Star Trek: The Next Generation Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
171 free Star Trek: the Next Generation trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Star Trek: The Next Generation ran for seven seasons between 1987 and 1994, and this quiz covers the whole run: the syndication gamble that made Paramount a fortune, the rocky first season, the Borg cliffhanger that changed television, and the finale watched by more than 30 million people. Easy questions ask who plays Data, what Geordi wears over his eyes and which crew member is a Klingon; harder ones dig into Picard's artificial heart, the Hugo-winning episode with the flute, the only clip show ever filmed, the price a filming model of the ship fetched at auction and which original-series star turned up in the pilot. It works for a rewatch night with fellow Trekkies or as a warm-up before a pub quiz round, and the mix runs from casual viewer to someone who can name Worf's adoptive parents. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the series, its characters and individual episodes, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 171 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How did The Next Generation reach American viewers when it premiered in September 1987?
First-run syndication
First-run syndication meant Paramount sold the show straight to local stations: NBC and ABC would only consider pilot scripts, and the new Fox network would commit to just 13 episodes.
Q 02Which fourth-season episode took TNG past the original Star Trek's total of 79 episodes?
Legacy
Legacy was TNG's 80th episode, one more than the original series managed; its opening log mentions Camus II, the planet where the original's final episode, 'Turnabout Intruder', was set.
Q 03Who plays Captain Jean-Luc Picard?
Patrick Stewart
Stewart, a Royal Shakespeare Company veteran, was so unsure the show would last that he reportedly did not unpack his suitcases for weeks.
Q 04Which actor plays the android Data, as well as his brother Lore and their creator Noonien Soong?
Brent Spiner
Brent Spiner turned the android's golden eyes into a joke in 1991, releasing an album of old pop standards called Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back; on Enterprise he later played the Soongs' ancestor Arik.
Q 05Which crew member is a Klingon raised by human parents after being orphaned in the Khitomer Massacre?
Worf
Worf went on to appear in more Star Trek episodes than any other character, thanks to his later run on Deep Space Nine.
Q 06Geordi La Forge, who is blind, sees by means of what device?
A VISOR
A VISOR lets Geordi see far beyond normal sight; the prop began as a plastic hair clip that designer Michael Okuda brought in, and from the film First Contact on Geordi has ocular implants instead.
Q 07Which actor plays Q, the all-powerful being who puts humanity on trial in The Next Generation's pilot?
John de Lancie
John de Lancie's Q owes his one-letter name to Janet Quarton, an English fan and friend of the show's creator, who chose the letter in her honour.
Q 08What color uniform do command officers such as Picard and Riker wear in The Next Generation?
Red
Red marks command in Picard's day and gold goes to operations and security, the reverse of the original series, where the captain wore gold and security wore red.
Q 09In which season-two episode of The Next Generation did the Borg make their first appearance?
Q Who
Q Who has Q hurl the Enterprise thousands of light-years into the Borg's path to prove humanity is not ready; it ends with a humbled Picard admitting that he needs Q's help to get home.
Q 10What name did the Borg give the assimilated Picard in "The Best of Both Worlds"?
Locutus
The Borg renamed the assimilated Picard Locutus of Borg, their spokesman; the 1990 cliffhanger ended on Riker's order to fire, leaving viewers waiting all summer for Part II.
Q 11Where did Starfleet make its doomed stand against the Borg in 'The Best of Both Worlds'?
Wolf 359
Wolf 359, a real red dwarf near Earth, is where the fleet was wiped out; Deep Space Nine's pilot later revealed that Benjamin Sisko's wife Jennifer died there aboard the Saratoga, tying the two series together.
Q 12Which Borg expert, played by Elizabeth Dennehy, became Riker's first officer during the Borg crisis?
Lieutenant Commander Shelby
Lieutenant Commander Shelby, Starfleet's Borg specialist, became first officer once Riker took command; Riker had by then turned down three commands of his own, including the Melbourne.
Q 13In "The Inner Light", how much time passes on the bridge while Picard lives a lifetime as Kamin?
Q 21Which tar-like alien on the planet Vagra II killed the ship's security chief in season one?
Armus
Armus, a malevolent residue shed by a vanished race, killed the security chief in 'Skin of Evil'; Denise Crosby had asked to leave, and Roddenberry argued for a sudden death as a hazard of the job.
Q 22Which Cardassian, played by David Warner, tortures Picard and insists there are five lights?
