Great second season on balance; I particularly disliked 'The Royale' which reflected in my /10 score. The characters are well bedded in now and the freshness of season one has gone; you can see they work better together. The addition of Ten Forward is welcome as the scene's become more flexible.
The voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise continue on into a second season as Star Trek: The Next Generation begins to find its footing. Correcting some of the first season’s mistakes, Riker grows a beard, Geordi gets sent down to engineering, and Whoopi Goldberg is brought aboard to tend bar. But the show also makes the epic blunder of replacing Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) with Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur), which really messes with the character dynamics. Still, there are some classic episodes in this season, including “Q Who?,” “Elementary, Dear Data,” and “The Measure of a Man.” On the other hand, there's the infamous clip show, “Shades of Grey,” which is widely considered to be the worst episode of the entire series. While Season 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation isn't firing on all thrusters, it makes some important progress; such as moving towards being character centric and improving its episode structure.
Perhaps better than season one. But I'm not even sure about this. Season two features less stories that could be leftovers from the TOS archive. That's good. The Measure of a Man is the best episode. It lacks the refined philosophy of episodes in later seasons but it's still pretty good and is perhaps Data's most important story. I also like Q Who and A Matter of Honor.
In my books, 8 episodes are good or better. That's one third of the season. And that's perhaps too generous since I'm a fan of the franchise and I'm very much biased. However, based on this evaluation, this season can't be a 7/10. It's perhaps a 6/10 if you can forget that there's still many bad episodes and no overarching stories (other than the Q trial).
Worst episode is the infamous Shades of Grey. That's perhaps the worst episode of the whole show. I dislike Up the long Ladder and the Ikarus Factor, too. Though I like Pulaski in later episodes, it was never a good idea to replace Beverly in this season. Still don't understand why this happened. At this point it's clear that writing must improve since some topics already start to feel repetitive. Some characters don't show any interesting character arc or obviously still need a lot of polishing. Most obvious example is Deanna: she isn't perhaps as useless as she was in season two but she still isn't portrayed as a valuable bridge officer.
My guilty pleasure is Hotel Royale. It's objectively bad but strangely entertaining.
Shout by Andreas1138VIP 7BlockedParent2020-03-14T13:33:20Z— updated 2020-03-17T21:43:44Z
@finfan I finished Season 2. I preferred Season 1, but I can tell the production quality is usually good. The story are complex enough for a series of that age and I always feel I am in space with the crew.
Already started Season 3 and I can tell the production value is increasing.
My personal awards for S2:
Favourite episodes: 2x08 A Matter of Honor and 2x15 Pen Pals
Favourite aliens: The Borgs... but I don't know if we can call them aliens.
Favourite guest stars: Nikki Cox (Sarjenka from 2x15 Pen Pals), Suzie Plakson (K'Ehleyr from 2x20 The Emissary), Jaime Hubbard (Salia from 2x10 The Dauphin).
Favourite holodeck moments: Worf's rite of passage from 2x14 Icarus
Favorite moment: Riker confronting the Klingons in 2x08 A Matter of Honor
Funniest moment: Wesley asks Riker and Guinan how to deal with the girl he likes (2x10 The Dauphin)
Best story I wanted as a prominent subject: Time issues in 2x13 Time Squared
I haven't watched 2x12 The Royale, 2x18 Up the Long Ladder, 2x19 Manhunt and 2x22 Shades of Gray. I'll try to get to them eventually.