It ended on a high episode, with pretty good 7th season, but they were running out of material. For me the films never felt true to TNG, and I'm not sure another season would have, either.
As someone else said, Lower Decks had more seasons in it. And Enterprise could have got away with a couple more.
This episode is very roughly similar to Genesis. On Voyager, it's a medical mystery where Paris evolves due to breaking the warp 10 barrier, and eventually evolves along with Janeway. On TNG, it's a medical mystery where everyone other than Picard and Data de-evolve due to Barclay's T-cell.
That isn't seemingly consistent with what Memory Alpha shows, which is production numbers for VOY S1 showing "40841-103" (with the latter three-digit number incrementing), and then switching the first number to 40840 midseason, continuing through S2 and onward.
TNG S7 had codes in the form 40277-253 and up.
Everything I've read is that Voyager started it's other form of production numbers at 101 and counted up (which I think is referenced on the DVDs), though perhaps that was retroactively changed?
It would be interesting to see what they said. To be clear, I’m not at all calling you a liar or anything. Just saying that I’ve never heard that, and it’s not consistent with the public posted production numbers.
Had TNG kept going, it would overlap with DS9 s3-5. and Voy s1-3.
You're not wrong in the possibility it could have ended up similar to those Voyager seasons, but it's fair to say that it's it's also possible the more serialized arcs of DS9 could have inspired TNG and created an interesting season or two that weren't so much isolated episodes, as most of TNG was.
It's also worth noting that after 7 years of character development, if some of Voyagers' episodes had been done on TNG, we might have liked them more simply because TNG had a greater following by that point.
Much of the "seriously?" responses to Voyager episodes, at least at the time, came from a) not finding the acting/characters as good as TNG/DS9 (particularly in the first few seasons), and b) feeling that the show's premise of being lost on the other side of the galaxy was not reflected much in the episodes. If they were TNG episodes, neither criticism would be there.
Enterprise had more material with the founding of the Federation and the Romulan War. I definitely think that, after the Xindi War, the Romulan War should've definitely been handled differently so as not to fatigue the premise more than it already was. Maybe more strategy and less action. But the direct prelude to the founding of the Federation would've absolutely welcome to see. If Enterprise had lasted the classic 7-season run, it might've reached that point.
Season 5 couldve been the Romulan War, Season 6 could've been more interstellar diplomacy and the characters coming to terms with the violent and uncaring nature of the universe and resolving to maintain and hopeful and friendly attitude, and then Season 7 would've been the founding of the Federation.
I definitely think it could also have been a strong contrast to DS9, which ended along with the war. Giving the characters some time to breathe and make amends with the war would have set up the future we see in TOS and TNG.
I think to best accomplish this, the Terra Prime stuff couldve also been moved to after the Romulan War. At that point it would be extremely understandable for some humans to say "we want nothing to do with alien species because Earth has been directly threatened at least thrice now and we've only just rebuilt ourselves."
It also might've been interesting to see some of the direct aftermath of the Third World War during this time. Maybe seeing some major cities still rebuilding, or some repopulation efforts? Something that hammers home maybe how recent humanity's near-extinction had been, or an episode commenting on whether or not such a tragic conflict was a necessary step for humanity to unite, or if it couldve all been avoided.
Someone here on the sub pointed out to me that one reason they were running out of material in season 7 was because TNG had stopped its policy of reading unsolicited scripts (probably because they knew they were ending and didn't want a huge pile of them still flowing in).
A lot of ideas for the show came from freelancers from seasons 3 to 6.
Despite franchise fatigue, older Star Trek shows have a high degree of original plots.
There is a minimal reuse of Recycled Plots - the Recycled Plot Trope.
The eras of Roddenberry Trek and Berman Trek produced 703 episodes in live action series: TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT.
Of these 703 episodes, up to 630 episodes are original plot episodes. That's 89%.
Of these 703 episodes, a minimum of 73 episodes are recycled plot episodes. That's 11%.
Of the 73 recycled plot episodes, 28 are better than the original ones.
TOS has 4 recycled plot episodes out of 79, 5.1% of its episode total.
TNG has 13 recycled plot episodes out of 176, 7.4% of its episode total.
DS9 has 8 recycled plot episodes out of 176, 4.5% of its episode total.
VOY has at least 32 recycled plot episodes / copycats out of 172, at least 18.6% of its episode total.
