Star Trek: The Next Generation/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternative Character Interpretation: One take on the series holds that the Federation is actually rather amoral, governed by ethically dubious realpolitik rather than the principles it publicly espouses. In this view, the highly principled Picard is not a luminary of Starfleet but something of a naif whose own optimism blinds him to the increasingly horrific actions of his compatriots.
  • Artistic License: Biology: "Genesis". AND HOW.
  • Artistic License Physics: "The Royale". -291 degrees Celsius. (Absolute Zero, the coldest temperature theoretically possible, is -273 degrees.)
    • Science Marches On: It is [possible to go below 0 Kelvin, but it requires adding energy to the item instead of taking energy away.
  • Author's Saving Throw
  • Base Breaker: Captain Edward Jellico from the two-part episode "Chain of Command" is one of Star Trek‍'‍s most polarizing characters. His fans see him as a bold, effective officer who magnificently outwitted the Cardassians. His detractors consider him a huge Jerkass who had no business filling in for Picard and making changes to the way things were run on the Enterprise.
    • Considering that he was depicted as an actual military officer in a Mildly Military service, both viewpoints are accurate.
  • Creator's Pet: Wesley Crusher, the former Trope Namer, also an especially severe case since, by varying amounts, he fits EVERY criterion of both Creator's Pet and The Scrappy.
    • He might have been more tolerable if he hadn't been given an "important" role in so many episodes. Indeed, the episodes that actually focus on him are So Okay It's Average, so he's a lot better when he's not shoehorned into the spotlight in everyone else's episodes.
    • Despite her being Dr. Jerk, crewmembers would often mention how "caring" and "nice" Dr. Pulasky was. Not that we really saw it.
    • In the case of Wesley himself, they alternated between praising Wesley for no reason and rudely dismissing Wesley for no reason, depending on which would make Wesley look better.
    • Back in the days before he parlayed hating the character into his new career, Wil Wheaton actually pointed out that Wesley's reputation for saving the ship was ridiculously overblown, having actually done so "one and a half times"... and then going on to say it was the character's general level of pretentiousness and involvement in the rest of the crew's lives that was more the problem.
  • A Day in the Limelight
    • "Face of the Enemy" is the reason that TNG is the previous Trope Namer, "Good Troi Episode".
    • "Dark Page" is not only a Good Troi Episode for both Deanna and Lwaxana, but one of the few good episodes from TNG's seventh season.
  • Designated Villain: See Base Breaker above.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Both Data and Worf came to share the spotlight with Picard among fans. Originally the series focused more on Picard, Riker and Dr. Crusher.
    • Then, there's Miles O'Brien, a completely minor character, but got so much fan attention, he became a main character in Deep Space Nine.
    • Q seems to have a good fanbase despite him appearing in only eight episodes on TNG and then four episodes outside of it.
    • Reg Barclay, who was initially written as a one-shot character, but kept coming back as a recurring character and ended up featuring briefly in Star Trek: First Contact and played a significant recurring role in Voyager.past
  • Establishing Character Moment: The Child for Dr. Pulaski. Her highly irregular entry onto the ship and her treatment of Data establish her as the polar opposite of Dr. Crusher.
  • Fan Dumb: Many fans complain about how "pointless and offhanded" Tasha Yar's death was. That was the point, to show how arbitrary and cruel the universe could be. Considering that many of these fans are also the ones who sneer about disposable redshirts, you'd think they'd appreciate the show for once taking a chance and showing the same thing happening to a main character... but no.
  • Foe Yay:
    • Picard/Q.
    • Fajo and Data in S03E22 'The Most Toys'. The part where Fajo comments that he'd prefer it if Data was naked.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Lwaxana Troi's behavior, both personality and her constant attempts to marry or push Deanna into marriage, make a lot more sense when you consider that not only did her husband die when Deanna was young, but only a few years before that, her first daughter died in a tragic accident for which Lwaxana blamed herself.
    • The people of Kataan in "Inner Light" are human because Picard is human. His subconscious gave them A Form You Are Comfortable With, after all, it all happened in a Mental World. Had it happened to Worf, they would have looked like Klingons.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: During Data's comedy routine in "The Outrageous Okona", there is a scene where Guinan asks the comic (Joe Piscopo) "And you made a living doing this?" Modern viewers cannot help but feel a little bit of pity for Joe, considering the imminent collapse of his career.
    • The episode "Family" ends with Rene, Picard's nephew, declaring that someday, he'll enter Starfleet, following in his uncle's footsteps. In Star Trek Generations, we learn that Rene, as well as Robert, both burned to death in a fire at the vineyard. What's worse is that the closing shot in "Family" has a burning fireplace in the background!
