Last week a friend informed me that he had convinced his wife to watch some episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation. Not realizing what a geek-tacular achievement this was and the care and effort that had to be put into such an undertaking, he threw the first Season of the show into his Netflix queue without a second thought.

I asked him, aghast, "You're not going to just...let her watch the first two seasons are you? You won't even get past Code of Honor!"

"Why? Is that a problem?"

Closet-case Star Trek TNG fans look back at the series with rose-colored glasses. They remember The Best of Both Worlds and Yesterday's Enterprise. They remember Wesley was there but not very often ("Wasn't he in that episode about that game? That one was really great!") But we out-there fans that have borne the teasing from those that didn't watch the show and can never understand...we who may have assembled our circle of friends so carefully that we go days without running into a person who doesn't know what the Picard-maneuver is. We know better. Way before anybody hated Anakin in The Phantom Menace we had Wesley in The Naked Now. Riker without the beard. Geordi at the conn.

Sure, now we know Wil Wheaton is kind of awesome. We've also come to grips with the fact that The Phantom Menace wasn't Jake Lloyd's fault. Still, watching some episodes from the first two seasons of Star Trek The Next Generation feels like being water boarded by tiny children.
"Well I'll just skip them then and we'll go to Season 3," said my friend naively.
"But then you'll miss Lore and the Borg and some other necessary stuff. Not to mention the continuity between the first and the last episode will be lost. Do you want me to write a guide?"
"That's really not necessary. You could just tell me which episodes to watch."
"No no. I'll write a guide."

So here is a guide for "normies." My purpose is to speed someone right to the meat and potatoes of the series. I've marked the bad episodes that lack any details about the overall series mythology "skip" - the one-offs that aren't necessarily great but might be worth coming back to "skippable" - episodes that are solid or contain required information about the series mythology, "watch" - and the unforgettable episodes, "must watch."

Season 1:

1-2. Encounter At Farpoint Parts 1 and 2 - Watch - The show starts at the peak of Mt. Campy and rolls down it for a few years until it settles into a nice groove in Season 3. The pilot is no exception. Dumb outfits. Melodrama. UBER-seriousness. Terribly unsubtle musical cues. Stupid hippy outfits. Maybe Gene Roddenberry felt like in order to have continuity between the the original series and the Next Generation, it was necessary to have the aliens dress like Drill Thrall Shanah. Still, this is a watch episode. It sets up all the relationships, it introduces Q, and the series finale references it heavily. Might be a good one to watch drunk and make fun of the entire way though.

3. The Naked Now - Skippable - This episode is based on an Original Star Trek episode. The crew catches a virus that makes them all act drunk. It's amusing and not the worst of the first two seasons but there is nothing really important to see here. The only hint of mythology is in the best part of the episode - Data boinks Tasha. He references this later in one of the best early episodes Measure of a Man, later on.

4. Code of Honor - SKIP - The Enterprise is negotiating for a vaccine that is only made on a planet colonized by Eddie Murphy's family from Coming to America. The King gets a jones for Tasha and makes her fight his girlfriend for the vaccine. Awful.

5. The Last Outpost - SKIP - The ferengi are introduced as this mysterious rarely seen species. The enterprise and the ferengi ships get stuck next to this planet. Most of the episode is everyone standing around looking serious but not really doing anything. When the crew finally does beam down to the planet and meet the Ferengi they're just these big eared Jewish stereo types (no no...the Ferengi are cheap stingy traders that have big EARS get it?!? Totally different) dressed in animal skins. Nothing to see here.

6. Where No One Has Gone Before - Skippable - This episode introduces the Travaller, a component to Wesley's story-arc. Interestingly the guy who plays the traveller was in the running for Data's part. Anyway Traveller comes on board as part of a science team to increase efficiency on the ships engines. Experiment goes awry and they end up in crazy space, a bazillion miles from anywhere. Traveller is revealed and gets them back. Episode is over. It's skippable because nobody really cares about Wesley's arc.

7. Lonely Among Us - Skip - This episode introduces Data as Sherlock Holmes...and that's about it. The crew are escorting these two squabbling parties (Snakemen and Rat people) to a conference to negotiate a peace treaty when they find a nebula. The nebula has a lifeform in it that they accidentally pick up. The entity goes from crew member to crew member. Eventually it gets to Picard. Picard beams himself back into the nebula. There's a techno babble explanation for why he's still alive. They reconstitute him in the transporter. Episode over. Move along.

8. Justice - SKIP - The crew lands on the planet from Logan's Run. Wesley, while playing with a group of men with waxed bare chests, walks into a garden to retrieve a ball. This breaks a law made by some giant mechanical overseer (a prop they reuse a few more times in other episodes) and Wesley is to be put to death. There's a lot of sitting around and debating politics and the prime directive. Then they don't kill him.

9. The Battle - Skip - Another Ferengi-centric episode before anyone realized the Ferengi suck. There is some stuff here about Picard's back story that never comes up again (Captain of the Stargazer/The Picard Maneuver/etc). A ferengi mind controls Picard and gets him to attack the Enterprise. Riker stops him. Etc. There's a nice little bit about Data beating a the scientist from Total Recall at a futuristic video game, but it isn't worth suffering through the episode.

10. Hide and Q - Skippable - The only Q episode I'd consider skipping. Q makes Riker a Q so that the Q can study humani...Q. The whole episode consists of Q setting up reasons for Riker to use his power. Picard convinces Riker not to use and some kids die. The episode ends with Riker giving all the crew a gift that only a Q can and the crew turning it down. Riker then gives up being a Q and the episode ends. The whole thing probably looked good on paper but the campy melodrama in the episode is just excruciating. Riker gives Worf a Klingon babe in heat. While the Klingon scank-o-vitch tries to give Worf a handy in front of the entire bridge staff Worf yells, "This IS Sex...but I have NO PLACE FOR IT IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW!!!1' *twitch*

11. Haven - Skippable - After the galaxy shaking drama of the previous episodes, the writers go light in this one. Skipping it depends on how you feel about Troi's mother Lwxanna (Gene Roddenberry's Wife.) So apparently Betazed's marriages are all prearranged. Troi is engaged to be married. Lwxanna is introduced and beams on board. There's some hijinx and tom-foolery including a good bit at the rehearsal dinner with Data being fascinated by the Troi family. Basically this is a pretty boring episode. Riker wander's around all butt-hurt about Troi's marriage and Picard gets emasculated by Lwxanna. Meh.

12. The Big Goodbye - Skip - The first episode based around the holodeck. The primary cast indulge in some downtime inside one of Picard's Dixon Hill novels. Those infernal safety protocols malfunction, and a crew member nobody cares about gets hurt. Picard solves the problem by having the bad guys walk out of the holodeck which kills them. Holodeck episodes are fun but this one is based completely around "Hey look how cool holodecks are!" and Elementary My Dear Data is a better holodeck episode in Season 2.

13. Datalore - Watch - This is the first episode Data's brother Lore makes an appearance in. We get a bunch of details about Data's backstory and information about the crystalline entity - a creature in one of my favorite episodes later on. Even though Brent Spiner plays Lore as a bit of a cackling mustache twirler (seriously...has ANY good-guy ever laughed like that?) this is still a big episode in the mythos.

14. Angel One - Skip - The crew goes on a mission to look for a ship that crashed on a planet with a matriarchal society. At first everyone thinks a planet of dominating women is kinda hot but then everyone is like, "Dag...these ladies are kinda dickish," when the government tries to execute the crew of the crashed ship. But then some ladies on the government are all like, "Hey I've been sleeping with that one!" and the government is like Well Maybe men and women really do need each other and the episode ends.

15. 11001001 - Skip - Some dudes that speak in binary to each other beam onto the enterprise to perform a maintenance overhaul on the ships computer. They distract Riker on the holodeck by creating some seductress that he spends the whole episode romancing (What the hell? It's the holodeck Riker...she's a sure thing) and the aliens steal the ship to take it back to their home planet and fix some problem with their main computer that allows them to all speak binary to each other. It's over!

16. Too Short A Season - Skip - A Benjaman Button episode. Crew brings on an old man who is there to negotiate a dispute. He starts aging backwards. The whole episode has the crew in a supporting role and Clayton Rohner as the lead (an actor so deserving of a lead roll in one of the most important shows in television history that his IMDB page is only a picture of his ear.) Eventually we find out why he's aging backward. I don't remember why. That's a bad sign.