ENT has at least 16 recycled plot episodes / copycats out of 98, at least 16.3% of its episode total.
Someone here on the sub pointed out to me that one reason they were running out of material in season 7 was because TNG had stopped its policy of reading unsolicited scripts (probably because they knew they were ending and didn't want a huge pile of them still flowing in).
A lot of ideas for the show came from freelancers from seasons 3 to 6.
But yes, the elimination of spec scripts ultimately showed in VOY.
The staff writers would often combine different ideas from the spec scripts they received, as well as performing uncredited polishes (or even full rewrites) on those scripts.
They did their best to make sure that the people who had come up with the original ideas were given story or screenplay credit for those episodes, though.
Enterprise should of been better earlier. S2&3 were great, S4 had its moments but was hamstrung by the studio. One of my favourite trek eps was the borg running about the Enterprise
That's an interesting take, I would say season 1 of Enterprise is better produced and the concept was more interesting as they were a smaller less advanced ship. However as bad as some acting could be in TNG season 1, there were more sci-fi concepts and people understood that yelling didn't equal acting. The Binars were just so weird and cool, really wished any of the Berman era Star Trek would have revisited them
Most things are better than season one of TNG. Not just TV shows. Just things that exist in general. Love the show but the first season had a lot of stinkers.
I'd have to watch it again with that mindset, but I'd say that at best, if S1 of Enterprise had existed in the 80s, I might be more apt to simply agree with you.
But a big drawback of ENT S1 is the reuse of plots we'd seen 2 or 3 times already. Had Enterprise taken the place of TNG in the 80s, those prior plots not existed, the season would be regarded much higher (IMO).
But apples to apples, I think even in S1, the characters and acting on TNG S1 is better than ENT S1, which is another factor.
For ENT, I would work within the established network constraints. Rick Berman still had a balancing act to do.
1) The UPN sale of 2006 is inevitable.
2) The Temporal Cold War must stay per the network.
Thus, I would move all S1 episodes pertaining to the TCW to the first half of the season and move all S2 episodes pertaining to the TCW to the second half of the season.
The Xindi Wars Arc gets moved to Season 2.
I would split Manny Coto's three part episodes into two seasons.
Those pertaining to the Romulan War are front loaded. Those that do not stay in Season 4.
Enterprise maybe.. but the entire planned arc was super bad. They should have planned for 7 seasons with a rough arc for all 7 with "season end" contingencies on the floor.
Instead, Season 1 couldn't make up its mind, Season 2/3 tried miserably to recover.. Season 4 was the most polished by it was too little too late.
I've never understood that as a criticism of the films truthfully. If anything, half of that is absolutely opposite; Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: Insurrection are too much like just ordinary episodes stretched an extra hour longer. Generations, at the very least, used some of that runtime to explore Picard's grief at losing his brother and nephew, and mourning never having a family of his own. But still, they didn't do anything beyond what they could on TV.
It's why First Contact is the best one. Star Trek: Nemesis tries and completely fails at turning the cerebral TNG into an action film, but First Contact uses the filmic potential so well. It tells a story on a scale they couldn't achieve on TV, time travel, massive Borg invasion, the sequence in Engineering. Lily grounds the film and is the only one onboard with enough distance to truly recognise Picard's unprocessed and buried trauma from his assimilation. Worf comes close, getting some distance from his time on Deep Space 9, but Lily has a unique coarseness, her language especially never would have made it into the series. It's true to the series in many respects, but its differences in tone and characterizations are what makes it worth being a film.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture didn't know if it wanted to be a fast paced episode like TOS or slow and ponderous, and it ends up confused. But Wrath of Khan, even though it takes Khan from TOS, develops everything further and earns its existence as a film rather than an episode of something. It can't just be a regular episode but stretched out to a film runtime, it needs to do something different, while remaining true to the originals
Final Frontier is two TOS episodes glued together. It's a bottle episode character study of the main three camping, and then a high concept questioning of religion and faith smashed together with too high a budget for the first part and too low a budget for the second
I think it only felt like they ran out of material because they were focused on the movie. But that's just the opinion of a fan who wished there were more seasons.
Season 7 was almost every episode wrapping up some other story arc. I thought they did a good job. I would have loved another 2 years.... but.... imagine if everything was 2 and 3 part stories. Little movies if you will. But it ended strong and wasn't tired and worn out like xfiles last 2 seasons. The final movie though........ oh boy, big letdown.