  • Growing the Beard: The Trope Namer. After a half-baked effort of a first season, the series started to improve dramatically beginning with Riker getting away from his Kirk clone image by suddenly sporting a full beard.
    • Lampshaded by Q, after he materializes two scantily clad women to fawn over Riker.

Riker: I don't need your fantasy women.
Q: Oh, you're so stolid. You were never like that before the beard.

    • Counselor Troi improved significantly during the sixth-season two-parter "Chain of Command", where the substitute Captain orders her to put on a standard uniform. She continues to appear in uniform when on-duty for the rest of the series.
      • Apparently this was, in large part, due to Marina Sirtis' request. She was tired of the goofy/fanservicey jumpsuits and wanted to be in uniform like everyone else. When she saw the plot of the episode she jumped on the opportunity to suggest it to the production staff.
    • Also in the first episode of season two Geordi and Worf received promotions to Chief of Engineering and Chief of Security, which allowed their characters to grow and arguably had a much greater impact on the show's quality than Riker's beard (since, even beardless, Riker already had a reputation as a badass).
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Watching Picard break down while bonded to Sarek in the episode "Sarek", is a bit more difficult to watch knowing that Picard may very well share the same fate in his future.
  • Hatedom: Wesley, obviously, but Riker also has one going on... apparently some of the awkward, shy young males watching the show were deeply resentful of his success with women. There's an entire subgenre of TNG fanfiction that focuses on humiliating him (sexually, socially, and professionally), usually in order to build up another character that better fits with the writer's idea of someone who "deserves" sex (usually Geordi or Data).
  • Hate Dumb: Yes, fandom, we get it, you really don't like Wesley. We know it's oh-so-clever Memetic Mutation to go on and on about how he's the worst character in fiction ever, including Jar-Jar Binks. You can stop making every single reference to him, mention of him, or appearance by him in an episode an excuse to go on a tirade, now.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In "New Ground", Geordi is excited to try out the experimental soliton wave due to its historical significance, saying "it'll be like being there... to watch Zefram Cochrane engage the first warp drive!". In Star Trek: First Contact, Geordi actually takes part in Cochrane's first warp flight.
    • YMMV, but if you just started watching the show recently and are aware of how awesome Wil Wheaton's career became, it's actually hard to dislike Wesley. This Troper can't unhear WHEATOOOON every time he comes on-screen.
    • In "Measure of a Man", the JAG officer says to Riker (to convince him to act as prosecutor against Data): "Then I will rule summarily against him as per my findings. Data is a toaster, he is to report to Commander Maddox immediately."
    • In "The Perfect Mate" Famke Janssen played a self described mutant with mental abilities sharing many scenes with Patrick Stewart playing Picard. Eight years later she would do the same thing in the first X-Men film.
    • In "Phantasms", in Data's dreams, he finds himself having a telephone inside him. So that makes Data an Android phone.
    • No fan of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic will ever look at Picard's "next of kin to chaos" line toward Q the same way again.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Q in all his appearances, to one degree or another, often with very entertaining results. Omnipotent, yet petty; cruel but not vicious; causing devastation yet helpful at times, you really couldn't help but love the bastard(s).
    • As Tim Lynch points out, "MacDuff" in "Conundrum" is a pretty extraordinary villain. He boards the Enterprise, manipulates the crew, and comes very, very close to single-handedly winning the war his race has been fighting. His only real miscalculation was overestimating Worf's blood-lust and underestimating his devotion to duty.
  • Mary Sue: For no readily apparent reason, the entire creative staff thought Whoopi Goldberg was God's greatest gift to humanity. This led to them not only forcing Guinan scenes into any episode whose filming coincided with an availability in her schedule, but to them having Guinan as (apparently) the wisest person in the entire galaxy, and capable of taking an omnipotent being in a fight if she actually wanted to.
  • Memetic Mutation: Picard has become an image for the Face Palm (Gallifrey Base actually has a Picard facepalm Emoticon) and general disbelief on the stupidity of a situation.
    • THERE... ARE... FOUR... LIGHTS!
    • The Picard Song. It also more or less works as his Image Song.
    • On-set example: "The Picard Maneuver," tugging the lower part of the sweater to fix its appearance on-camera. It has since been performed by many other cast members in many other versions, including Spock in the 2009 movie.
    • According to YTMND, Worf can't pronounce "bacaruda."
    • The Tamaranian sayings from "Darmok", especially "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!" and "Shaka, when the walls fell".
    • When Wil Wheaton is being an idiot online (which is often), a frequent reply by commenters is "Shut up, Wesley."
