Encounter at Farpoint

Captain Jean-Luc Picard takes command of the new Enterprise and sets course for Deneb IV, where the Bandi have built Farpoint Station and offered it to Starfleet. On the way, a godlike being calling himself Q blocks the ship's path and declares humanity guilty of savagery. Picard agrees to let the Farpoint mission serve as a test of what humans have become. At the station, new first officer William Riker joins the crew, and Counselor Troi senses intense pain and loneliness nearby. The station seems able to produce whatever its visitors want, and nobody can explain how. When an unknown vessel appears and attacks the Bandi city, Q urges Picard to destroy it. Instead, Picard uncovers the truth: Farpoint is a living space creature, captured while injured and forced to take the station's shape. The Enterprise frees it with an energy beam, and it rises to rejoin its mate in orbit, leaving Q to withdraw for now.