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Star Trek: The Next Generation [Original TV Soundtrack]

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Star Trek: The Next Generation

Set almost 100 years after Captain Kirk's 5-year mission, a new generation of Starfleet officers sets off in the U.S.S. Enterprise-D on its own mission to go where no one has gone before. Set almost 100 years after Captain Kirk's 5-year mission, a new generation of Starfleet officers sets off in the U.S.S. Enterprise-D on its own mission to go where no one has gone before. Set almost 100 years after Captain Kirk's 5-year mission, a new generation of Starfleet officers sets off in the U.S.S. Enterprise-D on its own mission to go where no one has gone before.

• Gene Roddenberry
• Patrick Stewart
• Brent Spiner
• Jonathan Frakes
• 321 User reviews
• 162 Critic reviews
• 39 wins & 61 nominations total

Episodes 176

Photos 3429

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard …

• Lieutenant Commander Data …

• Commander William Thomas 'Will' Riker …

• Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge …

• Counselor Deanna Troi

• Lieutenant Worf …

• Doctor Beverly Crusher …

• Enterprise Computer …

• Wesley Crusher …

• Chief Miles O'Brien …
• Youngblood …

• Lieutenant Natasha 'Tasha' Yar …

• Doctor Katherine Pulaski …

• Nurse Alyssa Ogawa …

• Ansata Terrorist …

• Ensign Ro Laren …

• Keiko O'Brien …
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• Trivia When the cast decided to lobby for a salary increase, Wil Wheaton 's first offer from the producers was to instead have his character promoted to Lieutenant. His response was, "So what should I tell my landlord when I can't pay my rent? 'Don't worry, I just made Lieutenant'?!"
• Goofs It is claimed that Data can't use contractions (Can't, Isn't, Don't, etc) yet there are several instances throughout the series where he does. One of the first such examples is heard in Encounter at Farpoint (1987) , where Data uses the word "Can't" while the Enterprise is being chased by Q's "ship".

[repeated line]

Capt. Picard : Engage!

• Crazy credits The model of the Enterprise used in the opening credits is so detailed, a tiny figure can be seen walking past a window just before the vessel jumps to warp speed.
• Alternate versions The first and last episodes were originally broadcast as two-hour TV movies, and were later re-edited into two one-hour episodes each. Both edits involved removing some scenes from each episode.
• Connections Edited into Reading Rainbow: The Bionic Bunny Show (1988)

User reviews 321

• Jan 2, 2004

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• September 26, 1987 (United States)
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Star Trek: The Next Generation

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Star Trek: The Next Generation , often abbreviated to TNG , is the second live-action Star Trek television series, and the first set in the 24th century . Like its predecessors, it was created by Gene Roddenberry . Produced at Paramount Pictures , it aired in first-run syndication , by Paramount Television in the US, from September 1987 to May 1994 . The series was set in the 24th century and featured the voyages of the starship USS Enterprise -D under Captain Jean-Luc Picard .

The series led to four spin-offs set in the same time period: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , which it ran alongside during its final two seasons, Star Trek: Voyager , Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Picard . It is also the beginning of a contiguous period of time during which there was always at least one Star Trek series in production, ending with Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005 .

• Main Title Theme  file info (arranged by Dennis McCarthy , composed by Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage )
• 2.1 Starring
• 2.2 Also starring
• 3.1 Season 1
• 3.2 Season 2
• 3.3 Season 3
• 3.4 Season 4
• 3.5 Season 5
• 3.6 Season 6
• 3.7 Season 7
• 4.1 Remastering
• 5.1 Performers
• 5.2 Stunt performers
• 5.3 Production staff
• 5.4 Companies
• 6 Related topics
• 8 External links

Summary [ ]

Star Trek: The Next Generation moved the universe forward roughly a century past the days of James T. Kirk and Spock . The series depicted a new age in which the Klingons were allies of the Federation , though the Romulans remained adversaries. New threats included the Ferengi (although they were later used more for comic relief), the Cardassians , and the Borg . While Star Trek: The Original Series was clearly made in the 1960s, the first two seasons of The Next Generation show all the markings of a 1980s product, complete with Spandex uniforms .

As with the original Star Trek , TNG was still very much about exploration, "boldly going where no one has gone before". Similarly, the plots captured the adventures of the crew of a starship, namely the USS Enterprise -D . Despite the apparent similarities with the original series, the creators of TNG were adamant about creating a bold, independent vision of the future. The public did not widely accept the show on its own terms until the airing of " The Best of Both Worlds ", which marked a shift towards higher drama, serious plot lines, and a less episodic nature. This helped pave the way for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and its two-year-long Dominion War arc and preceding build-up, as well as the third and fourth seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise . Star Trek: Voyager capitalized on the heightened crew relationships and familial bonds first seen on The Next Generation. DS9, on the other hand, balanced political intrigue, character development, and series-long plot threads with a rerun-friendly format.

As with the original Star Trek , TNG's special effects utilized miniatures, but due to great advancements in computerized effects and opticals, the show leaped ahead of its predecessor in terms of quality effects. This series marked the greatest surge in Star Trek 's mainstream popularity, and paved the way for the later televised Trek shows.

Four of the Star Trek motion pictures continued the adventures of the TNG cast after the end of the series in 1994. Star Trek Generations served to "pass the torch" from The Original Series cast, who had been the subject of the first six motion pictures, by including crossover appearances from William Shatner , James Doohan , and Walter Koenig ; it also featured the destruction of the USS Enterprise -D. Star Trek: First Contact , released two years later , was the first of the motion pictures to solely feature the TNG cast, transferred aboard the new USS Enterprise -E and engaging with one of their deadliest enemies from the television series, the Borg. Star Trek: Insurrection followed in 1998 , continuing certain character arcs from the series. In 2002 , Star Trek Nemesis brought some of these character arcs and plot threads to a seemingly definite conclusion, although some cast members expressed hope that future movies would yet pick up the story. Regardless, a new generation of actors appeared in 2009 's Star Trek , which created an alternate reality and returned the films' focus to Kirk and Spock .

On television, characters from TNG appeared in subsequent series. Recurring TNG character Miles O'Brien became a series regular on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , as did Worf in DS9's fourth season . Jean-Luc Picard appeared in Deep Space Nine 's pilot episode , and supporting characters from TNG appeared occasionally on DS9 (specifically, Keiko O'Brien , Lursa , B'Etor , Molly O'Brien , Vash , Q , Lwaxana Troi , Alynna Nechayev , Gowron , Thomas Riker , Toral , and Alexander Rozhenko ). Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi appeared several times each on Star Trek: Voyager , and Troi and William T. Riker appeared in the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise , which was primarily a holographic simulation set during the TNG episode " The Pegasus ". However, Star Trek Nemesis was the final chronological appearance of the Next Generation characters for over 18 years, until Star Trek: Picard , which focused on the later life of Jean-Luc Picard. Riker, Troi, Data , and Hugh also appeared in Picard .

In 1994 , Star Trek: The Next Generation was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. During its seven-year run, it was nominated for 58 Emmy Awards, mostly in "technical" categories such as visual effects and makeup; it won 18.

Main cast [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard
• Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker

Also starring [ ]

• LeVar Burton as Lt. j.g. / Lt. / Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge
• Denise Crosby as Lt. Tasha Yar ( 1987 - 1988 )
• Michael Dorn as Lt. j.g. / Lt. Worf
• Gates McFadden as Doctor Beverly Crusher ( 1987 - 1988 ; 1989 - 1994 )
• Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
• Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data
• Wil Wheaton as Ensign Wesley Crusher ( 1987 - 1990 )

Episode list [ ]

Season 1 [ ].

TNG Season 1 , 25 episodes:

Season 2 [ ]

TNG Season 2 , 22 episodes:

Season 3 [ ]

TNG Season 3 , 26 episodes:

Season 4 [ ]

TNG Season 4 , 26 episodes:

Season 5 [ ]

TNG Season 5 , 26 episodes:

Season 6 [ ]

TNG Season 6 , 26 episodes:

Season 7 [ ]

TNG Season 7 , 25 episodes:

Behind the scenes [ ]

Star Trek: The Next Generation was originally pitched to the then-fledgling Fox Network . However, they couldn't guarantee an initial order greater than thirteen episodes, not enough to make the enormous start-up costs of the series worth the expense. It was then decided to sell the series to the first-run syndication market. The show's syndicated launch was overseen by Paramount Television president Mel Harris , a pioneer in the syndicated television market. Many of the stations that carried The Next Generation had also run The Original Series for a long time.

