Today In STAR TREK History: July 17th - Warped Factor - Words in the Key of Geek.

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Today In STAR TREK History: July 17th

Just to be sure, Riker gets all his Covid jabs at once.
Welcome to our round-up of the Star Trek episodes which received their premiere broadcast on this day throughout the show's long history, along with anything else of note that may have taken place. All viewing figures quoted are for U.S. premiere broadcast (unless noted).

July 17th
Premiering on July 17th 1989, the finale of season 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, titled Shades of Gray, saw the year go out with a clip show style episode. 9.8 million viewers tuned in to see Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) undergo medical treatment administered by Dr. Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) for an alien infection - a macguffin created simply so he could relive numerous past events in that clip show format as there was a lack of funds left over from other episodes during the season for a proper finale.

Shades of Gray is widely regarded as the worst episode of the entire Next Generation run of seven seasons, with critics calling it "god-awful" and a "travesty". Completed in just three days of new filming, even Maurice Hurley, who came up with the alien infection macguffin, refers to it negatively.

But it does have one thing going for it, Shades of Gray would be the final episode to regularly feature the original Type A TNG one-piece Starfleet uniforms. A minor thing, you may think? But without the two-piece design we wouldn't have the now legendary Picard Maneuver...
Join us again next time for another round-up of the episodes broadcast, the movie's released, the special events, the birthday's celebrated and anything else of note that went down on this day in Star Trek history.

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