The nearly ran the character into the ground (and as a kid watching A Team knowing it was the same actor was wild), but I think Brocolli made Voyager's last few dragging seasons far better.
You know everything in this video is inaccurate in one way or another right? It wasn't spiner who pitched the idea of lore. It was Roddenberry himself because he said data literally is incapable of love or, any emotions.
That’s true for certain episodes It’s hardly indicative of the entire series.Yes somewhere repurposed scripts, but I don’t think that was the case for the majority of the series.
How is it 2026 and I'm this big of a Star Trek fan and only just today learned that the "whoosh" sound was made by someone just mouthing a whoosh sound?! It's madness!! Madness I tell you!
He didn't start out as a time filler. Roddenberry had an entire 2 hour episode dedicated to q as it comes from an old show he wanted to make before star trek. This guy got just about everything wrong in this video although the facts are closely resembling the truth. The fact is the other writers hated the idea of q and, wanted to limit his involvement but, gene pushed for it and, the compromise was the two parter encounter at far point. It's not really a shock that he got so much wrong because this entire video was done by AI.
@joshuareynolds23 agreed. Q starred in the pilot episode and proceeded to create random havoc with, not only Next Generation but Voyager and Deep Space Nine. John DeLancie ROCKED as Q
Brent Spiner played 3 charcters in that episode,not 2...Data,Lore AND Dr soung (or however the name is spelled)...you know...the old man who created Data and Lore.
@LocutusPrimehe's not a direct decendant of khan. It's the other way around the soongs have been futzing with what it means to be human since our time.
Does anyone realize that it has already been 39 years now since this first aired? Boy this make me feel old. I was 14 when this first started. I am now 51 soon to be 52 in a little over a month. It's hard to believe that it has already been that long ago.
Don't feel bad. Im 70 and have been watching Star Trek in all its iterations and in reruns since the original series in the mid-60s. Nothing beats Trek.
One of the conventions I went to Majel was there. She told us, "Gene came home from the studio one day and said to me, I have a part for you and you don't even have to act. Thus was born Lwaxana Troi." She also told me that her favorite show in the series was the TNG episode "The Cost of Living."
Ultimate Picard dry humor... Picard speaking to Ensign Wesley Crusher leaning over the helm as they were returning the ultra-annoying Luxana Troy to Betazet... "Mr. Crusher, set course to Betazet...WARP NINE!!!"
Agreed. Patrick Stewart with hair just looks wrong. I'm so glad they didn't go that direction of Picard being Kirk 2.0. The show wouldn't have been nearly as compelling.
For the slush pile entry, I'm surprised you didn't bring up Rene Echevarria. The first episode he wrote was The Offspring, and it was a slush pile submission. They loved it so much, they hired him. He would go on to write for TNG and DS9.
And Ronald D. Moore. His script was used...they called him back again and again. Eventually he was on the writing staff full time, then he moved over to DS9 when TNG ended (he co-wrote Generations and First Contact) and then became head writer of DS9. From slush pile to co-show runner.
15:09 Our elementary school in Rhea County, Tennessee, took part in a student-written episode contest. Me and my best friend wrote an episode-we were in 8th grade! They sent us a copy of “Darmok” as a sample script we could use to learn the scripting format. I’d give anything to have that script again now, over 30 years later. Some high school senior in a big city won the episode and had their’s made… but we had fun the whole time, regardless.
When I finally got to meet Tasha Yar at a convention. I told her how her death on TNG was the first moment that I realized my favorite character could die in movies and TV shows… Apparently it’s a common thing for her to hear.
My girlfriend, soon fiance and later wife, went over to my parents' house every week, grilled steaks and watched TNG with my folks. Definitely a great time in my life.
@KenFullman Depending on his age, I wonder if he had playing cards clipped to his wheels. SO nerdy (I did, but way before TNG, more around 1975-1976). And just to be clear, I think having the playing cards clipped to his wheels (if you don't get it, do a little research) would be awesome (again, I did).
as someone who had no family growing up, Picard (tng) was my role father model and Janeway (voyager) was my role mother. I turned out pretty alright :3
I love that Stewart lived in a small apartment for 2 years like some sort of student. Just for that alone he would have saved enough money for the rest of his life. While other stars "buy" the biggest house they can get a mortgage for, "buy" a car that costs as much as a nice apartment, and after a year they're back to living the lifestyle they were before with nothing to show. People learn to invest and manage your money. You'd be surprised at how you can turn a small something into a decent something.