According to issues of Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine from early 1987, TNG was originally planned to be set in the 25th century, 150 years after the original series, and the Enterprise would have been the Enterprise NCC-1701-G. Gene Roddenberry ultimately changed the timeline to mid-24th century, set on board the Enterprise NCC-1701-D, as an Enterprise -G would have been the eighth starship to bear the name and that was too many for the relatively short time period that was to have passed.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was billed initially as being set 78 years after the days of the original USS Enterprise . [1] (p. 16) However, after the series' first season was established as being set in the year 2364 , this reference became obsolete as dates were then able to be set for the original series and the four previous films. When this happened, it was established that the events of the original series were about a hundred years before the events of TNG. With TNG's first season being set in 2364, 78 years prior would have been 2286 . Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home partly takes place during this year along with the shakedown cruise of the USS Enterprise -A .

On the special The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation To The Next , Gene Roddenberry commented, " On the original Star Trek , I practically lost my family from working so many twelve-hour days, fourteen-hour days, seven days a week, and I told them, 'You can't pay me enough to do that.' But then they said, 'Hey, but suppose we do it in a way in which' they call syndication, 'in which we don't have a network and we don't have all those people up there?' And Paramount was saying to me, 'And we guarantee that you will be in charge of the show.' "

Andrew Probert was first hired by Roddenberry in 1978 . However, not until 1986 , when Roddenberry was preparing to launch a new show, entitled Star Trek: The Next Generation , did he call upon Probert to take a lead design role. Everything had to be rethought, imagined, planned and redesigned. As the vision evolved in the designers' minds, the evolution was charted in successive sketches and paintings.

Among Probert's creations, in addition to the new Enterprise starship and many of its interiors including the main bridge , are many other featured spacecraft. The Ferengi cruiser , and even the Ferengi species, are Probert designs.

Roddenberry originally insisted on doing a one-hour pilot and assigned D.C. Fontana to write the episode, first titled Meeting at Farpoint . However, the studio was keen on having a two-hour pilot, mainly because they wanted something big and spectacular to launch the series, especially considering first-run syndication. Roddenberry himself volunteered to extend Fontana's script to two hours, eventually adding the Q storyline to it.

Ronald D. Moore commented, " Gene did not want conflict between the regular characters on TNG. This began to hamstring the series and led to many, many problems. To put it bluntly, this wasn't a very good idea. But rather than jettison it completely, we tried to remain true to the spirit of a better future where the conflicts between our characters did not show them to be petty or selfish or simply an extension of 20th century mores. " ( AOL chat , 1997 ) Rick Berman explained, " The problem with Star Trek: The Next Generation is Gene created a group of characters that he purposely chose not to allow conflict between. Starfleet officers cannot be in conflict, thus its murderous to write these shows because there is no good drama without conflict, and the conflict has to come from outside the group. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages , p. 8)

Roddenberry tried to recruit many production staff members from The Original Series to work on the new series. These included producers Robert H. Justman and Edward K. Milkis , writers D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold (who served as the main creative force behind the formation of the series), costume designer William Ware Theiss , assistant director Charles Washburn , composer Fred Steiner , set decorator John M. Dwyer , and writer John D.F. Black . Roddenberry also tried to bring back cinematographer Jerry Finnerman , but he declined the offer, being busy working on Moonlighting at the time. However, all of the above people finished working on the series after or during the first season.

Unit Production Manager David Livingston was responsible for hiring Michael Westmore for the pilot episode. ( ENT Season 3 Blu-ray , " Impulse " audio commentary )

Remastering [ ]

After several months of speculation and partial confirmation, StarTrek.com announced on 28 September 2011 (the 24th anniversary of the series premiere) that The Next Generation would be remastered in 1080p high-definition for release on Blu-ray Disc and eventual syndication, starting in 2012 . The seventh and final season was released on Blu-ray in December 2014 .

Cast and crew [ ]

The following people worked on The Next Generation ; it is unknown during which season or on which episodes.

Performers [ ]

• Antonio – background actor
• Charles Bazaldua – voice actor
• Terrence Beasor – voice actor (17 episodes, including the voice of the Borg )
• Libby Bideau – featured actress
• Brian Ciari – background actor: Cardassian ( TNG Season 6 or 7 )
• Amber Connally – background actress: child
• Phil Crowley – voice actor
• Vincent DeMaio – background actor: Enterprise -D operations division officer
• David Dewitt – background actor
• Gregory Fletcher – background actor Borg
• Dan Horton – background actor
• Carlyle King – voice actress
• Mark Laing – featured actor
• Daryl F. Mallett – background actor
• Tina Morlock – background actress
• Jean Marie Novak – background actress: Enterprise -D operations division officer
• Rick H. Olavarria – background actor (1988)
• Jennifer Ott – background actress: Enterprise -D command division officer
• Richard Penn – voice actor
• Judie Pimitera – background actress: Ten Forward waitress
• Paige Pollack – voice actress
• Jeff Rector – background actor: Enterprise -D command division officer
• Gary Schwartz – voice actor/ADR voice
• Beth Scott – background actress
• Steve Sekely – background actor
• Andrea Silver – background actress: Enterprise -D sciences division officer
• Oliver Theess – recurring background actor (around 1990)
• Richard Walker – background actor
• Harry Williams, Jr. – background actor
• Bruce Winant – supporting actor
• Stephen Woodworth – background actor

Stunt performers [ ]

• Laura Albert – stunts
• John Lendale Bennett – stunts
• Richard L. Blackwell – stunts
• John Cade – stunts
• Chuck Courtney – Assistant Stunt Coordinator
• Terry James – stunts
• Gary Jensen – Assistant Stunt Coordinator
• Lane Leavitt – stunts
• Pat Romano – stunts

Production staff [ ]

• Joseph Andolino – Additional Composer
• David Atherton – Makeup Artist
• Gregory Benford – Scientific Consultant
• Steven R. Bernstein – Additional Music Composer/Orchestrator
• Les Bernstien – Motion Control Operator
• R. Christopher Biggs – Special Makeup Effects Artist
• Howard Block – Second Unit Director of Photography
• Stephen Buchsbaum – Colorist: Unitel Video (Four Seasons)
• Alan Chudnow – Assistant Editor
• Marty Church – Foley Mixer
• Scott Cochran – Scoring Mixer: Advertising Music
• Robert Cole – Special Effects Artist
• Sharon Davis – Graphics Assistant
• David Dittmar – Prosthetic Makeup Artist
• Dragon Dronet – Prop Maker: Weapons, Specialty Props and Miniatures
• Jim Dultz – Assistant Art Director
• Shannon Dunn – Extras Casting: Cenex Casting
• Chris W. Fallin – Motion Control Operator
• Edward J. Franklin – Special Effects Artist
• Lisa Gizara – Assistant to Gates McFadden
• John Goodwin – Makeup Artist
• Simon Holden – Digital Compositor (between 1989 and 1994)
• Kent Allen Jones – Sculptor: Bob Jean Productions
• Michael R. Jones – Makeup Artist (early 1990s)
• Jason Kaufman – Prop and Model Maker: Greg Jein, Inc.
• Nina Kent – Makeup Artist
• David Kervinen – Visual Effects Illustrator: Composite Image Systems (4 Seasons)
• Andy Krieger – Extras Casting: Central Casting
• Tim Landry – Visual Effects Artist
• Lisa Logan – Cutter/Fitter
• Jon Macht – Post Production Vendor
• Gray Marshall – Motion Control Camera Operator: Image "G"
• Karl J. Martin – Digital Compositor
• Belinda Merritt – VFX Accountant: The Post Group
• John Palmer – Special Effects Coordinator: WonderWorks Inc.
• Frank Popovich – Mold and Prop Assistant
• Molly Rennie
• Chris Schnitzer – Motion Control Technician/Rigger: Image "G"
• Steven J. Scott – Digital Compositor
• Bruce Sears – DGA Trainee
• Casey Simpson – Gaffer
• Ken Stranahan – Visual Effects Artist
• Rick Stratton – Makeup Artist
• Greg Stuhl – Miniatures: Greg Jein, Inc.
• Tim Tommasino – Assistant Editor
• Peter Webb – Digital Compositor
• Gregory A. Weimerskirch – Assistant Art Director
• Bill Witthans – Dolly Grip

Companies [ ]

• Bob Jean Productions
• Movie Movers
• Newkirk Special Effects
• WonderWorks Inc.

Related topics [ ]

• TNG directors
• TNG performers
• TNG recurring characters
• TNG studio models
• TNG writers
• Character crossover appearances
• Undeveloped TNG episodes
• Star Trek: The Next Generation novels
• Star Trek: The Next Generation comics, volume 1 (DC)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation comics, volume 2 (DC)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation comics (IDW)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation soundtracks
• Star Trek: The Next Generation on VHS
• Star Trek: The Next Generation on Betamax
• Star Trek: The Next Generation on LaserDisc
• Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD
• Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray
• Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball machine

External links [ ]

• Star Trek: The Next Generation at Wikipedia
• Star Trek: The Next Generation at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Star Trek: The Next Generation at the Internet Movie Database
• Star Trek: The Next Generation at StarTrek.com
• 2 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)
• 3 Star Trek: The Next Generation

How Star Trek: The Next Generation Changed Pop Culture Forever

As 'The Next Generation' turns 25, we look at the ways in which it introduced us to the future we all live in

This Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation , the first of many extensions of Gene Roddenberry’s “Wagon Train To The Stars” concept for a television series. Although it’s easy to make fun of the series for its many quirks — it was, after all, a show where everyone wore space-age onesies for the first three years — what’s often overlooked is that, in many ways, Star Trek: The Next Generation turned out to be an eerie predictor of the world we live in today.

I don’t mean that in the traditional sense, where people point out the way in which the show’s futuristic technology — The Holodeck ! Geordi’s visor ! Warp drive ! — has started to work its way into our reality. (And, yes, I know; Star Trek: The Next Generation invented the iPad more than two decades before Steve Jobs . They even called it the PADD , somewhat presciently.) I’d rather focus on the fact that Star Trek: The Next Generation , seemingly by accident, managed to create a model of what pop culture would be like a quarter of a century later — and no one really noticed.

Such grand ambitions clearly weren’t the primary motivator behind the creation of the series. That was a simple business decision. Looking at the success of the Star Trek movie series — Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was the fifth most successful movie of the year in 1986 — executives at Paramount, which owned the series at the time, asked themselves whether or not they could return the property to the small screen on a regular basis and make it profitable. In one sense, this wasn’t a new idea; movies had been translated into television shows for years by this point, with wildly variable results . However, what Paramount had in mind was something less common; instead of transferring the same characters, settings and status quo of the movies to the small screen, recasted with cheaper actors, they wanted to create something that would be Star Trek , but also leave enough space (no pun intended) for the successful movie series to continue without their appeal lessened by the same material being available each week for free on TV.

( MORE: Get Back: Prometheus , Before Watchmen and the Complicated Art of the Prequel )

What emerged from this need was a show that was both a sequel to the original Trek , but almost entirely new at the same time. The mission survived the translation — although “where no man has gone before” was updated for the ’80s and became “no one “. A surface reading of both the original Star Trek and The Next Generation could cast both shows as the same beast, but that’s not really the case. The Next Generation was a more thoughtful series — at times, to its detriment — one that was less likely to jump into action or romance the closest sexy alien lady that week than it was to sit down and talk about its feelings before deciding that, well, maybe things are very complicated and perhaps inaction is a valid response to events after all . The Next Generation was a new take on the Star Trek mission statement, separate enough from what had come before — and what the movie audiences were paying for when they watched Kirk, Spock et al. save the day in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , both made and released during The Next Generation ‘s run — to turn the sure thing into something that must have seemed far riskier at the time.

These days, of course, we’re used to the idea of rebooting series and franchises and getting new takes on what had come before, keeping the best bits and discarding what doesn’t fit for something that everyone hopes is better. That wasn’t the case back in 1987. Back then, translations between media tried their best to faithfully replicate previous iterations, and even oddities like the Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks Dragnet movie that predated The Next Generation by a matter of months tried their hardest to offer affectionate homage to their predecessors, even as they pretended to parody them. Star Trek: The Next Generation may not be a reboot in the common usage of the term today: It takes place in the same continuity as the earlier series, and doesn’t seek to replace it or undo anything that came before, but for all intents and purposes it was a reboot for the concept and a chance for Roddenberry and staff to correct whatever mistakes or bad decisions had been forced on the original.

The show was an unknown quantity, of course. Star Trek without William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy? Who would watch such a thing, the common wisdom wondered, secretly expecting a flop. Instead, the show was a hit and, within five years and the addition of spin-off series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , a successful franchise. The creators of the Star Trek television series — Roddenberry himself, but also producers and show runners like Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor and many others — managed not only to demonstrate how to make fans accept a reboot of a much-beloved concept, but also turn said concept into a repeatable, formulaic format that could sustain multiple series running concurrently. Not only does modern-day reboot culture have its first blossoming here, but so does procedural culture. Whether intentionally or otherwise, the team behind all things Star Trek successfully managed to turn story into commodity — and, more importantly, have everyone from the creators to the fans, accept this as a really good thing. CSI and Law & Order ? You’re welcome.

( MORE: Top 10 Long-Running Movie Franchises )

But modern-day pop culture owes more to Star Trek: The Next Generation than just making the world a safer place for NCIS: Los Angeles . TNG was a massively successful show; when the show finished in 1994, it had become the highest-rated drama in syndicated television, boasting 15 to 20 million viewers a week . This was far beyond anything managed by the original Star Trek — a show that had, after all, been canceled twice in its three-year run. This kind of success took the show far beyond any expectation of “cult” and transcended what was expected of genre television in general. Star Trek: The Next Generation , somehow, made nerd culture mainstream for the first time. (For those wanting to quibble with the “first time” thing by pointing to the success of Star Wars … Okay, I might give you that, but I would argue that Star Wars ‘ original release was more phenomenon fad, whereas The Next Generation sustained its level of popularity fairly consistently for seven years. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.)

This may seem less impressive in today’s world filled with Avengers , Dark Knight s who Rise and Spider-Men, Amazing or otherwise. Nowadays, nerd culture is pop culture, in many ways. But before Star Trek: The Next Generation , that wasn’t the case. Genre programming had been on the decline since the 1960s, replaced by more action-oriented series for men and soap operas like Dallas and Dynasty for women. Even though the fervor for Star Trek faded when that show finished ( Deep Space Nine and Voyager both performed well in terms of ratings, but nowhere near the level of The Next Generation , and the less said about Enterprise , the better), nerd culture had broken through and refused to disappear entirely. The X-Files , Buffy , Lost … There’s always been at least one successful, zeitgeist-defining genre show on American television since The Next Generation (today’s, I’d argue, is Doctor Who . An import, sure, but it sets the tone in a way that nothing else really matches on the small screen these days) — something that would have seemed unimaginable before Captain Picard stood up on a weekly basis, tugged on his jersey and told his faithful audience to make it so.

Preparing us for a world of reboots and procedural franchises, making the geek mainstream… there’s a lot to be thankful for when it comes to Star Trek: The Next Generation . It may not have been the best of the Trek s — that’s Deep Space Nine as far as I’m concerned, although you can argue in the comments about the merits of that choice — and it may even, at times, sailed a little too close to being hokey or even dull, but no one can complain that it didn’t fulfill the one promise it made at the start of every single episode, to boldly go where no one had gone before. And, of course, take us along for the ride.

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Why Star Trek: Discovery Chose That Classic Next Gen Storyline To Explore In Its Final Season

Shields up! This article contains major spoilers for the season 5 premiere of "Star Trek: Discovery."

Who knew that "Star Trek: Discovery" would be saving its biggest reveal for last? After being responsible for kickstarting the new era of "Trek" on streaming , the fifth and final season is signaling the beginning of the end for the flagship series. But as fans would expect, the opening episode proves the writing team has no intentions of taking its final bow without crafting one last adventure worthy of Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), Mr. Saru (Doug Jones), and the rest of the Discovery crew. (For more on that, you can check out /Film's "Discovery" season 5 premiere review by Jacob Hall here .) So perhaps it was inevitable that the biggest twist of the young season would have its roots in one of the most game-changing hours of "Trek" lore ever.

Trekkies will no doubt remember the classic "Next Generation" episode "The Chase," which first introduced the extinct race known as the Progenitors. Responsible for seeding humanoid life throughout the galaxy, these ancient beings were meant as an in-universe explanation for why almost every alien race encountered by Starfleet looked mostly like, well, ourselves ... give or take a few random ridges on foreheads and such. This also had the side effect of linking even the biggest enemies — humans, Romulans, Cardassians, and even Klingons alike — on a foundational genetic level.

"The Next Generation" mostly breezes past this revelation and reverts to business as usual in later episodes, despite the startling implications, so leave it to "Discovery" to pick up this major dangling thread and weave it into the fabric of this new season. At the season 5 world premiere, producer Michelle Paradise addressed why the show's creatives went back to this  storyline in particular.

'Huge ideas and huge themes'

How do you raise the stakes even higher than the time-traveling shenanigans of "Discovery" season 2, the mysterious dilithium "Burn" of season 3 that caused the breakdown of Starfleet, and the impossibly advanced species of extraterrestrials that put the entire galaxy at risk in season 4? Well, going all the way back to the origin of life as we know it is definitely one way to get the job done and end things with a bang.

It took until the closing moments of the season 5 premiere for the full picture (or part of it, at least) to round into shape, but what a twist it is! As it turns out, the pair of scavengers who absconded with an item of top priority to Starfleet couldn't have possibly picked a more important piece of "Trek" lore: the leftover Progenitor tech that helped them create humanoid life in the first place. So why tie things back to that underrated "The Next Generation" episode , of all things? At the SXSW premiere of "Discovery," producer Michelle Paradise had this to say:

"'The Chase' is an episode that had stuck with many of us because it addresses such huge ideas and huge themes. Where do we come from, the creation of life. And then it was this one episode, and then that was it [...] And it just left us with many, many questions."

That's putting it mildly. Even for a sci-fi franchise like "Star Trek," those are some incredibly heady ideas to attempt to tackle. It's one thing for a random episode in the early 1990s to suddenly establish such a massive change to canon. It's quite another for "Discovery" to double down. According to Paradise, however, this was done with character and theme in mind.

Tackling the big questions

Arguably more than any other ongoing series, "Discovery" has always worn its heart on its sleeve. That doesn't appear to be changing in season 5, but it's only fitting that the final adventure for this cast digs deeper into the psyches of the characters than it ever has before. The biggest question on the minds of the creative team, as it turns out, revolved around ideas of meaning and purpose for Burnham, Saru, and all the rest. According to Michelle Paradise, those are existential topics that translate naturally from the events of "The Chase," set hundreds and hundreds of years before the future timeline of this current season of "Discovery." She went on to say:

"And so when we were thinking about this season in particular and what we were going to be doing thematically and our characters looking at questions of meaning, questions of purpose. It felt like that was a really great place to go back to as a launching point for this adventure and that it was going to have that resonance."

For a crew that's been stranded in the future and cut off from everyone they used to know, these are poignant issues that previous seasons of "Discovery" have sought to explore. After having rebuilt Starfleet to something close to its former glory and putting the officers of the Discovery through the wringer, the rest of season 5 is now primed and ready to push these characters where they have never gone before.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Discovery" season 5 premiere on Paramount+ every Thursday.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

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Star Trek: The Next Generation is 132 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The TV show has moved up the charts by 15 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than A Murder at the End of the World but less popular than 9-1-1.

Follow the intergalactic adventures of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and his loyal crew aboard the all-new USS Enterprise NCC-1701D, as they explore new worlds.

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Q saved star trek's federation from the borg in tng.

Q warned the Federation about the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation, saving them from being caught unaware when the Borg made it to Earth.

• Q's warning about the Borg in Star Trek TNG saved the United Federation of Planets from certain destruction.
• The Borg's encounter with the Enterprise-D led to Earth's vulnerability being exposed, prompting Starfleet to better prepare.
• The Battle of Wolf 359 could have been much worse without Q's intervention, which helped slow down the Borg Cube.

By warning them about the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation , Q (John de Lancie) saved the United Federation of Planets - and Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) - from certain destruction. Introduced in the premiere episode of TNG , Q developed a certain fondness for Captain Picard and made a habit of antagonizing the Captain of the USS Enterprise-D. While Q's initial appearance in "Encounter at Farpoint" was certainly adversarial, he grew more and more interested in humanity as TNG went on. Although the crew on the USS Enterprise-D may not agree, Q's actions often helped Picard and his crew just as much as they annoyed them.

In one of Q's best Star Trek episodes , Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2, episode 16, "Q Who," the omnipotent being sends the Enterprise hurtling thousands of lightyears across space, where they encounter the Borg for the first time. When Borg drones beam onto the Enterprise, Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) destroys one only for another to appear in its place. The Enterprise tries and fails to outrun the Borg Cube, and quickly finds itself outmatched. If the Borg had made it to Earth before the Federation learned anything about them, the Borg would have caused much more damage than they did.

Everyone In Star Trek Who Beat The Borg

Q saved the federation by introducing them to the borg in star trek: tng's "q who", q likes humanity (and picard) more than he lets on..

Soon after the USS Enterprise-D arrives seven thousand light years from their previous location in Star Trek: The Next Generation 's "Q Who?", they discover a planet with giant craters where the cities should be. This discovery prompts Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) to remark: "It is identical to what happened to the outposts along the Neutral Zone." This line proves that the Borg already knew about Earth and humanity (which is later more firmly established when the Borg appear in Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise) . Q's intervention, then, did not reveal the Federation to the Borg, but rather warned Starfleet about what was already coming.

Because of this encounter, Captain Picard then provides Starfleet with everything he learned about the Borg, allowing them to better prepare for a potential attack. If the Borg had approached Earth with no warning, the Federation would have responded as they always do when encountering new species - with peaceful curiosity. Picard responds this way in "Q Who," attempting to communicate with the Borg before using any kind of force against them. Q's actions put Starfleet on the defensive, and as Picard says, gave them "a kick in [their] complacency."

The Enterprise lost 18 crew members in its initial encounter with the Borg. These losses may have been prevented if Picard had accepted Q's help sooner, but it's clear Q doesn't place the same value on individual human lives.

The Battle Of Wolf 359 & Its Aftermath Could've Been Much Worse Without Q

Starfleet suffered a devastating loss, but it could have been wiped out entirely..

At the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation 's "Q Who," Picard remarks that Q may have done the right thing in warning them about the Borg. Q even offered his help earlier in the episode, but Picard refused (which is understandable, given their history). It will be a while before the Borg return, but when they do, they deal the Federation a devastating blow. In the excellent TNG two-parter, "The Best of Both Worlds," the Borg assimilate Captain Picard and turn him into their mouthpiece, Locutus. Locutus then leads the Borg in an attack at Wolf 359, where Starfleet suffers one of its worst losses prior to the Dominion War.

After the Battle of Wolf 359, Starfleet began developing more defensive technology, including warships like the USS Defiant, which proved invaluable during the Dominion War.

However, the battle slowed the Borg Cube down, if only slightly, allowing the Enterprise-D to catch up with the Cube before it reached Earth. Data and Worf then rescue Picard from the Cube and use his Borg knowledge and connections to destroy the Borg ship. If the Enterprise had been unable to rescue Picard, not only would Earth likely have sustained significant damage, but Starfleet would have lost one of its best and most influential Captains. Whether Q's goal was to save the Federation or simply to save Picard, his actions in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Q Who" helped prepare the Federation for future conflicts with the Borg and other powerful enemies.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is streaming on Paramount+

STAR TREK: SECTION 31 Details Reveal Movie Will Feature Younger Version Of THE NEXT GENERATION Character

New details have been revealed about Star Trek: Section 31 , the upcoming Paramount+ feature starring Michelle Yeoh. We also have a new look at her return as Emperor Philippa Georgiou! Check it out...

Last April, Paramount+ announced plans to move forward with a new  Star Trek  TV movie,  Star Trek: Section 31 , starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh ( Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ).

It will see Yeoh reprise her role as Emperor Philippa Georgiou, a character she first played in  Star Trek: Discovery  season 1, and picks up with the character after she joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets and facing the sins of her past. 

Variety  (via SFFGazette.com) has shared some new intel on what fans can expect, including an intriguing description from Yeoh which sees her characterise it as, "'Mission: Impossible' in space." 

