Nitpicking: The Next Generation

Because of plot-related radiation, Data and Picard pull a Freaky Friday and end up doing each other's jobs. Poorly. Includes guest commentator Ryan Veeder.

Doctor Crusher returns to the Enterprise just in time to help us through a brain-dead version of "Home Soil". Now with 50% less actual science!

Pulaski and Troi, along with the rest of us, are forced to look back over the last season, as a virus almost kills Riker with his own blandness.

In a stunning departure from the norm, a 24th-century Quentin Crisp judges the hell out of the Enterprise crew.

In her role as the inimitable K'Ehleyr, Suzie Plakson manages to steal the spotlight, our hearts, and Worf's virginity. Includes guest commentator Jill Neff.

Lwaxana Troi is ill-used in an episode that's functionally a one-hour joke -- and not a particuarly funny one. Oh, and Fleetwood Mac.

We confront what happens when you mix "The Beverly Hillbillies" with The Handmaid's Tale. Includes guest commentators Jill Neff and Cynthia Taylor.

Riker is left in charge of the Enterprise and in a mere six hours proves that the Pakleds aren't the only dummies in this episode.

The single best Q episode ever, notable for both its introduction of the Borg and Q and Guinan's century-spanning relationship as frenemies.

This episode focuses on the Prime Directive and how an emotionless android can nonetheless conduct emotional manipulation. Warning: May contain sophistry or sophistry-like components.

The show's first official time-travel episode manages to avoid most of the worst pitfalls by also being a character study of Jean-Luc Picard(s).

Data and the away team live through a bad noir novel in the first of several "holodeck without the holodeck" episodes. Less Enterprise, just as much suck.

The Enterprise crew find themselves trapped in a late 90's CD-ROM adventure game and discover the wonder that is rebooting from disk.

Wesley seeks advice on women from the worst people in the galaxy. Includes guest commentators Jill Neff and Cynthia Taylor.

A high point of the season--and the series so far--as Data's personhood is put on trial. Actual science fiction! Who'da thunk it?

We see the Federation at its racist worst when Riker joins, and somehow manages not to offend, a Klingon crew.

In an episode that initially flirts with actual science fiction, the transporter is revealed to be a magical cure-all device, a fact that will immediately be forgotten.

As the Enterprise crew once again fails to recognize someone impersonating Data, we learn that, in the Federation, some animals are more equal than others.

We watch as, when faced with concepts like disability, communication, isolation and the differences between us, the Enterprise crew stand around and fail at doing nothing.