It was always a cool thing to me as a kid. If the movies had an Enterprise A and TNG had the D then what must be the B and C be like? Will there be an E?
I don’t know. I like it. It adds a bit of breadth to the universe and it’s nice to know that the names and registries of ships live on through the centuries.
On the flip side, that's also very true. In 1987, the "D" was rather an inspired choice as it ensured a lineage that wasn't - in universe - an "all of a sudden" event, despite the show's title hinting at the first generation after Kirk. (80~112+ years later depending on script, with "Class of 78" per Data being the most intriguing, especially compared to what GEN spells out with "seventy eight years later" (plus that errant handful of nanoseconds everyone keeps forgetting about) and all... if TOS really took place in 2266-whatever. Especially as TNG season 1 flaunts "the old Enterprise" as if A-C didn't exist, and had models of TOS-era ships littered in rooms for no reason than nostalgiabait.
...but I digressed a big one...
It left plenty of breathing room, where one could even show an event to fill in some gaps, while still avoiding minutiae that the fans love to go bonkers over as filling too many gaps creates larger ones. Like filling a pothole on the highway, only to realize that - oops - this bit of highway is on a bridge and after laying the asphalt you see a giant chunk of concrete crumble from behind you and plop into the raging river below, with desperate alligators chewing on it. And unlike kids who chew ice, when croc there chews the concrete, there's no dentist to put on a crown if said tooth breaks. Remember kids, modern concrete apparently has something like a five-to-seven-decade lifespan. Longer if you seal it. Not "seal" in terms of those cute little animals who clap for fishes at the zoo, but that smelly polyurethane stuff you don't want to touch or inhale, of which whose name has nothing to do with a grouping of urethras for whatever reason, and who comes up with half these words and syllables in the dictionary anyway?
...but I digressed, again.
I do wonder if TVH's ending with 1701-A, was a last-minute addition due to TNG being greenlit, as it was a year away from being televised. Had it not been for TNG, would Kirk and crew end up with another ship entirely? Was that supposed to be the Excelsior they'd ultimately get? I remember the makers of the f/x disliked the 1701 mode because it was eleven feet long and difficult to film... even Excelsior was 8' but still far easier to deal with. The "D" was 6 feet long as well, but incredibly wide, and to make life easier and for how much faster television had to be made, they made that 4' one (with the bumpy exterior to compensate for CRT TV sets' limited resolution), which seemed cool at the time but now looks somewhat like a refined plastic block kit all snapped together. Still looks cool, but when imagining proper scale, it's an odd duck that quacks me up every time.