The trade explains that the plan had been for Section 31 to be a TV series, only for the actor's busy schedule following the success of  Everything Everywhere All at Once to put an end to that notion. Yeoh, however, was undaunted and agreed to sign up for a movie.

"We’d never let go of her," she explains. "I was just blown away by all the different things I could do with her. Honestly, it was like, ‘Let’s just get it done, because I believe in this."

This report also includes a pretty sizeable reveal as, in a scene the site's reporter got to watch being shot, Georgiou meets with a young Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl), a character Star Trek fans will remember first meeting in The Next Generation as the older fearless Captain of the USS Enterprise-C.

Screenwriter Craig Sweeny says, "It was always my goal to deliver an entertaining experience that is true to the universe but appeals to newcomers. I wanted a low barrier of entry so that anybody could enjoy it."

"Famously, there’s a spot for everybody in Roddenberry’s utopia, so I was like, 'Well, who would be the people who don’t quite fit in?'" he says of the often-divisive Section 31 concept. "I didn’t want to make the John le Carré version, where you’re in the headquarters and it’s backbiting and shades of gray."

"I wanted to do the people who were at the edges, out in the field. These are not people who necessarily work together the way you would see on a 'Star Trek' bridge."

"Is it putting good into the world?"  he asks. "Are these characters ultimately putting good into the world? And, taking a step back, are we putting good into the world? Are we inspiring humans watching this to be good? That’s for me what I’ve always admired about 'Star Trek.'"

Take a look at a new still from Section 31 in the X post below. 

A young Rachel Garrett, a character first introduced on " #StarTrek : Next Generation," will make an appearance in upcoming TV movie "Section 31," starring Michelle Yeoh. https://t.co/dD8kcJbp3q pic.twitter.com/SR3KlB0D2k — Variety (@Variety) March 27, 2024

STAR TREK 4 Gets A New Writer For "Final Chapter" But We're Getting Another Origin Story First

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Star Trek: Discovery is cracking open a box Next Gen closed on purpose

The USS Discovery is on a mad chase across the galaxy for one of Star Trek’s biggest secrets

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Calling back to a single 30-year-old episode of television is a time-honored Star Trek tradition , one that’s led the franchise to some of its most fascinating detours. And in its two-episode season premiere, Star Trek: Discovery seems to be kicking off an entire season calling back to one particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

And not just any episode! The 1993 installment of Next Gen in question delivered a revelation so seemingly earth-shaking that it should have rewritten galactic politics on a massive scale. But then, as was the way in the 1990s era of episodic TV, nobody ever mentioned it again.

At least until now.

[ Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5.]

Writer Michelle Paradise and director Olatunde Osunsanmi lay out the connection at the end of the first of two episodes released this week, “Red Directive.” Discovery’s mission is to follow a series of ancient clues leading to a cache of ancient technology, and to get there before a couple of professional thieves, Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis), do.

The technology, as Doctor Kovich (David Cronenberg) explains, belongs to the so-called Progenitors, a barely understood ancient spacefaring species that “created life as we know it […] every humanoid species in the galaxy.” Presumably such tech holds the key to understanding how the Progenitors did that, and how that power could be used again.

The Progenitors are from the Star Trek episode “The Chase”

Kovich also calls up a helpful video presentation of the moment the Progenitors were discovered by an assembled group of Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian captains, including Jean-Luc Picard. But you don’t have to be a Star Trek lore nerd to know you’re actually just looking at clips from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation .

Specifically, from the 20th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s sixth season, “The Chase,” in which Picard and crew discover pieces of a computer program hidden inside the DNA of species from dozens of different planets. Questions abound: What does the program do? And what kind of entity could have been so ancient and powerful that it had determined the genetic legacy of most of the known galaxy before sentient life had even evolved here — and then left no trace of its existence except the genetic codes themselves?

In a nutshell, the mysterious death of Captain Picard’s old archeology professor (did you know that if he hadn’t gone into Starfleet, Jean-Luc was studying to be a space archeologist? Well, now you do) sets the captain and the Enterprise on a search for the missing DNA fragments necessary to complete his unfinished work.

The action of the episode becomes a grand chase, as Klingon and Cardassian captains come to believe the program must be a great weapon or dangerous secret. Eventually Picard and his rivals all discover the lonely planet with the final DNA strain — and when they get there, some Romulans who’ve been secretly following all of them show up, too, just to make things even more tense.

In the end, the program isn’t a weapon or a secret, but a message from an ancient race of humanoids that apparently created sentient life in our galaxy as we know it.

Actor Salome Jens appears as a Progenitor hologram, and delivers a speech that’s stirring by any standard of Star Trek monologues, telling the story of a race of sentients that took to the stars and found them empty. They had evolved too early to meet other forms of sentient life, and knew that their time was too limited to ever expect to.

“We knew that one day we would be gone; that nothing of us would survive, so we left you,” Jens’ Progenitor explains. The Progenitors seeded humanoid life across the galaxy in their own image; life that tended to evolve into bipedal, tailless, largely hairless creatures with two eyes and two arms and five fingers on each hand. And they left clues in the genetic signature of their work, broken up among the stars.

Wait, was this really all about lampshading the limits of Star Trek’s alien design?

Kinda, yes! The writers of “The Chase,” Ron Moore and Joe Menosky, were inspired by elements of Carl Sagan’s Contact , but also by Menosky’s pet fascination creating an in-universe explanation for why all the common alien species in Star Trek are basically shaped like humans (albeit with latex on their faces).

In other hands, it would be hokey and trite, but even under heavy makeup, Jens sells the hell out of her single scene on voice and stance alone — it’s no wonder she was asked back to the Trek fold to play a major antagonist role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

“It was our hope that you would have to come together in fellowship and companionship to hear this message, and if you can see and hear me, our hope has been fulfilled,” the Progenitor hologram concludes, with gentle compassion. “You are a monument, not to our greatness, but to our existence. That was our wish: That you, too, would know life. [...] There is something of us in each of you, and so something of you in each other.”

But though “The Chase” carried a sweeping revelation, nothing ever really panned out from it. You’d think that a message of togetherness that fundamentally rewrote the origin of life in the universe would have to have tweaked Star Trek’s galactic politics a bit, right? Seems like this would give the Star Trek setting a radically different understanding of the origins of life than we have in the real world — this is literally intelligent design! At the very least there’d be some other characters talking about how humans and Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans and Ferengi and Cardassians and Trill and Bajorans, all share the same genetic ancestor.

But nope: The Pandora’s box of Progenitor lore remained closed. Gene Roddenberry’s successor and Trek producer Rick Berman seems to have been disenchanted with the episode’s reveal — and you can’t really blame him for not wanting to rock the whole cosmology of Star Trek in an episode that’s mostly about explaining how if you turn the DNA snippets like this they make a cool spiral. Now look at this computer screen with the spiral :

Except now, Star Trek: Discovery is opening the box and rocking the boat. This new mad, puzzle-box chase around the galaxy promises to expand on the Progenitors, an idea so big that not even The Next Generation was willing to touch it. It’s a tall order, but Discovery has never been more free to shake up Star Trek continuity than it is right now — we’ll have to wait for more episodes of the show’s final season to find out how free it intends to be.

Star Trek: Discovery is finally free to do whatever it wants

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Star Trek: First Contact Theme Played When Sweden Joined NATO, Jonathan Frakes Reacts

• Sweden surprises by playing Star Trek: First Contact's theme at NATO ceremony.
• Director Jonathan Frakes approves of First Contact theme choice.
• Star Trek: First Contact referenced Sweden, adding to the interesting connection.

The theme from Star Trek: First Contact , the second and most successful Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, was a surprise choice to play when Sweden joined NATO, and director Jonathan Frakes offers his reaction. Sweden joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on March 7, 2024. Sweden had maintained a policy of neutrality in military affairs since the Napoleonic Wars, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted Sweden, along with Finland, to apply for NATO membership in May 2022.

TrekCentral posted a video on Twitter/X of the flag-raising ceremony in Brussels when Sweden officially joined NATO, where the theme from Star Trek: First Contact played. First Contact 's orchestral score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith , and it's one of the most popular movie themes among Star Trek fans. Check out the video below:

Star Trek: First Contact' s director, Jonathan Frakes , reacted to his movie's theme at Sweden's NATO ceremony in an X post:

Amusingly, Sweden is referenced in Star Trek: First Contact. When Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) explains the Borg to Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodard), she replies, "Borg? Sounds Swedish."

