Though we rate all the episodes, making it pretty clear which ones are our favorite, it’s fun to rank them when we arrive at the end of a season. Below is our five favorite Next Generation episodes from season two, and why they made our top 5…

5. The Measure of a ManThis spot came down to Pen Pals and The Measure of a Man, both of which we really like. Most people would rank Measure of a Man higher than we did. While this episode takes a very intellectual and philosophical tone, we actually weren’t that impressed with this aspect. There can be loose correlations to real world problems, or even problems that humanity might one day encounter, but it’s mainly only relevant within the Star Trek universe, and within the Star Trek universe it’s a given that Data is sentient, and should have choice. To the court it should be pretty obvious that he easily meets the requirements of sentience, so it feels pretty unbelievable that it’s even an issue. We mostly like it because Picard and Data are great in this episode.

4. Peak PerformancePeak Performance is another episode that wonderfully showcases the characters. That means a lot in TNG because the characters are awesome. Most of the talk about strategy just seems like talk. It’s not demonstrated in a way that’s easily understood by the audience. Still, the build up to the showdown is cool and it’s fun to see the characters grouped a little differently to compete against each other in a believable way.

3. Contagion

In a lot of ways Contagion could have just been a very standard action episode. It has the premise of that kind of thing- the good guys and bad guys race to recover a dangerous technology that could upset the balance of power- but each component of the plot is pretty intriguing. The characterization of the ancient race that invented the technology is really fun, and the Romulans are the perfect adversaries for this type of plot. I also like that there’s reluctance from Picard and the crew to even become involved in this race to obtain the technology. Only in Star Trek would an episode like this end with the good guys helping to repair the bad guy’s ship.

2. A Matter of Honor

A Matter of Honor serves up some solid action, which is nice, but the main reason we like it is two-fold: One, it dives head first into life on a Klingon ship in a way that we hadn’t really seen up to this point in Trek, and two, it’s one of the best Riker focused episodes of the whole series. The pleasures of this episode are mostly simple. It’s a lot of fun to watch Riker hold his ground and earn the respect of the Klingon crew. It’s something that is easy to describe, but difficult to pull off in a convincing and satisfying way, but this episode manages to do just that.

1. Q Who?

Q Who has a lot going for it. It’s one of the few times that any of the Trek shows introduce a new villain that really resonates right from the beginning. In fact, after their next appearance in Best of Both Worlds, it’s kind of downhill for the Borg. All the Trek crews have encountered their fair share of aliens that are meant to be vastly different from humans, but Q Who excels at characterizing a nemesis that shares almost none of the goals or behavioral commonalities that humanoids possess in this universe.

It isn’t just that the Borg are kind of incomprehensible and seemingly unbeatable, but that they are used to subvert some attitudes that pop up frequently in Star Trek- that humans are pretty awesome and the crew of the Enterprise will figure a way to win at the end of the day, more or less on their own terms. Q isn’t just a mischievous trickster in this episode, but someone perplexed by the confidence of humans. The fact that the only way Enterprise can escape destruction is for Picard to essentially beg for intervention brings home the idea that the universe holds a lot more than what the crew could comprehend or withstand.