Star Trek: The Next Generation Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
122 free Star Trek: the Next Generation trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 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 122 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On what date did Star Trek: The Next Generation premiere in syndication?
September 28, 1987
The Next Generation premiered on September 28, 1987 with the two-hour pilot 'Encounter at Farpoint', sold straight into first-run syndication rather than to a network.
Q 02How many episodes of The Next Generation were made across its seven seasons?
178
TNG made 178 episodes over seven seasons, more than double the original series' 79; the fourth-season episode 'Legacy' was the one that overtook the original's total.
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
Spiner said he spent more hours of the day in his pale make-up than out of it, and later played the ancestor Arik Soong on Enterprise.
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 worn over his eyes?
A VISOR
Geordi sees through a VISOR (Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement); LeVar Burton said the prop cut most of his own vision and he spent the first season bumping into light stands.
Q 07Which actor plays Q, who puts humanity on trial in the pilot and returns in the finale?
John de Lancie
John de Lancie plays Q from 'Encounter at Farpoint' to 'All Good Things...'; written as a cosmic judge, the character's sparring with Picard became as comic as it was menacing.
Q 08Whoopi Goldberg plays which bartender in the Ten-Forward lounge?
Guinan
Whoopi Goldberg plays Guinan, the Ten-Forward bartender, from the season two opener 'The Child'; Goldberg asked for the role herself and lobbied Roddenberry over lunch.
Q 09In which season two episode did the Borg make their first appearance?
Q Who
'Q Who' (season two) introduced the Borg: Q hurls the Enterprise 7,000 light-years to System J-25 to prove humanity is not ready for what is out there.
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
Starfleet lost 39 ships at Wolf 359; 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?
About 25 minutes
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 wanted a sudden, meaningless death.
Q 22Which Cardassian, played by David Warner, tortures Picard and insists there are five lights?
Gul Madred
Gul Madred's four-lights interrogation is a direct homage to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four; 'Chain of Command, Part II' was the last new TNG episode to air before Deep Space Nine premiered in January 1993.
Q 23Who temporarily replaces Picard as Enterprise captain in "Chain of Command"?
Edward Jellico
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 14On which dying planet does Picard live out his life as the iron weaver Kamin in "The Inner Light"?
Kataan
Picard lives Kamin's life on Kataan, a world its dying sun destroyed a thousand years before; writer Morgan Gendel took the title from George Harrison's Beatles song 'The Inner Light'.
Q 15In 'The Measure of a Man', which cyberneticist wants to dismantle Data to build more like him?
Bruce Maddox
Data bore him no grudge afterwards, and Maddox turned up decades later in Star Trek: Picard as the man behind Data's synthetic daughters.
Q 16Who is forced to argue the case against Data at his hearing in "The Measure of a Man"?
Riker
Riker, as first officer, was ordered to prosecute: Starbase 173 had no JAG staff to spare, and Judge Louvois said she would otherwise rule summarily against Data.
Q 17The Tamarian captain Dathon beams himself and Picard down to El-Adrel and utters which phrase?
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 the Tamarian captain Dathon in "Darmok"?
Paul Winfield
Winfield had already died on Star Trek once, as Captain Terrell in The Wrath of Khan.
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.
Jellico later resurfaced as an admiral in the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy.
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
Data works out that the three stands for the pips on Riker's collar, meaning Riker's suggestion, not his own, will 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 Ensign Picard through at the Bonestell Recreation Facility; allowed to avoid that fight, Picard ends up a timid junior science officer and begs Q to restore the tapestry.
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
Frakes directed First Contact and Insurrection, and Burton and Stewart later took turns behind the camera as well.
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
Kelley played a 137-year-old Admiral McCoy inspecting the new ship, as a gesture to Gene Roddenberry.