The Ten Best Captain Picard Episodes of Star Trek

In the wake of Patrick Stewart’s death the other day, I watched a couple episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation — the two-part series finale All Good Things… in fact.¹ Wanting to add more Picard-centric episodes to my watchlist, I did some research.

There are several lists out there of the episodes of ST:TNG and Star Trek: Picard where Captain Jean-Luc Picard particularly shines. Some episodes appear on nearly every list; these are the consensus favorites:

• The Inner Light. “Captain Jean-Luc Picard is struck unconscious by an energy beam from an alien probe. While just 25 minutes pass for the rest of the crew between Picard being struck unconscious and eventually regaining consciousness on the Enterprise bridge floor, the probe makes Picard experience 40 years of lifetime as Kamin, a humanoid scientist whose planet is threatened by the nova of its sun.”
• Family. “Captain Jean-Luc Picard visits his brother’s family in France, where he begins to come to terms with his treatment by the Borg.”
• The Best of Both Worlds. “In this two part episode, the Enterprise must battle the Borg who are intent on conquering Earth, with a captured and assimilated Captain Picard as their emissary.”
• Darmok. “The crew of the Enterprise is unable to establish meaningful communication with the crew of an alien vessel, which is resolved by the struggle of the ships’ captains to defend each other from a vicious beast.”
• All Good Things… “The plot involves Captain Jean-Luc Picard jumping through time and the formation of an anomaly that defies causality, the whole situation being a test that allows Picard to demonstrate human potential to the Q Continuum by making an intuitive leap of faith to understand the cause of, and how to eliminate, the anomaly before it destroys humanity.”
• The Measure of a Man. “In this episode, the rights of the android officer Lt. Commander Data are threatened by a scientist who wishes to dismantle him to produce replicas of him. Captain Jean-Luc Picard fights in a Starfleet court for Data’s right of self-determination, not to be declared mere property of Starfleet, while Commander William Riker is obliged to argue on behalf of the scientist.”
• Starship Mine. “While the Enterprise is evacuated for hazardous maintenance, Captain Picard must, alone, contend with thieves posing as a work crew aboard the ship. The plot has been noted for its similarity to the 1988 action film Die Hard.”
• Chain of Command. “Jean-Luc Picard is relieved of command of the Enterprise and reassigned to lead a covert mission, while his replacement is assigned to deal with the Cardassians openly. The second part of the episode is noted for the intense performance of Patrick Stewart and its depiction of brutal torture and interrogation scenes.”
• Tapestry. “Q allows a supposedly deceased Captain Jean-Luc Picard to re-visit a pivotal event in his youth that he since regrets. Picard changes the past, but upon returning to the present he finds that the event made him the man he became.”
• The Drumhead. “An explosion aboard the Enterprise leads to a high-level investigation headed by Admiral Norah Satie, a retired officer renowned for her skill at exposing conspiracies.”

You can check out the lists at Screen Rant, Collider, Comicbook.com, That Love Podcast, and Popular Mechanics for more good Picard episodes.

The movies seemed to be out of scope for these lists, but I’ve always loved First Contact and Picard’s unhinged pursuit of the Borg — “The line must be drawn here!”

1. Did I tear up at the final scene at the poker table? When Picard says, “I should have done this a long time ago”? Yes. Yes, I did. Did I tear up again watching just that scene just now? Yes. 💞 ↩

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