TNG : 1987 - 2002

[Botany Bay]

TNG should have gone on forever. I think it could have, if :

• Paramount diverted all the creative resources it had into refreshing TNG somewhere around, say, season 5.
• New cast were introduced (O'Brien and Ensign Ro breathed so much fresh air into TNG - other new characters could have really shaken things up), and others were allowed to exit.
• All the writing talent (that was arguably spread too thinly across the TNG films, DS9 and VOY) was concentrated on TNG only.

The ratings never drop off, and TNG wraps up around 2002, with its status firmly cemented as one of TV's greatest and most successful shows.

Could it have happened that way? Or would the audience have drifted away the way it did over the years with DS9, VOY and ENT?

Would you rather have seen more televised TNG? Or should they have quit when they did, and made DS9, VOY and the TNG films?

 

[BillJ]

TNG should have gone on forever. I think it could have, if :

• Paramount diverted all the creative resources it had into refreshing TNG somewhere around, say, season 5.
• New cast were introduced (O'Brien and Ensign Ro breathed so much fresh air into TNG - other new characters could have really shaken things up), and others were allowed to exit.
• All the writing talent (that was arguably spread too thinly across the TNG films, DS9 and VOY) was concentrated on TNG only.

The ratings never drop off, and TNG wraps up around 2002, with its status firmly cemented as one of TV's greatest and most successful shows.

Could it have happened that way? Or would the audience have drifted away the way it did over the years with DS9, VOY and ENT?

Would you rather have seen more televised TNG? Or should they have quit when they did, and made DS9, VOY and the TNG films?

They should have allowed TNG to run in strip syndication for a few years following the end of its run before introducing spin-offs and feature films.

 

[Finn]

TNG should have gone on forever. I think it could have, if :

• Paramount diverted all the creative resources it had into refreshing TNG somewhere around, say, season 5.
• New cast were introduced (O'Brien and Ensign Ro breathed so much fresh air into TNG - other new characters could have really shaken things up), and others were allowed to exit.
• All the writing talent (that was arguably spread too thinly across the TNG films, DS9 and VOY) was concentrated on TNG only.

The ratings never drop off, and TNG wraps up around 2002, with its status firmly cemented as one of TV's greatest and most successful shows.

Same could be said for every other tv show that have ever existed.

 

[sonak]

TNG should have gone on forever. I think it could have, if :

• Paramount diverted all the creative resources it had into refreshing TNG somewhere around, say, season 5.
• New cast were introduced (O'Brien and Ensign Ro breathed so much fresh air into TNG - other new characters could have really shaken things up), and others were allowed to exit.
• All the writing talent (that was arguably spread too thinly across the TNG films, DS9 and VOY) was concentrated on TNG only.

The ratings never drop off, and TNG wraps up around 2002, with its status firmly cemented as one of TV's greatest and most successful shows.

Could it have happened that way? Or would the audience have drifted away the way it did over the years with DS9, VOY and ENT?

Would you rather have seen more televised TNG? Or should they have quit when they did, and made DS9, VOY and the TNG films?

They should have allowed TNG to run in strip syndication for a few years following the end of its run before introducing spin-offs and feature films.

I disagree on that point. TNG ended with it still very popular, and in entertainment you need to take advantage of windows of popularity.


(to take a random example, they released a "He-Man" movie in 1987, one-two years after the peak of the cartoon's popularity, and the movie bombed.)

Sci-fi was expanding on t.v. in the mid-nineties, it's possible TNG in re-runs would've gotten lost in the shuffle.


Age was also a factor, especially with Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner due to his character.

 

[Steve67]

If TNG was supposed to be the "most popular" incarnation of Star Trek, then why didn't 2009 reboot the franchise using younger (and of course "edgier") versions of Picard and crew?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I think it's not entirely unreasonable to think that TNG could have become the science-fiction answer to ER or Law & Order.

 

[BillJ]

If TNG was supposed to be the "most popular" incarnation of Star Trek, then why didn't 2009 reboot the franchise using younger (and of course "edgier") versions of Picard and crew?

While fans like to point out that more people watched TNG than TOS, it's been clear for a while that Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise are Star Trek to general audiences.

Star Trek 2009 alone did nearly as much business as the four Next Gen films combined.

 

[Skywalker]

Most of that business was simply because the movie looked like fun. Whether it starred Kirk and Spock or Picard and Data wouldn't have mattered to most people.

 

[RandyS]

TNG did last until 2002. That was the year NEMESIS came out.

But, I see your point, but no, I don't think it could have lasted on TV that long. Why? Because it's sci-fi, and only the "lunatic fringe" fan base like us would have followed it for that long. The mainsteam audience would have vanished long before then, and that's if they tuned in at all.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

TNG did last until 2002. That was the year NEMESIS came out.

