History Files History Files
 

Please help the History Files

Contributed: £84

Target: £400

2023
Totals slider
2023

The History Files still needs your help. As a non-profit site, it is only able to support such a vast and ever-growing collection of information with your help, and this year your help is needed more than ever. Please make a donation so that we can continue to provide highly detailed historical research on a fully secure site. Your help really is appreciated.

STAR TREK:
THE NEXT GENERATION

 

Star Trek: TNG was set 75 years after the conclusion of Captain Kirk's epic five-year mission. The Federation and the Klingon Empire were now in a shaky alliance. There were new enemies in the money-grabbing Ferengi, the collective super-beings called the Q, and new threats from beyond the limits of the explored galaxy: the Borg had arrived, and they drained whole civilisations of life and technology. They were also virtually invulnerable.

The crew were a fair representation of Starfleet's finest: a mixture of people who were by turns accomplished, experienced , heroic, brave, bold, and quite often just plain irritating. To soften that, a semi-regular character was Guinan, played by self-confessed fan Whoopi Goldberg. She starred as the alien host of Ten-Forward, the popular lounge-cum-bar located at the front of deck 10, and acted as casual mentor and agony aunt for the crews' woes, popping up regularly from Season Two onwards.

Creator Gene Roddenberry died in late 1991, and the film Star Trek VI was dedicated to his memory (from that point, a whole host of producers and co-producers became evident). There was a 90-minute special made to celebrate twenty-five years of the programme (this was shown on Sky Movies; BBC2 trimmed it down to 50 minutes for its own screening a couple of months later). Star Trek continued to go from strength to strength, and, with the original cast having hung their hats for the very last time, the TNG crew moved onto a new set of films, leaving the Deep Space Nine crew to take on the task of being the primary television series, with Star Trek: Voyager joining it there.

The BBC were much hampered by Sky One's snatching of the series from its very hands. Sky's rights to broadcast each new episode exclusively in the UK forced BBC2 to show it in stops and starts, and they didn't help themselves by scheduling it at 6.00pm. BSkyB and its half a million interested viewers enjoyed the full run of ST:TNG three times over in the time BBC2 screened it once, much to the detriment of BBC2's audience of six million or so. The dates used here are first BBC2 broadcast dates, while Season Seven is taken from Sky One. Episode running times for Season One were longer than normal, coming in at around 47-minutes each, this before changes were made to advertising slots in America.

 


REGULAR CAST

Captain Jean-Luc Picard Patrick Stewart
Commander William Riker Jonathan Frakes
Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge LeVar Burton
Lieutenant Commander Data Brent Spiner
Doctor Beverly Crusher Gates McFadden (Not Season 2)
Lieutenant Worf Michael Dorn
Counselor Deanna Troi Marina Sirtis
Wesley Crusher Wil Wheaton (Up To Season 5)
Doctor Kate Pulaski
Diana Muldaur (Season 2 Only)
Computer Voice Majel Barrett
Security Chief Lt Tasha Yar Denise Crosby (Season 1 Only)

 


Created by: Gene Roddenberry
Exec Producers: Rick Berman and Gene
  Roddenberry
(to 1991), with Michael
  Pillar
(Seasons 4-7), and Jeri Taylor
  (Season 7)
Co-Exec Producers: Maurice Hurley
  and Rick Berman (Season 2), Jeri Taylor
  (Season 6)
Producers: Maurice Hurley (Season 1),
  David Livingston (Season 2-5), Lee
  Sheldon
(Season 2-4), Burton Armus,
  Mike Gray, John Armus
(Season 2),
  Peter Lauritson (Season 6), Ronald D
  Moore
(Season 7)
Associate Producers: Peter Lauritson
  (Seasons 1-2), D C Fontana (Season 1),
  and Wendy Neuss (Seasons 4-5)
Co-Producers: Robert Lewin (Season 1),
  Herbert Wright (Season 1), Peter
  Lauritson
(Season 2-7), Joe Menosky
  (Season 5), Ronald D Moore (Seasons 5-7),
Wendy Neuss (Seasons 6-7), Brannon
  Braga
(Season 7)
Line Producers: David Livingston (Seasons 1-5),
  Merri D Howard (Seasons 6-7)
Supervising Producers: Rick Berman (Season 1),
  Robert H Justman (Season 1), David
  Livingston, Frank Abatemarco
(Seasons 3-6),
  Jeri Taylor (Seasons 4-5), David Livingston
 
(Season 7)
Consulting Producer: Peter Lauritson (Season 7)
Creative Consultant: Greg Strangis
 
(Season 1 Only)
Executive Story Editor: Tracy Tormé 
 
(Season 1 Only)
Title Theme: Jerry Goldsmith and
  Alexander Courage
Incidental Music Variously By: Ron Jones,
  Dennis McCarthy, Jay Chattaway,

  and John Debney  

All details are trademarked and copyrighted by their respective producers. All character and location names are also copyright. No infringement of any copyright is intended.
Home.