Stewart wasn't a star before TNG, and didn't really become one until later seasons - he always said that he never thought TNG was going to work out and that he'd be back looking for work. I think this mentality for the first few seasons kept him grounded and he stayed relatively frugal.
When talking about the fan submitted scripts, you failed to mention that René Echevarria got his job on TNG via that pipeline. He wrote a script that they liked and hired him as a full time member of the writers for the show. The episode that he wrote is also one of my favorites "The Offspring".
I was a media communication major in college when this first aired. I was able to commandeer our local film lab, sneak everyone in, and have my own private showing in stereo on the big screen.
I guess the fact about the engine room was skipped because it is well known but for anyone reading that doesn't know - the engine room scene in episode 1 was written to force Paramount to build the set. Roddenberry knew the likelihood of it being built later was low so he forced their hand.
And there was Brent Spiner viewing the bridge viewscreen (a greenscreen itself, image to be put there post production) with a fixed unblinking gaze and wholly in character -- this was called "Spinering." He said he would do it by not blinking and getting lost in the green until his cue.
As a kid (and even now), it always bothered me so much that the stars inside the planetary ring in the opening credits move out of frame with the planet while the background stars aren’t moving.
I could literally watch hours of content like this. My favorite fact is that "growing the beard" is a idiom that came directly from TNG. After Frakes did that, the show became noticeably better.
God bless Roddenberry for creating Star Trek, BUT… TNG didn’t start getting good until AFTER he stopped meddling in the scripts creating horrible episodes like ‘Skin of Evil’.
You missed Stephen Hawking, the REAL Stephen Hawking also wanting to be on the show, and so it happened, when he was part of a holographic program (eps. "Descent part1")
I love it that JDL was so great as Q that they not only made him into a recurring character, but had him then reappear in three more series after TNG (DS9, Voyager, Picard).
9:45 I absolutely love that they reused set pieces, cuts down on waste and if I was one of the people who made that set piece, I'd want them to get the most out of it. 16:40 If I had been assigned to the Enterprise D, I would have either been the helmswoman or in engineering.
I still believe to this day that they really scewed up with how they handle Wesley. They could have a really cool spin-off that was totally different with Wesley going off to other places that Star Fleet couldn't ever travel to with The Traveler. Sort of like old Dr. Who.
It was his choice. He thought he could do better than star trek and didnt want to be only known for it. Ironically, it would have been huge for his career to stay.
Regarding fact #1 - Patrick Stewart had been in Sci-Fi before Star Trek. He was in the 1984 version of Dune (as Gurney) and he was in the cult classic Lifeforce. Also, either I am a super Star Trek nerd (I'm not) or many of these facts are recycled endlessly for channels like these because I've heard them all many times before.
Some of his leaning was also to keep him in the same shot with his shorter costars. They also often framed shots where he would be standing on the other side of a room speaking to someone close to the camera in an over-the-shoulder POV.
I love, love, love your channel. But the random arrow you show in every thumbnail is getting old. You are better than that and you don't need it. Oh, and the "swoosh" sounds Alexander Courage made with his mouth were the Enterprise passes the opening credits in the original series, not TNG.
A few more interesting facts. In the episode Symbiosis there were 2 Star Trek alum that appeared as gust stars(Judson Scott who played Joachim in Star Trek 2 and Meritt Buttrick who played David Marcus is Star Treks 2 and 3). The episode had an anti drug message. One society made the drug and another was the buyer. So basically you had Space crack.
One of the legacy's of their open script submission was Ronald Moore. He submitted a script and though heavily rewritten his name was on it. This eventually got him into the writer room full time he then went on to produce DS9 and Battlestar Galactica. If that hadn't worked out he was going to join the Navy.
Great performers get noticed. Doesn't matter from where. He is a trained stage actor. Did a lot of work with South Coast Rep. I was a Theatre Major around that time and remember seeing him there. Really fine Actor!
I was there for Days of our Lives and John de Lancie's character was wild. He got abducted by aliens once, maybe that was when he was recruited by the Q Continuum. John de Lance was the entire reason I got addicted to Days of Our Lives in the first place. When I saw him in the first episode of TNG I was jumping up and down. 😂🥳
One thing a lot of these type of "bet you didn't know this about star trek" youtube videos fail to mention is that in the 1980s, it was extremely rare for a movie star to do network television shows, they thought it was a step down. It was as if your movie career was over so now you're moving to network TV shows. There was a huge stigma attached to it, which is why a lot of Hollywood movie actors wouldn't do TV commercials - and if they did, they went into other countries to do them where nobody in the U.S would see them. When Wesley tried to do a movie, they saw it as a bit of a betrayal.
