Star Trek: The Next Generation/Heartwarming

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • "The Measure of a Man" when Data comes to cheer up Riker, who was kicking himself with the prosecution role he was forced to play that could have condemned the android. To do so, Data tells him that he is not only well aware that Riker had no choice in the matter, but will never forget that making that sacrifice gave him his one chance to win his freedom with the perfect exchange:

Data: That action hurt you, and saved me. I will not forget it.
Riker: You're a wise man, my friend.
Data: Not yet, sir, but with your help, I am learning.

    • Earlier in the episode Picard tells Data about the forthcoming hearing:

Picard: Now, I have been asked to represent you, but if there is some other officer with which you would feel more happy...?
Data: Captain, I have complete confidence in your ability to represent my interests.

  • The episode "The Inner Light" is made of this trope, but it reaches an all-time high at the end when Picard discovers he still knows how to play Kamin's tune of the flute.... sniff
    • This troper has that song on her MP3 player. It's led to her being asked if she's okay on public transport (which is, in itself, a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming).
    • For this troper, it never fails to send chills down his back every time he watches the moment when Batai and Eline, both long dead, come back to Picard at the end.
  • Tasha's Memorial Service. Could've been bad. Could've been really corny, but they pulled off with just the right tone, made especially poignant by Data's ultimate confusion about the whole thing, and Picard having to tell him that he hadn't missed the point at all.
  • Also in the episode "Skin of Evil": When Deanna Troi responds automatically to the bitter and twisted Armus's question about how much she is willing to give to save her crew. Any member of the crew: Everything.
  • In the episode "Brothers":

Soong: Everybody dies, Data... Well. Almost everybody.

  • The ending of "Tin Man", when Data talks to Counsellor Troi about the disappearance of her friend. There's a rare moment between the two of them (who are literally the most different characters in the show on an emotional level), when Data actually takes a step towards understanding emotions--not just defining them, or explaining how they affect people, but actually understanding. They end with Data turning to the viewscreen, in as close to contentment as he ever gets, and Deanna leaning against him. D'awww.

Troi: Data... you do understand.
Data: Yes, counsellor. When Tinman returned me to the ship, I realized... this is where I belong.

  • Speaking of Troi and Data, in The Child When Troi goes into labor, Data offers to stay with her. Dr. Pulaski objects, stating that she needs human contact and Data is nothing more than a machine. Troi defends him and personally asks him to stay with her while she gives birth.
    • Not to mention his expressions and voice afterward. When Data thanks Troi for allowing him to participate, he sounds so awed.
  • The final scene in "All Good Things", when Picard finally joins in on the crew's poker game.

Picard: I should have done this a long time ago.
Troi: You were always welcome.

    • From that same episode, Q actually congratulating Picard for figuring out the puzzle, and in the larger context, proving humanity was worthy to continue its trek through the stars. And Picard actually thanking Q.

Picard: Thank you.
Q: For what?
Picard: You had a helping hand in getting me out of this.
Q: I was the one who got you into it, Jean-Luc. That was the directive from the Continuum. The part about a helping hand... was my idea.

  • The end of first episode, "Encounter at Farpoint" when the two aliens are reunited. Awful episode but damn, that scene was heartwarming (even with Troi's sappiness and the cheesy music.)
    • From the same episode, Admiral McCoy's cameo and his words of wisdom to Data: "You treat her like a lady, and she'll always bring you home." This troper nearly wept.
      • This troper did weep.
        • As did this troper. Noisily. For approximately six hours. De Kelley does that to her.
  • The TNG episode Time's Arrow has one after the crew find evidence that Data is going to die (i.e. his Severed Head buried underground in San Fransisco... it's a time paradox thing). The reaction of the crew is, in Deanna's words, like discovering someone you love has a terminal illness, and people start acting awkward around him (like stopping conversations whenever he enters a room). The fact that the entire crew, including the captain, spends the best part of the episode trying to keep him away from any incidents that might result in his predestined death is heartwarming enough, but by far the sweetest moment is when Data confronts Deanna and Will about their behavior and Riker quotes:

Riker: It's just that we've become accustomed to your sensory input patterns.
Data: Ah... I am also fond of you, Commander. And you as well, Counsellor.

    • Data's reaction is especially heartwarming, rather than trying to avoid his death with any sort of fear or apprehension Data instead decides to keep living his life the same way he always has and actually finds comfort in the fact that he has a finite existence because it brings him closer to being human.
  • This exchange in "Masks" (which would've been more heartwarming if it didn't immediately become disturbing afterwards because Data sounding anything other than calm and composed, much less outright disturbed, is a freaking event):

Geordi: Hey you're gonna be all right. You're with me, okay?
Data: ... Okay. [sic]

"For an android with no feelings, he sure managed to evoke them in others."

