Excited as I am about the forthcoming DS9 reviews, let's face it - there is going to be quite a long time before we get to any episodes that can be classed as anyone's favourite!

Regrettably, the answer probably is "Because they completely forgot/didn't know about it". TNG written by people that had no grounding in it (though the actors could have clued them in, surely).

A lot of truth in that. I wasn't setting up a hierarchy, just making the point that there were at least that number of story-lines that I was expecting to see at some point when the series first aired (yep, I'm that old!)

I've just signed up to comment on this (and because Zack is going on to DS9 soon - my favourite ST series).