10 Best Quotes From Star Trek: First Contact

Star trek: first contact is one of the most important star trek movies, first contact is the origin of star trek.

Star Trek: First Contact is the most successful and popular of the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies, and it's also one of the most important Star Trek movies due to its significance to the franchise. First Contact depicts the literal first meeting between humans and Vulcans, and the first warp flight of a human-made starship built by Dr. Zephram Cochrane (James Cromwell). These pivotal events are the literal origin of Star Tr ek and the starting point for what would become Starfleet and, later, the United Federation of Planets.

Star Trek: First Contact is the high-water mark of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films.

In addition, Star Trek: First Contact is a dazzling and exciting sci-fi adventure as Captain Picard takes on the Borg aboard the USS Enterprise-E. First Contact introduced the Borg Queen (Alice Krige), one of the greatest Star Trek villains, who has returned numerous times in Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Picard . Directed by Jonathan Frakes and co-written by Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, Star Trek: First Contact is the high-water mark of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films. Sweden must agree First Contact is one of the best Star Trek movies if Jerry Goldsmith's theme was chosen for the country's NATO flag-raising ceremony,

Star Trek: First Contact is available to stream on Max

Source: Trek Central, Jonathan Frakes Twitter/X

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NATO Explains Why The Theme For ‘Star Trek: First Contact’ Was Played At Sweden’s Induction Ceremony

| March 30, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 26 comments so far

Earlier this month Sweden officially joined NATO, becoming the 32nd member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. There was an official ceremony welcoming Sweden at NATO HQ in Brussels, raising their flag to join the other nations in the defense alliance. The Swedish delegation was led by Crown Princess Victoria and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, welcomed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. A military band was on hand for the ceremony and there was a surprising bit of music from the final frontier that got things started. TrekMovie has the exclusive to explain what happened.

Sounds Swedish

The flag ceremony was held on March 11 in Belgium. As the assorted officials gathered and the flagbearers prepared to raise the Swedish flag, the band started off the event playing the main theme from Jerry Goldsmith’s score for the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact . You can see and hear the moment below from the live stream replay via Sky News.  [music starts after first 15 seconds]

This bit of Trek showing up at such an auspicious occasion eventually got noticed by some fans. Certainly NATO’s mission of an alliance of partners working together to “guarantee the freedom and security of its members” fits with the ideals of the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet, but it still is curious. TrekMovie reached out to NATO to find out more about  First Contact showing up for Sweden’s big moment, and they replied.

A NATO official tells TrekMovie:

“Ahead of ceremonial military events, the band will often play a range of popular music, with the band given discretion with respect to which music to play. Jerry Goldsmith was a masterful film composer, as exemplified by his work on Star Trek’s “First Contact”. At the ceremony itself, the national anthem of Sweden and the NATO anthem were played.”

The same official noted that next week NATO is celebrating its 75th anniversary. There will be a ceremony complete with military bands and they are expected to again be playing a range of popular songs as guests arrive. It’s not known if Star Trek will be part of their repertoire.

Definitely Swedish

While it’s clear the musical director for the military band was a fan of Jerry Goldsmith, it could be they are also enough of a Trek fan to see a connection to the alliance and the themes of First Contact , which showed humanity’s first encounter with an alien race. Meeting the Vulcans in the aftermath of a world war began a new era of galactic cooperation that is held up as an idealized future for humanity.

Zefram Cochrane greets the Vulcan visitor to Earth in Star Trek: First Contact (Paramount Pictures)

They may also be a big enough fan to remember the specific connection between First Contact and Sweden. In the film, the USS Enterprise-E travels back in time from the 24th century to 2063. When Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) tries to explain the Borg to 21st century local Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodard) you get a bit of a recurring Sweden gag…

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Alternatively, First Contact took place in the aftermath of a nuclear war…

Er, yeah, wasn’t there also a passing mention of the “Eastern Coalition” or some such? I think it’s when they’re under attack from the Borg sphere.

Yes. The Eastern Coalition was heavily involved in WWIII

Okay, thanks.

This was wonderful. as Frakes tweeted.

FC was best Trek movie in many a die hard fan and casual fan/general movie audiences eyes (it was deemed so by many critics and fans when it came out and for a good few years until Wrath came back to the fore and won out in the end) and FC made Trek ‘cool’ for a while, so cool I could buy a STFC caramel filled chocolate bar in my local newsagent (Trek wasnt ‘cool’ again until ST09/ID, and before FC? maybe you could say TWOK or TVH or some of TNG were a ‘cool’ times for Trek, maybe )

The Swedish government has great taste in music.

My favourite score in Star Trek (along with the score to the relaunch of the Enterprise-D in Picard).

Are you talking about “Make it So” on the S3 Picard soundtrack? I listen to it every morning. It’s my favorite too.

That’s the one!!! An incredible piece of music!

Mine too. I LOVE it! 🖖😍👍📯🎶🤝🇸🇪

Same here dear! 😊

This is great! I had forgotten the Borg sounds Swedish gag in FC. I bet that was the fun inspiration for the selection. LOL!

That takes me back. I remember seeing First Contact in the theater in ’96 and the Borg/Swedish gag getting a big laugh. That was a fun night.

Seeing it for the first time, on the big screen back in 1996 — with a really fun, “borgified” laser show with quotes, images and music (!) from the movie directly above the audience, right before the feature — was a great night for us, too! 💨🌫💥🌫💨

What a great 🎶 choice for this event! 🖖😍

A Borg laser show? Awesome!

It was so well done, it must’ve been an officially licensed event that the German CinemaxX chain of theaters ran for their screenings. Wondering now, if it was basically the official trailer (or an extended version of it) as a laser show… maybe somebody else around here can confirm that part of it? 🤷‍♂️

Amazing. Historic. So proud. What an honor for the franchise, for the fans.

It actually sounds like a national anthem.

Goldsmith is my favorite composer in the history of the world bar none but I find the FC theme to fall under the heading of coming across as just ‘graduation day’ music, which is something that happens with some lesser John Williams stuff too. I’m not just picking on the biggies … Dennis McCarthy’s GEN score has the same effect on me, a little more distracting than engaging.

There’s a history with JG’s stuff being trotted out inappropriately (like Trump using AIR FORCE ONE music during a campaign instead of the more appropriate Vader/Imperial March or Nazi Germany’s Horst-Wessel-Lied), but I think the FC stuff might actually be more appropriate for NATO than for the movie.

Interesting, kmart. So, how would you rank your Trek score preferences? For me, it depends on my own mood. Of course, JG is a giant. I also like parts of Horner’s music and the eeriness and mysteriousness of Russo’s Picard s1 theme.

TMP and TFF and TWOK are my fave scores (and films.)

“ like Trump using AIR FORCE ONE music during a campaign instead of the more appropriate Vader/Imperial March or Nazi Germany’s Horst-Wessel-Lied ” How very one-sided of you. You should have left politics out of this. Some would see it as the opposite.

Some ALWAYS see it as the opposite. That’s what makes for horse-racing. Nice to see you out in the open on this.

One word: Priceless.

Fantastic! A great choice. Such a great score to a great film.

Too bad this didn’t happen on actual First Contact Day. But close enough! This is a great theme and a great nod to Star Trek.

The Future of ‘Star Trek’: From ‘Starfleet Academy’ to New Movies and Michelle Yeoh, How the 58-Year-Old Franchise Is Planning for the Next Generation of Fans

“I can’t believe I get to play the captain of the Enterprise.”

“Strange New Worlds” is the 12th “Star Trek” TV show since the original series debuted on NBC in 1966, introducing Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a hopeful future for humanity. In the 58 years since, the “Star Trek” galaxy has logged 900 television episodes and 13 feature films, amounting to 668 hours — nearly 28 days — of content to date. Even compared with “Star Wars” and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “Star Trek” stands as the only storytelling venture to deliver a single narrative experience for this long across TV and film.

In other words, “Star Trek” is not just a franchise. As Alex Kurtzman , who oversees all “Star Trek” TV production, puts it, “‘Star Trek’ is an institution.”

