I can't remember if I've heard this somewhere or not, but were there ever plans for an eighth season of TNG? Or were they always going to stop after 7?
I'm pretty sure there weren't any plans to go past 7. TPTB had already made the commitment to pass the TV torch to DS9 and take the Movie torch from the TOS cast. Besides, by Season 7, TNG was starting to show signs of running out of gas. I think it was the right idea to go out on top.
Weren't there also some murmurings that even if there had been a Season 8 Stewart and Spiner probably wouldn't have stuck around?
They were after more money, and wanted to do other things. Tied in with Paramount knowing they could spend less and make more with a movie series, it makes a lot of sense.
I guess they heard about the Full House actors getting paid a million dollars per episode they wanted the same deal. I don't blame Brent Spiner, the man has to put on contact lenses and makeup on everyday during the shoot.
TNG was starting to suck in S7. It definitely had more misses than S6, even though I think it was a good one overall. I think it's good the TV show ended when it did.
Seven seasons was about right. And it seemed to then become the tradition. If that's how long some / most / all the actors were contacted for I don't know. I need to give TNG another run. I was a lot younger when the show ended and wasn't the critic I am now. But I do recall wondering what they were thinking with an episode or two in season 7.
I remember reading articles about TNG's run ending at 7, and I was telling my Trekkie friends at the time that there was NO WAY they'd stop running a show that was so awesome. Hey, I was 14, what did I know about television production?
Actually, they knew they were leaving on 7, so they started to ramp up the replacement, Voyager, and were focused on a big screen debut to basically start filming right away. Although there's absolutely no way of knowing, but it's at least reasonable to assume that season 7 COULD have been much better had the writers not be so distracted with the other projects at hand. And thus a season 8 having the lack of (perceived) quality that season 7 had with the same factors in influence.
I always hope for a DVD set containing all the TNG cameos in the spin off series. The amount of episodes should be comparable to a complete 8th season of TNG.
Not exactly - while it is true that the writers were basically counting on a seventh series by the time they started S6, everyone's contracts only ran to the end of Six. It's how they lost Terry Farrell at that point.
I was referring to TNG, not DS9. TNG's seventh season was already going to be its last before DS9 premiered in the middle of TNG's sixth year. TNG ending in season seven and going to the big screen wasn't dependent upon DS9's success. It was just Paramount's good luck that DS9 was a success and allowed them to have their cake and eat it too -- to send the TNG cast to the big screen while still keeping a weekly Trek series on the air.
It is, and always has been called, "Star Trek: Generations." Seriously. It was in the planning stages since S5 I think... do two more years on TV and straight into production on Trek 7.