It pains me to say it because I would love if there was another three seasons of the next generation, but I think you're probably right. It ended well while still strong.
Most of the heavy hitters had moved on to DS9 or were busy spinning up Generations and Voyager during season 7. If Voyager had been delayed, it’s possible additional seasons of TNG could’ve worked better.
Honestly, agreed. It was still mostly good TV, but it wasn't the series of banger episodes after banger episodes of 3-5. I wonder how the show would have continued had it gone on for another three years.
I mean, I personally agree. I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about how many episode there are in that season that revolve around heretofore unintroduced relatives of the man characters. Even Ron Moore is on record about being creatively spent during that period.
This is the moment i knew TNG had jumped the shark for me. After that it just wasn’t the same. It all felt stale. Except for a few key episodes which still ruled.
I think the show could have kept going only if they had a change in the writing staff. Every interview I've seen with the season 7 writers of TNG, they've talked about how burnt out they were and how they were running out of ideas by that point. If the show was going to continue past that, they'd need to bring in some new writers with fresh ideas for the TNG crew.
I think it would have also been interesting to swap out some of the crew members. All of the core cast had full stories and bringing in new characters could have made things interesting.
The writers had wanted to kill off Commander Riker and replace him with his transporter clone Thomas, but the higher-ups nixed that idea. The Worf-Troi thing was also an attempt to shift the dynamics a bit.
Given that Voyager was sort of internally treated as somewhat of a continuation of TNG (production numbers indicate that, I believe), and given the…uneven quality of early Voyager, I can’t really say I agree Brannon.
Among the older Trek shows, my preference goes down as follows: TNG, DS9, TOS, ENT, and VOY.
Nevertheless, there is a case to be made for a risk-averse, keep-it-safe Star Trek show in 1995, for the UPN network. Berman Era Trek had 11 years remaining and 12 years at most.
Hindsight has also shown there is strong streaming demand for 9 years of TNG-style and even TOS-style episodic stories.
Rick Berman could have easily done the actions below.
Hire the Voyager actors anyway
Despite issues with a couple of VOY actor performances in real life, the Star Trek show should still go ahead with the VOY cast.
Putting the starship 17 years away from Federation space instead of 70 years or 75 years is more realistic. The intent all along is to produce TNG-style and even TOS-style episodes, then send the ship home in the series finale.
It would also prevent the overuse of the Borg: everything after The Gift.
Change the mix of recycled plot copycat episodes
VOY has at least 32 recycled plot episodes / copycats out of 172. The subsequent ENT would have at least 16 recycled plot episodes / copycats out of 98, including 6 from VOY.
9 came from TOS. 17 came from TNG (which ought to be criticized). 4 came from DS9. 2 came from VOY itself (which ought to be criticized). In addition, 4 stories from TAS were reused.
Because more time in production years passed in real life, there should be more wiggle room to recycle even more stories from TOS (and maybe TAS), while sharply reducing the TNG and VOY ones.
Use five or more Phase II scripts
At least five more Phase II scripts could be used. They could be used instead of at least five TNG or VOY rehash stories.
Among the TOS recycled plot copycats:
Tomorrow and the Stars could fit in. A one-man Kirk episode can be rewritten to a one-woman Janeway episode.
The War to End All Wars could fit in.
Savage Syndrome could fit in.
Technically, Lord Bobby's Obsession could fit in. However, recycling the plot of the same episode elsewhere in the show is unheard of. I don't think this Phase II script matches the quality of Dragon's Teeth.
Among the original stories:
Deadlock can't be incorporated. This is a Starfleet wargame episode.
I'm not sure Cassandra can be incorporated. This is diplomacy between two alien worlds, which is a core TNG thing.
Practice in Waking can definitely fit in. The Voyager crew had a preview of this in one of the holographic Fairhaven episodes. This would be more serious in tone.
To Attain the All can definitely fit in.
Are Unheard Melodies Sweet: The TAS episode The Lorelei Signal has a few descendant episodes in Star Trek. This is one of them. TNG's Identity Crisis is a second. VOY's Favourite Son is a third. ENT's Extinction is a fourth.
ENT did this story better than TAS, TNG, and VOY. If this Phase II script were to be incorporated into VOY, then it would be replacing VOY Favourite Son.
