Star Trek - The Next Generation

Introduction

The success of the original Star Trek over the years had prompted Paramount to try to revive the series for Television; a Star Trek II television series was proposed, with the original crew, but this was scrapped when it was decided to make feature films. Paramount therefore approached Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry, and asked him to create a new series for them. They also decided to try a whole new technique of production and distribution in which they produced the series independently without the aid of or finance from a Network, and sold it directly into syndication. They decided to offer it directly to the stations that had taken the original Star Trek over the years.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, often abbreviated to ST:TNG, started in 1987 and finished after a phenomenally successful seven year run in the summer of 1994. In that time, ST:TNG has progressively climbed in the viewing ratings to become one of the most popular series on US television.

At the beginning of season 5 of ST:TNG, Paramount started filming the third Star Trek series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in parallel with ST:TNG. The two series are set at the same time. On occasion, cast from one series have guest-starred in episodes on the other.

Immediately after finishing the final ST:TNG story, All Good Things the cast of TNG started filming the first Next Generation Star Trek movie - called Star Trek: Generations, and including the cast of both the Next Generation and the original series. This film opened at cinemas in the USA in November 1994, and February 1995 in the UK.

In April 1996, filming commenced on the second ST:TNG movie, called Star Trek: First Contact. released in November 1996.

In the UK, despite it's non-prime time slot it often came in the top 10 ratings for BBC2, and was sometimes the highest rating show on the channel. Both BBC2 and the satellite TV channel, Sky One, still regularly show ST:TNG episodes from various seasons.

Miscellaneous Information

Riker has been offered the command of his own ship on the following occasions:

1. In The Arsenal of Freedom, he is offered command of the USS Drake.
2. In The Icarus Factor he's offered the USS Aries.
3. In the Best of Both Worlds he is offered the USS Melbourne, later found destroyed at Wolf 359.

The saucer section of the Enterprise seperates from the drive section in:

1. Encounter At Farpoint.
2. The Arsenal of Freedom.
3. Best of Both Worlds - Part II.

Captain Picard surrenders:

1. To `Q' in Encounter at Farpoint.
2. He tries to surrender to the Ferengi but they surrender first in The Last Outpost.
3. In The Outragous Okona, Picard orders the shields dropped `In case we decide to surrender to them.'
4. In A Matter of Honor, Picard surrenders to Riker who is in command of the Klingon vessel Pagh.
5. In Peak Performance, Riker asks Picard `Would you care to surrender now?' even before the war games start.
6. In The Defector, the Romulans ask Picard to surrender but he refuses.



Trivia

Geordi LaForge is named after a real Star Trek fan named George LaForge who died from muscular dystrophy in 1975.

Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) did the special effect shots only for Encounter At Farpoint but they still get credit in every episode because of the extra stock footage for Enterprise fly-bys and such.

If you look closely at the Enterprise during the fly-by in the opening credits, you can see someone walking past the windows.

William Riker and Deanna Troi are based upon Commander Decker and Lieutenant Ilia from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Star Trek: The Next Generation has earned over US$500,000,000 for Paramount in syndication and merchandising revenue.

The Child and Devil's Due were originally scripts for the proposed Star Trek II television series. When this idea was scrapped, the sets were used for the shooting of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

There are numerous in-jokes in The Next Generation:

1. In The Neutral Zone, the family tree called up by Deanna Troi for Clare Raymond includes the names of all the actors who have played the part of the Doctor in Dr Who.
2. In Loud As A Whisper, the conference table is marked with the names of Kei and Yuri from the Japanese animation series, The Dirty Pair.
3. In The Icarus Factor the mat has the chinese character of `sei' or star on it.
4. In Up The Long Ladder a ship called Buckaroo Banzai is listed.
5. In Qpid Picard says `There is something you should know ... I'm not from Nottingham.' - this is a reference to the film The Princes' Bride.
6. In Sub Rosa one of the gravestones says "McFly", a reference to Back to the Future.

Professor Stephen Hawking is the only person ever to have appeared `as himself' in Star Trek: The Next Generation, in a cameo role at the start of Descent. He has already had a shuttle named after him which appeared in The Host.