'' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' is an American science fiction television series which aired in

syndication Syndication may refer to: * Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system * Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips * Web syndication, ...

from September 1987 through May 1994. It is the second live-action series of the ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vario ...

'' franchise and comprises a total of 176 (DVD and original broadcast) or 178 (syndicated) episodes over 7 seasons. The series picks up about 95 years after the original series is said to have taken place. The television episodes are listed here in chronological order by original air date, which match the episode order in each season's DVD set. The main cast consisted of

Patrick Stewart Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor who has a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games. He has been nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Acto ...

as captain

Jean-Luc Picard Jean-Luc Picard is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, most often seen as the captain of the Federation starship . Played by Patrick Stewart, Picard has appeared in the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (''T ...

Jonathan Frakes Jonathan Scott Frakes (born August 19, 1952) is an American actor and director. He is best known for his portrayal of Commander William Riker in the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' and subsequent films and series. Frakes al ...

as his second-in-command

William Riker William Thomas "Will" Riker is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' universe appearing primarily as a main character in '' Star Trek: The Next Generation''. Throughout the series and its accompanying films, he is the '' Enterprise''s firs ...

Brent Spiner Brent Jay Spiner (; born February 2, 1949) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the android Data on the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', as well as four subsequent films. In 2019, he reprised the role fo ...

as chief of operations

Data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...

LeVar Burton Levar Burton Jr. (born February 16, 1957) is an American actor, director, and television host, best known for playing Geordi La Forge in '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1987–1994). He also played Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries '' ...

as chief engineer

Geordi La Forge Geordi La Forge ( ) is a fictional character who appeared in all seven seasons of the American science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' and its four feature films. Portrayed by LeVar Burton, he served as helmsman ...

Marina Sirtis Marina Sirtis (; born 29 March 1955) is a British actress. She is best known for her role as Counselor Deanna Troi on the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' and four ''Star Trek'' feature films, as well as other appearances ...

as counselor

Deanna Troi Deanna Troi is a main character in the science-fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' and related TV series and films, portrayed by actress Marina Sirtis. Troi is half-human, half- Betazoid and has the psionic ability to ...

Michael Dorn Michael Dorn (born December 9, 1952) is an American actor best known for his role as the Klingon Worf in the '' Star Trek'' franchise. He has appeared more times as a regular cast member than any other ''Star Trek'' actor in the franchise's hist ...

as chief of security

Worf Worf, son of Mogh is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. He appears in the television program, television series ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (''TNG'') and seasons four through seven of ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (''D ...

, and

Gates McFadden Cheryl Gates McFadden (born March 2, 1949) is an American actress and choreographer. She is usually credited as Cheryl McFadden when working as a choreographer and Gates McFadden for acting work. She is best known for playing Dr. Beverly Crusher ...

as Dr.

Beverly Crusher Beverly Crusher is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise played by Gates McFadden. Debuting in the television series, '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', McFadden appeared in every season except for the second, as well as its sp ...

. McFadden left the show after the first season and was replaced for the second season with

Diana Muldaur Diana Muldaur (born August 19, 1938) is an American film and television actress. Muldaur's television roles include Rosalind Shays on '' L.A. Law'' and Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of '' Star Trek: The Next Generation''. She also ...

as Dr.

Katherine Pulaski Dr. Katherine Pulaski is a fictional medical doctor in the American science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation''. She served a rotation as the chief medical officer aboard the Federation starship USS ''Enterprise''-D. ...

, but returned for the third season and remained with the cast thereafter.

Wil Wheaton Richard William Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American actor. He portrayed Wesley Crusher on the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', Gordie Lachance in the film '' Stand by Me'', Joey Trotta in ''Toy Soldiers'', an ...

starred as

Wesley Crusher Wesley Crusher is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. He appears regularly in the first four seasons of the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (''TNG''), and sporadically in its next three seasons. He also app ...

in seasons 1–4, returning for guest appearances in seasons 5 and 7.