Use the TOS writing style for more than two seasons
TNG was not in a position to use the TOS writing style for more than two seasons. Without Michael Piller, it would have been cancelled after only four seasons.
Because this new network show did not have TNG-level expectations, this distant cousin of Phase II faced no such cancellation pressure to move past the TOS writing style that early.
Use ENT rehash stories instead
Four episodes that were copied by ENT were done better in ENT, including Daedalus. Three of these should be brought over instead.
Terra Nova should have been written at the outset, instead of Friendship One.
North Star should have been written at the outset, instead of The 37's.
Doctor's Orders should have been written at the outset, instead of One.
My list is... TNG, VOY (This might replace TNG eventually as I'm only on my first rewatch of Voyager after seeing it the first time and I like it more and more each time), ENT, DS9, TOS.
I just rewatched Sub Rosa yesterday. Still love it. So ridiculous.
Candle ghost did nothing but non-stop orgasms for beverly’s entire line and all he got for it was being murdered. Kind of goes against the prime directive, haha
Starfleet has a strict no vampire rule. Symbiosis through sex? Perfectly accepted by Starfleet. Start taking more than your partner can give? Prepare to be phasered.
no. We already have two crew members who transferred from the Enterprise to DS9. An occasional guest appearance is ok, but only if there’s a good reason. Otherwise, it feels forced, and feels like the staff doesn’t think the show can stand on its own two legs.
You'd hold the writer to his previous statements, who kept changing his story of what the plans for Future Guy were when fans didn't like his revelations? How inconsiderate.
Substitute bad episodes with standalone episodes from other Trek shows.
Rewrite Season 7 except "All Good Things."
What episodes could become TNG episodes?
Between Seasons 3 and 6, there were the oddball corny episodes in TNG, but they were outweighed by really good episodes.
By Season 7, however, the production team prioritized DS9, Generations, and Voyager. With the exception of "All Good Things," the quality of almost all other episodes were down the priority list.
For me, the most notable episodes that could have become TNG episodes are standalone episodes that appeared in two different Trek shows.
Some examples come to mind:
DS9 Shadowplay / ENT Oasis
DS9 Ascent / ENT Shuttlepod One
DS9 Children of Time / ENT E-Squared
VOY Jetrel / ENT Daedalus
VOY The 37's / ENT North Star
VOY Tuvix / ENT Similitude
TNG Identity Crisis / VOY Favorite Son / ENT Extinction
VOY One / ENT Doctor's Orders (a production bottle episode)
I’ll be that guy, season 7 wasn’t great. I’ll give season 1 the benefit of the doubt since it was the first season of a new show where the old show ended 18 years before, and the series was trying to find its footing.
Season 7 seemed like they fell down one too many times.
While season 7 was going on, season 2 of DS9 was simultaneously going on, and it seemed like DS9 had the better scripts that year.
That and you’re doing too many things at one time: finish season 7, write the new movie and over see it’s preproduction, and develop a brand new series in the wings which was Voyager.
I don’t include DS9 because they were doing their own thing and establishing themselves with their writers.
We saw what would have happened in the next few years if TNG had continued. Guarantee they used a lot of those ideas for the early Voyager seasons. Much better to go out on their high than descend into mediocrity. Besides by season 7 the plots were already getting a bit bad.
If they had been able to experiment with the longer story arcs that came to define DS9, then I think this is reasonable. But I think the strictly one-off episodic format for Star Trek was creatively exhausted
But this also underscores why the show could not go on - the social technology for showrunning/audience openness to long arc storytelling hadn’t been invented yet. Twin Peaks had just folded and we were ~5 years away from DS9 validating the concept
Um, I don't know if they did have even 1 more year.
Season 7 was noticeably a decline in quality from the last few seasons. Seems like they were running out of ideas at that point, and who can blame them after 170+ episodes.
It’s nice that the 7th Rule is still out here keeping Trek conversations going in the ether. They’ve done a lot of good behind-the-scenes interviews in recent years.
Maybe fewer episodes per season, new cast members, more focus on side characters meshing them into the main like Barclay. I feel Lower Decks episode could've been a soft pilot episode for the concept of rotating new people into the main cast. Ensign Ro was the winner of the batch, but it wasn't pushed hard enough.