Gul Madred
Gul Madred never gets his answer: as he is freed Picard shouts that there are four lights, but he later admits to Troi that by the end he really could see five.
Q 23Who temporarily replaces Picard as Enterprise captain in "Chain of Command"?
Edward Jellico
About 25 minutes
Picard lives decades as Kamin while only about 25 minutes pass on the bridge; the episode won the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and Picard plays the Ressikan flute again in 'Lessons'.
Q 14In 'The Inner Light', what dooms Kataan, the world where Picard lives a whole life as Kamin?
Its sun going nova
Its sun going nova had killed Kataan a thousand years earlier; knowing the end was coming, its people launched a probe so that one stranger would live among them and remember.
Q 15In 'The Measure of a Man', which cyberneticist wants to dismantle Data to build more like him?
Bruce Maddox
Bruce Maddox lost the hearing, yet Data bore him no ill will and kept writing to him; decades later Maddox resurfaced in Star Trek: Picard as the creator of the android twins Dahj and Soji.
Q 16In 'The Measure of a Man', how does the prosecution show the court that Data is a machine?
By switching him off
By switching him off: ordered to prosecute or see Data lose by default, Riker removes the android's hand, then flips his off switch and tells the court that Pinocchio's strings have been cut.
Q 17Holding out two daggers, the Tamarian captain Dathon speaks which phrase before he and Picard are beamed down?
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
'Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra' invokes two strangers who became allies by facing a beast together; the Tamarians speak only in allusion, so the universal translator renders words but not meaning.
Q 18Which veteran actor played Dathon, the Tamarian captain stranded on a planet with Picard?
Paul Winfield
Paul Winfield had already died on Star Trek once, as Captain Terrell in The Wrath of Khan; his Dathon dies too, of wounds from the beast he and Picard fight side by side.
Q 19In "Yesterday's Enterprise", who captains the Enterprise-C, which emerges from a rift in time?
Rachel Garrett
Captain Rachel Garrett's Enterprise-C had answered a distress call from the Klingon outpost on Narendra III; sending the ship back through the rift to die there restored the timeline.
Q 20Which TNG season-one casualty is alive again in the alternate timeline of 'Yesterday's Enterprise'?
Tasha Yar
Tasha Yar's actor Denise Crosby returned again as Sela, Yar's half-Romulan daughter, born from the consequences of that episode.
Edward Jellico relieves Riker of duty after a blazing row, then has to swallow his pride and visit Riker's quarters: only Riker is a good enough pilot to fly the mission that ends the standoff.
Q 24Which Cheers star played Captain Bateson of the USS Bozeman in the time-loop episode 'Cause and Effect'?
Kelsey Grammer
Kelsey Grammer played Captain Morgan Bateson; Kirstie Alley was meant to reprise Saavik alongside him but was unavailable, and the Bozeman was a redressed Reliant model from The Wrath of Khan.
Q 25In "Cause and Effect", which number keeps appearing during the poker game as a clue to escaping the loop?
3
The 3 stands for the three pips on Riker's collar: a message Data sent himself from an earlier loop, telling him to follow Riker's suggestion and not his own to save the ship.
Q 26In "Tapestry", Picard has an artificial heart because he was stabbed as a young officer by which species?
A Nausicaan
A Nausicaan ran the young Picard through in a bar fight; when Q lets him avoid it, Picard wakes as a timid junior science officer and says he would rather die as the man he was.
Q 27What is the name of the android daughter Data builds in "The Offspring"?
Lal
Data names her Lal, which he says is Hindi for 'beloved'; she chooses her own appearance, a human female, from thousands of holodeck options before outgrowing her father's abilities.
Q 28Which cast member made his directing debut with "The Offspring" and went on to direct two Star Trek films?
Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Frakes asked for an episode and was told to study first, so he sat in on editing and other directors' work; he went on to direct the films First Contact and Insurrection.
Q 29Which Sherlock Holmes villain becomes self-aware on the holodeck in "Elementary, Dear Data"?
Professor Moriarty
Professor Moriarty became self-aware because Geordi asked the computer for an adversary capable of defeating Data rather than Holmes; Daniel Davis played him and returned in 'Ship in a Bottle'.
Q 30Which original-series star cameoed in "Encounter at Farpoint" and refused more than the minimum salary?
DeForest Kelley
DeForest Kelley played an aged Admiral McCoy touring the new ship; he took only union scale as a gesture to Gene Roddenberry.