I have had something of an epiphany regarding my own opinions. Granted, this is a "hindsight is 20/20" kinda deal, but still, hear me out:
Star Trek: The Next Generation should neve have been cancelled and replaced by a film series.
Why? Because obviously the TNG movies are almost unanimously controversial and at least 3/4 of them are critically panned, to say nothing of the fact that only one of them did any good at the box office. Now I'm discovering that Generations contributed negatively to the lack of good episodes in Season 7, which again was because of the movie that was coming out in less than a year after the finale. I honestly feel sorry for the cast and crew of the show, and if it weren't for Generations I'm absolutely 100% positive Season 7 would have been much better.
Granted, accommodations would have had to have been made, but I would gladly have accepted them. For example, Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner both seemed ready to move on. You know what? LET THEM. Cut 'em loose like Tasha and Wesley, but have them return as guest stars from time to time. As for the plot for future seasons?
EASY:
Season 7 would end with an abridged 2-part episode version of Generations instead of All Good Things, where Picard has to get help from William Shatner as Captain Kirk, who he finds in the Nexus (make it a random anomaly instead of an effects-heavy energy ribbon) in order to stop Soran from blowing up the Veridian III star. This time Kirk rides off into the sunset, and the Enterprise-D is not destroyed. Maybe at the beginning of Season 8, promote Picard to Admiral and have him return to Earth to serve as an instructor at the Academy. Have Data take over at the Daystrom Institute, teaming up with Bruce Maddox to create more androids. Riker takes over command of the Enterprise, bring back Shelby as his first officer or make up a new character, and have someone take over Ops from Data (again, this could be a totally new character or an old one, take your pick). Have the show run concurrently with DS9, and maybe Voyager (in my head rewrite Voyager never happens, so there are always two Star Trek shows running concurrently, no more and no less). Make the show last through the Dominion War, depict the lives of the Enterprise-D crew and see what they have to face through a new lens (plus think of the DS9/TNG crossovers!), have Picard and Data come back every once in a while for guest appearances, but KEEP THE SHOW GOING. Maybe end it alongside DS9, heck go nuts and have it end AFTER, but no sooner. I'm sure it would have been much more successful than the TNG movie series was. And I kinda wish that it was our reality now that I'm thinking about it.
