Should they have cancelled TNG?

[EnriqueH]

I've sometimes wondered if Season 7 should have been the last season.

At the time, I was a senior in high school. As a matter of fact, my graduation day was the SAME DAY as the premiere of "All Good Things..." and so I had to leave it recording.

What a great episode.

Since that time, I've been under the impression---possibly incorrectly---that TNG was cancelled so that the cast could be shoehorned into its feature film franchise ASAP.

And then of course, Generations was rushed into production and the movie was not as good as it could've been and it set the TNG feature film franchise into a lukewarm start.

I'm currently in the middle of rewatching the show and I'm in the middle of Season 4.

But do you guys think the show was running out of gas and that the Season 7 SHOULD have been its last, or do you think it could've and should've continued, delaying the start of its feature film franchise for a couple more years.

Although "All Good Things..." was a fantastic way to end the series, I really think the show it could've continued.

One thing is for sure, they should NOT have rushed Generations.

 

[Trekker4747]

Generations was very rushed and aside from "First Contact" the NextGen movies very mis-handled, though the ego of two of the stars demanding more and more money didn't help.

The problem with TNG's seventh season is that by then most of the better writers were over on DS9 or likely elsewhere in the franchise working on the movie and possibly building Voyager.

Generations was very rushed and it didn't need to be. Yes, the original cast was spent and not much more could have been done with them but there should have been no rush to get another Trek movie into theaters as quickly as possible. I don't think TNG had much more life in it, even if they did keep the better writers on TNG's side, but that final season really shows the wear of the series but, again, mostly because at that point they were spreading themselves too thin.

 

[Melakon]

Seven years was as far as the studio wanted to go for syndication purposes. Otherwise rising salaries and production costs would cut into their acceptable profit margin. It was always about the money.

 

[Orphalesion]

All things should run its course, even awesome TV shows. While I think one or perhaps two more seasons would have been awesome it is better it ended then than sticking around past its prime.

 

[tomalak301]

They ended at the right time.

 

[EnriqueH]

It's never good to overstay your welcome, but I've often wondered our---meaning Trek fans---perception if the show was ended just right on time.

 

[MacLeod]

Seven years is a decent run for a TV show, could it have done an eighth sure, but it was clear by season seven they were starting to run on empty. Others have already cited various reasons moving onto DSN, VOY was in the early prep stages.

I think had it gone to an eigth season it might have over stayed it's welcome, plenty of shows i.e. Lost over stayed their welcome.

And TNG was less cancelled more not renewed

 

[Dukhat]

Actually, I think TNG should have ended after the fifth season, transitioning totally to DS9 instead of having the two shows overlap for two years.

 

[Relayer1]

I'd have liked it to continue alongside DS9, with more crossovers. And maybe introducing some new cast members.

They could have avoided doing Voyager at all...

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Season seven showed a decline in writing quality. I don't think they would have been able to do much more with another season.

 

[EnriqueH]

What about "All Good Things...", I remembered that being awesome. Did the regular Season 7 writing team write that?

 

[Nerys Myk]

What about "All Good Things...", I remembered that being awesome. Did the regular Season 7 writing team write that?

One good episode does not a good season make.

 

[Ghrakh]

Good thing there was more than "one good episode".

 

[Mojochi]

Honestly, season 7 gets a bad rap, but the truth is... Pegasus, Parallels, Lower Decks, Gambit, Preemptive Strike, All Good Things, etc... There's lots of classic good Trek in there. Perhaps some of the weak episodes were weaker than in pervious seasons, but I see weak in all the seasons. Had they done another season it would have managed some good stuff too

That being said, it was best to end it when they did. It was the right time

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Had the PTB been willing to make it a little more realistic, with the fact that crew would eventually move on, so that cast could leave and be replaced with new characters to add different energy to the show, then it could've gone on for another year or two before making the transition into movies.

As it is though, ending in S7 was definitely the best call for the show.

 

[Ghrakh]

I think it could have gone on another season or two. The "decline" in S7 wasn't all that much to me, and spoke more about the excellence of the prior seasons than S7 itself.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Ideally, it should have ended after the fifth season (with a finale just as great as "All Good Things"). I thought it was a mistake to jump right into production of the first film so soon after the show ended. There should have been a break in between. It's actually a miracle that the finale turned out as good as it did, considering that they wrote that at the same time they were writing the film! It must have been nerve wracking. Maybe if there was a proper break between films and the writers worked solely on the film's script instead of having to juggle with productions, it might have resulted in something better.

Of course, that's all hypothetical. What's done is done. TNG lasted too long, but at least they got a great finale.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

The seventh season really felt like a last season. There were a lot of closures. Data and his mother, Worth and his son, Picard and his (putative) son, Ro's final betrayal, Beverly and her ancestry, Wesley and his "final" journey, Worth and his brother, Riker and his dark secret (Pegasus), Deanna and her secret sister, Picard reveals (involuntarily) his love to Beverly... and I am sure I left out a few.

 

[Orphalesion]

The seventh season really felt like a last season.... Worth and his son... Worth and his

It's Worf, not Worth . Aside from that I quite agree there was a lot of closure in Season 7.

And Dark Page was another excellent episode, along with Thine Own Self and Homeward. And I personally really liked Genesis for its weirdness factor and Picard's son. One one hand it would have been great for Picard to have a son, especially someone like Jason, not connected to Starfleet and kind of a crook. I kind of would have liked for Jason to become a recurring character on DS9.
On the other hand, I'm 100% sure the lazy writers would have just killed him off screen to hurt Picard for Generations .

The hasty closure of so many "arcs" in Season 7 actually points towards one of the weaknesses of TNG: it's virtual lack of character arcs. Few, theoretically, ongoing plotlines and struggles like Data's quest to become more human, Deanna and Riker's relationship, Rikers wish to become a Starfleet captain, Picard and Beverly's USD, Picard's family or the complicated relationship the writers had set up between Picard, Beverly and Wesley in Season 1 were ever addressed, let alone advanced. If the writers were more willing to address them in Season 7 it would have been good to take two seasons to at least give these issues some build up, climax and closure.

Of course Season seven also had "Sub Rosa", "Phantasms" and "Liaisons", but every season has its bad eggs. Another season could still have been great.

 

[TheSubCommander]

I think finishing after seven seasons was about the right time to bow out. I think as a series, TNG finished pretty strong, actually. I would have liked to see a couple post-TNG crossover episodes with DS9, though. Sure we got Worf, and a few visiting TNG cast members, but I think the Enterprise-E should have made a couple appearances during the Dominion war....even just the ship itself during a major battle. In fact, Insurrection was such a missed opportunity to be a mission during the Dominion War, instead of a one off fountain of youth story, and could have had a couple DS9 episodes set up a tie in for a feature film.