By what metric?
Bryan Fuller: Diversity is key
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It's the most popular among Patrick Stewart's fans, certainly.
Otherwise the claim is meaningless. TOS has been by far the most popular over time.
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They feel very human to me.
The Aliens? Well, yeah.
O'RLY? Tell me again, WHICH series was the genesis of the Star trek franchise; and what role did it have in convincing then Paramount to try a new series after the original series (which had spawned a cartoon series that ran two years - spawned (at that point (4 VERY successful feature films) and had been in syndication CONSTANTLY for 18 years?
Ratings.
TNG might have had the best Nielsen ratings, but is nor has never been the most popular Star Trek show.
Not even a little bit.
Not even a little bit.
![15209230785_7c40ef685a_o[1].png](https://www.trekbbs.com/data/attachments/2/2260-b924b9fe78564ce436556195e0156e3f.jpg "15209230785_7c40ef685a_o[1].png")
Ratings? What about ratings? Number of viewers? Percentage of market share? What?
And, how does that translate into popularity?
People can spew numbers all day, but it doesn't really matter.
When it comes to their pop-culture legacy, the two shows aren't in the same league. Where TOS became a once-in-a-generation phenomenon, TNG was just a show really popular with college kids in the 90s.
When it comes to their pop-culture legacy, the two shows aren't in the same league. Where TOS became a once-in-a-generation phenomenon, TNG was just a show really popular with college kids in the 90s.
That massive infodump really doesn't support the claim you're attempting to make.
I am not dissing TOS (it is easily my second favourite Trek show), and it was so long before other Trek shows, that fair comparison is probably hard to make. But TNG was popular and had more viewers than any of the spin offs that followed it.
This is really getting besides the point though.
Indeed.
Also, TOS was a once-in-a-generation phenomenon (indeed) that continues to have spin-offs to this day. Not so for TNG.
Does this mean that you're walking back your claim about ratings?
Yes, it does.
Fact is, the number of viewers required to keep a network TV series on the air for any length of time in 1966, when the prime-time audience was effectively split three ways, was greater than the 13 million or so viewers that TNG did at its best.
So they just cancelled it out of spite?
No it was canceled because is was a low rated, but those same numbers in the 80's and 90's would be better than TNG's
Exactly so.
I admit that making accurate comparisons between sixties and series made decades later is difficult. And I certainly admit that TOS has had biggest cultural impact of all the Star Trek series.
My original point was made in the context where people claimed that TNG's utopia was silly. People liked it. It was during the a lot grittier DS9 when the rating started to plummet.
A lot of people liked TNG in spite of the utopian nonsense. It was far from the most important element of the show, and diminished considerably when Roddenberry's influence waned after the first few seasons.
God knows, of the fans that I knew in those days no one took the "evolved humans" thing seriously. But then, most were adults.
God knows, of the fans that I knew in those days no one took the "evolved humans" thing seriously. But then, most were adults.
I used to be big into the utopia thing. Then I grew up. But I don't think that's why the show was popular.
Take a closer look at the ratings chart. The shows with the highest spikes are episodes like AGT, Yesterday's Ent, BoBW, etc. Those aren't so much about the utopia as they are the pew pew.
Take a closer look at the ratings chart. The shows with the highest spikes are episodes like AGT, Yesterday's Ent, BoBW, etc. Those aren't so much about the utopia as they are the pew pew.
Personally I think that certain optimistic outlook about humanity is integral to Star Trek, and certainly to to my enjoyment of it. It is present in both TOS and TNG and greatly diminished in DS9 and Ent (kinda present in Voy.) I wish we get it in Discovery, the last thing I want to see is the sort of 'hard men making hard choices' bullshit we got in DS9 and Ent.
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