ARTICLE: 'And the Sky's the Limit': The Writers of the 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' Series Finale Look Back, 20 Years Later

Too long to quote.

A great walk down memory lane, and a few tidbits on ideas that were thrown around at the time.

 

I didn't see it when it originally aired. Hell, I didn't see the show when it was originally on at all. I first saw the final episodes a few years ago when my best friend let me borrow them on DVD.

 

Yeah don't care.

 

im almost done watching tng.

 

Wish this was a thread actually discussing TNG.

But it was a wonderful show, the first Star Trek show I watched. I rank Picard as my all-time favourite Enterprise captain, and I consider the android Data in some respects superior to the logical Mr Spock (Data was learning about emotion, while Spock had already known about emotion but tried to control it).

The other aliens too were interesting in the show: the gruff and tough Worf, the empathic but not perfect Troi, Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg - nuff said), and of course the omnipotent mischief-making Q, who loved to toy with Picard on many memorable occasions.

A truly wonderful show.

 

I think you mean Picard.

 

I was so bummed when tng ended, it was totally my favorite show of the early 90s. It was a great finale, and hands down the best series finale in all of trek

 

Damn it really has been that long...

 

Great season finale, and they really should have just ended TNG with that instead of trying to make them action stars.

 

It wasn't so much that that bothered me about the TNG movies, as it was the fact that that's where the whole "Let's Rehash 'The Wrath Of Khan'!" mindset toward making Star Trek movies began.

 

I remember watching that when it first aired. Man, it's hard to believe it's been 20 years. What a great episode too.

 

I think the problem the Next Generation movies had was that they tried too hard simply trying to capture the magic the original Star Trek crew had in movies.

The Original Series crew had the advantage of their show having been off the air from over a decade before they got put into movies due to fan demand to bring Star Trek back.

The Next Generation crew were just coming off their series finale when they suddenly had to be in Star Trek Generations, a movie that was pushed as a 'passing of the torch' from the original series crew to them, that was basically nothing more than Kirk and Picard teaming up in the last half hour to stop a villain and the tragic and pointless death of not only Kirk...but the Enterprise-D in a half-assed way just so they could make a new ship for the next movie.

First Contact was the first Next Generation solo movie and while it was good initially. Looking back...that should have been the 'Wrath of Khan' for them. The Borg were terrifying, but unexplained why Picard suddenly was obsessed with destroying them given they HAD a follow-up to his time being assimilated in the TV show, not to mention showing the Borg were being changed by Hugh and stuff.
The Enterprise-E was a cool looking ship, but this was pretty much the only movie it got to shine...for five minutes in the Borg cube fight at the beginning of the movie. Then it became an attempt to make the Borg into being like the movie Aliens on the ship while also exploring history of Earth's first warp capable ship, Zefram Cochrane, etc, etc...

Insurrection...was the attempt to make a 'Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" as the cast felt First Contact was too dark and wanted to lighten things up. Too bad it made for a rather 'meh' movie. The villains were stupid and the Enterprise-E was made weak thanks to a stupid plot element of this planet that was a 'Fountain of Youth' being in a part of space that made shields unusable.

And finally, Nemesis.... An attempt once again to do as you say, 'Wrath of Khan'. A villainous clone of Picard created by the Romulans that gains a superweapon to try and wipe out Earth while also kidnapping Picard to use his blood to save himself from dying.
So...yeah, the Romulans are the villains? Nope, the REMANS are. No Commander Selar or Tomalok, actual Romulan villains the Enterprise crew has dealt with before.
Also tons of unexplained plotholes that were cut from the actual movie like why Worf is back in Starfleet given he became an Ambassador at the end of DS9. Or Wesley seemingly back in Starfleet given he's in uniform at Riker and Troi's wedding.
And once again, the Enterprise-E fails so bad, Picard has Troi crash the ship into the bad guys' ship out of desperation.

 

I absolutely hate Nemesis with a passion. And I rarely use the word "hate" for anything, but I truly despise it for exactly all those reasons and more.

Generations comes in a close 2nd because everything about it was pointless, and never, never, NEVER kill off a character who's an entertainment icon.

 

 

Truly the end of a era. I remember being a bit sad that it ended.

 

Damn the series is that old? I honestly didn't realise that...last episode shares the same date as my birthday though! (Not the year)

 

The really annoying thing about Generations IMO is that it probably would have been an awesome film if Kirk wasn't in it. It looks gorgeous, its generally well paced, it has Malcolm McDowell and there could have been great dramatic material if the focus was Picard vs Soran rather then Kirk vs Age.

Nemesis is awful on every level though, its not even funny in hindsight like ST5 sort of is.

 

Nemesis was such a mess. Even if it hadn't already been billed as ' a Generation's Final Journey', it would have been regardless. You know it was bad when even the ACTORS say it was bad.

Generations had two things going against it. The death of Kirk, and the pointless destruction of the Enterprise-D. Also, so much false advertising. Even the toys lied to us given the Next Gen crew figures were wearing outfits they had planned to use for the movies, then decided at the last minute to switch back to the Next Gen uniforms and throw in some DS9 ones.

 

as bad as nemesis is, I enjoy the battle at the end

 

I survived the entirety of Dr. Who and I thought that would be an impossible achievement to do, so I think logically Star Trek would be as easy if as long it'll take for me to go through.

Soon... Star Trek, The Next Generation and the movies will be on my To-Do list in the near future. I think I'll be able to do it like every other Star Trek fan out there, but the bad thing I think coming out of this is unlike Dr. Who which is still running and going, once I finish Start Trek it'll be over. But never the less, it'll be my other goal in life and I'll tackle it with all my enthusiasm when the time comes!