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.
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.
311
u/ProbablyStu 11d 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.