17:03 What does "both back to back best picture winners" even mean? A) Amadeus was released almost 10 years after Cuckoo's Nest. B) How could any two events occur "back to back" without it applying to "both"?
One personal weird fact about TNG is that the day after Encounter at Farpoint premiered, I witnessed my first earthquake cuz on October 1st, 1987, Southern California was rocked by the Whittier Narrows earthquake
who was voiced by John de Lancie... I tell you, the face I made when I realised why Discord's voice was so familiar when I watched MLP with my kids? Priceless
The Borg were originally supposed to be insectoid. They were developed by Maurice Hurley during the 1st season and was supposed to play into the "Conspriacy" episode. When he left, the idea was completely reworked to be the Borg.
I think one of the reasons why Lore worked was that he wasn't just David Hasselhoff with a fake mustache. The role allowed Spiner to tap into his full range of acting skills.
The most obvious reason Lore works is because he's a blast. Data is so regimented and logical, you rarely see the superhero he is. Enter Lore and you get an idea of just how powerful Data is - without him becoming evil himself. Also, Lore is a blast. And Brent Spiner got to go ham too, yes. He did a splendid job.
The one scene from TNG that will always stay with me is from an episode that otherwise escapes me. Picard, Data, Riker, Troi, Worf, and LaForge are in the conference room. There is a four way argument between Riker, Troi, Worf, and LaForge, with all four of them talking at the same time. Data is, of course, sitting calmly. Picard lets it go for a few seconds and then taps his finger on the table two times. Instantly the room is silent. I was impressed just how much respect these characters had for the captain's character that he could swing this kind of authority. If only the rest of the show could carry this kind of weight in its portrayal of the crew.
I thought the amount of horse-play on set before action was called would at least get a mention during the segment talking about how Patrick Stewart lived out of his suit case. Spiner used to talk about it at conventions: during season 1 Stewart took every shoot with the same level of seriousness he'd always taken on the Shakespearean stage all the way up until the episode they filmed where Tasha Yar died. He told other cast (mostly Spiner and Burton, though those two used to get almost everyone going--except the season 2 doctor) that they took acting seriously where he came from when they would get up to their shenanigans. Before filming one of the scenes where Picard went to the surface, Stewart went on set and started singing "The hills are alive..." And from that day forward, he was just as silly and carefree off-camera as Spiner and Burton.
Matt Frewer was the better choice I think. Not only was he perfect, but Robin Williams was such a massive star I think it would have ruined the suspension of disbelief.. you'd be looking at Star Trek.. feat. Robin Williams. ? Weird.. It seems like a lot of classic and iconic moments were happy accidents - and they had a lot of them throughout the 7 seasons!
Patrick Stewart didnt unpack for two years, but he took decades to admit the impact it had on his career. For years, he treated Picard as just another role he played - very similar to Harrison Ford.
Love this deep dive. TNG is one of my most favourite tv shows of that era. About the pilot's script; In the docuseries The Center Seat was mentioned that the scriptaddition from Roddenberry made D.C. Fontana angry because he did often rewrite scripts without notice and more so Roddenberry got a writerscredit and royalties. It was one the reasons Fontana left the show after two seasons. Also that lawyer of Roddenberry was an interesting story too, also covered in The Center Seat.
The Teleporter effect was actually created for the ORIGINAL Star Trek, they put glitter in a glass, stirred it, super imposed it, and voila, transporter... It was used in TNG because it worked so well.
The point about fan stories sparked a memory of Ronald D. Moore submitting a script for TNG and then getting hired as a screenwriter. He also then moved over to DS9 and then obviously created the BSG reboot series. Without them accepting fan scripts his career may never have happened.
Fun fact: Stewart only did the interview for The Next Generation because the companion for Doctor Who at the time convinced him to do it. They were in the same building practicing for their respective theatre performances at the time and he asked her how she could do "that sci-fi rubbish". She told him it was fun cause she got to practice her speaking by reciting technobabble and made-up alien names. He gave a similar response to his friend and fellow performer McKellen when he was auditioning for X-Men and suggested him for the role of Magneto. Evidently it worked, and here we are today.
I was one of those spec script writers. I still have the scripts, that were eventual rejected. Some aspects from both scripts did make there way into future episodes though.
