Season One
Episode Highlights
Encounter at Farpoint (2-Hour Premiere)
09/26/87 -- Stardate: 41153.7
Enroute to Farpoint to survey a mysterious advanced starbase constructed by the primitive Bandi race, the Enterprise encounters Q, a powerful alien who accuses the crew of the past sins of the human race; and once at Farpoint, the crew discovers that the mysterious starbase is really the captured mate of a huge jellyfish-like space creature that can change its physical composition.
The U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-D, one of the new Galaxy-class starships, is launched with veteran Jean-Luc Picard in command and facing a puzzling first mission. While picking up new crew members from Deneb IV on the rim of explored space, they must figure out how the low-technology Bandi there could have built the gleaming new Farpoint Station they now offer to the Federation for use as a base.The new ship is almost sidetracked permanently by a being claiming to be part of an all- knowing super race known as "the Q." This Q, who considers humanity too barbarous to expand further; hijacks Picard's command crew and sentences them to death in a kangaroo court. Picard is able to save their lives only by offering to prove humanity's worth during his ship's upcoming mission to Farpoint. Freed by Q and allowed to arrive there, the crew can find no explanation for the Bandi's mysterious new technology until a vast alien ship appears and opens fire on the old Bandi city. Q tries to goad Picard into firing on the newcomer, but the Enterprise away team finds that the attacker is actually a sentient life-form trying to free its mate from the Bandi's clutches.
Farpoint Station, it turns out, was built entirely by this enslaved creature. As the freed aliens leave the planet, a disappointed Q vows he'll be back to test humanity yet again.
The Naked Now
10/03/87 -- Stardate: 41209.2
A hauntingly familiar disease is unleashed aboard the Enterprise after it makes contact with the Tsiolkovsky, a now-dead research ship that had been investigating a nearby star's collapse. Those afflicted act intoxicated and mentally unstable removing the crew members' inhibitions and makes them unable to properly carry out their duties.As Dr. Crusher races to find a cure, the disease '5 symptoms ring a bell with Riker, who goes looking through decades of records with Data until they realize that the original Enterprise encountered much the same disease. (see The Naked Time)
But the old cure doesn't work, and before Dr. Crusher can discover why, her afflicted son helps disable computer control, putting the ship at the mercy of the nearby collapsing star. Eventually almost the entire crew including the doctor, Picard, Yar, and Data-come down with the virus. Finally Data and Chief Engineer MacDougal hold off illness long enough to subdue Wesley; the android then uses his speed and dexterity to restore the computer memory in a desperate race against time to get the ship functioning in time to avoid a head-on collision from a chunk of the former star.
After a working cure is finally discovered, the crew ruefully gets on with life.
Code of Honor
10/10/87 -- Stardate: 41235.2
Negotiations go smoothly for the vaccine until the planet's chief, Lutan, suddenly kidnaps Yar after being impressed by both her beauty and her strength. To get her back, Picard must abide by the Prime Directive and the Ligonians' strict patience and code of honor and Yar must combat Lutan's current "First One" wife, who now feels her honor challenged, in a fight to the death.
Picard tries every diplomatic trick in the book, but he is finally leff to hope that Yar can score a hit in the poison tipped glavin combat. She does, and the fighters are beamed aboard, where Dr. Crusher concocts an antidote to the Ligonian poison.
Not only is honor served and Yar rescued, but wife Yareena's "death" satisfies tradition. Alive
in reality, though, Yareena transfers her land and property rights to Lutan's lieutenant Hagon when she
claims him as her new husband, in effect dethroning the chief. But Lutan takes it all in stride with
Ligonian pride and calls the orderly transfer far more "civilized" than the
Enterprise crew's society.
Amused but wiser, the crew warps out to help fight the plague.
The Last Outpost
10/17/87 -- Stardate: 41386.4
History is overshadowed by danger as the Enterprise readies for the first Federation contact with the Ferengi, the supercapitalists of the galaxy, while chasing one of the vessels to retrieve an outpost's stolen T-9 energy converter.
The chase ends abruptly when both ships find themselves immobilized over an unknown planet, which turns out to be an outpost of the long-dead Tkon Empire. A joint mission to investigate is arranged, but the Ferengi double-cross Riker's team and stun them.
An automated Tkon "portal" guard emerges from his centuries old sleep and challenges the two sides. The childish Ferengi tire him, but Portal is finally impressed by Riker's wisdom and Federation ethics, and he frees both ships.
Where No One Has Gone Before
10/24/87 -- Stardate: 41263.1
Kosinski, an arrogant Federation warp drive engineer, causes the Enterprise to travel at incredible warp speeds to the far reaches of the universe; but it is Kosinski's alien companion, known as the Traveler, who really has the knowledge needed to get them back home.