  • Mr. Fanservice: First Officer William T. Riker, and he knows it.
  • MST3K Mantra: In literal effect in "The Next Phase".
  • My Real Daddy: The series truly came into its own after Michael Piller took over the writing staff in Season 3.
  • Narm: The audience reaction to the Ferengi introduction as the Big Bad of the series in "The Last Outpost" was so much this, that the writers dropped them as villains in favor of the Borg.
    • "You shall have NO vaccine, and NO Lieutenant Yar!!"
    • In "The Best of Both Worlds" part 1, when the Enterprise's engineering section is under attack, Geordi epically rolls under the door sealing off engineering... which was still high enough for Geordi to simply crouch under. This scene has been memetically mutated on YTMND as the "Epic Geordi Maneuver".
  • Never Live It Down: Deanna Troi, AKA Captain Crash.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The Borg, to start with.
    • In one episode, Crusher is sucked into an alternate reality of her own making. As the crew starts vanishing by the hundreds, none of those remaining remember those gone. At one point, Wesley is following her, she rounds a corner, and he is gone by the time she turns back around. She is having a conversation with Picard at one point, and he vanishes as she blinks (especially creepy since she had a medical scan of him being announced over the intercom. Just before he vanished, the computer read: "SYNAPTIC FUNCTION: ZERO"). Crusher activates the viewscreen and sees a "warp energy field" around the ship. After establishing that there is no penetrating the field, she asks the computer to define the universe. In one of the most horrifying lines the show has had, it replies, "THE UNIVERSE IS A SPHEROID REGION 705 METERS IN DIAMETER". The computer says that there is nothing outside of the ship.
    • "Night Terrors" and "Schisms".
    • "Conspiracy" may be Darker and Edgier, but it doesn't tread into this trope... until Picard and Riker blast off Remic's head and a big worm-like parasite emerges from the body.
    • The neural interface that plugs Barclay into the main computer in "The Nth Degree".
    • "Datalore", where Data says "I'm" and twitches his eye, after sending Lore into empty space.
  • Relationship Sue: Played straight and deconstructed in "The Perfect Mate".
  • Replacement Scrappy: Dr. Pulaski in season 2 for Dr. Crusher (Crusher was Put on a Bus with a stint at Starfleet Academy). Disliked not so much for the fact that she was not Dr. Crusher as for her abrasive, unsympathetic and arrogant personality despite characters regularly claiming otherwise. She did have her moments, though.
    • Perhaps the biggest strike against her was that she was a Suspiciously Similar Substitute - not of Crusher, but of Dr. McCoy. Both are abrasive, dislike the transporter and take shots at the emotionless science officer, but Pulaski lacked the humor and likability of McCoy, not to mention Spock wasn't truly emotionless and had ways of firing back, whereas Data was truly emotionless and couldn't do anything in response to the shots Dr. Pulaski took at him.
      • Made all the more egregious by the fact Dr. (by then Admiral) McCoy actually did appear with Data in the first episode, and even after learning he was an android, had no trouble speaking to him as just another crewman, thus showing Data more warmth and respect in a minute-and-a-half than Pulaski did in a whole season.
  • Robo Ship: Tasha Yar and Data, but only that one time.
  • The Scrappy: Wesley and Barclay.
  • Special Effects Failure: An android being played by an actor who ages? What were they thinking?!
    • For a more obvious example, the episode "Conspiracy" has a very laughable puppet that bursts out of Dexter Remmick's chest. The fact that it was blue screened atrociously into the scene makes the effect even more laughable than it already was.
    • It's also worth noting that despite being credited in every episode, Industrial Light and Magic only worked on the opening, The Pilot and the last episode.
  • Straw Man Has a Point: In "Time Squared", Dr. Pulaski (who, to put it mildly, was not well-liked by the crew) tells Troi that she's concerned Picard's fear and doubt over the situation with the future Picard could be potentially paralyzing, and says the time may come that she'd have to relieve him of duty. Troi basically tells her to shove it, but when the vortex shows up, Pulaski is proven right: Picard, uncharacteristically, keeps going back and forth with himself out loud about what to do.
    • In "Chain of Command", the audience is expected to side with Riker against Captain Edward Jellico, who's making many radical changes to the way the Enterprise is run, culminating with his decision to refuse to negotiate with the Cardassians for Picard's release. In fact, being the captain, Jellico has every right to make alterations as he sees fit; and to negotiate with the Cardassians that way would leave the Federation at their mercy, and actually make it less likely to get Picard back, so Riker ultimately comes off as a massive crybaby.
      • In Riker's defense, he tolerates it all. Jellico just senses Riker's fuming underneath his calm exterior.
