Leading the charge back to television for the Star Trek franchise (just as Star Trek: Discovery is now), and paving the way for three further series to follow (fingers crossed that happens again), Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s 7 seasons had some very high points, and a couple of very low ones (that some would simply call “season 1….”, not that I’m one of them.)

These are the top 25 “must-watch” episodes, not necessarily the top 25 for quality, or indeed my 25 favourites, but the 25 stories that give you the best flavour of the series and its relatively unplanned story arcs. Just don’t forget that, like The Original Series, The Next Generation is a product of its time, and as such certain issues that writers wanted to bring to the screen not only necessitated allegory, but sometimes stretched it thin so as not to raise issues with censorship.

If you only ever watch 25 stories from Star Trek: The Next Generation, these are they, at least in my opinion. The only rules in place are that they have to be from the TV series (no films), and multi-part episodes count as one story (even if an episode is pretty much an epilogue.) If you get chance, try to watch the majority of all 7 seasons at some point… but by the Great Bird of the Galaxy avoid Shades Of Grey (S2). And Justice (S1)… A ‘10 episodes to avoid’ might have legs actually… But I digress.

If you are able, I would also recommend watching episodes of The Next Generation in remastered form on Blu-ray, even with the minor changes to the effects shots, as in more than one case this has corrected an actual error. As with most episodes of Star Trek TV shows, the live-action footage was captured on 35mm film, and thus the restoration work done on the negatives looks fantastic in HD.