Lonely Among Us
10/31/87 -- Stardate: 41249.3
As the Enterprise passes through a mysterious cloud, an energy being is accidentally trapped aboard the Enterprise and enters the minds of several crew members, including Captain Picard, in an attempt to get back to its companions in the energy cloud.
Justice
11/07/87 -- Stardate: 41255.6
The Enterprise crew begin to beam down to what appears to be a perfect planet for shore leave, but find out, almost too late for Wesley Crusher, that the planet has strict laws of conduct and swift rules of justice for any law breakers.
The Battle
11/14/87 -- Stardate: 41723.9
The Ferengi give Picard and the Federation a peace offering in the form of Picard's first starship, the Stargazer; but this turns out to be a trojan horse intended to exact revenge from Picard for his destruction of a Ferengi ship at the Battle of Maxia.
Hide and Q
11/21/87 -- Stardate: 41590.5
Q offers Commander Riker powers equal to his own if he will accompany Q back to his planet of origin as a specimen of the human race, which Q admits will someday become more powerful than his own race.
Haven
11/28/87 -- Stardate: 41294.5
While wedding preparations are made for the marriage of Troi to a young man with whom she has been bonded since youth, a ship carrying the last remaining survivors of a planet destroyed by bacteriological warfare arrives with a girl that Troi's fiancee has had recurring dreams about.
The Big Goodbye
01/09/88 -- Stardate: 41997.7
While Picard and Data are in the holodeck engaged in a 1940's detective drama, the Enterprise's computer experiences an electrical short that makes the holodeck drama a real experience, with the possibility of real death.
Datalore
01/16/88 -- Stardate: 41242.4
The Enterprise stops at the planet of Data's discovery and finds Lore, a duplicate android that turns out to be have been a first attempt that was made so human-like that it had a big ego and the desire for power.
Angel One
01/23/88 -- Stardate: 41636.9
While searching for survivors of the freighter S.S. Odin, Picard and Worf become ill, while Riker and an away team on the planet find that it is ruled by women who want to execute the male survivors of the Odin as revolutionaries.
11001001
01/30/88 -- Stardate: 41365.9
While the Enterprise is at Starbase 74 for computer repairs, Bynars, a race of small aliens who can communicate directly with computers, steal the Enterprise in an attempt to provide assistance to their dying home planet.
Too Short a Season
02/06/88 -- Stardate: 41309.5
Federation Admiral Jameson is summoned to the planet Mordan IV, supposedly to help solve a hostage crisis; however, the real reason that the planet's leader summoned Jameson is to exact revenge for his instigation of a civil war on the planet 40 years before.
When the Bough Breaks
02/13/88 -- Stardate: 41509.1
The inhabitants of the planet Aldea kidnap the children aboard the Enterprise because they are themselves sterile and want children, but Dr. Crusher discovers that this had been caused by radiation from the planet's defensive shields.
Home Soil
02/20/88 -- Stardate: 41463.9
An Enterprise away team comes in contact with a strange microscopic lifeform when they investigate the death of a scientist on a planet being terraformed.
Coming of Age
03/12/88 -- Stardate: 41416.2
While Wesley takes his Starfleet Academy entrance exam, Admiral Quinn has Picard investigated for conspiracy against the Federation.
Heart of Glory
03/19/88 -- Stardate: 41503.7
Three renegade Klingons are found on a crippled cargo vessel in the Romulan Neutral Zone, and a Klingon cruiser arrives to take them back to the Klingon home planet.
Arsenal of Freedom
04/09/88 -- Stardate: 41798.2
On a dead planet where the USS Drake disappeared, the Enterprise encounters an intelligent weapon that learns and grows more powerful after each attack that it makes.
Symbiosis
04/16/88 -- Stardate: Unknown
The Enterprise encounters a freighter in distress, which turns out to be carrying a shipment of a narcotic drug to a planet whose entire population is addicted.
Skin of Evil
04/23/88 -- Stardate: 41601.3
An Enterprise shuttlecraft carrying Troi crashes on a planet after being attacked, and Tasha Yar is killed by an oil-based creature when she leads an away team to rescue Troi.
We'll Always Have Paris
04/30/88 -- Stardate: 41697.9
While investigating potentially disastrous time-warp experiments being performed on a remote planet, Picard finds that the experimenter's wife was his (Picard's) first love.
Conspiracy
05/07/88 -- Stardate: 41775.5
After Picard receives a secret message from another starship captain, the Enterprise travels to Earth to confront top Starfleet officials who have been taken over by parisitic beings planning to overthrow the Federation.
The Neutral Zone
05/14/88 -- Stardate: 41986.0
Enroute to a possible confrontation with the Romulans in the Neutral Zone, the Enterprise encounters a 20th Century Earth ship carrying three living passengers in cryogenic sleep.