There was some lukewarm beliefs back in the day, and outright dislike. But people still watched and the right group of people made the show into the zeitgeist-breaking hit that it was. Not bad for a show that felt closer in spirit to the 1964 pilot than most of Kirk's TOS era had.
But, yeah, a lot of the early episodes were given flak from many at the time. Even me, I won't deny it. Some early TNG was underwhelming. Code of Honor, Naked Now, Angel One, Justice -- pretty predictable for those and how bad they were and accusations of "ripoff" were not entirely undeserved, or does a pallid rewrite of old stories and chucking the word "New" in place of another in the original title do much (but at least Data corrected Riker on what happens when some twerp opens the friggin' airlock... that's timeless, and proof the show's educational slant hasn't done much since people still act like Riker rather than Data, as if they'll ever really need to apply such knowledge beyond their vacuum cleaner getting clogged, but that's another story.) But I digress.
As season 3 onward took off and especially season 5, people did revisit the older episodes in reruns - people did still gripe, but a re-viewing had brought in a different perspective and most of the clunkers had some ideas they hadn't picked up on beyond the craptacular treacle. And the Data-corrects-Riker bit in TNN is still timeless. I recall a friend's brother saying that, while the early seasons were rough around the edges, they felt like actual adventure and were more watchable - he said that in 1993. I hope they're both doing well... But he's right. As hokey as some of season 1's more dreadful outings were at the time, they were oddly more engaging and with bigger ideas than Worf's three convenient brain stem sockets there... if told deftly, there's clearly a place for both types of storytelling (situation- or character-driven.)
Indeed, with TNG's successes, you'll see aspects of TNG creep into TFF and TUC - spruced up sets being re-used and, of course, NCC-1701-A ("Alpha", woohoo!) getting its own version of Ten-Forward, which has a certain charm. But by season 2, TNG was being serious and TFF (and TUC) were becoming comedy acts thanks to IV. That's what bugged me the most; TOS was becoming a lampoon. At least TNG took itself seriously and that's a big reason for the show taking off, and some of that can be seen in season 1 as well.
In retrospect, of all the seasons to have been lambasted, season 2's is the most undeserving. Yes, it was still finding its way, but the more reasoned fan criticisms were listened to and it shows. There are plenty of robust episodes and even with the writers' strike, season 2 is when the show truly began - only hindered due to the strike and the few duffer episodes that remained.
Okona is surely a season 1 leftover and is one of the worst, by far - but, and I'd have to read up, I'd suspect they ran out of time and had to use some stories to fill in story gaps. (On the plus side, the strike and related issues helped ensure the Borg would not be a race of gigantic insects - a la Battlestar Galactica circa 1978 - but cybernetic terrors that also happened to be a fairly clever satire of the Federation...)
That, and in 1987 I was whining in typical Sheldon Cooper/Lisa Simpson fashion about why the book covers were being handed out in schools. We're there to learn history and math and AV club and science and absolutely never English, not just advertise something we hadn't seen. Oh well. I do remember the library at the school; it was 3 levels and octagonal-shaped. Now I see why they got the covers for us to pass around. The Engineering section with warp core had a not-dissimilar look, guardrails and all so clearly they had seen some episodes and were hoping students would make a visual reference and spend more time in the library.