      • The other officers didn't like the changes either, but they eventually got with the program. Riker has no excuse for his perpetually wangsty behavior during that episode.
      • Not just wangsty. The other officers (except for Troi, whose consummate professionalism in this episode was a welcome surprise) merely had attitude problems. Riker was outright insubordinate to a legally actionable degree (by the contemporary Uniform Code of Military Justice, at least) and had to effectively blackmail Jellico in the final part of the episode ('I won't fly this mission if you don't let me off the hook') to avoid an efficiency report that would have been a career-killer, if not actual court-martial charges.
    • Really, this happens a lot when the series (or really any such episodic series) tries to do moralizing. The writers would tend to get so focused in on trumpeting one aspect of their pet causes or issues that they wouldn't realize they'd wandered over into the characters accidentally arguing for issues they opposed at the same time.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While Star Trek: The Original Series was good, it wasn't consistently good and still had out-there episodes, particularly toward the end. This show, especially after Growing the Beard, has none of the camp factor of the original series, and has more actual continuity and story arcs.
  • Tear Jerker: The last few minutes of 'The Offspring'. This is especially true for parents.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The two-part episode "Descent" is a direct sequel to "I Borg", and it features Geordi and Hugh, but not together. They should've had at least one scene together, since Hugh had become resentful of what the Enterprise crew made him, and Geordi was the one he was closest with.
  • Took The Bad Episode Seriously: Patrick Stewart is this trope incarnate; his greatest strength as an actor, as the old cliche goes, is his ability to deliver bad dialogue with utter conviction. Nowhere was that more evident than during the low points of this series.
  • Tough Act to Follow: Averted and played straight. It managed to step out of TOS's shadow as a highly successful series, but it made every subsequent Trek franchise feel rather lacking.
  • Unfortunate Implications:
    • The intent may have been to show the new era is more peaceful, but in retrospect it may not have been a good idea to have the French Captain surrender to the enemy in the very first episode.
    • Keiko and O'Brien in Rascals. Miles is understandably disturbed that his wife now has the body of a child. She doesn't seem to get it.
    • Of course Star Trek is about tolerance... oh, you want a gay character? Well how about a Very Special Episode on the subject? Nothing that will affect the ratings...
      • Not to mention that gender-identifying J'naii are "evolutionary throwbacks" and Soren undergoes "re-education" at the episode's conclusion.
      • The reaction of the crew to this "re-education" (and that of Riker in particular) was meant to show that they considered the re-education wrong. Whether or not this came across in the episode as transmitted is one of those pesky hot-button issues. (FWIW, Jonathan Frakes pushed hard for Soren to be played by a man instead of a woman.)
      • On the other hand, Trek has a long history of making social commentary through their aliens (remember the half-white, half-black aliens from TOS?).
    • "Code of Honor" making a race of savage black people.
      • Wil Wheaton has stated this was entirely the fault of the episode's original director, who insisted that the savage aliens all be played by black actors, and showed himself to be a horrible racist during filming until he was replaced.
    • So how do you explain "Justice", which has the Edo repeatedly described as a "perfect society" and populated solely by blond haired, blue-eyed, white people?
    • In "Who Watches the Watchers", Picard has an anti-religious rant that seems to not-so-lightly imply that, on Earth, every bad thing ever was because people believed in God/religion.
    • "The Drumhead" explicitly states that just because Simon Tarses' grandfather is revealed to have been Romulan, it will be the end of his Starfleet career. Remind me again, the Federation is a supposed to be a tolerant society that has long since eliminated racial discrimination, right?
    • Not quite so. It is stated it is because he lied about his heritage that is what might jeopardize his career.
  • The Woobie - Several throughout the series' run, but special mention has to go to medical technician Simon Tarses in the episode The Drumhead. Accused of conspiracy against the Federation, put through a witch-hunt trial, and suspended for 6 months for falsifying his application - those adorable ears came from a Romulan grandfather, not a Vulcan one... but admitting that would have made a career in Starfleet out of the question. Sure, lying is bad, but holy disproportionate punishment. And just look at that face.
    • Data. You'd think an android couldn't have a Dark and Troubled Past. You'd be very wrong. A human would probably break after everything that's happened to him.
    • The crew takes pity on Hugh once they discover how he reacts to being removed from the Hive Mind.
    • Iron Woobie: Captain Picard.
    • Troi. She's been raped no less than three times throughout the franchise (once when she was impregnated by an energy being and twice mentally but still represented as a sexual assault) and frequently falls victim to the psychic powers of the Villain of the Week.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Badass?: Alexander is not a warrior type, and this causes both tension with his father and a plot to change this by a time-travelling future incarnation.
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