Looking back, the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation seems almost inevitable. A cast of characters on a beautiful spaceship in a narrative universe as vast and expansive as Gene Roddenberry’s seems like a no-brainer. Star Trek: The Next Generation was, at least according to popular opinion, expected to fail. After the cancellation of Star Trek: The Original Seriesbrings The next generation on television was a risky and problematic undertaking.

Announced at a press conference on the 20th anniversary of the “Star Trek: The Original Series” At its debut, Paramount benefited from enormous fan interest. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was about to become the most successful film in the franchise, and Star Trek: The Original Series was still a huge success in syndication. However, at this point in television history, no sequel series or reboot ever matched the success of its predecessor. Nevertheless, the Star Trek The film series was doing well and Paramount knew that repeats of old episodes would eventually lose popularity. Star Trek: The Next GenerationParamount hoped to continue the science fiction party for many years to come. Now, almost 60 years later, Star Trek is stronger than ever, and all because the unlikely sequel series was a huge success.

How Star Trek: The Original Series Created the Next Generation

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In Star Trek: The Lost Vulcan: Phase II, Spock was almost replaced by this character

Before the Enterprise became a movie star, “Star Trek: Phase II” was supposed to revive the saga without Mr. Spock and replace him with a new Vulcan.

The original series was almost canceled after season 2, but fans Bjo and John Trimble helped organize a letter-writing campaign that saved the series. Nevertheless, Roddenberry left the show after a dispute with the network in Season 3, and NBC buried it on Friday nights (in a time before DVR). However, fan efforts to revive the show never stopped, and pickets were held outside NBC. Ultimately, all this campaigning led to Star Trek: The Animated Seriesbut the fans hated it. Nevertheless, the series was a proof of concept for Paramount that there was still a lot of interest in the adventures of the crew of the USS Enterprise.

In the mid-1970s, after failing to produce a new television series, Roddenberry returned to Paramount to Star Trek try again. Since the original cast was hesitant to return with him, especially Leonard Nimoy, the new television series was supposed to be a mix of old and new characters. after both star Wars And Close Encounters of the Third Kind became major box office successes, Paramount shifted its focusWhat originally began as “Star Trek: Phase II” became the film. Adapting this pilot was a complex and expensive process. Although the film was a box office success, the budget was too high for Paramount’s taste.

Roddenberry was reduced to the role of “senior advisor” and removed from the Star Trek Film business. However When Paramount began courting other television producers for a sequel series, Roddenberry decided to swallow his pride and return. “I was really afraid to do it until I got angry enough to try it,” Roddenberry said in The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman. So when it was time, TNGRoddenberry used Phase II Leftovers to get the ball rolling.

Paramount’s search for its own broadcasting station was linked to Star Trek

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Star Trek: Enterprise was not a failure, Paramount’s network was

Some fans believe that Enterprise was the death of Star Trek, but it was the failure of the United Paramount Network that sank the starship.

During the development of Star Trek: Phase IIParamount wanted to enter the television broadcasting business. Paramount first developed a television network in the late 1940s, owning a handful of stations and outsourcing programming to affiliates. They tried that plan again in the late 1970s, planning a series of movies of the week as original programming. The weekends, however, were to be hosted by the crew of the USS Enterprise in a brand new series, at least until Paramount picked up the idea for a movie.

The then CEO Barry Diller “wanted Star Trek and use this as the cornerstone of a new network,” said John Pike, former president of Paramount Network Television in Chaos on the bridge. Ultimately, this attempt failed and Diller left Paramount and went to Fox, which successfully launched the “fourth network”. As Star Trek: The Next Generation When it came to that, Pike brought the show to Diller’s Fox Network in the hopes that he would continue to have the series as an anchor of the original program. Pike said Fox initially agreed to a full 26-episode season but eventually cut the order in half.

“I can’t keep the (budget) to 13 (episodes),” said Pike, “I need 13.” This may have been due to the lucrative deal that Roddenberry had negotiated for his return. While Paramount still owned the Star TrekRoddenberry would get a big piece of the pie. In the documentary, Pike described the negotiations with Roddenberry’s lawyer Leonard Maizlish as “very, very contentious.” “I needed Gene Roddenberry and I needed to make a deal,” Pike said, “and Leonard … knew exactly what he had me with.” Since there is no channel broadcasting the series, Star Trek: The Next Generation was almost dead in dry dock until they got creative.

Syndication saved Star Trek twice by giving the next generation a home

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Star Trek: The Next Generation made a mistake with the ship’s doctor

The first two seasons of Star Trek: TNG featured just as many ship’s doctors, but after the return of Beverly Crusher, Katherine Pulaski should have stayed.

Star TrekThe original network, NBC, rejected the new show, as did ABC. CBS was interested, but only as a miniseriesBut a full 20 years after his debut Star Trek: The Next Generation was still the highest-rated scripted program in syndication. Paramount decided The next generation as the first broadcast of a syndication series, which has never been done before for a drama. “For a long time Star Trek was among the top three (ratings for first broadcasts). Only Wheel of Fortune And Danger were consistently better than them,” said Tom Mazza, then vice president at Paramount Television, in The Fifty-Year Mission.

Since the show was to be broadcast as a syndicated program, this helped alleviate Pike’s budget problems. Actors and writers were forced to accept less than the union rates due to provisions in the syndication union contracts. Still, the budget was substantial for the time, at an estimated average budget of $1.3 million per episode. Paramount was able to sell these episodes to television stations hungry for original programming for $980,000 in advertising costs, meaning the series would likely break even or make a profit after just one or two reruns. This was a better return on investment than Star Trek: The Next Generation There was Lucille Ball and Desilu. But this revolutionary step had another advantage.

In order to guarantee the broadcasters enough episodes for broadcast and repeat, the broadcasters agreed to pay for two complete seasons of episodes.. Since Star Trek: The Next Generation Although the series struggled in its early seasons, it was able to survive the critical onslaught from the trade press and fans. However, the series was never really in danger of being cancelled. The ratings for those early seasons were high and only continued to rise as the series gained a foothold in space.

Roddenberry brought Star Trek: TOS legends on board to create TNG

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The next generation USS Enterprise-D was Star Trek’s best hero ship upgrade

The Starship Enterprise has gone through many changes over the franchise’s 60 years, but The Next Generation’s hero ship was its best improvement.

Create Star Trek: The Next GenerationGene Roddenberry relied on talent he knew, such as producer Robert Justman, David Gerrold and “Mother of Star Trek” Dorothy Fontana. New writers like Tracy Tormé also joined the team. Unfortunately, they clashed with Maizlish, who rewrote their scripts in violation of union rules. When they left the show, The next generation was the scene of a constant change of writers in the first two seasons. Only when the later executive producer Michael Piller joined, The next generation finally found his rhythm and built a solid, consistent crew of storytellers.

The crew of The next generation had better luck in the art department, starting with Andrew Probert’s incredible design for the USS Enterprise-D. Other legends such as Doug Drexler, Rick Sternbach, John Eaves and Michael and Denise Okuda also helped shape the look of the series. For makeup, Oscar winner Michael Westmore joined the crew, designing inexpensive and contemporary prosthetics for alien characters such as Klingons and the newly created Ferengi. The other person most credited for the The next generation The reason for the success is executive producer Rick Berman, who gave up his job at the studio to work on the show.

The next generation “already had three disadvantages. First, it was a sequel that had never worked on television. Second, it was going to be a syndicated drama series. The third disadvantage was that it was science fiction,” which was not popular on television in the 1980s, Berman said in The Fifty-Year Mission. Berman’s relationship with the studio and the creative side helped The next generation a project that spawned three spin-offs and had an unprecedented 18-year run on television with over 600 episodes.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on DVD, Blu-ray and digital and can be streamed on Paramount+ and PlutoTV.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Nearly 100 years after Captain Kirk’s five-year mission, a new generation of Starfleet officers embarks on their own mission aboard the USS Enterprise-D to go where no one has gone before.

Release date

26 September 1987

Pour

Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Majel Barrett

Main genre

Science fiction

Seasons

7

Creator

Gene Roddenberry

Production company

Paramount Television

Number of episodes

176

Streaming service(s)

Outstanding+

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