A season guide for this one was more difficult as this season is considerably less laughable (though not completely so) than the first. Characters start to solidify and the themes begin breaking ground new to Star Trek. Yes, everyone is still running around in what look like adult onesies, and will be until they get separate pants and shirts with collars in seasons 3. Still, the episodes in this season elevate themselves to average.

The Next Generation enters adolescence with Riker's facial hair. Geordi gets a promotion to chief engineer. Doctor Crusher disappears for the entire season and in steps Doctor Pulaski. When I was younger Pulaski reminded me of a naggy grandmother but, looking at the first and second seasons, Pulaski had much more character in her first episode than Beverly did in the entire first season. Unlike any of the other characters Pulaski regularly didn't get along with the other crew members, especially Picard. The dynamic provided ample opportunity for drama that often wasn't there because everyone liked each other so much. When Crusher came back in season 3 she became a more developed and integral part of the tight-knit group of characters but I was still disappointed Pulaski was only around for one season.

While the universe is persistent, The Next Generation isn't a serial. It's a show defined by quality one-off episodes. There are number of one-offs in season 2 that are either good or average but this guide is written with the belief that the heart of the series is in seasons 3, 4, and 5. In the interest of expediting your way to what made the series great I've marked the bad episodes that lack any details about the overall series mythology "skip" - the one-offs that aren't great but might be worth coming back to "skippable" - the good episodes with required information for the series "watch" - and the episodes that would be great in any season "must watch."

1. The Child - SKIP - Troi gets impregnated by a star while she's sleeping. Dr. Pulaski is introduced. The Enterprise transports some dangerous viruses to a starbase. Troi has the baby and, surprise, he's not like us! The boy grows at a rapid rate and then dies, turning back into a star and (through starry osmosis?) explains to Troi that he just wanted to see what it felt like to be human. And hey, sorry about the star-rape? At the end of the episode there is an explanation for why Wesley is going to remain on the Enterprise for the season even though his mother has left. This isn't the biggest steaming pile of the season. There is little by way of series mythology. Your degree of enjoyment on this one is going to be proportional to how moved you feel when Deanna gets upset about stuff. If, like me, her crying makes you want to mute the television then it's best to move along.

2. Where Silence Has Lease - Skip - The crew get trapped in a nebula with giant Mr. Potatohead eyes and lips floating around inside it that threaten to execute half the crew in order to study death. Rather than standby and watch half the crew get killed off Picard says to hell with it we all day. For the second time in two years (and the last time in the series) he sets the auto destruct on the ship. Nagilum lets them go and Picard tells him that NEXT time Nagilum will be in trouble. Apparently he was holding something back will Nagilum murder-ized that crewman without touching him? This episode is a suggested skip for the casual Trek fan because it lacks any relevant series mythology, none of the characters have found themselves, and the whole concept still has a strong original series vibe. Still, despite the silliness I can't help but enjoy it just a little. Maybe it's the performance of Dr. Silberman as Nagilum.

3. Elementary, Dear Data - Watch - This is arguably the best holodeck episode of the show. Data, Pulaski, and Geordi spend some time in a Sherlock Holmes program on the holodeck. Pulaski and Geordi find themselves bored when Data solves every mystery the computer comes up with as they are all just recombinations of the stories he has memorized. Geordi then asks the computer to create an adversary capable of defeating Data, not Sherlock Holmes. This story arc comes up again in a later season.

4. The Outrageous Okona - Skippable- This like...TOTALLY Outrageous Captain of a disabled starship comes on board and places the crew in the mid... Nevermind it's too stupid. The hijinks of the main story aside, what's watchable here is Data's side story. Okona makes Data feel bad for not having any idea how to be funny so Data goes to the holodeck to try and learn how to be funny. He wants to learn from a real performer and asks the computer, "Of all the performers available, who is considered funniest?" And the computer creates a virtual....Joe.....Piscapo? Apparently Paramount couldn't get George Carlin, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, George Burns, or Sinbad or CarrotTop to do the show? Whoopi, pull some strings! Still, there are some nice scenes here between Data and Guinan. Oh and Okona boinks Teri Hatcher. She must've been an ensign.

5. Loud As A Whisper - Skip - A deaf-mute mediator who speaks through a chorus of people that can hear his thoughts, comes on board to resolve a dispute on a distant planet. The ship takes them to the planet where one of the members of the warring faction promptly vaporizes the chorus. After a lot of debating and trying to figure out how to fix the situation the mediator decides that he can mediate the dispute between the two parties that have been warring and murdering each other (and murdered his three person chorus) ... without any help. He'll start by...teaching them...sign language? It all keeps in the shows unerringly hopeful view of the future but the episode ends up kind of boring and melodramatic.

