Why no TNG-DS9 crossover?

[retroenzo]

There may have been the international market to cater for as well as video releases to consider.

I don't know how other countries broadcast them back then but I know that in the UK Sky showed one series at a time, so they might have not got onto Season 2 of DS9 until after season 7 of TNG had finished its run. That would have resulted in potentially a six month wait for the second part of the two-parter to air, or even seeing episode 2 before episode 1. That did happen in fact with the Bones/Sleepy Hollow crossover I was talking about earlier. The Universal Channel aired Sleepy Hollow first (episode 2) so we couldn't watch that episode until Sky started broadcasting Bones weeks later.

Plus a two part episode in the video tape era would have meant that to see both episodes of the crossover, you'd have had to have bought two VHS tapes, including one tape from a series you may not watch.

Box sets today have got a bit more freedom so they could at least include the other episode as an extra feature if they wanted to.

 

[Griffeytrek]

Looking at all these shows of today, with the CSIs, Law & Orders, and Chicagos series, they do cross-overs all the time amongst their different spinoffs. I know trek was ahead of the times with spinoffs, but im surprised during the first season of DS9, they never did a full-on crossover with the highly popular TNG at the time. I could easily envision a 2 part episode, part 1 being TNG with a few DS9 guest stars, part 2 being DS9 with a few TNG guest stars. It would have given a great exposure to the early DS9.

They wanted to, and tried to set them up at a few points, but ran into some technical and behind the scenes issues. For example a lot of the Maqui/Ensign Ro stuff was originally intended to be a crossover. But they ran into two hard problems. The differing production schedules of the two shows, and more importantly the fact that they were syndicated shows. This meant that A. Not every market was getting both shows, and B. For those that were the actual order of airing or scheduling was somewhat random. So they had no control over when or in what order the crossover episodes would air. And yes they would want part of the story to air under each shows title. That is the purpose of crossover episodes. To get fans of Show A to take a look at Show B and vice versus. To force them to watch an episode of the other show. It's why they are always 2 parters. The alternative was to simply do guest star stories from the other cast. But that is hard to do with a full cast as it gets very expensive very fast. So they largely ended up making a decision not to do crossovers as such.

There was a common story arc flowing through all three ST shows for about a year with the Maqui. Story wise it starts with Preemptive Strike on TNG (with Journey's End being the lead in), leads into DS9's The Maqui part 1 and 2 and finishes with Voyagers Caretaker. The story was meant to introduce the Maqui and follow the flow of WMD's to the group. But the production problems reared their ugly head there, and the DS9 episodes aired weeks before the TNG ones. So by the time the Maqui were first introduced in Preemptive Strike we had already met them in DS9.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I'm thinking that it didn't happen because both series were syndicated. They might not have both aired in every single market, or aired at different times. That would make the logistics of a crossover much more different. You wouldn't want Part 2 airing on DS9 before the first part on TNG in some cities.

 

[The Wormhole]

There was a common story arc flowing through all three ST shows for about a year with the Maqui. Story wise it starts with Preemptive Strike on TNG (with Journey's End being the lead in), leads into DS9's The Maqui part 1 and 2 and finishes with Voyagers Caretaker.

No, Pre-emptive Strike definitely happens after The Maquis story. In Pre-emptive Strike the Maquis are already a well-known presence, Picard recognizes their ships and Gul Evek talks about prior engagements with them, Admiral Nechayev is quite knowledgeable of them. The DS9 story The Maquis definitely tells the origin story of the Maquis, and prior to that episode they were never known. Both Gul Evek and Admiral Nechayev are in the story, and they're nowhere near as knowledgeable on the Maquis as they are in Pre-Emptive Strike.

The order of the Maquis-set up is Journey's End, The Maquis Parts 1 and 2 and Pre-Emptive Strike and that is the order they aired in in the US anyway.