---
title: "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
year: 1987
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/star-trek-the-next-generation"
fi1m_score: 83
critics_reviews: 1
published: "2026-09-16T23:42:54.565919+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-16T23:42:54.756118+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)

Created by Gene Roddenberry · 45m · MPA TV-PG · Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Drama, Mystery

**Fi1m score: 83** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far

*In a sentence:* A starship run like a good hospital: everyone is calm, everyone is kind, and the android does the jokes

> Roddenberry’s second Enterprise spends its first year stiff, preachy and lit like a shop floor, then grows into a series about decent people solving problems by talking, with Patrick Stewart at its centre. Skip most of season one and stay for six years.

## Synopsis

The 24th century. The new starship Enterprise, the Federation’s flagship, leaves for Farpoint Station under Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), a reserved Frenchman who prefers negotiation to phasers. He collects his first officer, William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes), at the station, along with the ship’s doctor, Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), and her teenage son Wesley (Wil Wheaton). On the bridge are Data (Brent Spiner), an android who wants to understand humans; Worf (Michael Dorn), a Klingon serving in Starfleet; Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), who sees through a visor; and the counsellor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), who senses what others feel. Before they arrive, an omnipotent being called Q (John de Lancie) stops the ship and puts humanity on trial for its history.

## Review

Gene Roddenberry’s second Enterprise first aired on 28 September 1987, and it is a different sort of ship. The captain, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), does not throw punches; he sits, listens to his officers and decides. His first officer, William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes), does the running about. For a series about exploring the galaxy, a surprising amount of it happens in a conference room. The first season is poor, the second is patchy, and from the third it is good and stays good for five years.

The ship looks like a good hotel. The bridge is carpeted, the chairs are upholstered and the corridors curve past doors that open with a sigh. In the first season Edward R. Brown lights all of it flat and bright, like a department store. In the later seasons, shot mostly by Marvin V. Rush, the bridge darkens and faces are lit from the consoles up. Ten Forward, the bar with the stars in its windows, arrives in season two along with Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), who pours drinks and knows more than she says.

Stewart carries it. He plays Picard as a headmaster who has read everything and would rather talk than shoot, and he can make a speech about the rights of the accused sound like an order. Brent Spiner’s Data, an android who would like to be human, gets the jokes and the best scripts. Michael Dorn’s Worf is a Klingon in a Starfleet uniform who disapproves of most things. Marina Sirtis’s Deanna Troi senses feelings and reports them, which is about all the writers ever find for her to do. Gates McFadden’s Beverly Crusher, the ship’s doctor, is absent for season two, and Diana Muldaur’s Katherine Pulaski fills the chair.

The first year is Roddenberry’s problem. His rule that the crew should not quarrel leaves them nothing to do but agree with each other, and the aliens of the week exist mainly to be improved. One early episode, written by Katharyn Powers and Michael Baron and directed by Russ Mayberry, is embarrassing about race, and there is no defending it. We were bored through much of the season, and then irritated at being lectured by people who were plainly right. From the third season Michael Piller runs the writing staff and brings in Ronald D. Moore, Brannon Braga, René Echevarria and Jeri Taylor, and the stories start to be about the people on the ship rather than the planet below it.

The turn is visible in Melinda M. Snodgrass’s *The Measure of a Man*, from the second season, in which a hearing is convened to decide whether Data is a person or Starfleet property. It is forty-five minutes of people in a room, and it moved us more than we were ready for, because Stewart argues the case as if the answer were in doubt and Spiner sits through it without once asking for pity. Morgan Gendel’s *The Inner Light*, later on, we will not describe. It has no battle in it, and it is the hour we would show a sceptic.

The music is mixed. Alexander Courage’s fanfare opens every episode, and Ron Jones writes scores you notice, brass and drums and a low pulse for the Borg, a hive that would rather absorb you than kill you. Dennis McCarthy’s music is a wash under the dialogue, and there are later seasons of which we could not hum a note. The directing is steady. Cliff Bole, Winrich Kolbe and Les Landau shoot the bridge the same way every week, and Frakes, Stewart, LeVar Burton and McFadden all take turns behind the camera, and you cannot tell.

Set against the original it is slower, kinder and a great deal less randy. Kirk had a fist; Picard has a meeting. Q (John de Lancie), an omnipotent nuisance, drops in to mock them for being so well behaved. They are, and by the fourth season we had stopped minding.

Seven seasons, 176 episodes, 45 minutes each; nobody needs all of them. Start with the third, go back to the second once you are fond of the crew, and treat the first as a historical document. Certificate 12, and in seven years nobody once mentions the carpet.

*Fi1m score 83, published 16 September 2026.*

### Reviews we read (1)

- **The Guardian** (80/100, inferred): The series succeeded despite initial doubts, equalling and in many ways surpassing the original Star Trek with its optimistic vision of humanity's future. The cerebral, emotional storytelling and strong ensemble make the box set essential viewing. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/dec/27/star-trek-the-next-generation)