Without a steady infusion of new blood, though, institutions have a way of fading into oblivion (see soap operas, MySpace, Blockbuster Video). To keep “Star Trek” thriving has meant charting a precarious course to satisfy the fans who have fueled it for decades while also discovering innovative ways to get new audiences on board.

“Doing ‘Star Trek’ means that you have to deliver something that’s entirely familiar and entirely fresh at the same time,” Kurtzman says.

The franchise has certainly weathered its share of fallow periods, most recently after “Nemesis” bombed in theaters in 2002 and UPN canceled “Enterprise” in 2005. It took 12 years for “Star Trek” to return to television with the premiere of “Discovery” in 2017; since then, however, there has been more “Star Trek” on TV than ever: The adventure series “Strange New Worlds,” the animated comedy “Lower Decks” and the kids series “Prodigy” are all in various stages of production, and the serialized thriller “Picard” concluded last year, when it ranked, along with “Strange New Worlds,” among Nielsen’s 10 most-watched streaming original series for multiple weeks. Nearly one in five Paramount+ subscribers in the U.S. is watching at least one “Star Trek” series, according to the company, and more than 50% of fans watching one of the new “Trek” shows also watch at least two others. The new shows air in 200 international markets and are dubbed into 35 languages. As “Discovery” launches its fifth and final season in April, “Star Trek” is in many ways stronger than it’s ever been.

“’Star Trek’s fans have kept it alive more times than seems possible,” says Eugene Roddenberry, Jr., who executive produces the TV series through Roddenberry Entertainment. “While many shows rightfully thank their fans for supporting them, we literally wouldn’t be here without them.”

But the depth of fan devotion to “Star Trek” also belies a curious paradox about its enduring success: “It’s not the largest fan base,” says Akiva Goldsman, “Strange New Worlds” executive producer and co-showrunner. “It’s not ‘Star Wars.’ It’s certainly not Marvel.”

When J.J. Abrams rebooted “Star Trek” in 2009 — with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldaña playing Kirk, Spock and Uhura — the movie grossed more than any previous “Star Trek” film by a comfortable margin. But neither that film nor its two sequels broke $500 million in global grosses, a hurdle every other top-tier franchise can clear without breaking a sweat.

There’s also the fact that “Star Trek” fans are aging. I ask “The Next Generation” star Jonathan Frakes, who’s acted in or directed more versions of “Star Trek” than any other person alive, how often he meets fans for whom the new “Star Trek” shows are their first. “Of the fans who come to talk to me, I would say very, very few,” he says. “‘Star Trek’ fans, as we know, are very, very, very loyal — and not very young.”

As Stapf puts it: “There’s a tried and true ‘Trek’ fan that is probably going to come to every ‘Star Trek,’ no matter what it is — and we want to expand the universe.”

Every single person I spoke to for this story talked about “Star Trek” with a joyful earnestness as rare in the industry as (nerd alert) a Klingon pacifist.

“When I’m meeting fans, sometimes they’re coming to be confirmed, like I’m kind of a priest,” Ethan Peck says during a break in filming on the “Strange New Worlds” set. He’s in full Spock regalia — pointy ears, severe eyebrows, bowl haircut — and when asked about his earliest memories of “Star Trek,” he stares off into space in what looks like Vulcan contemplation. “I remember being on the playground in second or third grade and doing the Vulcan salute, not really knowing where it came from,” he says. “When I thought of ‘Star Trek,’ I thought of Spock. And now I’m him. It’s crazy.”

To love “Star Trek” is to love abstruse science and cowboy diplomacy, complex moral dilemmas and questions about the meaning of existence. “It’s ultimately a show with the most amazing vision of optimism, I think, ever put on-screen in science fiction,” says Kurtzman, who is 50. “All you need is two minutes on the news to feel hopeless now. ‘Star Trek’ is honestly the best balm you could ever hope for.”

I’m getting a tour of the USS Enterprise from Scotty — or, rather, “Strange New World” production designer Jonathan Lee, who is gushing in his native Scottish burr as we step into the starship’s transporter room. “I got such a buzzer from doing this, I can’t tell you,” he says. “I actually designed four versions of it.”

Lee is especially proud of the walkway he created to run behind the transporter pads — an innovation that allows the production to shoot the characters from a brand-new set of angles as they beam up from a far-flung planet. It’s one of the countless ways that this show has been engineered to be as cinematic as possible, part of Kurtzman’s overall vision to make “Star Trek” on TV feel like “a movie every week.”

Kurtzman’s tenure with “Star Trek” began with co-writing the screenplay for Abrams’ 2009 movie, which was suffused with a fast-paced visual style that was new to the franchise. When CBS Studios approached Kurtzman in the mid-2010s about bringing “Star Trek” back to TV, he knew instinctively that it needed to be just as exciting as that film.

“The scope was so much different than anything we had ever done on ‘Next Gen,’” says Frakes, who’s helmed two feature films with the “Next Generation” cast and directed episodes of almost every live-action “Trek” TV series, including “Discovery” and “Strange New Worlds.” “Every department has the resources to create.”

A new science lab set for Season 3, for example, boasts a transparent floor atop a four-foot pool of water that swirls underneath the central workbench, and the surrounding walls sport a half dozen viewscreens with live schematics custom designed by a six-person team. “I like being able to paint on a really big canvas,” Kurtzman says. “The biggest challenge is always making sure that no matter how big something gets, you’re never losing focus on that tiny little emotional story.”

At this point, is there a genre that “Strange New Worlds” can’t do? “As long as we’re in storytelling that is cogent and sure handed, I’m not sure there is,” Goldsman says with an impish smile. “Could it do Muppets? Sure. Could it do black and white, silent, slapstick? Maybe!”

This approach is also meant to appeal to people who might want to watch “Star Trek” but regard those 668 hours of backstory as an insurmountable burden. “You shouldn’t have to watch a ‘previously on’ to follow our show,” Myers says.

To achieve so many hairpin shifts in tone and setting while maintaining Kurtzman’s cinematic mandate, “Strange New Worlds” has embraced one of the newest innovations in visual effects: virtual production. First popularized on the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian,” the technology — called the AR wall — involves a towering circular partition of LED screens projecting a highly detailed, computer-generated backdrop. Rather than act against a greenscreen, the actors can see whatever fantastical surroundings their characters are inhabiting, lending a richer level of verisimilitude to the show.

But there is a catch. While the technology is calibrated to maintain a proper sense of three-dimensional perspective through the camera lens, it can be a bit dizzying for anyone standing on the set. “The images on the walls start to move in a way that makes no sense,” says Mount. “You end up having to focus on something that’s right in front of you so you don’t fall down.”

And yet, even as he’s talking about it, Mount can’t help but break into a boyish grin. “Sometimes we call it the holodeck,” he says. In fact, the pathway to the AR wall on the set is dotted with posters of the virtual reality room from “The Next Generation” and the words “Enter Holodeck” in a classic “Trek” font.

“I want to take one of those home with me,” Peck says. Does the AR wall also affect him? “I don’t really get disoriented by it. Spock would not get ill, so I’m Method acting.”

I’m on the set of the “Star Trek” TV movie “Section 31,” seated in an opulent nightclub with a view of a brilliant, swirling nebula, watching Yeoh rehearse with director Olatunde Osunsanmi and her castmates. Originally, the project was announced as a TV series centered on Philippa Georgiou, the semi-reformed tyrant Yeoh originated on “Discovery.” But between COVID delays and the phenomenon of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” there wasn’t room in the veteran actress’s schedule to fit a season of television. Yeoh was undaunted.

“We’d never let go of her,” she says of her character. “I was just blown away by all the different things I could do with her. Honestly, it was like, ‘Let’s just get it done, because I believe in this.’”

If that means nothing to you, don’t worry: The enormity of the revelation that Garrett is being brought back is meant only for fans. If you don’t know who the character is, you’re not missing anything.

“It was always my goal to deliver an entertaining experience that is true to the universe but appeals to newcomers,” says screenwriter Craig Sweeny. “I wanted a low barrier of entry so that anybody could enjoy it.”

Nevertheless, including Garrett on the show is exactly the kind of gasp-worthy detail meant to flood “Star Trek” fans with geeky good feeling.

“You cannot create new fans to the exclusion of old fans,” Kurtzman says. “You must serve your primary fan base first and you must keep them happy. That is one of the most important steps to building new fans.”

