The Best Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5

Stardate: 45944.1. Picard awakes to find himself living in a small village where he is a well-known member of the community who is suffering from a delusion of being a starship captain.

Director: Peter Lauritson

Writer: Peter Allan Fields, Morgan Gendel

Stardate: 45652.1. While exploring the Typhon Expanse, the Enterprise is caught in a time warp in which they are repeatedly destroyed while colliding with another starship.

Director: Jonathan Frakes

Writer: Brannon Braga

Stardate: 45854.2. An injured Borg is discovered and brought back to the Enterprise where he is 'repaired' by Dr. Crusher and befriended by Geordi, who names him 'Hugh.' Soon, Hugh starts showing signs of individuality while Picard must choose between destroying him or returning him to the collective.

Director: Robert Lederman

Writer: René Echevarria

Stardate: 45047.2. Picard must find a way to communicate with the newly discovered Tamarians, who speak entirely in metaphors, when a Tamarian Captain is brutally killed.

Director: Winrich Kolbe

Writer: Joe Menosky, Philip LaZebnik

Stardate: 45020.4. Picard suspects a Romulan influence in the recent Klingon civil war, and must force the Federation to intervene before the Empire collapses.

Director: David Carson

Writer: Ronald D. Moore

Stardate: 45245.8. Picard and Data find Spock and discover the reason behind the secret meetings. However, a darker scheme planned by the Romulans is also uncovered in the process.

Director: Cliff Bole

Writer: Rick Berman, Michael Piller

Stardate: 45092.4. While the Enterprise helps a Romulan science vessel, an accident occurs which forces Geordi LaForge and Ro Laren slightly out of 'phase', causing them to become undetectable to everyone but each other. As a result, the crew thinks they are dead and make arrangements for their funerals, even though they are closer than the crew realise.

Director: David Carson, Robert Lederman

Writer: Ronald D. Moore

Stardate: 45959.1. Data's head is uncovered in an archaeological dig on Earth, where evidence is also found that aliens may have been on Earth as early as the 19th Century. Using modified technology, an away team follows Data into the late 1890s to investigate.

Director: Les Landau

Writer: Jeri Taylor, Joe Menosky, Michael Piller

Stardate: 45233.1. Ambassador Spock has disappeared and intelligence finds him on Romulus. Captain Picard is sent to Romulus to find Spock. Meanwhile Riker and the rest of the crew investigate the fragments of a Vulcan ship discovered in the wreck of a Ferengi vessel.

Director: Cliff Bole, Les Landau

Writer: Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller

Stardate: 45494.2. The Enterprise crew unknowingly receives a new first officer who claims that the Federation is at war with another species.

Director: Les Landau

Writer: N/A

Stardate: 45156.1. A natural disaster leaves Troi in command of the Enterprise, Picard stuck in a turbo lift with three small children and Keiko O'Brien stuck in Ten-Forward giving birth with an anxious Worf.

Director: Gabrielle Beaumont

Writer: Ronald D. Moore, R. G. Jarvis

Stardate: 45076.3. Picard exposes a planned genocidal attack on the Bajorans with the help of a new officer, Ensign Ro Laren.

Director: Les Landau

Writer: Rick Berman, Michael Piller

Stardate: 45703.9. Wesley is involved in a cover-up at Starfleet Academy when a cadet is killed and five shuttles are destroyed during a forbidden maneuver performed by Starfleet Academy's best cadets.

Director: Paul Lynch, Naren Shankar

Writer: Ronald D. Moore, Naren Shankar

Stardate: 45208.2. An addictive game is distributed among the crew of the Enterprise, however, it appears that this game interferes with a person's logic and reason, which leaves the crew open to manipulation. Only a young Ensign and a vacationing Wesley Crusher are able to think for themselves, and must find a way to reverse the damage before the ship falls into the wrong hands.

Director: Corey Allen

Writer: Brannon Braga, Fred Bronson, Susan Sackett

Stardate: 45571.2. While en route to the source of a subspace distress signal coming from a desolate moon, Data, Troi and O'Brien take over the bridge and force the ship to change course.

Director: David Livingston

Writer: Brannon Braga, Herbert Wright

Stardate: 45761.3. The Ferengi try to abduct an empathic Metamorph who could bring peace between two warring worlds.

Director: Cliff Bole

Writer: René Echevarria, Reuben Leder, Michael Piller

Stardate: 45122.3. Picard attempts communications with the Crystalline Entity - a life form responsible for hundreds of deaths throughout the Alpha Quadrant. However, a scientist on board the Enterprise has plans of revenge over the death of her only son at the hands of the Entity.

Director: Cliff Bole

Writer: Jeri Taylor

Stardate: 45349.1. While on a mission to help a planet recently struck by an asteroid, the Enterprise is payed a visit by a man who claims to be from the future.

Director: Paul Lynch

Writer: Rick Berman

Stardate: 45587.3. When Worf is paralysed in an accident he must undergo drastic back surgery. However, this experimental technique may cost him his life.

Director: Chip Chalmers

Writer: Ronald D. Moore, Stuart Charno, Sara B. Cooper

Stardate: 45614.6. While investigating the disappearance of a J'naii shuttlecraft, the crew finds reason to believe the missing ship is stranded in an abnormal pocket called "null space." Riker and Soren, a member of the J'naii race, begin preparing to rescue the craft, and the two strike up a friendship. Their relationship develops quickly as the pair question each other about mating habits, since the J'naii are androgynous and do not identify themselves as either male or female. Despite this difference, sparks begin to fly between them.

Director: Robert Scheerer

Writer: Jeri Taylor

Stardate: 45470.1. A natural disaster in the core of a system's sun threatens to destroy a colony of genetically engineered people on an otherwise desolate planet. However, the crew's intervention may cause more harm than good.

Director: Winrich Kolbe

Writer: James Caan, James Kahn, Adam Belanoff, Michael Piller

Stardate: 45397.3. The Enterprise investigates the cause of an explosion which destroyed a small ship and its entire crew, except for a small boy.

Director: Patrick Stewart

Writer: Joe Menosky

Stardate: 45376.3. Worf's son, Alexander, unexpectedly arrives on the Enterprise to stay with his father. However, Alexander wants to stay permanently.

Director: Robert Scheerer

Writer: Stuart Charno, Grant Rosenberg, Sara B. Cooper

Stardate: 45429.3. While escorting a group of telepaths, crew members on board the Enterprise suddenly start to slip into comas.

Director: Robert Wiemer

Writer: Jeri Taylor, Pamela Gray

Stardate: 45733.6. Deanna's mother pays a surprise visit to the Enterprise with even more surprising news: she plans to marry a man she has never met. After destroying an asteroid, the ship becomes infected with parasites that eat away at the ship's hull.

Director: Winrich Kolbe

Writer: Peter Allan Fields