Thoughts of This Show Before It Started

[omnirad]

With only StarLog and ST Communicator for info I was cautiously optimistic. All we knew about casting was it had Kunta Kinte, Bing Crosby's granddaughter, and the bald guy from Dune and Excalibur. That news didn't scream "Wow!"
Discovery is in a totally different universe today. I try to avoid snarky know-it-alls online, but that is a futile enterprise...

 

[NigellaDeanna20]

For those of you who were alive before this show came on, what was the perception of their being a new live-action show after 18 years? Also, how did it compare to Discovery?

i have to admit that, at the time, i didn't know a lot about Star Trek but I WAS aware of the, at that point, the first four movies but when STTNG premiered I was drawn into it very easily actually. I loved the series and took to it pretty much almost straight away.

 

[shatastrophic]

I was 10...people were excited but there was a lot of trash talk. Especially from friends whom weren't fans. I remember one of the biggest complaints by friends was that there were no buttons. "How can you do anything without buttons to push? That's the dumbest thing ever." The other complaint I remember was friends saying the stars don't look real, like they are smeared. Up to that point, warp had not been shown like that. I had to explain that's only how they look when they are at warp...

 

[F. King Daniel]

I remember an article in The Sun newspaper with photos of the TOS movie and new TNG characters, the captions savaging the originals, calling them old, replaced and obsolete.

I remember reading that the new Enterprise pilot would be blind, and thinking that was a stunningly poor idea even for a future with magical technology. I was 5, I think.

 

[Tracy Trek]

I recall seeing a preview of it on the VHS rental tape of Star Trek 4 that I was watching. It looked interesting. But I also thought it would be hard to top the original.

 

[Vger23]

I remember the build-up to TNG like it was yesterday. I remember the awesome count-down commercials we had here in the states (see link below).

I was in 7th grade when TNG premiered in Oct of 1987. We were pretty excited. The commercials were great and showed production values that were on-par with motion picture quality at that time, and the stuff available in Starlog Magazine certainly painted a picture of a "brave, new" Star Trek on the horizon. I was not really concerned about there not being a "Kirk" or "Spock." I do remember thinking that a bald Frenchman named Jean-Luc as the Captain was going to stretch my open-mindedness a little bit, though.

I guess I (and my buddies) were extremely optimistic and excited...but also a little cautious. The original was my favorite TV show, so there was a lot to live up to and a lot of expectations to be met.

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[Noname Given]

I was initially looking forward to it and like many wondered if it would be able to hold it's own against the original series.

I remember watching the pilot episode and afterwards thinking - "They gave them all this time, and THAT was the best they could come up with?" (IE I was not at all impressed. At all.) I was never much of a fan of TOS - "The Squire of Gothos" episode; and to me all Q came across as was Squire Trelane, now more an adolescent and still as ridiculous/annoying. I personally hated the character of 'Q' until "Q Who" aired in season 2.

Then - they showed a promo for the first 'regular' episode - the remake of the classic TOS episode "The Naked Time" -- called "The Naked Now". Again I wasn't impressed and wondered who In the hell thought it was a good idea to air a remake episode right after the pilot episode?

Then came "Code of Honor"...

After that yes, I still watched; but ONLY because I was hoping this thing would get better at some point and didn't want to ditch the first live action Star Trek series back on TV after 18 years -- but the majority of my friends who had a passing interest in Star Trek pretty much bailed on the show until "Yesterday's Enterprise" aired in Season 3. The only thing TNG Season 1 did for me is it made TOS Season 3 not look as bad to me as it had in years past.

 

[publiusr]

I remember the Ernie Anderson promos and wondered why the show wasn't on ABC--where it could get a bigger budget.

 

[Daddy Todd]

I was looking forward to TNG, even though I thought the title was lame. But I'd been a fan since Star Trek premiered when I was 6, so I was going to watch no matter what.

Then I went to NASFiC in Phoenix over the Labor Day weekend, and Bjo Trimble basically begged a roomful of anxious fans to give the new show a chance, and not judge it too harshly. So, even insiders knew it was a mess a month before it premiered.

And what a mess it was! I was a big fan of the Star Trek novels of that era, so when I saw what had been done to The Wounded Sky (the super-lame Where No One Has Gone Before) I was tempted to put it aside and just keep reading the novels. Many of my twentysomething trekker friends felt the same way; we were hate-watching decades before the term was invented.

But it slowly improved, and I'm a big fan of seasons 3-6. But it was a hard slog getting through the first season and a half.

 

[kguru]

I was 6 so I knew nothing of Star Trek. I do remember hearing a red alert from the Q encounter and thinking that it was a very strange thing for a ship to sound like that, since it was not a person.

 

[KennyB]

I had been a TOS for as long as I could remember. 1987 I was 16 and in the 10th grade. I remember being excited about a new Trek show but was NOT impressed with it at all. It was on a UHF station and I had to get one of those loop antenna to watch it. I HATED the ship design (and it never really grew on me) hated the uniforms, and though Riker should be the man. I remember a LOT of hate directed at TNG.......but not everyone had a VOICE on the Internet in 1987 (thank God) if they had, TNG may not have made it past season 1 or 2.

After a couple of years I had grown to like the show and the cast. First Contact is in my top 3 or 4 Trek films of all time now.

 

[Galileo7]

I was a huge fan of TOS, TAS, TMP, WOK, SFS and TVH so I was excited about a new NG television series. The first sketches of the 1701-D that I saw in a STARLOG issue was surprising in design compared to the 1701 or 1701-Refit.