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I have never been a massive fan of TNG, I've watches them all and will stop channel surfing if I see them on, but the show as a whole doesnt do it for me, the ship is to hotel-ish, the crew... well Troi ruins any scene she is in for me. Mostly though I feel TNG even in latter seasons provided a lot of okay shows, but nothing that really made me go, man I gotta make sure to never miss an episode of this!

Now obviously TNG was heavily influenced by Gene, so it couldnt be as dark as DS9 sometimes was.

But do you thing TNG could have pulled off a season long (or even 2 season long) arc stretching out the Cardassian war into something more like we see in DS9?

Have the traditional, gentlemans Federation fight a fight against the ruthless Cardassians, have them face much more heavy loses against a foe, who on paper, they should curb stomp, because they are to "evolved" to do what needs to be done, have there be a "In the Pale Moonlight" epsiode... but they dont take the chance. Have them show what happens to O'Brien over several episodes, it can be our insight to the Cardassians like Kira on occupied DS9 was for the Dominion war arc.

Do you think TNG would have benefited from a story line like this, or would it ruin what that series was for you?

I don't think they could have done it in the same way as the Dominion War, but they might have been able to pull off something similar by extending BoBW into an arc running through the whole of season 4. Have the cube survive the deflector dish attack but suffer severe damage, sufficient that the fleet at Wolf would be enough to destroy it even with Locutus, but for it to escape the trap. Have the rest of the season with Starfleet trying to track it down and destroy it while the cube conducts raids as and when it can to build itself back up, until it's destroyed in a final confrontation at the end of the season. It would allow them to go into much greater depth with the plots of Riker trying to outthink Locutus, Picard trying to break out of Locutus, and Starfleet's physical and emotional response to having to deal with a threat as dangerous as a Borg cube on the loose in Federation space.

That does sound cool, alhough I worry that stretching the Borg out that much might weaken them in the eyes of the audience? We can assume there are multiple raids against the Cube and the Cube trys multiple times to take ships/colonies. You can only throw them back so many times before they just become Borg lite.

Althoug seeing the Federation having to melt a few compromised planets from orbit might be nice. Killing thousands or millions of the own former citizens rather then let the Borg get a foot hold...

I'd have liked to have seen a little more of the alternate universe created by the Enterprise Cs arrival from the past. The crew were way more interesting.

I dislike alternate universe arcs, since they really have no relation on our universe at the end of the day, and then you just end up with VOY Year of Hell, which while good, was ultimately, pointless.

I suppose they could have done, if they really wanted to. At that time it was pretty much assumed that you couldn't sell a sci fi series with a long running story arc, so I don't know that you could get a studio to do it. Plus it was a lot harder and slower to do special effects back then, which would be an issue if you wanted battles and such. But if you could manage that, then I suppose there's no reason why they couldn't have done it.

I don't know that a war arc would really sit well with TNG, though. The show was more about working out ways to avoid violence than indulging in it.

That's why I think it would be interesting. They try desperately to avoid war ultimately costing more lives.

I like that idea, Seafort. Definitely rack up the tension, everyone's stressed out... it could've worked.

GrahamKennedy wrote:At that time it was pretty much assumed that you couldn't sell a sci fi series with a long running story arc

Why not? DW had already done it when they introduced the Master, and again with the Key to Time.

TNG set the standard though. DS9 lived off it.

Captain Seafort wrote:

GrahamKennedy wrote:At that time it was pretty much assumed that you couldn't sell a sci fi series with a long running story arc

Why not? DW had already done it when they introduced the Master, and again with the Key to Time.

I doubt the 1990s US market really looked to old British TV for their model of what would work or not.

Primarily, Doctor Who was a BBC series. The BBC doesn't have to worry about ratings - they're not indifferent to them, but it's not their driving goal to get the highest possible ratings. Nor does the BBC do syndication. Whereas original Trek had originally failed due to ratings, and only become popular in syndication. And in syndication, so it was assumed, stations want to have the flexibility to mess around with shows - not show them in order, for example.

Slightly TR-116ing here, buy why was Star Trek put into sydication? I always thought you needed 100 episodes to get it, and Star Trek falls well short.

The 100 episodes thing is more rule of thumb than a rule. 100 episodes is enough that a station can show one episode a day for 20 weeks without having to rerun any. I'm hazy on why that's important but it's something to do with it fitting the seasonal schedules that most stations use or something. Trek was successful anyway just because in syndication it got good ratings.

I believe the usual episode number is usually 65, actually. That's the 'golden number' for animated series, at least.

When they show TNG or DS9 everyday they do seem to last for ages.