Star Trek: The Next Generation

I think of myself as a fairly big Star Trek fan -- but mostly Star Trek: The Next Generation. I watched Deep Space 9, Voyager, and Enterprise for a while, but none of them caught my attention like TNG did, and I never stuck with them to their end. I've seen the movies and episodes of the original Star Trek, but again, it didn't hold my attention.

TNG ran for 7 years, and there are many great episodes that I can remember even after all this time. Off the top of my head, what I liked about TNG was how it showed humanity's potential if everyone could just work together, it explored issues like racism, the limits of love, torture, free-will, the rationale for the Prime Directive and lots, lots more.

In no particular order, here are some, but not all, of my favourite episodes:

1. Tapestry: Q sends Jean-Luc Picard back in time to his academy years, leading up to the time Picard was stabbed in the heart. Picard uses the opportunity to change something he'd regretted doing, only to discover that altering one thing in the past affected everything afterwards, altering the entire course of his life. Unraveling one thread unraveled the entire tapestry.
2. The Inner Light: Picard is hit by an alien probe, resulting in Picard living an entire lifetime believing he is someone else, living on an alien planet with a family, and that his previous life was the imaginings of a fevered dream. Turns out it was all in Picard's mind, and only 20 minutes had passed in reality. The probe was a dying civilization's way to not be forgotten.
3. The Measure of a Man: Data is put on trial to determine whether he can be ordered to go back to Starfleet for experimental testing, or if he possesses free will and/or sentience and hence can refuse. I thought the issues raised were interesting.
4. Q Who?: This episode introduced the Borg - one of the greatest sci-fi villains. Picard tells Q that the Federation is ready to face whatever is out there. Oops. Q sends the Enterprise to the far cosmos where they meet the Borg - a biological/machine hybrid-hive mind that "assimilate" everything they come in contact with. Anywhoo, Picard admits to Q that he was wrong, and Q sends them back home. But the Borg now know of the existence of the Federation....
5. The Best of Both Worlds I and II: A couple of the all-time top TNG episodes, the 3rd season finale and 4th season premiere, respectively. The Borg finally arrive in Federation space. These episodes introduce one of the most memorable TNG lines,

   "Resistance is futile" -- Locutus of Borg. :o)

6. Family: Following Best of Both Worlds II, this episode was pretty darned good, too. Picard deals with the trauma of being assimilated by the Borg.
7. The Drumhead: Another awesome episode. It's about an explosion, a spy, and the witch hunt that follows. At the end, Picard talks to Worf about the subtle, continual danger of people who spread fear and suspicion in the name of righteousness, and that we have to be continually vigilant against that threat. The path of limited freedom, I think Picard said. A particularly apt lesson in the current times.