How The Worst Episode Of Star Trek: The Next Generation Saved The Show

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 27 seconds ago

These days, Star Trek: The Next Generation is considered the gold standard of the franchise. When fans complain about NuTrek shows like Discovery or Starfleet Academy, they are usually griping that these new series are nothing like the adventures of Captain Picard and crew. However, what many modern fans don’t realize is that, in its early days, TNG was one of the worst shows in the entire franchise. That’s mostly because Season 1 was a train wreck, one filled with stiff characters and stiffer stories that ranged from inexplicably horny to unspeakably racist.

Season 2 was a general improvement, though the show was still very rough around the edges. Unfortunately, it ended with “Shades of Grey,” a finale so bad that most fans consider it the worst episode of the entire franchise. Fortunately, that episode saved Star Trek: The Next Generation, albeit accidentally. That’s because this episode was so bad that it made everyone involved say the same thing that Bruce Wayne said after watching his parents get gunned down: “never again!”

You’ll Want To Burn Your Eyes After Watching

“Shades of Gray” is a real war crime of an episode, so I’ll spare you the trouble of watching it with a quick summary. Basically, Paramount forced everyone to create an ultra-low-budget bottle episode, so the writers developed a skeletal plot about Riker getting a fast-acting virus that will shut his brain down in hours. Dr. Pulaski develops a device to help stimulate his brain with memories of his various adventures from the last two years. In reality, the memory stimulation plot was just an excuse to create Star Trek’s first and only clip show episode, with Riker watching the worst set of nonsense video snippets this side of TikTok.

Pretty much everyone involved with “Shades of Gray” hated it. This included then-showrunner Maurice Hurley, who (as recorded in Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages) later dubbed this episode a “Piece of sh*t.” He lamented that “It was supposed to be a bottle show. Terrible, just terrible, and a way to save some money.” However, the show wasn’t going to be Hurley’s problem anymore because, as he bluntly stated, “I was on the way out the door.”

Two Beams, One Cup

In an interview with The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine, “Shades of Gray” director Rob Bowman essentially disowned his work. He said that this was “basically a money-saving episode. All we shot was three days of framework, and they just stuck in flashbacks. That’s all it was.” To hear Bowman tell it, this was an episode in name only, with Paramount just throwing in a bunch of disjointed clips and calling it a day. This is part of why legendary TNG writer dubbed it an “embarrassment” in one of his famous AOL chats, deeming it (along with “Up the Long Ladder”) as the worst episode of the series.

However, one man feels that Star Trek: The Next Generation owes a debt of gratitude to “Shades of Gray.” That man was veteran producer Peter Lauritson, who spoke about the matter on the DVD special features for TNG Season 2.  “It was just… we learned from that. I think, probably, the worst we ever did,” he said. “It was like ‘Never again.’ ‘Shades’… I don’t even want to remember it.”

The Worst Of Both Worlds

In retrospect, Lauritson was correct, and everyone involved with Star Trek: The Next Generation never made an episode even nearly as bad. Over on IMDB, it is the lowest-rated episode of all time, but the overall quality of episodes steadily increased after this. Granted, credit for this mostly goes to Michael Piller, who revamped the entire writing team when he became showrunner in Season 3. But some credit must also go to “Shades of Gray,” an episode so bad and so universally hated that it taught the writers and producers exactly what not to do with this ambitious sci-fi spinoff.

While Season 2 was generally an improvement over Season 1, Star Trek: The Next Generation was still an extraordinarily rough sci-fi spinoff. “Shades of Gray” taught the writers and producers a major lesson through the greatest teacher of all: failure. Had this crappy clip show not been the worst episode of Trek ever made, TNG might not have become the most foundational bit of genre television of the 20th century. In this way, it’s fair to say that the worst episode of Star Trek’s most beloved show helped save the most influential series in sci-fi history!