Star Trek: Why The Next Generation Endures Over The Original Series

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https://screenrant.com/star-trek-nex...-tos-enduring/

TNG Had Higher Production Values And More Consistent Writing

Part of the mythology of Star Trek: The Original Series is that it was made on the cheap. The sets look cardboard-adjacent, with the model work unusably dated at this point. At this point, the rickety nature of the production is part of its inherent charm, a necessary consequence of a show literally making up the storytelling rules of its universe as it goes. That's admirable, but it resulted in a show that could go from wildly entertaining to bafflingly stupid from episode to episode. Still, it's impressive that any of TOS has held up, considering it was produced in the late 1960s when television was still figuring out what kind of art form it could be.

By the time of The Next Generation, Paramount knew Star Trek was a cash cow. The show looked fantastic from the very beginning, and after Michael Piller and Rick Berman took control of the series from the ailing Roddenberry in season 3, the quality of the scripts skyrocketed and essentially stayed at that high level for the remainder of the show's run. TNG was more consistently telling narratively complex, emotionally mature stories than TOS, which was both a function of the new producers running the series and the fact that the '80s and '90s were simply a more evolved time than the '60s, both socially and in the context of television storytelling.

Both The Original Series and The Next Generation underwent HD remasters in recent years, and the difference between the two now is stark. The Next Generation looks refreshed, like something that could have been shot a few years ago rather than three decades ago. The Original Series very much feels like a product of its era, both aesthetically and tonally.

There's More Of TNG Than TOS

Star Trek: The Next Generation enjoyed a much longer, more contemporarily celebrated run than The Original Series. Part of that was due to TOS, of course; the movies and reruns featuring Kirk and Spock kept Star Trek in the cultural consciousness to lay the groundwork for TNG's eventual success. But whatever the reasons, the cold hard reality is there are only 79 episodes of TOS, while there are a whopping 178 episodes of TNG.

The Next Generation got to flex its creative muscles in a way The Original Series never did. Paramount actually spent more money on TNG the longer it went, not less — while NBC notoriously slashed TOS's budget during its final season. TNG's additional money allowed them not only to hire genuinely talented people, but it also opened up the scope of the show considerably, creating what was at the time one of the most lavish-looking science fiction television series ever.

Even for fans who argue that TNG's first two seasons are borderline unwatchable, it's worth noting that the same could be said of TOS's final, Roddenberry-free season. By that math, it's still five quality seasons of TNG against only two of TOS.

TNG Was Less Sexist Than TOS

For a series so universally hailed for its utopian progressive worldview, Star Trek had a pretty bad record with female characters until the 1990s. The female characters on TOS largely existed to pine after the male characters or offer blunt sex appeal. Only Uhura really rises above that sort of treatment, and that was due largely to the talent of Nichelle Nichols than it was any effort on the part of the writers.

The Next Generation is far from perfect when it comes to its treatment of women. Dr. Beverly Crusher is the show's most underwritten character, while Counselor Deanna Troi was used primarily for love interest stories and had some rather quaint traits, like her chocolate obsession. And yet characters like Jean-Luc Picard and Data would never treat women in the casually misogynistic manner of a James T. Kirk; even the moderately sex-obsessed Commander Will Riker has a surprisingly good grasp of consent. While Troi and Crusher didn't really benefit from this evolution — which admittedly took place during TNG's run, as some bits of the first two seasons are incredibly sexist — it paved the way for the franchise's iconic female characters, like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Kira Nerys, Star Trek: Voyager's Captain Kathryn Janeway, and Star Trek: Discovery's Commander Michael Burnham.

Star Trek: The Original Series still has its charms. The interplay between the three lead actors — William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and, DeForest Kelley — is genuinely fun and remains the best thing about the show. It's also sort of thrilling to track the franchise back to its roots. But Star Trek: The Next Generation is both the better and more popular iteration of Star Trek now because of its progressive worldview, its bravura acting — largely from Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner — and its high production values. It may be heresy in some corners of Star Trek fandom, but The Next Generation long ago passed Star Trek: The Original Series as the definitive version of the final frontier in the public consciousness.