TNG Season 8?

 TNG Season 8?

A person should not dwell on the past but sometimes you cannot help but do so. TNG ended with season 7, and in my opinion it ended on a very sad note. There were only a handful of episodes from that season that I actually liked, and they are:

- "Parallels" Ep 11 (Worf finds himself randomly shifting between alternate realities) This was a fun episode and I like the idea of alternate realities. Neat to see a possible romance between Worf and Troi.

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- "The Pegasus" Ep 12 (Commander Riker's former Captain boards the Enterprise to retrieve the USS Pegasus. Features Terry O'Quinn as Admiral Eric Pressman). This episode was the best of the season. O'Quinn was excellent in his role. Great to see Frakes shine as Riker. Final episode with the Romulans as the big bad, wish they had had Andreas Katsulas as 'Tomalok' on this episode, but it wasn't meant to be.

- "Homeward" Ep 13 (Worf's human foster brother violates the Prime Directive to save a doomed primitive race). I like Paul Sorvino and it was great to see him as Worfs brother. This was a good episode but far from great.

- "Journey's End" Ep 20 (Wesley considers his future, as the Enterprise is ordered to remove Native American colonists from a planet that is about to fall under Cardassian jurisdiction. Appearance of Eric Menyuk as The Traveler). I always like the character of Wesley and it was great to see Wil Wheaton back for his final appearance.

- "Bloodlines" Ep 22 (DaiMon Bok returns to exact revenge on Picard, by trying to kill the son Picard never knew he had. Guest star Lee Arenberg as DaiMon Bok, but not the same actor who originated the role, Frank Corsentino). This actually was a poor episode, I only included it because it was neat to see the Bok story return from the first season. But it sucked that Bok was played by another actor, even with all the make-up you could tell it was not the same person.  

5 episodes out of 26 or so done that season...not good. I'm thinking maybe with some of the creative staff going off to do DS9 and some left to prep 'Voyager' is what hurt TNG in that 7th season. The series finale too was very bad and not a fitting end to the series. 

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Not many good episodes that final season. Which is why they needed another season. Apparently Paramount signed a deal with its stars for an 8th season. Patrick Stewart (Picard) and Brent Spiner (Data) reluctantly agreed to an 8th season but no more. Paramount was apparently even considering bringing in other actors to replace Picard and Data for a 9th season. Ronny Cox who had played "Captain Edward Jellico" who took command of the Enterprise for 2 episodes would replace Picard and Elizabeth Dennehy as "Commander Shelby" would replace Data. It would have been interesting and an 8th season should have happened because the 7th season sucked, ending the show on a sour note because of it. Unfortunately it was business that destroyed the proposed 8th season.

Paramount was set to launch their UPN television network and they wanted Star Trek to be its primary show, this new network was set to launch in January 1995. Problem was Paramount was already producing Star Trek: TNG and Deep Space Nine for syndication and couldn't put one of them on their network because of all the syndication deals they had in place. So the decision was made to end TNG at the end of season 7 and create a new Star Trek series for the UPN network. TNG ended in May 1994 with a lousy final season and final episode and a new Star Trek series was created and launched in January 1995: Star Trek Voyager.

 I'm sure if the Paramount executives could have foreseen the end of UPN in 2006 and the poor ratings and reviews for "Voyager" they would have stayed with TNG for at least one more season...

Thanks for reading. See you next time.

Live Long And Prosper.