  • The usually stoic and unyieldingly stubborn Worf accepts his son Alexander's help (indeed, asking for it) in relearning how to walk at the end of the episode Ethics.
  • Say what you like, but Lwaxana Troi making friends with Alexander in The Cost of Living was positively adorable.
  • Tasha discovering that Worf bet on her to win the Martial Arts tournament on the ship in "Skin of Evil". This is more of a "heh, sweet" moment (or an incredibly clumsy Ship Tease) than a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, until you realize this is the episode where she dies and she won't be in the tournament. Then it becomes a bit of a Tear Jerker.
  • Riker (gifted with Q powers) gives their blind navigator Geordi real sight for a few moments. The first thing Geordi does is turn to look at Tasha and delivers a line that would've been corny if it came from anyone else.

Geordi: ...You're even more beautiful than I imagined.

  • In the TNG episode Brothers a homing device in Data's brain activates, causing him to commandeer the Enterprise and beam off to some planet, leaving behind a boy who has only a few days to get to a medical facility and a very irritated crew. They're understandably pissed off, but when they're preparing to beam down to the planet to look for him, Picard has only five words: "Bring him home, Number One." It's rather sweet that despite all the trouble he's caused, they're still determined to get him back where he belongs.
  • Alexandra (a sweet little girl no older than four, from the episode When the Bough Breaks) was almost disgustingly cute, repeatedly wanting hugs from or to be picked up by Captain Picard (who is not exactly good with children). He always accommodates her in spite of his discomfort. She gives him flowers at the end (and sticks a cuddly Tribble to his back, much to his crew's amusement).
  • The TNG episode Thine Own Self: When explaining to "Jayden" that her mother is dead, Gia draws on Data's instinctive memories of the Enterprise and her crew, despite the fact he currently has amnesia and has no idea who he is:

Gia: Father said she... she went to a beautiful place, where everything is peaceful, and everyone loves each other. Where no one ever gets sick. Do you think there is really a place like that?
Data: [Looks up at the moon] ... Yes.

  • In the episode Offspring, when Data creates a daughter named Lal (which means Beloved), there are a few aaaww moments. One that really stands out is when Lal observes how humans hold hands to show affection. When she next sees her father, they just hold hands for a while.
    • This also happens at the end when Lal fails. Data says she "so enriched his life" that he couldn't just forget her and he took her memories and put them into his positronic brain, saying she'd always be with him.
    • And the dialogue, that, in another situation could have been Narm or just Tastes Like Diabetes, but instead gets the tears flowing.

Lal: I love you, father.
Data: I wish I could feel it with you.
Lal: I will feel it for both of us.

  • In "The Wounded", where O'Brien beams over to the ship of his former captain, Maxwell, who has gone batshit and is trying to kill Cardassians, convinced that they are plotting war. Seeing O'Brien's pain at seeing his old captain acting this way, seeing him slowly bring Maxwell back to reality, and Maxwell realizing how close he is to Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, all in very unexplicit ways, is touching enough, but when he remembers the old song mentioned earlier, and asks O'Brien for the words. He trails off at the end, letting O'Brien finish. The whole scene doubles as a Tear Jerker.

Maxwell: I'm not going to win this one, am I, Chief?
O'Brien: ... No, sir.

  • "The Host" swung back and forth between this and Tear Jerker, but one of the sweetest scenes ever to hit Star Trek occurred between Beverly Crusher and Odan (hosted at that time in Will Riker's body). She'd walked away from her relationship with Odan because she couldn't deal with him essentially living inside someone she'd basically considered a brother for years, but when she sees the rosebud Odan gave her blooming on her desk, she goes to where he's staying, resulting in this sexy, adorable dialogue (which also proved that Gates McFadden and Jonathan Frakes could fucking act):

Beverly: [on how to administer anti-rejection medications in the middle of diplomatic talks] You could schedule a series of breaks...
Riker-as-Odan: Oh, that's good. ...Beverly. I want you. If you're going to leave you had better leave right now.
Beverly: [choking back tears] I'm not leaving!!!

  • "The Bonding." Jeremy Aster is still shellshocked by the death of his mother. Cue Captain Picard (who is not comfortable with kids) reassuring him with a line that always gets to me:

Picard: Jeremy, on the starship Enterprise, no one is alone. No one.

