Just for the heck of it, I started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, from the very beginning, with the pilot "Encounter at Farpoint." I remember watching this when it first aired September 28, 1987. It's a two-hour pilot, so it's often split into two episodes. It was written by D. C. Fontana, who also wrote some of the best episodes of Star Trek the original series. This episode was the first to feature the character Q, of the "Q Continuum," and his bizarre obsession with using the Enterprise crew for, well, lab-rats. The basic plot is this: The Enterprise is sent to investigate the sudden acqisition of Farpoint station, as sophisticated space station with an unknown power supply by the less than tech-savvy Bandi.

It turns out, of course, that Farpoint Station is organic, and sentient, and has a really pissed-off mate who comes in search of the missing space-station spouse. It all ends well, of course, even the sub-plot in which Q has challenged Picard (played by Patrick Stewart, also known, apparently, as "Pecan" to some of his fellow Trek actors) to prove that humans are civilized—by figuring out the "mystery" of Farpoint Station. The two space-living sentient ships are united, Q disappears and all is well.

This is of course the episode in which the main characters are typset; Data the Pinocchio android who wants to be human, the come-here-go-away relationships between Riker and Deanna Troi the overly-emo-empath, and between Dr. Crusher and Picard. Mostly, though, this is the episode that pretty much screwed over the science-geek space cadet genius kid, Wesley Crusher, setting the mold for the unfortunate character's entire run, and frustrating a powerless and talented actor, Wil Wheaton.

There's a point in the extensive exposition when Riker, Dr. Crusher and her son Wesley are at a market at the station, when we see the station mysteriously respond to Dr. Crusher's wish for a piece of fabric in a different color. Wesley notes that it's a mystery and Farpoint Station is all mysterious and stuff. Wil Wheaton in his review of the episode writes:

It's right around this moment, according to historical data and polling research, that the Kill Wesley movement got its first member, though scholars are unable to agree upon who it was. It has been narrowed down to a single male virgin, approximately age 24, living in his parents' basement in the American Midwest.)

Wheaton, by the way, writes not only solid and funny plot summaries, his critiques of the bits of acting that make characters work is not only spot on, it's professionally generous (though he's way too hard on himself—you were a kid, Wheaton, working with some less than stellar scripts).

When I saw this pilot when it first aired, the only character I liked was Data; he was predictable, but I thought Spiner took the character beyond the limits of the script. I was already a Patrick Stewart fan (I was in the audience at Royce hall when Justman decided to invite Stewart to play the part of Picard), but Picard seemed to be unreasonable, a bit of a blow-hard in love with his own voice. And then, there's the problem that STNG was, already, repeating episodes from the original Star Trek. Encounter at Farpoint is using not only the themes, but basic plot-points of the original series episode "Devil in the Dark."

Part 1 trailer:

Part 2 trailer: