![]() Some initially fell flat, like the Ferengi or the horrifying parasites in the episode “Conspiracy,” while others wildly succeeded, like Q, the Cardassians, and the now-iconic Borg. This also emboldened TNG to try to find new antagonists. As a result, the complexity of the Klingons deepened, with episodes exploring the culture of the warrior race. Instead of reusing the Klingons as Starfleet’s primary antagonists (as they had been), they were now allies. TNG also wasn’t afraid to play with its sandbox in new ways. Spock’s father, Sarek (Mark Lenard) in Star Trek: The Next Generation. This restraint is refreshing in an era where every TV show and movie in a franchise practically requires a post-watch Easter egg hunt. The cameos and Easter eggs are sparse, with Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan making brief but memorable appearances in later seasons. And even then, we only got one line vaguely mentioning the franchise’s most iconic character. It wouldn’t be until an episode near the end of the third season that TNG featured Sarek, Spock’s father. Indeed, outside a brief cameo from DeForrest Kelly in the pilot and one singular reference in the show’s second episode to an original series episode for continuity purposes, TNG actively limited references to its older sibling. Outside of the universe setting of Starfleet, Klingons, Romulans, and Vulcans, the series doesn’t draw upon Trek lore before it. But TNG also shows restraint in drawing too much upon Star Trek of the past. It’s got a multicultural crew of pajama-wearing explorers on a light-speed starship named Enterprise stopping at new planets every week. The Next Generation took on much of what made the original Star Trek work. Star Trek: The Next Generation works because it asks two questions about the franchise: What does it always say? And what should it say about today? Phase II proved you couldn’t do the same old motions. While the film has its charm, The Motion Picture was criticized (even by Trekkies) for being slow, boring, and more concerned with big sci-fi ideas than the characters. We see echoes of this in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, whose screenplay was adapted from the pilot script of Phase II after Paramount wanted its own Star Wars. Yet, with its ‘60s campy vibe, Phase II already felt dated by 1970s standards. ![]() When Leonard Nimoy refused to reprise Spock, he was recast with a full-blooded Vulcan Xon. Yet in 1978, Paramount tried just that with Star Trek: Phase II, an unproduced series that would have picked up exactly where the canceled original series left off, with William Shatner’s Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew boldly seeking out a new life. It worked before, so why wouldn’t it work again? It’s easy to look back at our era where anything within a major sci-fi franchise is almost guaranteed to make some money and forget that a show is far from a sure bet simply because it had the Star Trek name. At first glance, one might be forgiven for thinking TNG’s success was due to it doing the same Star Trek dance.
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