For People Old Enough to Remember

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

Also, looking at the photos...those really aren't flattering looks for Burton and Frakes. Especially Frakes who looks like a 1970s news anchor/weather man

An interesting mix of headshots and screenshots there. Can't really tell what they used for Burton.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I didn't get into Star Trek until much later, but I could remember playing with friends in my neighborhood, then abruptly having to stop, because they had to go because "Star Trek" was coming on

 

[at Quark's]

Was there this much hatred of TNG when it started by Trek fans as there are now with fans hating NuTrek? I know there was no such thing as Internet then. I was in elementary school. To young to pay attention to that. I remember reading about it in my Weekly Reader and thought it was cool.

I have the impression every new Star Trek series after TOS has been vigorously hated by certain groups of fans, back when it was airing. Simply because they dared to deviate from their conception of what Star Trek 'should' be.

 

[Skipper]

It's the Internet's fault. It's all the internet's fault.

 

[C.E. Evans]

"If it ain't Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, then it ain't Star Trek!"

Time would eventually say otherwise...

 

[Relayer1]

There was a lot of resistance to TNG back in the day, especially before it aired. I remember seeing my first grainy pic of the Galaxy Class Enterprise and asking myself who could have come up with a ship that fugly.

I didn't get to see TNG until some time after the U.S. as it was only on satellite over here and we didn't have it. By the time it came on the BBC I was desperate to see it. I really don't recall any negative opinion over here.

The Ent E really is truly fugly though...

 

[Dee1891]

Was there this much hatred of TNG when it started by Trek fans as there are now with fans hating NuTrek? I know there was no such thing as Internet then. I was in elementary school. To young to pay attention to that. I remember reading about it in my Weekly Reader and thought it was cool.

I have to be honest. Back then, my father was the real Trek fan in the family. I was just a casual viewer of both "The Original Series" and "Next Generation". So, I didn't pay much attention to how Trek fans had responded to the latter after it first premiered. My father, on the other hand, became a fan of TNG, even TOS had continued to be his favorite for years. The only Trek series he had difficulty in embracing before he had passed away was "Enterprise".

 

[drt]

I wonder what the buzz was like in the various fanzines and/or fanclub newsletters and the like, before and after the debut of TNG.

Kor

I joined the official club right after the series premiered (mostly to get a sweet TNG communicator pin), opinions were probably split 50:50. One thing that stands out in my memory is people being pissed that Picard had surrendered twice in the first five episodes.

As far as my hardcore Trekkie friends, it was probably about 50:50 for them as well. Most of the ones not in favor of it were probably more attached to the TOS crew than the Trek format. Another thing I remember is that people who were more general fans of TOS show/movies, or scifi fans in general tended to really like TNG in those early seasons, which is likely why it ended up a success even if a good percentage of Trekkies weren't fans immediately.

 

[Mudd]

Everyone didn't come around, of course - therein lies the origins of what we now call "TOS-Onlies" sometimes.

It didn't matter in the end, because TNG grew the audience, if not in numbers over NBS then at least over what Paramount was seeing from TOS syndication and brought in a, well, new generation of fans. Older people who had not cared for TOS came to like TNG.

That's not analogous to the current situation, either. The number of viewers that constitutes success for a streaming platform like Paramount+ is way smaller than that of TNG's syndicated audience, just as TNG's numbers constituted a success for syndication but would have had the show on the cancellation bubble a lot of the time on any of the then-dominant three national broadcast networks.

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

It didn't matter in the end, because TNG grew the audience, if not in numbers over NBS then at least over what Paramount was seeing from TOS syndication and brought in a, well, new generation of fans. Older people who had not cared for TOS came to like TNG.

Absolutely TNG grew the audience. Probably more so than any other single Trek entity since the original.

And that's my concern for the Paramount Plus series - they seem to be more about feeding the old fans than necessarily bringing in new ones. Which admittedly is harder on a closed platform, even more than it was in first-run syndication. I would love to see a breakdown of the streaming numbers, though.