17. When the Bough Breaks - Skip - The children of the enterprise (including Wesley) are abducted by a race of people (who in true Star Trek laziness look exactly like...people) unable to have their own. Wesley saves the day! The whole thing is boring and when their kids get kidnapped, the parents have to act...an expectation which was probably the writer's first mistake.

18. Home Soil - Skip - The Enterprise has been asked by the Federation to check in on the progress made by scientists terraforming a planet. For some reason, the chief scientist is a bit on edge. Maybe it's because he killed James Bond? Counselor Troi, using her ability, senses that the scientist is hiding something. BUM BUM BUUUUUM. This isn't a terrible first season episode but it suffers from all the typical problems, melodrama, silliness, and terrible acting by the supporting cast. The only interesting thing is the bad guy is played by General Gogol.

19. Coming of Age - Skip - Wesley takes.... did I lose you already? Ok ok... Wesley takes the entrance exam to Starfleet Academy (and we find out that apparently Starfleet loves scaring the hell out of it's potential cadets) and the Enterprise is investigated by the Inspector General's office. Yes...it's that boring.

20. Heart of Glory - Skippable - Though they don't go to their home planet, this is really the first Klingon episode. The crew goes into the neutral zone and finds a trade ship that has been attacked. They jump on board. There's a neat little bit where they hook a camcorder up to Geordi's visor and see what he's seeing, and they find three Klingon's on board. They beam the Klingon's to the Enterprise as the ship explodes. There's a lot of gruff Klingon conversations as the Klingon's and Worf pee on each other trying to figure out who is in charge. Turns out it's Worf which they find out when Worf phasers one of them off a balcony in engineering during an attempt by the klingons to commandeer the ship. Truthfully...this episode sucks but if you watch it drunk it can be hilarious. There's this thing Klingon's apparently all do when a Klingon dies but is never seen again in another episode: They hold open the fallen's eyes while he's dying and shout a lot to let the dead know a warrior is coming. Picard looks on with sober dignity and respect. However, the actors seem...slightly embarassed when they do it and hence never quite get the shout right. You'll cringe sober. Drunk you will laugh your ass off.

21. The Arsenal of Freedom - Watch - The Enterprise finds a planet with the remnants of a society on it and inadvertently activate a machine with a hologram (played by the crazy dead guy from the train in Ghost) that tries to sell them a weapon. The machine's sales pitch is demonstrating the weapon on the crew. The weapon works by launching a wave, figuring out why the wave failed and launching another one better. You could say it has a neural net processor. Like...a learning computer. Anyway, Picard and Beverly fall in a big hole and Beverly gets seriously injured. The scenes hint at the link they share over the Crusher family history and Picard bringing home Beverley's dead husband. Not a great one but fun.

22. Symbiosis - Skip - Crew brings on a group of people buying medicine from another group of people. Turns out the medicine is really a narcotic one race uses to enslave the other. Just say no.

23. Skin of Evil - Watch - So Troi and Ensign Who-Cares crash a shuttlecraft on a planet with goo that feeds off negative energy and sadness. Unlike the goo from Ghostbusters 2, this goo can talk and decides to keep the Enterprise from rescuing Troi. Tasha dies. Even though Wesley doesn't, this is still a good episode with a great, "How're they going to get out of this?" premise - potentially the best episode of the first season.

24. We'll Always Have Paris - Skip - Picard meets an old flame, who is now married to a scientist that accidentally rips the fabric of space and inadvertently creates a new dimension. The only scene I remember is the ending where Data has to put a thing in a thing and he sees four of himself and only one of them can do it. If that sounds interesting by all means watch this one.

25. Conspiracy - Watch - This episode TERRIFIED me as a kid. Picard receives wind of a conspiracy in the Federation. He then comes to find out the heads of the Federation have been taken over by tiny bugs that crawl in to their hosts mouthes, dig into the spine, and control them. This episode holds the distinction of containing one of the grossest things I've ever seen on television.

26. The Neutral Zone - Skip - A 20th century probe (yes) carrying three cryogenically frozen humans (yes) is detected by the Enterprise while en route to the Neutral Zone to confront Romulans.