Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 10 - Star Trek: The Next Generation
Category: Opinion, Science Fiction, Television
published November 20th, 2005
Table of contents for top-10-sci-fi-shows
- My Top 10 Sci-Fi TV Shows
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 10 - Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 9 - The X-Files
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 8 - Stargate SG-1
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 7 - Battlestar Galactica
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 6 - The Avengers
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 5 - Buffy The Vampire Slayer
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 4 - Sapphire and Steel
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 3 - Blake's Seven
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 2 - Babylon 5
- Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 1 - Doctor Who
Star Trek: The Next Generation is easily my favorite series of Star Trek. In my view it was able to surpass the original Star Trek in a number of aspects. But it was also able to avoid most of the pitfalls which later Star Trek series fell into.
One advantage Star Trek: TNG had was a remarkably deep and capable cast. While the original series almost entirely revolved around Kirk, Spock and McCoy, TNG offered a much wider range of characters.
It has been claimed that The Next Generation better realizes the themes that Roddenberry wanted to convey with Star Trek. I don't know precisely how accurate that claim is, but certainly the tone of the show is significantly different to its forebear. Star Trek was undoubtedly a show of it's time and Star Trek: The Next Generation was able to move away from the action format and present a more cerebral show.
Running from 1987 through to 1994, Star Trek: The Next Generation was not only the most watched Star Trek series of all time but ended its run as the most watched show in syndication. It's likely that Star Trek will never be quite that popular again.
And the reason it places on my Top 10 Sci-Fi list? Its the only Star Trek show which I was interested in from start to finish. While other series like DS9 or TOS caught my attention for a while, I rarely feel the need to watch them in any re-runs. I'm always pretty happy to sit down and watch a TNG episode.
« My Top 10 Sci-Fi TV Shows - Top 10 Sci-Fi Shows: Number 9 - The X-Files » Eoghann Irving is amongst other things the creator and Editor of Solar Flare. He has a life long interest in all forms of science fiction and fantasy and a pressing need to share this interest with anyone who will listen. Find out more at his his website eoghann.com.| 2.9 |
Have some Sci-Fi or Fantasy related news? Tell Solar Flare.
November 21st, 2005 -
One of the things always noted by European TV sci-fi buffs is the impact that ST:TNG had on viewer expectations. TNG completely revolutionised the level of production quality that audiences came to expect. Few European outfits could compete with that, and many ceased production.
Whilst in 1987, TNG for the American audience came to be seen as the beginning of a great TV sci-fi revival, in Europe it sounded the death-knell for not merely a few long-running TV sci-fi programmes, but any appitite amongst programme makers to comission sci-fi and fantasy at all. Their small-scale budgets and indeed their small-scale expertise just couldn’t compete with the style, consistency, effects, make-up, costumes, models, CGI and all-round excellent visual quality of TNG. Doctor Who was the most obvious victim, being cancelled in 1989, with the production values of ST:TNG - or rather, the expense of keeping up with them - openly stated as one of the main reasons.
Eventually, European sci-fi and fantasy learned to cope not by competing, but by moving to a deliberately low-fi ethic. Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” (1996 Sandman spin-off, now on DVD) spliced live action with cell animation in a deliberately non-fluid and jarring way. “Bugs” (1995 high-tech espionage, also now on DVD) and “Ultraviolet” (1998 vampires, again now on DVD) took on sci-fi and fantasy themes as modern cops-and-offices drama with virtually no special effects at all. One could also argue that “The X Files” was the American equivalent; moving almost all special effects off-screen or camoflaguing low-budget FX with low lighting and torch flashes, whilst having the vast majority of action take place in a modern-day setting.
Prior to TNG, it was perfectly acceptable for TV sci-fi and fantasy effects to be limited to jerky, slightly fuzzy blue-screen matte and the occasional recycled rubber monster costume, all harshly lit, and the audience being expected to paper over the cracks with their own mind, in the manner of a radio drama or stage play. TNG changed all of that.