But, I see your point, but no, I don't think it could have lasted on TV that long. Why? Because it's sci-fi, and only the "lunatic fringe" fan base like us would have followed it for that long. The mainsteam audience would have vanished long before then, and that's if they tuned in at all.

Actually TNG was a very popular show.

 

[BillJ]

TNG did last until 2002. That was the year NEMESIS came out.

But, I see your point, but no, I don't think it could have lasted on TV that long. Why? Because it's sci-fi, and only the "lunatic fringe" fan base like us would have followed it for that long. The mainsteam audience would have vanished long before then, and that's if they tuned in at all.

Actually TNG was a very popular show.

TNG was a popular show that had very little competition in the genre for the majority of its run. Plus, you had the fact that the series was attached to a popular brand name. If it had been called 'Space Patrol', I doubt it lasts thirteen episodes.

During the late 80's/early 90's, if you wanted to watch television sci-fi you had to watch TNG.

 

[BillJ]

Most of that business was simply because the movie looked like fun. Whether it starred Kirk and Spock or Picard and Data wouldn't have mattered to most people.

I disagree. I think the fact that it was the first Kirk/Spock film since 1991 helped its box-office immeasurably.

 

[Anwar]

Star Trek 2009 alone did nearly as much business as the four Next Gen films combined.

It also had more money and effort put into it than any of the TNG films. Paramount was really greedy and made them all on the cheap.

 

[BillJ]

Star Trek 2009 alone did nearly as much business as the four Next Gen films combined.

It also had more money and effort put into it than any of the TNG films. Paramount was really greedy and made them all on the cheap.

They had less money spent on them, but I'm sure the people who worked on them would disagree with you about the effort spent.

 

[Gary7]

Every good show has its time when it is ready to stop. I don't know the absolute longest, but one of longer running shows was M*A*S*H (11 seasons). It did have a bit of a reboot with Trapper John McIntyre replaced by BJ Honeycut and Sherman Potter taking the place of Henry Blake. There was also a prominent shift of the format from prominently comedy centric to being more of a drama with comedy along for the ride. There was also an effort to use real past wartime events as the basis for some of the episode plots.

While the series remained popular throughout these changes, it eventually began to run out of creative steam. M*A*S*H was a unique show, that juggled the ironic combination of war and comedy. The characters were great, the stories were well written, and production values very good. The series still had very good ratings by its final season, but some of the actors confessed that by the 9th season, "the show was beginning to show its cracks." They wanted to end it by season 10, but the network insisted they go for 11.

TNG had even more flexibility. You're in the realm of science fiction. You don't have any set ending (like M*A*S*H did with the war). And there's a whole galaxy of variations to throw in. But there are several problems with making a series last for a dozen years. First, you have to keep it fresh. We would have had to see more cast changes. And someone like Patrick Stewart wanted to move on to other roles. How would the show have faired if Riker took command? I don't think Frakes had what it takes to pull it off. A new commander perhaps? We had a really interesting dry-run with that when Jellico took over (although I don't think many people liked that character). It may have worked, or it may have caused it to lose ratings.

DS9 kept things interesting by bringing up new species conflicts and several wars. Plus, adding the Defiant into the mix so that they could travel to other locations. But the series did being to show its age. I think both DS9 and TNG ended when they needed to.

If TNG was supposed to be the "most popular" incarnation of Star Trek, then why didn't 2009 reboot the franchise using younger (and of course "edgier") versions of Picard and crew?

Because Picard and crew don't have the "legendary status" of Kirk and his crew. TOS was the start of it all. It was the logical place to do a reboot. Plus, TNG, DS9 and VOY all share a lot of the same kind of production elements (uniforms and sets are all very similar). TOS was ripe for a new version.

 

[SchwEnt]

^^^ and amount of money spent is no guarantee of quality or goodness.

TWOK didn't have a stellar budget and look how that turned out. And many of the cost-cutting bottle eps of any ST are among the finest in any series.

 

[Finn]

^TWOK- way overrated

 

[BillJ]

^TWOK- way overrated

It sill made back eight times its budget which is nearly unheard of today.

 

[Steve67]

^TWOK- way overrated

Based on what?

 

[Roland Deschain]

It had the perfect ending. S7 was going downhill anyway, but the AGT was spectacular. In many ways TNG was the apex of trek, it was highly cerebral and showcased humanity had progressed to a less warlike species in many respects, within the context of the TNG series universe. Starfleet was defensive/scientific/diplomatic organization rather than a militaristic one. AGT was brilliant because it tied up what the point of the show was kind of about. Q judges humanity to be a violent primitive stupid species and throughout the run of the show we learn that for all its faults the human race is improving. The final episode is focused on an existential connundrum so to speak and when Picard realizes the nature of the temporal paradox Q states that this is what awaits humanity. Its a positive message and fairly high minded television which I like. I don't think it could have ended any better.