## Details

- **Created by:** Gene Roddenberry
- **Creator:** Gene Roddenberry
- **Director:** Cliff Bole, Les Landau, Winrich Kolbe, Rob Bowman, Robert Scheerer, Robert Wiemer, Jonathan Frakes, Gabrielle Beaumont, Alexander Singer, Paul Lynch, Patrick Stewart, David Carson, Corey Allen, Joseph L. Scanlan, Chip Chalmers, James L. Conway, Robert Lederman, Tom Benko, Timothy Bond, LeVar Burton, David Livingston, Robert Becker, Adam Nimoy, Peter Lauritson, Robert Legato, Gates McFadden, Larry Shaw, Michael Ray Rhodes, Marvin V. Rush, Robert Iscove, Russ Mayberry, Richard A. Colla, Richard Compton, Win Phelps, Jonathan West, Naren Shankar, Michael Vejar, Kim Manners
- **Writer:** Ronald D. Moore, Brannon Braga, René Echevarria, Jeri Taylor, Joe Menosky, Michael Piller, Naren Shankar, Richard Manning, Hans Beimler, Tracy Tormé, Rick Berman, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Maurice Hurley, D. C. Fontana, Hannah Louise Shearer, Herbert Wright, Ira Steven Behr, Stuart Charno, Peter Allan Fields, Sara B. Cooper, Robert Lewin, Hilary Bader, Frank Abatemarco, Michael I. Wagner, Gene Roddenberry, Morgan Gendel, Philip LaZebnik, Robert L. McCullough, David Kemper, Nick Sagan, Fred Bronson, Burton Armus, David Bischoff, Susan Sackett, Jean Louise Matthias, Shari Goodhartz, Robert Sabaroff, John D.F. Black, Richard Danus, Jack B. Sowards, Jacqueline Zambrano, Michael Baron, Robin Bernheim, Jon Povill, Michael Reaves, Leonard Mlodinow, J. Larry Carroll, Deborah Dean Davis, Dan Koeppel, James Caan, Mike Gray, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Diane Duane, Michel Horvat, Marc Scott Zicree, Michael Michaelian, Gregory W. Amos, Beth Woods, Trent Christopher Ganino, Sandy Fries, Pamela Gray, R. G. Jarvis, Adam Belanoff, Joseph Stefano, Peter S. Beagle, Ron Wilkerson, Eric A. Stillwell, Christopher Hatton, Steve Gerber, Sam Rolfe, Katharyn Powers, Scott Rubenstein, Pamela Douglas, Dennis Bailey, John Mason, Brian Alan Lane, Edithe Swensen, Ed Zuckerman, Lee Sheldon, Ralph Phillips, Patrick Barry, James Kahn, Worley Thorne, David Assael, Grant Rosenberg, Jaron Summers, Thomas Perry, Sally Caves, David Bennett Carren
- **Story:** Maurice Hurley, Jean Louise Matthias, Shari Goodhartz, Drew Deighan, Ronald Wilkerson, René Echevarria, Joe Menosky, Michael Piller, Richard Manning, Hans Beimler, Hannah Louise Shearer, D. C. Fontana, Herbert Wright, Robert Lewin, Hilary Bader, Frank Abatemarco, Michael I. Wagner, Kacey Arnold-Ince, Robert Sabaroff, John D.F. Black, Bruce D. Arthurs, Reuben Leder, Wanda M. Haight, Larry Forrester, Kurt Michael Bensmiller, Jaq Greenspon, Cy Chermak, Richard Krzemien, Roger Eschbacher, William Douglas Lansford, Deborah McIntyre, Timothy De Haas, Cash Markman, Randee Russell, Michael A. Medlock, Philip A. Scorza, Harold Apter, T. Michael, Tom Kartozian, Michael Halperin, Karl Geurs, Lawrence V. Conley, Paul Schiffer, Paul Ruben, Ron Roman, Ken Schafer, Mona Clee, Ralph Sanchez, Richard Fliegel, James E. Brooks, Lan O'Kun
- **Teleplay:** Maurice Hurley, Michael Piller, Hans Beimler, Tracy Tormé, Hannah Louise Shearer, Robert Lewin, Gene Roddenberry, Kacey Arnold-Ince, Bruce D. Arthurs, Richard Danus, Reuben Leder, John Whelpley, Barry M. Schkolnick, W. Reed Moran, René Balcer, Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci, Lisa Rich
- **Cinematography:** Edward R. Brown, Marvin V. Rush, Jonathan West, Kris Krosskove
- **Editor:** Tom Benko, John Farrell, Robert Lederman, William Hoy, David Ramirez, Daryl Baskin, Jon Koslowsky, Stephen Tucker, Randy Roberts, Monty DeGraff, David Berlatsky
- **Music:** Alexander Courage, Ron Jones, Dennis McCarthy, John Debney
- **Producer:** Brannon Braga, Peter Lauritson, Robert H. Justman
- **Cast:** Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard; Jonathan Frakes as William T. Riker; Brent Spiner as Data; LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge; Michael Dorn as Worf; Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi; Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher; Diana Muldaur as Katherine Pulaski
- **Runtime:** 45m
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-PG
- **Release (the US):** 28 September 1987
- **Genres:** Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Drama, Mystery

## Where to watch in the US

- Paramount+: streaming, hd
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $4.99, hd

*Checked 2026-09-16.*

Also available in: AT, AU, CA, CH, DE, FR, GB, IE, IT, NO, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* (1993): The same universe with the doors locked and the arguments allowed to last
- *Babylon 5* (1993): A rival space station that planned its five years in advance and mostly kept the plan
- *Battlestar Galactica* (2004): Ronald D. Moore takes the conference room to war and lets everybody quarrel
- *Blake's 7* (1978): British, broke and bitter; the Federation seen from the wrong end of the phaser
- *Solaris* (1972): Tarkovsky’s space station, where the visitors are memories and nobody has a plan

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/star-trek-the-next-generation