after a freak space accident [is there any other kind?])
• The Drumhead (Picard put on trial in a witch-hunt)
• Redemption I & II (Klingon civil war; concludes Worf's arch, restores family honor)

Season 5

• Darmok (fascinating and nerdiest look ever at linguistics and the allusive nature of language)
• Ensign Ro (intro to my favorite--and feistiest--recurring bit-character)
• Unification I & II (Spock from original series strives for Romulan/Vulcan reunification)
• A Matter of Time (a cryptic historian visits from the future)
• Conundrum (everyone's memories are erased suddenly! what's going on??)
• Cause and Effect (the ship's caught in a time-loop! best cold open ever.)
• I, Borg (a single, lost Borg puts a sympathetic face to the enemy, complicating things)
• The Inner Light (a mysterious probe causes Picard to experience an entire lifetime in 40 minutes; you will cry, guaranteed.)
• Time's Arrow Parts I & II (Time travel, 19th-century San Francisco, space vampires, and Mark Twain aboard the Enterprise.  Just go with it.)

Season 6

• The Next Phase (Georgi and Ro die and become ghosts...or maybe there's something more sciency going on here??)
• Relics (Scotty from the original series saves the day!)
• Schisms (nightmares turn out to be real)
• Chain of Command I & II (especially part II! Most profound treatment of torture ever.)
• Ships in a Bottle (hologram Moriarty matches wits with Picard in uber-meta fashion)
• Tapestry (Picard dies and relives a life-changing regret; a Q episode, one of the best!)
• Frame of Mind (Riker's in an insane asylum...or is he?! [this happens to him a lot, don't it])
• Timescape (times freezes and there are Romulans and a mystery and explosions)
• Face of the Enemy (Only good Troi-centric episode; she is forced  undercover aboard a Romulan warbird!)
• Descent I & II (season 6-7; last Borg and Hugh and Lore and Data-gets-emotions episodes!)

Season 7

• Phantasms (Data goes nuts and hallucinatory...or is he??)
• Attached (Picard and Beverly are forced to face their feelings for each other during a jailbreak!)
• Preemptive Strike (end of the Ensign Ro arc)
• All Good Things... (The incomparable series finale, easily among the top 5 best in TV history)