6. The Schizoid Man - Watch - The Enterprise comes to the aid of a dying scientist who has been trying to bridge the gap between cybernetics and biology. He dies and starts acting strangely. This episode begins to get into some of the deeper themes involving Data's place in the Star Trek universe. Oh and K'Ehleyr makes an appearance as a vulcan. A nice one-off.

7. Unnatural Selection - Skippable - In one of the last space-virus episodes until Season 7, Pulaski risks her life to try and prove that a group of powerful psychic children aren't responsible for a virus that is causing a colony to age faster. She does so by exposing herself to the children and...catching a virus that is causing the colony to age faster. In what will become a go-to parachute for the writers, the crew finds a way to cure her disease with the transporters.

8. A Matter of Honor - Skippable - The Klingons are dumb. In Star Trek 6 The Undiscovered Country we meet Klingons who are level headed and even teach the crew something about racism. In the first two seasons of Star Trek TNG the Klingons are growling morons who seem unlikely to have crawled out of the muck. </rant>

So Commander Riker participates in an officer exchange program which lands him an assignment on a Klingon. He seems well versed in the klingon culture and beats a few of the up to get respect. Anyway the Klingon ship and the Enterprise end up picking up a bacterial infection on their hulls (I hate those.) The Klingons blame the the Enterprise and attack. Riker saves the day with a double-cross and the ships have their infections cleared up. It's an interesting episode in that it's the first attempt in Star Trek to show life aboard a klingon vessel as our allies. Oh and there's a bit with a Benzite ensign who has problems fitting in on the ship. I don't think Benzites ever speak a line again in TNG after this episode and it's clear why.

9. The Measure of a Man - Must Watch - Data's right to decide his own fate is called into question when a Starfleet scientist wants to disassemble him. The surgery to do so is risky but could potentially allow him to build more Datas. Picard debates the scientists right to order Data to his death and a trial is held with Picard representing Data and (for unbelievably contrived reasons) Riker prosecuting against Data's sentience. It's an incredibly important episode in the series lore (get it?!?) but having just watched it for this review there are a few things about this episode that bother me: If the admiral had no staff then why the hell couldn't they delay the trial until she did or hold it at a new starbase? Having Riker prosecute created some drama certainly but in reality wouldn't it have been an unbelievable conflict of interest? The idea is so ludicrous it saps some of the power of the episode. Also was it really necessary for him to be as much of a douche as he actually was. "Pinnochio is broken. His strings have been cut." Uhm...objection? At the end of the episode there's a short dialogue sequence in which Data totally alleviates Riker's guilt saying, essentially, he was only doing his job.

10. The Dauphin - SKIP - Wesley falls in love with a princess who can shapeshift into big foot wearing a carpet jacket. Or in love with big foot who can shape-shift into a princess. Whatever it is, it's horrendous. The princess is being escorted on her journey by an old lady guardian. Who also is a shapeshifter. But the old lady shapeshifts into something different. But since the princess and the old lady look perfect then their clearly not the same shape shifter race that Odo comes from. This episode also shows you how little the writers yet knew what to do with Worf at this point. So Worf is hanging out with the old lady. The old lady shapeshifts into the monster and kicks his ass. The monster shape shifts back into the old lady and Worf calmly walks up to her and almost elbows an old lady in the face half his size before the Captain calls him off. It'd be like a western where the bad guy throws down his weapon and then the hero blasts him in the face.

11. Contagion - Skippable - An odd probe screws the ship up, fouls up Data's programming, and leaves the ship vulnerable to the Romulans. Most of the episode is spent dealing with the glitches and there's some good fun with the Romulans but this is a forgettable episode. A good one off.

12. The Royale - Skip - Essentially a holodeck episode, an away team is trapped on a desolate foreign planet that for some reason has a recreation of a 20th century hotel based on a book called "The Hotel Royale." Strangely the episode takes pains to indicate how poor the writing in "Hotel Royale" are but the writing in the episode is really never that much better either. We never have any doubt the crew is going to escape and when they do there isn't really that much of a feeling of relief. At this point the novelty of seeing the crew in the 20th century is already running thin thanks to all of the previous holodeck episodes.

13. Time Squared - Skippable - An interesting first stab at an idea refined later in the series with episodes like Cause and Effect. The ship encounters double a double of Picard from six hours in the future. From what they can tell, his Enterprise had been destroyed. The senior staff debates whether or not it's avoiding going forward that causes the problem (it never is) or continuing forward and decides that until they know further they can't make any decisions. One of the first decent episodes dealing with time but it gets a skip because it's Season 2 and it's done better later on.