 

[Doug Otte]

Absolutely TNG grew the audience. Probably more so than any other single Trek entity since the original.

And that's my concern for the Paramount Plus series - they seem to be more about feeding the old fans than necessarily bringing in new ones. Which admittedly is harder on a closed platform, even more than it was in first-run syndication. I would love to see a breakdown of the streaming numbers, though.

I wonder about that, too. The way they seek to manipulate the audience by recycling old plots, tropes, and emotional moments seems designed to appeal to us oldsters. I wonder how many new, younger fans they're attracting.

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

I wonder about that, too. The way they seek to manipulate the audience by recycling old plots, tropes, and emotional moments seems designed to appeal to us oldsters. I wonder how many new, younger fans they're attracting.

And don't get me wrong - I love some of it. Lower Decks is my favorite Trek series since DS9, and recycling and repackaging for old fans is its only reason for existing.

But too much contemporary Trek seems geared towards existing fans. I don't see any current series challenging TNG for the amount of new fans they can bring in.

 

[Oddish]

But too much contemporary Trek seems geared towards existing fans. I don't see any current series challenging TNG for the amount of new fans they can bring in.

Make new friends, but keep the old, maybe?

Remember that Discovery, from its inception, was intended to work in the way that modern television does: darker, grittier, more serialized, and fewer rules: death, mutilation, and occasional F-bombs. And Prodigy is targeting a whole new audience. Yes, both shows make a point of offering fanservice: Discovery with Sarek and Spock, Prodigy with Janeway. But I think they're reaching out, too.

SNW, I think, was the result of the producers seeing that there was serious potential in combining the older format with modern effects. Given how frequently classic Trek gets streamed, no great surprise.

 

[WAMTNG]

Was there this much hatred of TNG when it started by Trek fans as there are now with fans hating NuTrek? I know there was no such thing as Internet then. I was in elementary school. To young to pay attention to that. I remember reading about it in my Weekly Reader and thought it was cool.

Well, lots of other people have given you the skinny on this, but if you want a dramatic representation of the fan resistance to TNG, please watch the 1998 movie Free Enterprise.

 

[dupersuper]

Well, lots of other people have given you the skinny on this, but if you want a dramatic representation of the fan resistance to TNG, please watch the 1998 movie Free Enterprise.

I don't remember it playing a huge roll in that movie. There was a case in an old Night Court episode...

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[WAMTNG]

I don't remember it playing a huge roll in that movie.

It is a recurring theme for one of the characters (Robert) that comes to a head in one pivotal scene:

Claire: When are you going to start living in the present instead of the 24th century?
Robert: I would never live in the 24th century! I ****ing HATE "The Next Generation". ONLY classic!

That really summed up the resistance to TNG to me rather well... (although this was certainly not my own viewpoint on TNG!)

 

[Noname Given]

Not only do I remember negative fan reaction to Star Trek the next generation, I remember negative fan reaction to Star Trek the motion picture. Specifically, to the new klingons. "How dare they change the klingons?" The more things change..

Ditto. And I too did not like TNG at the start. Out of the group I hung with that were Star Trek fans, I was the only one who stuck with it; and honestly, I kept hoping for a good episode but was constantly disappointed. I didn't think it became at all watchable until a few episodes into season 3.

The first episode I can say I honestly enjoyed was TNG S3 Yesterday's Enterprise. I will also admit that Best of Both Worlds had me hooked at the cliffhanger; and that's when some of my friends who had given up on TNG started actually watching the series.

That said unlike TOS, honestly the majority of episodes I can watch and rewatch and never be tired of. When it comes to TNG rewatchability, out of its 178 episodes, there's probably about 25 or so that I find rewatchable.

I also found the JJ Abrams Star Trek films a real breath of fresh air after the TNG feature films, with the possible exception of Star Trek: First Contact.

The latest new Star Trek series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is exactly what I had hoped Star Trek the Next Generation would have been back in 1987. It's exactly the type of Star Trek. series I've wanted since TOS was canceled.