Happy Birthday TNG!

Boldly going for 36 years...

“Ah yes, it's a lot like "Star Trek: The Next Generation". In many ways it's superior but will never be as recognized as the original.”

Mike Myers’ Wayne Campbell uttered the above in the 1992 hit comedy “Wayne’s World” which, like “Star Trek,” was also a Paramount property. At the time Wayne and Garth hit the big screen, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” was in the middle of its fifth season, having already aired episodes such as the epic two-parters “The Best of Both Worlds” and “Unification,” the latter of which was part of the celebration of the franchise’s thirty-sixth anniversary and featured perhaps the property’s most iconic character as a guest star: Mr Spock, played of course by Leonard Nimoy. Two years later, Captain Picard and crew would find themselves in cinemas with “Star Trek Generations,” which put Mr. Campbell’s suggestion firmly to bed.

I’m mentioning this because, as of today, “The Next Generation” is thirty-five years old, with the pilot episode - “Encounter at Farpoint” - airing on September 28th, 1987. As always, the passage of time like this seems to inspire a kind of nostalgic intervention in me. I’ve read articles about the fan reactions when the show went into production, and the “controversy,” but I was thrilled. Star Trek as a franchise had basically replaced “Star Wars,” not in my heart perhaps, but in a case of object permanance, as it wasn’t long after “Return of the Jedi” that I started seeing repeats of “TOS” as it’s now known, and the movies, and it became my obsession. However, seeing TNG was easier said than done, thanks to the idiosyncracies of British television.

I saw “Encounter at Farpoint” a year after its US airdate, but it wasn’t on TV but VHS. CIC Video, which was an umbrella label that released titles from Paramount and Universal, released the pilot on tape, and I was awed at seeing this new vision of the future. But of course, what I really became obsessed with was the new Galaxy-class Enterprise-D, beautifully designed by Andrew Probert, who also did a lot of work on the gorgeous Enterprise refit as seen in “Star Trek - The Motion Picture” and subsequent sequels. It still remains an amazing design.

Of course, my mind went straight to the idea of toys, and as it happened, toy manufacturer Galoob (who had created the MicroMachines line) brought out a small set of figures and vehicles based on the show, with a die-cast Enterprise complete with detachable saucer section. It took a while to find - I remember my grandma, god rest her soul, calling up catalogue companies to see if they had it. When I did get it, I loved it, at least until I left the saucer section at a friend’s house and never saw it again.

This is what I mean about a nostalgic intervention, because my brain goes on all sorts of tangents that usually ends up talking about nerd merch. But the funny thing is that while I had a toy of the ship, I still hadn’t seen any more of the show. The video store didn’t get any further tapes, and it wasn’t until 1990 that TNG began to air on UK television, on BBC2 to be exact. I remember the first time I saw an ad on TV saying it was coming soon - I got so excited that I spilled my dad’s coffee, and, well, he wasn’t happy and his subsequent telling off kind of killed my enthusiasm in one fell swoop. That still happens.

Not long after, satellite channel Sky One got the rights to air new episodes, and from 1992 they began airing episodes, but everything was still a couple of years behind the US. This means that the finale episode didn’t air until 1996, the same year “Star Trek: First Contact” came out, the one where there’s a brand-new ship cause the old one got destroyed. Crazy. We couldn’t afford Sky so I had to try and go to other people’s houses to watch, occasionally asking them to tape a couple for me.

Despite all these shenanigans in trying to actually watch the show, I fell in love with it, and subsequently “Deep Space Nine.” Although I watched it religiously for the first few seasons, “Voyager” never connected with me, and I checked out of “Enterprise” very quickly. But TNG had a great set of new characters and it was truly about exploring physically and spiritually and not just pew-pew as a lot of today’s Trek seems to be. My favourite episodes tended to be those that challenged ideas; “The Measure of a Man,” “Unification,” “The First Duty,” “Darmok,” and “Family,” the episode that followed “The Best of Both Worlds” and was a response to the treatment Picard received at the hands of the Borg.

Then there was “All Good Things…,” which was a stunning finale and easily one of the best examples of Trek pushing the boundaries of science fiction storytelling in the format.

I was also thrilled by the reappearance of Jerry Goldsmith’s “Theme from Star Trek - The Motion Picture,” which was combined with Alexander Courage’s TOS fanfare for the main title. Dennis McCarthy wrote and recorded an alternate main title, but they went for Goldsmith’s, which only embedded further that theme as the musical representation of my Star Trek. Here’s a fan video of McCarthy’s theme with the show’s main title sequence.

I still watch TNG now, and every damn time I watch it, I want to write science fiction, but I always have trouble getting my ideas to stick, especially when I want them to be more than just blowing things up. I guess I have to watch more of the show. What a terrible thing.

I’ll leave you with another great musical Star Trek moment, coming from “Louise” aka comedian and musician Adam Buxton, a little ditty about how sad she was when the show ended. Bastards.

Happy 36th, TNG!

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I’d also like to make you aware of the newsletter of a very good friend of mine. Neil Shurley has written for several Trek-related outlets as well as writing music and theatre reviews, and he also acts in shows as well! His Star Trekking newsletter is constantly fascinating and entertaining, and he talked about me in the last edition, specifically about how grumpy he was when I sent him a link to the first of eight episodes the ‘80s “Care Bears” cartoon did parodying Star Trek. Sign up, he’s great.

A quick social media update: with Twitter imploding daily, I am now on Bluesky - you can follow me there. Please do.