
''
Star Trek: The Next Generation'' is an American
science fiction television series
Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s, during what is called the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary ...
which aired in
syndication from September 1987 through to 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 Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
'' 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. With a career spanning over seven decades of Patrick Stewart on stage and screen, stage and screen, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Patrick Stewart, variou ...
as captain
Jean-Luc Picard
Jean-Luc Picard is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, most often seen as the commanding officer of the Federation starship . Played by Patrick Stewart, Picard has appeared in the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Gene ...
,
Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Scott Frakes (born August 19, 1952) is an American actor and director. He is best known for his portrayal of William Riker in the television series ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' and subsequent films and series. He has also hosted th ...
as his first officer
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,'' portrayed by Jonathan Frakes. Throughout the series and its accompanying films, ...
,
Brent Spiner
Brent Jay Spiner (; born February 2, 1949) is an American actor best known for his role as the android Data on the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (19871994), four subsequent films (19942002), and '' Star Trek: Picard'' ( ...
as chief of operations
Data
Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...
,
LeVar Burton
Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. (born February 16, 1957) is an American actor, director, and television host. He played Geordi La Forge in '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1987–1994), Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries ''Roots'' (1977 ...
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 as well as the third season of '' Star Trek: Picard ...
,
Marina Sirtis
Marina Sirtis (; born 29 March 1955) is an English 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 English actress Marina Sirtis. Troi is half-human, half- Betazoid, and has the psionic a ...
,
Michael Dorn
Michael Dorn (born December 9, 1952) is an American actor best known for his role as the Klingon character Worf in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, appearing in all seven seasons of the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1987–1 ...
as chief of security
Worf
Worf, son of Mogh is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, portrayed by actor Michael Dorn. He appears in the television series ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (''TNG''), seasons four through seven of ''Star Trek: Deep Space ...
, 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 when working as an actress. She played Dr. Beverly Crusher in the t ...
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 ...
. 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 app ...
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 "Wil" Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American actor and writer. He portrayed Wesley Crusher on the television series ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', Gordie Lachance in the film ''Stand by Me (film), Stand by Me'', ...
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 a ...
in seasons 1–4, returning for guest appearances in seasons 5 and 7.
Denise Crosby
Denise Michelle Crosby (born November 24, 1957) is an American actress and model known for portraying Security Chief Tasha Yar mainly in Star Trek: The Next Generation (season 1), season one of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', and Yar's daug ...
played chief security officer
Tasha Yar
Natasha "Tasha" Yar is a character that mainly appeared in the first season of the American science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation''. Portrayed by Denise Crosby, Yar is chief of security aboard the Starfleet sta ...
in the first season but her character was killed in the episode "
Skin of Evil", 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
A generation is all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively.
Generation or generations may also refer to:
Science and technology
* Generation (particle physics), a division of the elementary particles
* Genera ...
'', ''
First Contact'', ''
Insurrection
Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...
'', and ''
Nemesis
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Nemesis (; ) also called Rhamnousia (or Rhamnusia; ), was the goddess who personified retribution for the sin of hubris: arrogance before the gods.
Etymology
The name ''Nemesis'' is derived from the Greek ...
''.
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. Fontan ...
") 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
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...
in January 2012.
The complete series was rescanned and rebuilt in 1080p high definition and 24 progressive frames per second to be available for Blu-ray releases, syndication on television, and distribution digitally.
This was not a ''remaster'', wherein a new master copy is struck from the same original cut negative as previous master copies, nor is a remaster possible because the show was edited on tape and no such original cut negatives exist. Instead, it was a completely new edit of the show remade from raw film clips, with many shots needing to be replaced due to being natively interlaced, the wrong frame rate (unlike DVD, Blu-ray cannot handle mixed frame rates), or otherwise not convertible to the new format.
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 is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
streaming service in the US in 2011. In 2015, the series was updated to the high-definition re-edited version of the show. Although the series was available to subscribers on Netflix,
Hulu
Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...
, and
Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime (styled as prime) is a paid subscription service of Amazon which is available in many countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services inclu ...
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+ (formerly known as CBS All Access in the United States and 10 All Access in Australia) is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, stream ...
.
See also
*
Lists of ''Star Trek'' episodes
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
External links
*
Memory Alpha
Memory Alpha is a wiki encyclopedia for topics related to the ''Star Trek'' fictional universe. Created by Harry Doddema and Dan Carlson, it uses the wiki model and is hosted by Fandom on the MediaWiki software. , Memory Alpha contains over 56 ...
– 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