14. The Icarus Factor - SKIP - A few more signs the writers still didn't know what to do with some of the characters. Riker's Dad, the drug dealer from Lethal Weapon, comes on board to tell him he's getting promoted. Without any real indication of why other than some childish allusions to past events, Riker shows off some painfully silly Daddy issues. The whole thing culminates in the holodeck with Riker and Daddy practicing an ancient asian combat that looks like an episode of American Gladiators. Oh and Worf catches Klingon Pon Farr so that John Tesh gets to zap him with a pain stick in an unintentionally hilarious Klingon honor scene.

15. Pen Pals - Skip - Wesley saves the day! So Data has a child-actor pen pal on a distant planet that is shaking itself to pieces and Wesley must figure out why. To violate or not to violate the prime directive is the question? Brent Spiner turns in a decent performance but Wesley plays a major role and thats rarely a good thing. It's all intensely boring.

16. Q Who? - Must Watch - This is a landmark episode in the series. Q requests to join the crew after being evicted from the continuum. Picard turns him down indicating that his presence is unnecessary and Q throws the ship into an unknown part of the galaxy to show humanity something that they're totally not prepared for: the Borg. It's a wonderful episode before the writers beat the Borg into the ground (ok I still love `em) and turned Q into a clown. Later Q episodes are still some of the best on the show, but there's something lost when they start playing Q almost entirely for laughs. Zeus becoming Loki.

17. Samaritan Snare - Watch - This is a poor episode but has information about Picard and some certain health conditions that are relevant several times later in the series. Picard and Wesley set off on a short trip in a shuttlecraft together to share some father and son moments. Meanwhile Riker gets Geordi into a predicament, sending him into a tub full of cavemen alone who turn out to be setting a trap so Geordi can make their technology stronger. While there is some decent Picard and Wesley dialogue, nothing really happens in their scenes. The crew get Geordi away from the technology thieves through a series of contrivances, and then Pulaski saves Picard's life when his surgery goes wrong. Drink every time Geordi gets phasered.

18. Up the Long Ladder - SKIP - Irish stereotypes and clones clones clones? The ship receives a distress signal. They find a colony split into two groups. One that has been surviving demographic complications by cloning and another that is a group of preindustrial Irishmen. Picard introduces group A to group B and solves the problem. Worf begins to mellow out a bit, Pulaski continues to show more personality than a number of the characters, and continues to stabilize. It's quite a bit better than season one but still pretty slow and tedious.

19. Manhunt - SKIP - Lwaxana is back and she wants a man. There's some fish people. Uhm. Another Dixon Hill novel. Uhhh... A lot of smiling and teasing about Lwaxana being on the prowl. Oh and the fish people have bombs. I don't hate Lwaxana but a lot of this mishmash is recycled from Haven and there are better episodes with her later in the series. There's nothing wrong with playing for laughs but a lot of the humor in the early two seasons feels more like Three's Company than Star Trek. Compare this episode and and Up The Long Ladder to the humor in Deja Q and it feels flat and contrived. Deja Q is actually about something.

20. The Emissary - Watch - Worf's ex-girlfriend K'Ehleyr comes on board for a mission and they squabble until Worf gets all horny watching her fight Skelator and some zoo people. There's an intensely awkward mak-eout sequence and some implied sex. Worf thinks that now she did him he and K'Ehleyr are married. K'Ehleyr sets him straight and the two of them stop a Klingon crew that's been in hibernation since the Federation and Klingons were at war. This is the beginning of the Alexander (Worf's son) story arc and his romance with K'Ehler is probably his most convincing.

21. Peak Performance - Skip - also known as, "How Data Got His Groove Back." Data loses a futuristic video game competition and his confidence. In a totally unbelievable premise, Riker is put in command of a broken down old space jalopy to duke it out in a simulated battle against the Enterprise. Then the Ferengi come in to provide a climax to the story. Why isn't the Federation at war with the Ferengi again? They make more adversarial appearances in the first two seasons than any other race and they're supreme jackasses.

22. Shades of Gray - SKIP - Riker gets infected by a plant. Deanna stands around looking frightened. Pulaski cures him by inducing a clip show. There was a writer's strike this season and the producers needed one more episode so they drafted this blight on the series that has garnered a hilarious 3.6 overall rating on TV.com. It's actually a fitting end to the first two seasons - something to remind you of how far you've come before you get into the best the series has to offer.

Don't give up! You're very nearly at the end of the pain. Take a look at my other Season reviews if you need help getting to the good stuff in the series.