Star Trek's 5 Best Geordi La Forge Episodes, Ranked

Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge, played by 12-time Emmy winner LeVar Burton (who won out the role over several notable actors), might have served as the backbone of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Many of the show's stories and conceits were based in its oblique, 24th-century technology, and Geordi was always there to expertly deliver the bulk of the show's marvelous polysyllabic technobabble. Moreso, though, Geordi was an interesting character whose ultra-nerdy obsession with machines was emblematic of the series. He served as the U.S.S. Enterprise's chief engineer, and he was always tapping panels and running diagnostics, revealing that in the utopian future of "Star Trek," nerds, science-heads, tinkerers, and experts will be running the show. 

Also, Geordi served as great on-screen representation. Not only was the chief engineer of the Enterprise a Black man, but he was disabled. Geordi was blind, and throughout "Next Generation," he wore a VISOR, which took in visual information, and shunted it directly into his brain via implants at his temples. It bypassed his eyes altogether. The message was that, in the future, everyone will be accommodated. 

Geordi was also awkward with women, and had trouble landing a date; his ailing romantic life was a big part of the series. It's hard to see why, however, as Burton played Geordi with a great deal of charm. He was comfortable with machines, and had no problems talking to people, but he was just unlucky in love. A pity, really, as Geordi deserved all the love and affection he wanted.

The following is a list of five great Geordi episodes from both "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Trek: Picard," ranked from fifth-best to best. These episodes either capture his character, or merely sport great stories. 

The third season of "Star Trek: Picard" served as a reunion special for the main cast of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." And while the season may have existed as mere nostalgia bait, the show's writers were actually very tactful (for the most part) about reintroducing "NextGen" characters that hadn't been seen on the big screen in many years. Refreshingly, each one of the characters had been allowed to have a life in the time since we last saw them; they all had new jobs, new living situations, and, in some cases, new kids. 

Geordi was an engineer, and was always interested in engine operations, but one might not have predicted that he would become a Commodore, and take control of a local starship museum for Starfleet, as revealed in "The Bounty" (March 23, 2023). As the museum director, he oversaw the operations of vintage starships, some of them many centuries old, and was presumably responsible for their constant maintenance. His museum had the decommissioned U.S.S. Enterprise-A, as it appeared in several of the "Star Trek" feature films. He had the U.S.S. Voyager. He also had the Klingon ship that Kirk and co. used in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." One might assume the Klingon Empire removed all the secret technology they didn't want the Federation knowing about before handing it over to the museum. 

Geordi was also revealed to have been reconstructing the destroyed Enterprise-D. I may be the only person in the planet who hated that part of "Picard" — it was nostalgia overload — but it was proof Geordi could achieve such a feat. That would be like someone singlehandedly making the Titanic seaworthy again.

In "The Next Phase" (May 18, 1992), Geordi and his shipmate Ensign Ro (Michelle Forbes) are seemingly killed in a transporter accident when transporting back from a repair mission on board a Romulan vessel. As audiences soon learn, Geordi and Ro were not killed, but accidentally swept into some kind of Romulan phased cloaking accident, which made them invisible and insubstantial. They walked around the Enterprise for a spell, wondering what was going on; it's distressing when you learn you can pass through walls. 

Ro assumes they have died, and have merely come back as spirits to haunt the Enterprise. The world of "Star Trek," however, is largely secular, and Geordi begins logically parsing out their situation. He points out that he's still wearing his uniform and VISOR. "Am I a blind ghost with clothes?" he asks. Geordi's practical thinking keeps them both on track. In the world of "Star Trek," even death is just a technical problem to be overcome. 

There are other twists in "The Next Phase" as well. There are ghostly Romulans running around the Enterprise, for instance, which leads to a fantastic foot chase wherein the phased characters sprint through walls, passing through several people's private quarters. They are having dinner or working out, unaware that an invisible fistfight is happening right next to them.

More emotionally, there are several scenes in "The Next Phase" where Ro and Geordi get to witness their crewmates planning their funeral. Sadly, Ro never got to hear Riker's eulogy. But they did get to know that their memorial service would be lively and well-attended.