  • At the end of the episode "Deja Q", Q's expressions of gratitude to the crew of the Enterprise were mostly viewed as as annoyances, but Q giving Data a moment of laughter was purely heartwarming.
  • The end of "Data's Day" is quite uplifting, but Captain Picard visiting the newborn baby and telling him "Welcome, aboard" is wonderful.
  • The episode "Family" tugged on the heartstrings a bit, but the defining moment was the conclusion, in which Captain Picard gets into a fight with his brother over past differences, breaks down about his experience with the Borg (which was essentially a Mind Rape and he hadn't come to terms with it yet), and then they get crazy drunk together, finally reconciled after decades.
    • In another subplot of the same episode, Guinan tells Worf's adoptive parents that when he's looking towards home, he is looking not to the Klingon Empire but to them.
  • At the end of the episode "Disaster", the three children Picard shepherded through danger by deputizing them as officers present him with an adorable plaque. The real CMOH comes when he gives the bridge to "Number One" and both Riker and the eldest girl respond.
  • Several in the episode (not the movie) "First Contact" between Picard and Chancellor Durken, who woke up that morning as the leader of a whole world and now finds that world is only one of many - "But I think it was a good day." Later, when he learns that the Federation has been covertly observing his people, Durken angrily confronts Picard... and then admits he might have made a similar error in Picard's place, and it actually pleases him to know the aliens are not infallible. Picard wryly observes that he has made "some fine [mistakes] in my time."
  • At the end of the episode "The Chase" the assembled alien races have left in a huff, refusing to believe that they could possible share a common ancestor. Picard is feeling down, but then the Romulan commander calls him and offers a little hope. "It would seem that we are not completely dissimilar after all; in our hopes, or in our fears." Picard can only answer "Yes..." The Romulan puts forth an olive branch, of sorts. "Well then perhaps, one day..." Picard is comforted, and echoes: "...one day..."
  • Picard smiling and laughing when he gets stabbed in the heart at the end of "Tapestry", knowing his life would be restored to its normal timeline.
    • Even more heartwarming was the closing scene between Picard and Riker, and the tears start flowing when Picard begins to reveal his other adventures to Riker.

Picard: I still don't know what to make of it. Was it a dream? Was it one of Q's elaborate tricks?
Riker: A lot of people near death have talked about strange experiences, but I've never heard one so detailed.
Picard: And, you know, there's still a part of me that cannot accept that Q would give me a second chance, or that he would demonstrate so much compassion. And if it was Q, I owe him a debt of gratitude.
Riker: In what sense? It sounds like he put you through hell.
Picard: There are many parts of my youth that I'm not proud of. There were loose threads, untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads, it unraveled the tapestry of my life.
Riker: (smiling) I was just trying to imagine a hell-bent-for-leather young officer insulting a Nausicaan twice his size. I wish I'd had a chance to know that Jean-Luc Picard.
Picard: Oh, well, to tell the truth, that wasn't the first run-in I'd had with a couple of surly Nausicaans.
Riker: Really?
Picard: Oh, yes. During my sophomore year, I was assigned to training on Morikin Seven. Well, there was a Nausicaan outpost on one of the outlying asteroids, and one day... (Credits Roll)

  • Clues: Data preferring suffering a court martial and being "stripped down to [his] wires" to find out why he's lying to Captain Picard to endangering the lives of the crew.
  • The look on Spock's face when he mind-melds with Picard at the end of "Unification." He FINALLY realizes his father, Sarek, loved and respected him for all these years and gets the closure that he needed.
    • Also, from the same episode:

Spock:In your own way, you remind me of another captain of the Enterprise I once knew.
Picard:Then I am in good company, sir.

  • Scotty toasting the recreation of the Enterprise (no bloody A, B, C, or D, thank you!) bridge in "Relics." A silent but powerful moment.
  • Pretty much all of Data's interactions with Timothy, the ten year old boy who was the sole survivor of his destroyed vessel. He pretty much latches onto Data going so far as wanting to be an android himself. This is also partly Tear Jerker as the real reason he wants to be an android is because they don't have emotions, and ergo, he wouldn't have to feel the grief and guilt of losing his entire family.
  • We all knew Data's relatiosnhip with Jenna D'Sora was doomed to failure but their obvious friendsnhip, and the fact that he tries so damned hard to make it work (he asks pretty much the entire bridge crew for advice because he has no idea what he's doing) as as endearing as it is funny.
  • At the closing of Sarek, Picard's exchange with Sarek's second wife.

Picard: He loves you, very much.
Perrin: (Smiles) I know. I've always known.
 

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