It’s so bizarre to read this in the present, knowing how incredible TNG was, but I get it - the original crew WAS Star Trek to them.

The dedicated fans revived this series in syndication, well after it had gone off the air in 1969, and felt attached to the characters that they had obsessed over between then and the 1980s. Like modern fans, they thought that departure from what they knew would ruin it.

I wish I could go back in time and tell them that TNG is going to rock.

  • BlinkAndItsGone@lemmy.worldEnglish
    151·
    1 year ago

    Were you really a Trekkie if you thought TNG was going to be good in 1987?

    Kidding, sort of. I remember thinking it was going to be a cash grab, and I still think I was right to think so at the time. Keep in mind, you couldn’t go on the Web and instantly know everything about an upcoming TV show. I think I learned it was in production from the back of a cereal box. I didn’t even know Gene Roddenberry was involved. The Enterprise-D design was pretty weird, and the cast of characters was more than a bit out there–a Klingon? On the Enterprise crew? Come on.

    • LedgeDrop@lemm.eeEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      As a kid, I saw a contest on a box of cheerios(?) where you could be an child extra in one of the first TNG episodes. So for most of the first season, I sincerely thought Wil Wheaton/Wesley was the winner.

      Anyway, the first few episodes during season 1 were not great, but I was content to finally get some new material. I’m glad TNG had enough time to “find its own groove”.

    • MajorHavoc@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      It’s fair to have expected TNG to be a cash grab. I’m sure TNG was a cash grab among all the other things it was. We all want to get paid, after all. I’m just glad it turned out to be so much more as well.

      I’m reminded of the letters page of Aquaman in the issue after he lost his hand.

      “To those of you saying we did it for the shock value, we have this to say for ourselves: we sure didn’t do it for the boredom value.”

    • Twopaw@meow.social
      21·
      1 year ago

      @The_Picard_Maneuver I knew that depending on the rented reel-print, some pressed cannisters of The Voyage Home included an early-remit trailer for The Next Generation by timing; I have no recollection of whether I saw that preview or not on my birthday at the Palace Theatre on Pape Avenue, north of Danforth Avenue, 36 years ago. I know I eventually saw a transcoded copy on Youtube, sometime probably in the last 15 years.

      To be fair, I really liked and like TNG, despite its limits; although in retrospect I think it missed the point: Humanity by then is not perfect, but never wished to be.