"Identity Crisis" (March 25, 1991) is one of the spookier episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," sporting a story that, with a little extra terror, could have found its way into the pages of "Tales from the Crypt." Geordi begins the episode watching an old video, taken when he was still an ensign and on a mission to the planet of Tarchannen III. It seems that several of the people who were on that mission have been mysteriously abandoning their Starfleet positions, stealing shuttles, and returning to the planet, where they vanish without a trace. Geordi's friend Susanna (Maryann Plunkett) is on the Enterprise to help investigate the matter. 

Susanna begins to feel sick. Her skin begins to break out in weird, veiny patterns. Her fingers start to fuse together. She doesn't know what's happening. The mutation scenes are similar to David Cronenberg's "The Fly." When Susanna is too sick to continue working, Geordi takes over. In one of the scariest scenes in all of "Star Trek," he finds that there is a shadow in the above-mentioned video that he cannot account for. He recreates the being that created the shadow on the Enterprise's holodeck, and it's unbearably eerie. Then Geordi starts to feel sick ... 

The twist in "Identity Crisis" may be easy to predict, but it's still scary to witness. Indeed, the episode is full of mystery and fear. In the episode's final scenes, we're introduced to a species of mysterious, glowing aliens that look like something out of a nightmare. Fun trivia: star KLOS DJs Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps, a.k.a Mark & Brian, cameo as the aliens. 

In the first season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Geordi didn't wear the golden engineer's uniform but a red command officer's uniform. The color indicated his career path, and it was implied that the young LaForge was on his way to becoming a captain. This meant that he would need to hone his command skills. He would need to learn how to make good decisions quickly, inspire his subordinates, and learn how to listen to suggestions from his crew. In the episode "The Arsenal of Freedom" (April 11, 1988), Geordi was put in command of the Enterprise while Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) beamed down — and became trapped on — a distant alien world. 

Geordi then found, while he was in command, that the Enterprise was under attack from an invisible ship that kept returning to fire its phasers on mysteriously regular intervals. Geordi, a problem-solver at heart, tried to find various ways to combat this assailant. Geordi was only a Junior Grade Lieutenant at the time, so he had to deal with a lot of responsibilities very quickly. 

Geordi's command was constantly being questioned by some a-hole named Logan (Vyto Ruginis), the ship's chief engineer at the time. Logan kept making suggestions and undermining Geordi's authority. Geordi, however, learned to stand up to him, and learned how to be a better captain as a result. The final solution that Geordi invents to combat the invisible ship is novel and involves separating the Enterprise's saucer section from its drive section. The main plot of the episode happens below on the planet's surface, but Geordi's B-plot is one of the character's better growth moments. 

More than anything, Geordi was a problem-solver. Whether the Enterprise was under attack, or merely had damaged engines, he was always in the thick of things, working furiously to keep the massively complicated ship operating at full capacity. If it was a technical problem, Geordi would find a solution. 

This impulse, however, had to be questioned in the episode "Booby Trap" (October 30, 1989). In that episode, the Enterprise came upon a millennia-old Promellian battlecruiser, adrift in space. There is no power on the ancient ship, and Picard is eager to salvage it. The Enterprise, however, begins encountering power outages of its own as soon as they approach. The crew soon finds that the battlecruiser remained unsalvaged because it was snared in the middle of a booby trap, tangled in a net of invisible, energy-sucking widgets. Anytime the Enterprise tries to activate its engines, everything drains out, and the ship doesn't budge. 

Geordi feels he needs to understand the Enterprise's engines a little better in order to tackle this problem, and heads off to the holodeck to do some quick studying. He re-creates a holographic version of one Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney), the Enterprise's designer, and the two converse. Geordi finds he starts falling in love with this simulation, as well as gaining insight into the ship he works on. Geordi and Leah think that if they can generate sufficient power, they can reignite the ship's engine. This approach fails again and again.

The final solution, Geordi finds, is to let go of the machines. Trust physics and human instincts. Shut everything down and use a tiny push to drift out of the booby trap. At the end of the day, Geordi, an expert in machines, is still very human.