On its face, that maxim would make “Section 31” a genuine risk. The titular black-ops organization has been controversial with “Star Trek” fans since it was introduced in the 1990s. “The concept is almost antagonistic to some of the values of ‘Star Trek,’” Sweeny says. But he still saw “Section 31” as an opportunity to broaden what a “Star Trek” project could be while embracing the radical inclusivity at the heart of the franchise’s appeal.

“Famously, there’s a spot for everybody in Roddenberry’s utopia, so I was like, ‘Well, who would be the people who don’t quite fit in?’” he says. “I didn’t want to make the John le Carré version, where you’re in the headquarters and it’s backbiting and shades of gray. I wanted to do the people who were at the edges, out in the field. These are not people who necessarily work together the way you would see on a ‘Star Trek’ bridge.”

For Osunsanmi, who grew up watching “The Next Generation” with his father, it boils down to a simple question: “Is it putting good into the world?” he asks. “Are these characters ultimately putting good into the world? And, taking a step back, are we putting good into the world? Are we inspiring humans watching this to be good? That’s for me what I’ve always admired about ‘Star Trek.’”

Should “Section 31” prove successful, Yeoh says she’s game for a sequel. And Kurtzman is already eyeing more opportunities for TV movies, including a possible follow-up to “Picard.” The franchise’s gung-ho sojourn into streaming movies, however, stands in awkward contrast to the persistent difficulty Paramount Pictures and Abrams’ production company Bad Robot have had making a feature film following 2016’s “Star Trek Beyond” — the longest theaters have gone without a “Star Trek” movie since Paramount started making them.

First, a movie reuniting Pine’s Capt. Kirk with his late father — played in the 2009 “Star Trek” by Chris Hemsworth — fell apart in 2018. Around the same time, Quentin Tarantino publicly flirted with, then walked away from, directing a “Star Trek” movie with a 1930s gangster backdrop. Noah Hawley was well into preproduction on a “Star Trek” movie with a brand-new cast, until then-studio chief Emma Watts abruptly shelved it in 2020. And four months after Abrams announced at Paramount’s 2022 shareholders meeting that his 2009 cast would return for a movie directed by Matt Shakman (“WandaVision”), Shakman left the project to make “The Fantastic Four” for Marvel. (It probably didn’t help that none of the cast had been approached before Abrams made his announcement.)

The studio still intends to make what it’s dubbed the “final chapter” for the Pine-Quinto-Saldaña cast, and Steve Yockey (“The Flight Attendant”) is writing a new draft of the script. Even further along is another prospective “Star Trek” film written by Seth Grahame-Smith (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) and to be directed by Toby Haynes (“Andor,” “Black Mirror: USS Callister”) that studio insiders say is on track to start preproduction by the end of the year. That project will serve as an origin story of sorts for the main timeline of the entire franchise. In both cases, the studio is said to be focused on rightsizing the budgets to fit within the clear box office ceiling for “Star Trek” feature films.

Far from complaining, everyone seems to relish the challenge. Visual effects supervisor Jason Zimmerman says that “working with Alex, the references are always at least $100 million movies, if not more, so we just kind of reverse engineer how do we do that without having to spend the same amount of money and time.”

The workload doesn’t seem to faze him either. “Visual effects people are a big, big ‘Star Trek’ fandom,” he says. “You naturally just get all these people who go a little bit above and beyond, and you can’t trade that for anything.”

In one of Kurtzman’s several production offices in Toronto, he and production designer Matthew Davies are scrutinizing a series of concept drawings for the newest “Star Trek” show, “Starfleet Academy.” A bit earlier, they showed me their plans for the series’ central academic atrium, a sprawling, two-story structure that will include a mess hall, amphitheater, trees, catwalks, multiple classrooms and a striking view of the Golden Gate Bridge in a single, contiguous space. To fit it all, they plan to use every inch of Pinewood Toronto’s 45,900 square foot soundstage, the largest in Canada.

But this is a “Star Trek” show, so there do need to be starships, and Kurtzman is discussing with Davies about how one of them should look. The issue is that “Starfleet Academy” is set in the 32nd century, an era so far into the future Kurtzman and his team need to invent much of its design language.

“For me, this design is almost too Klingon,” Kurtzman says. “I want to see the outline and instinctively, on a blink, recognize it as a Federation ship.”

The time period was first introduced on Season 3 of “Discovery,” when the lead character, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), transported the namesake starship and its crew there from the 23rd century. “It was exciting, because every time we would make a decision, we would say, ‘And now that’s canon,’” says Martin-Green.

“We listened to a lot of it,” Kurtzman says. “I think I’ve been able to separate the toxic fandom from really true fans who love ‘Star Trek’ and want you to hear what they have to say about what they would like to see.”

By Season 2, the “Discovery” writers pivoted from its dour, war-torn first season and sent the show on its trajectory 900-plus years into the future. “We had to be very aware of making sure that Spock was in the right place and that Burnham’s existence was explained properly, because she was never mentioned in the original series,” says executive producer and showrunner Michelle Paradise. “What was fun about jumping into the future is that it was very much fresh snow.”

That freedom affords “Starfleet Academy” far more creative latitude while also dramatically reducing how much the show’s target audience of tweens and teens needs to know about “Star Trek” before watching — which puts them on the same footing as the students depicted in the show. “These are kids who’ve never had a red alert before,” Noga Landau, executive producer and co-showrunner, says. “They never had to operate a transporter or be in a phaser fight.”

In the “Starfleet Academy” writers’ room in Secret Hideout’s Santa Monica offices, Kurtzman tells the staff — a mix of “Star Trek” die-hards, part-time fans and total newbies — that he wants to take a 30,000-foot view for a moment. “I think we need to ground in science more throughout the show,” he says, a giant framed photograph of Spock ears just over his shoulder. “The kids need to use science more to solve problems.”

Immediately, one of the writers brightens. “Are you saying we can amp up the techno-babble?” she says. “I’m just excited I get to use my computer science degree.”

After they break for lunch, Kurtzman is asked how much longer he plans to keep making “Star Trek.” 

“The minute I fall out of love with it is the minute that it’s not for me anymore. I’m not there yet,” he says. “To be able to build in this universe to tell stories that are fundamentally about optimism and a better future at a time when the world seems to be falling apart — it’s a really powerful place to live every day.”

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‘Star Trek’: Rachel Garrett, the First Female USS Enterprise Captain, Will Be Part of the ‘Section 31’ Movie

Christian blauvelt.

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“ Star Trek ” fans got a couple fascinating details in a March 27 report by Variety on the future of the franchise on Paramount+. The biggest for sure is that the character of Rachel Garrett, the first female captain of the USS Enterprise, will be appearing in the “Section 31” direct-to-Paramount+ movie that’s going to star Michelle Yeoh .

The actress Kacey Rohl will be playing Garrett, who was the captain of the Enterprise-C in the first half of the 24th century and was the subject of one of the most beloved “Next Generation” episodes ever: “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (she was played by Tricia O’Neal in the original episode).

This is the episode where, once they’ve agreed to face their doom, Picard says, “Let’s make sure history never forgets the name Enterprise.” If Kirk didn’t believe in a “no win” situation, she faced one head-on, making Garrett an especially valiant captain.

In the “Star Trek” timeline, she’s the first female Enterprise captain. In order, the timeline goes: Jonathan Archer of the pre-Federation Enterprise NX-01, James T. Kirk of the Enterprise NCC-1701 and Enterprise-A, Alan Ruck’s John Harriman of the Enterprise-B (this writer chooses to believe that since the lore does say Harrison came from “a prominent family,” that he is in fact a descendant of Connor Roy, thus winning the ultimate succession: the Enterprise captain’s chair), and then Garrett.

One other interesting detail emerged in that report: That the “Starfleet Academy” show, which IndieWire told you a year ago must logically have a 32nd Century setting as a follow-up series to “Discovery,” is in fact confirmed to be set then, but, surprisingly, is being targeted to a “tween and teen” audience.

Jonathan Frakes, who’s directed episodes of every “Trek” series since “Next Gen” in addition to playing Riker on that series and beyond, is quoted in the Variety piece as saying that he thinks the franchise’s audience is older. Franchise mastermind Alex Kurtzman seems to hope that a show like “Starfleet Academy” may reach a new audience altogether.

Reps for Paramount+ did not respond to IndieWire’s request for comment about confirmation of these details.

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