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 Enterprise-D |  Q as a judge |  On the bridge |  Visiting DS9 |
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75 years after the Enterprise's 5-year mission, the Enterprise-D continues to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilisations, and boldly go where no one has gone before.
| Patrick Stewart | as | Capt. Jean-Luc Picard |
|---|---|---|
| Jonathan Frakes | as | Cmdr. William Riker |
| Cheryl Gates McFadden | as | Cmdr. Beverly Crusher |
| Marina Sirtis | as | Lt. Cmdr. Deanna Troi |
| Brent Spiner | as | Lt. Cmdr. Data |
| Levar Burton | as | Lt./Lt. Cmdr Geordi La Forge |
| Michael Dorn | as | Lt. Worf |
| Denise Crosby | as | Lt. Tasha Yar (series 1 only) |
| Wil Wheaton | as | Ens. Wesley Crusher (series 1-4) |
| Diana Muldaur | as | Lt. Cmdr Katherine Pulaski (series 2 only) |
| John deLancie | as | Q |
|---|---|---|
| Colm Meaney | as | Chief Miles O'Brien |
| Dwight Schultz | as | Lt. Reginald Barclay |
| Majel Barrett-Roddenberry | as | Starfleet computer voice / Lwaxana Troi |
| Carel Struycken | as | Mr. Homn |
| Michelle Forbes | as | Ens./Lt. Ro Laren |
| Suzie Plakson | as | Cmdr. Selar / Ambassador K'Ehleyr |
| Tony Todd | as | Kurn |
| Charles Cooper | as | Klingon Chancellor K'Mpec |
| Robert O'Reilly | as | Klingon Chancellor Gowron |
| Patrick Massett | as | Duras |
| Barbara March & Gwyneth Walsh | as | Lursa & B'Etor |
| Whoopi Goldberg | as | Guinan |
75 years after Captain Kirk's 5-year mission, the USS Enterprise-D continues to boldly go where no one has gone before.
TNG Series 1 is not really that good. Even 101/102-"Encounter at Farpoint" doesn't really provide an accurate representation of what the rest of the programme would be like; character archetypes are established and then promptly destroyed with 103-"The Naked Now". That brings us to another point: series 1 has episodes in it that are either recycled plots from the original Star Trek or could have been done more effectively in the '60s. Part of the reason for this is a scrapped project, tentatively called Star Trek: Phase II, which would have been, essentially the sequel to Star Trek back in the '70s. Instead of Phase II, Star Trek got films made out of it instead, and a lot of the Phase II plotlines got rewritten for The Next Generation instead. Also, there's a great deal of just straight-up racism in series 1, thanks to Gene Roddenberry's ageing brain losing its filter. We have a planet full of Black people acting like tribal Africa, Planet White Aryan Race, and a plague ship full of conventionally attractive white people, in amongst other flops. Fortunately (after a bit of a lukewarm start), series 2 ended up being better, then series 3 brought the show up to the standard level of excellence one expects from a Star Trek show... or used to expect, anyway, considering that franchise is now plagued by content for content's sake. This isn't about that, though.
Whenever anyone says "Star Trek" to me, I always think about TNG first. This is Star Trek to me. It was on in repeats when I was a kid because the local CBS affiliate didn't want to show DS9 or Voyager outside of cable TV for some reason. It was always a rare treat for me to be able to watch this programme, because it was usually on really late on Saturday and my mum wouldn't let me stay up that long. The first time I was able to watch the series in its entirety was when it was on WGN while I was in high school. I had to suffer through a couple episodes of South Park to get to it, but the TV would always have my rapt attention for 42 minutes while TNG was on. Since then, I've been watching this show pretty much every year since 2011. This year (2026) is the first year I get to share it with my girlfriend though, so that's a nice bonus! 🩷
7/10 stars 
If you can get through the weird transitionary period in series 1, the show gets a lot better. Honestly, the thing that made the show better was Gene Roddenberry and Dorothy Fontana not writing scripts anymore. Their stories worked fine in the '60s, but this is the late '80s. No more of that, please.