Denise Crosby Denise Michelle Crosby is an American actress and model known for portraying Security Chief Tasha Yar mainly in season one of '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', and Yar's daughter, the half-Romulan Commander Sela, in subsequent seasons. She ...

played chief security officer

Tasha Yar Natasha (russian: Наташа) is a name of Slavic origin. The Slavic name is the diminutive form of Natalia. Notable people * Natasha, the subject of ''Natasha's Story'', a 1994 nonfiction book * Natasha Aguilar (1970–2016), Costa Rican sw ...

in the first season but her character was killed in the episode "

Skin of Evil "Skin of Evil" is the 23rd episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', and originally aired on April 25, 1988, in broadcast syndication. The story premise was written by Jo ...

", returning for a guest appearance in season 3 and the two-hour series finale " All Good Things...". The ''Next Generation'' cast also appears in four feature films: '' Generations'', '' First Contact'', ''

Insurrection Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and ...

'', and ''

Nemesis In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis, also called Rhamnousia or Rhamnusia ( grc, Ῥαμνουσία, Rhamnousía, the goddess of Rhamnous), was the goddess who personifies retribution, a central concept in the Greek world view. Etymology The n ...

''.

Series overview

Episodes

Both the series' premiere ("

Encounter at Farpoint "Encounter at Farpoint" is the pilot episode and series premiere of the American science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', which premiered in syndication on September 28, 1987. It was written by D. C. Fontana an ...

") and finale (" All Good Things...") originally aired as single two-hour presentations, but have since aired as two one-hour episodes.

Season 1 (1987–1988)

Season 2 (1988–1989)

Season 3 (1989–1990)

Season 4 (1990–1991)

Season 5 (1991–1992)

Season 6 (1992–1993)

Season 7 (1993–1994)

Home media

The series was released on VHS cassette tapes, usually with two episodes or a two-part episode on one tape. For some releases the credits of both shows on the tape were combined at the end rather than shown separately.

DVD and Blu-ray

Certain episodes of the series have also been released on eight "best of" collections. The four ''Next Generation'' movies were released together on a Blu-ray set in 2009. They have subsequently been re-released individually. Three episodes were released on region-free Blu-ray Disc in January 2012. The complete series was digitally remastered in 1080p high definition to be available for Blu-ray releases, syndication on television, and distribution digitally. Five "Fan Collective" DVD collections were released, each including episodes with a particular theme – Borg, Klingon, Q, Time Travel, and Captain's Log – from the first five live-action Star Trek series, including ''The Next Generation''.

Streaming

The digital distribution of the remastered series has been through services such as iTunes and Amazon Video. Seasons 1 and 2 were released on the US, Canadian and UK iTunes stores in early 2013, in both high and standard definition. Seasons 3 and 4 were released on the US and Canadian iTunes stores in the second half of 2013, and on the UK store in March 2014 - again in both high and standard definition. In early 2014, the first four seasons were added to the Australian iTunes Store in both high and standard definition. Both high and standard definition versions of Season 5 were released digitally in the US via Amazon Video and iTunes in early May 2014, and later in the UK, Canadian and Australian iTunes stores. In December 2014, Season 6 was added in both high and standard definition to the US iTunes Store. The complete series was added to the

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

streaming service in the US in 2011. In 2015, the series was updated to the high-definition remastered version of the show. Although the series was available to subscribers on Netflix,

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television seri ...

, and

Amazon Prime Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service from Amazon which is available in various countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services include same, one ...

for a number of years, after Paramount launched its own streaming service, it stopped renewing streaming rights to the Star Trek series, and by early 2022, ''The Next Generation'' was available for streaming only from

Paramount+ Paramount+ is an American subscription video on-demand service owned by Paramount Global. The service's content is drawn primarily from the libraries of CBS Media Ventures (including CBS Studios), Paramount Media Networks (formerly Viacom Med ...

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

Memory Alpha Memory Alpha is a wiki encyclopedia for topics related to the ''Star Trek'' fictional universe. Conceived by Harry Doddema and Dan Carlson in September 2003 and officially launched on December 5 of that year, it uses the wiki model and is hosted ...

– a ''Star Trek'' wiki containing detailed episode guides
Episode guide
at startrek.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes Next Generation, The Lists of American science fiction television series episodes