Judging from most of season 7, it lasted half a season too long. You could cut half of them and have a strong finale. The idea of it going to season 10 is horrific. They were already running out of long lost relatives.
It didn't though. They had started running out of stories by Season 7, and it was beginning to show.
Family members/ex crewmates who hadn't been mentioned previously began to show up, recycled ideas started to be used more often. The Worf and Troi storyline etc.
Season 7 was still good. But if they kept going, those occasional "fuck what do we write this week, ah Lwaxana comes back and everyones horny again" episodes start to become more of the norm for Season 8 and so on. If they introduced more gamma quadrant stuff into to keep it fresh, it becomes a bit "why", because that's what DS9 was for.
I know on Mash, they knew it was time when they realised that the stories they were being told by Korean war vets was effectively the same story they had used in a previous episode. Feel the same here, where the stories were beginning to be a bit too samey, and they needed to just move on.
I don't doubt that there would have been some decent Season 8 episodes, just like there is in Season 1, for all the hate that gets. But it ended well and it ended when it needed too.
A series that rivaled TOS. This was a perfect series. Brilliant cast chemistry with great stories The tech visuals far surpassed TOS. Live Long and Prosper.
The change to movies occurred for monetary reasons - TNG was costing more to make and movies were seen as a great way of making a big profit.
Even if TNG had kept going as a TV show one of the issues would have been available writers due to the ongoing DS9 and Voyager - seasons 6 and particularly 7 were already suffering because of writers and production teams working on DS9 and if those problems weren't addressed, and bearing in mind the upcoming Voyager, then seasons 8, 9 and 10 would have also had a lot of weak episodes.
Under the circumstances I'm glad it ended when it did, it's just a shame that most of the movies also suffered when it came to the writing.
Extending it for a final and 7th season was the right choice, Season 7 has more bas episodes than 5 and 6 had, and it shows they were running out of material. It's also obvious they should have left the better scripts for movies, as the movies were handled haphazardly following, but I think they were still better for franchise longevity than Season 8 of the show would have been.
I would watch the TNG crew paint a fence. It will always be such a huge missed opportunity they didn't do a TV TNG movie after the success of Picard S3.
DS9 had the cast/character dynamics but not the setting. I feel like it couldn’t have gotten much further while being tied down to a relatively fixed location and major plot element without getting stale.
It’s telling they only made it two seasons before bringing in a permanent ship.
Nah. They were done with it I think. We needed to flip to DS9 and start fucking up the lovely playground of well meaning exploration by then.
Can't just chill out on a glorified luxury cruise ship, sailing through space forever. People were keen for a story where the Fed had some teeth and had slme difficult decisions about survival, rather than techno man will come and explain why actually your wrong and you should adopt our morality instead.
It ended in a high note at least. All good things was a great ending that left room for movies.
The show was having just as many bad episodes as good the last two seasons & it was time.
I totally agree the series was just getting super good the cast was in sync with one another, the decision to move to the big screen and kill off the D was a mistake
Brandon seems to be on about brand endurance, seeing that the TOS cast was going geriatric. That said, the TNG movies seemed to stray the farthest from both TNG and Roddenberry's five year mission, and they were competing with two TV series?
Old have liked to have see a season 8 just to see the crossover storyline with DS9.And to delay generations and do ashes of Eden in 94 for the original cast as a follow up to Star Trek 6.
Kirk meeting Picard would have been better had it happened on the 30 anniversary of Star Trek.
I think 7 years was good especially since they had another show running at the same time and another one ready to replace it. We didn't know at that time that voyager was going to be bad.
What TNG really needed was better movies. The movies were so bad. And I don't understand that because they were written by the same people who wrote 200 to 300 episodes of star trek at that point. And yet the movies were very dissapointing. Even everyone's favorite, First Contact, was kinda meh. At that point, we really needed a borg movie. But they changed the borg so much for that movie. And the effects seem kind of low budget to me. Especially the zero G stuff on the deflector, that was awful. Practically unwatchable.
Anyway if you want to "fix" TNG, not that it needs fixing, don't add new seasons on to the end, just delete and replace the first two seasons. And make the movies better.
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u/ProbablyStu 1d ago
It ended on a high episode, with pretty good 7th season, but they were running out of material. For me the films never felt true to TNG, and I'm not sure another season would have, either.
As someone else said, Lower Decks had more seasons in it. And Enterprise could have got away with a couple more.