Since its creation in the late 1960s, Star Trek has brought to the small screen a staggering amount of incredible technology, and some of the best world building in sci-fi history. Almost every episode contains a rich plot, switching between deeply emotional drama to almost slapstick comedy. The Next Generation continued on from the good old days of The Original Series with a similar range of styles and themes between episodes. As with almost any show, some of them were great, and some of them were also terrible. But what about the middling ones? What episodes of The Next Generation were just boring?
Widely considered by fans of the show to be the most boring episode of TNG was season 2, episode 22, “Shades of Gray.” The title of this episode, in recent years, might suggest a more interesting plot than what actually transpires. Before diving deep into why the episode is so bad, it’s important to note that this was not the fault of the writers, actors, or producers. The entire second season of TNG was hit hard by a large scale writers' strike. This left the production team tied to creating the season without any of the writers, and thus without any new and exciting plots being written. As a consequence, the majority of the episode's plot lines were taken from old episode ideas from season one and from TOS. The result was a mismatched series of episodes that were basically rejected storylines from years gone by. Despite this, “Shades of Grey” was somehow even worse than the rest of the series.
"Shades of Gray" was, at its core, a glorified clip show of scenes gone by. The show's creators had done this before, forced to use clips from older episodes within the episode to make up for lost content. However, this was usually limited to minor, background moments. "Shades of Gray" centered entirely around this concept. It didn't try to hide or soften these clip-show moments; rather, it incorporated them directly into the plot.
The story itself focuses on Commander Riker getting infected by a space parasite on an away mission. The only way to save him and stop the parasite from eating his brain was to flood his system with endorphins through the triggering of various different memories. See where this is going? The memories, which are in turn shared with the audiences, are clips from various different Riker centric moments in the current and previous season.
When the episode aired, it might not have been so boring as it is now for modern audiences. In the age of streaming, viewers are more likely to binge a few episodes at a time, and spend some time watching every day. It's possible to finish an entire season of TNG in a few short sittings. Audiences at the time, though, would have had to wait a week between each episode, and may have missed a few here and there. In that context, this ‘flashback’ style recycling of clips would have been a touch more interesting. However, for those who have only recently seen them, the entire episode seemed like a waste of time.
What's more, the clips used in "Shades of Gray" were from some of the worst episodes of TNG. They included moments from “Skin of Evil” (twice), “Justice,” and “The Last Outpost,” as well as various random moments of things blowing up recorded from earlier that season. Luckily they thought better of including any of the severely racist moments from “Code of Honor.” There were moments of new content interlaced between the clip show, but they were almost as boring. These scenes showed the scared, lovestruck Troi accompanied by Pulaski (the short-lived replacement for Beverly Crusher) in sickbay spouting random technobabble. Most of this dialogue made no sense even by Star Trek standards. Its only role was to sound impressive and fill up time.
For many fans, this episode hiccup would have been one to gloss over and ignore, skipping over it upon re-watches. But this was, unbelievably, the season 2 finale. This was supposed to be the big, dramatic end to the second chapter in TNG history. While the episode tried its hardest to instill drama and emotion, it’s nigh impossible to watch now without skipping through the repeated scenes and wishing for something interesting to happen. The episode is not bad thematically. There are no problematic moments or plot-hole-filled scenes like in other notable episodes. There's not any particularly bad acting; it's just boring. To say it let the season down would be an understatement. Though the show did improve after its rocky start, it was only after the writers came back with bigger paychecks and better hours that the show began to improve, which fans are eternally thankful for all these years later.
