Now that we’ve looked at all seven seasons of TNG, we can look at the series as a whole.

Somewhere between season 3 & 4, the balance shifted from low-powered adversaries to the crew (or Starfleet) themselves as the adversaries. Perhaps this is because you have to have a certain number of ‘plot‘ episodes before you can have a ‘character study‘[1].

All the way through, the plurality in almost every season was adversaries of much greater power than the crew. This makes sense if you want to show your cast using guile, as in these situations, they simply have to.

As pithily explained in ‘Peak Performance‘:

”

Commander William T. Riker: You’re outmanned, you’re outgunned, you’re outequipped. What else have you got?
Lieutenant Worf: Guile.

”

Almost all of the episodes with ‘equal’ adversaries (generally Romulans, Klingons, or Cardassians) also involved guile of some sort. It wasn’t until the Dominion War on DS9 that phasers were commonly used to solve problems.

Below I have my categorization by episode, for those who enjoy arguments of this type.

Episode order is from Jammer’s Reviews, but should be the same as that from elsewhere, such as Memory Alpha.

Season 1 (25 episodes):2-102220-1202101020-1-1202211
High: 10
Equal: 4
Low: 7
Self: 4

Season 2 (22 episodes):02100-121-1-1222-10200-111-1
High: 6
Equal: 4
Low: 6
Self: 6

Season 3 (26 episodes):0020-121001002-12-11222-10-1-1-12
High: 8
Equal: 3
Low: 8
Self: 7

Season Four (26 episodes): 2-120202-1221112022-122-10-11-12
High: 12
Equal: 4
Low: 4
Self: 6

Season Five (26 episodes): 21122-1110-1-10002-102-1-1-12-12-12
High: 8
Equal: 4
Low: 5
Self: 9

S6: 2-102220-10-12101-1-120-1-1201-122
High: 9
Equal: 3
Low: 6
Self: 8

S7: 20-1002-102-1210-11-12-121-102-122
High: 9 (2 for ‘All Good Things…’)
Equal: 3
Low: 6
Self: 8

[1]I credit Ty Templeton’s Comic Book Bootcamp for teaching me about such things. All errors are my own. You should check out his classes!