A Brief Guide to Star Trek

justified by a significantly improved film, but it could not match the runaway mainstream popularity of
The Voyage Home
. Critics found the movie to be a welcome step up from its predecessor, and many saw it as a suitable sign off for the venerable
Star Trek
crew of the 1960s, who by the 1990s were being eclipsed by their younger counterparts on television’s
The Next Generation
. The Australian newspaper the
Herald Sun
welcomed the film’s ‘suspense, action and subtle good humour’, while
USA Today
commented that ‘this last mission gets almost everything right – from the nod to late creator Gene Roddenberry to in-jokes about Kirk’s rep as an alien babe magnet’.
    The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns was the final destination of
Star Trek
creator Gene Roddenberry, shortly after he viewed a near-complete rough cut of the film before release. Roddenberry died of heart failure on 24 October 1991, aged seventy. He’d been in ill health for his final years, but he had remained fully committed to and involved in his creation. A dedication to the creator of
Star Trek
was added to the film before its December release, and it brought much hearty applause across movie houses from the
Star Trek
fans in the audience. While he had opposed much of the material included in the
Star Trek
film series – rightly, in the case of Shatner’s misguided
Star Trek V
– Gene Roddenberry knew it was the amazing success of the movies that had allowed his return to television production with
The Next Generation
. While his storytelling talents hadn’t been needed by the makers of the movies, Roddenberry knew that he could still weave magic with his words. Challenged by a Paramount executive who’d told him he couldn’t capture lightning in a bottle twice, Gene Roddenberry had set out to prove the doubters wrong.

Chapter 7

Far Beyond the Stars:
The Next Generation

‘
Roddenberry had created quite a complex and at times mysterious character. Guarded, cautious, careful in showing his feelings, in expressing his ideas about many things – I found that very interesting
.’ Patrick Stewart

    For years, executives at Paramount had been happy to maximise their income from what some had termed ‘the seventy-nine jewels’, the original three years of
Star Trek
episodes. The show had lost money during the years it was in production and on the air, but the afterlife of seemingly endless reruns the series enjoyed during the 1970s – and the growing popularity of the show – ensured that those seventy-nine episodes generated a healthy income for the parent company (and anyone lucky enough to be on residuals).
    That surprising afterlife, and the fact that Paramount was finally convinced there was an audience for more
Star Trek
, led to the hugely successful movie series. Science fiction was in vogue again following
Star Wars
, and after the tortuous diversion into the development of the
Star Trek: Phase II
TV series, Paramount had finally made a commercial success of
Star Trek
. As the original crew aged on screen, Paramount began to think about bringing
Star Trek
back to television again, with an allnew crew in all-new adventures.
    September 1986 saw the twentieth anniversary of the debut ofthe original
Star Trek
series. Paramount celebrated with a lavish party, which many involved thought was unusual for a studio that had never previously shown much interest in the series. Many put the unexpected focus on
Star Trek
down to the upcoming fourth movie and the fact that episodes were now being sold on videotape to a growing audience. No one suspected that a major resurgence of
Star Trek
on television was mere months away. In October 1986, a month prior to the release of
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
(the most popular of the original cast
Star Trek
movies), Paramount announced a new first-run syndicated TV show entitled
Star Trek: The Next Generation
.

    Gene Roddenberry had made several failed attempts to get a new science fiction show on air during the 1970s, resulting in a collection of TV movie pilots. That decade generally had not been a good one for SF TV in the US, consisting of interchangeable adventure shows like
The Six Million Dollar Man
, produced by Harve Bennett. Towards the end of the 1970s, in the wake of the success of
Star Wars
, space opera shows began to appear, prime among them being
Battlestar Galactica
(1978–80) and
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
(1979–81). This boom in 1970s SF