She had her moments especially the aging episode. But as a TOS fan knowing it was the same actress who held Sargon's wife's consciousness was made me at least sympathetic to her
@ChristopherM720 I have seen almost all Star Trek, not the new online stuff. I loved her McCoy-ish way. That episode with Lwaxana was priceless! I hated that she left. Funny, I never could find anything to make me relate to Dr. Crusher. And that episode when Worf was injured and she REFUSED to let Worf do what was absolutely the Klingon way, made me despise her. Don't even get me started on that whole mess of her grandmother's lover - the ONLY episode I will never watch for a 2nd time in the entire Star Trek universe are episodes about Beverly. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest!☺
The theme tune really is a patchwork. It is also partly inspired by a track from Richard Harvey's Fantasia (1984). Another section of the same track was worked into the Picard theme. Fantasia II has also been drawn on for other Trek themes including Voyager and DS9.
![This Isn’t A Regular Church… [Cursed Meal]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RzD2jEmgKfQ/mqdefault.jpg)
That moment when Picard called Barclay broccoli was a great moment in television history.
One of my favorite episodes!
The nearly ran the character into the ground (and as a kid watching A Team knowing it was the same actor was wild), but I think Brocolli made Voyager's last few dragging seasons far better.
@ChristopherM720 I loved him even more in Voyager, greatly redeemed the character.
I hated that, personally.
Shut up Wesley!
spiner giving himself another role is so spiner
Knowing that he was capable of so much more than was written for him
You know everything in this video is inaccurate in one way or another right? It wasn't spiner who pitched the idea of lore. It was Roddenberry himself because he said data literally is incapable of love or, any emotions.
I love that line - "Paramount didn't reinvent the wheel; they just polished it and launched it at warp speed."
That’s true for certain episodes It’s hardly indicative of the entire series.Yes somewhere repurposed scripts, but I don’t think that was the case for the majority of the series.
How is it 2026 and I'm this big of a Star Trek fan and only just today learned that the "whoosh" sound was made by someone just mouthing a whoosh sound?! It's madness!! Madness I tell you!
Shatner parodies this in Airplane 2.
EXACTLY!!
I didn't know that either.
Because that fact isn’t correct. Mr. Courage did the “whoosh” effect for the ORIGINAL series.
Hey I just found out that Denise Crosby was Bing Crosby's granddaughter, so don't feel bad.
Can't believe "Q " started as a Time-filler! Q was by far the most interesting repeating character on the show. He was unforgettable!😂
Yep. Love Q
He didn't start out as a time filler. Roddenberry had an entire 2 hour episode dedicated to q as it comes from an old show he wanted to make before star trek. This guy got just about everything wrong in this video although the facts are closely resembling the truth. The fact is the other writers hated the idea of q and, wanted to limit his involvement but, gene pushed for it and, the compromise was the two parter encounter at far point.
It's not really a shock that he got so much wrong because this entire video was done by AI.
@joshuareynolds23 agreed.
Q starred in the pilot episode and proceeded to create random havoc with, not only Next Generation but Voyager and Deep Space Nine.
John DeLancie ROCKED as Q
I must be the only Star Trek fan who couldn’t stand Q’s character.
Brent Spiner played 3 charcters in that episode,not 2...Data,Lore AND Dr soung (or however the name is spelled)...you know...the old man who created Data and Lore.
Dr. Noonien Soong. 🙂
(edited because my correction got corrected!)
@sabinrawrNoonien
@BanjoBluey Right you are. Good call!
Whom was a direct descendant of Kahn.
@LocutusPrimehe's not a direct decendant of khan. It's the other way around the soongs have been futzing with what it means to be human since our time.
Does anyone realize that it has already been 39 years now since this first aired? Boy this make me feel old. I was 14 when this first started. I am now 51 soon to be 52 in a little over a month. It's hard to believe that it has already been that long ago.
Think of it like this. My favorite star trek DS9 is almost a decade older then I am.
I'm 60 this year . My eldest son is 42 this year. I can't believe where all the years have gone
Now you understand they way your grandfather talked about Howdy Doody😅
Don't feel bad. Im 70 and have been watching Star Trek in all its iterations and in reruns since the original series in the mid-60s. Nothing beats Trek.
Happy birthday
One of the conventions I went to Majel was there. She told us, "Gene came home from the studio one day and said to me, I have a part for you and you don't even have to act. Thus was born Lwaxana Troi." She also told me that her favorite show in the series was the TNG episode "The Cost of Living."
At least she liked a good episode. So many people found the Lwaxana character hard to watch but most of us still found that episode great.
She was already in almost every episode as the voice of the computer
This isn't true, you made this up
Ultimate Picard dry humor...
Picard speaking to Ensign Wesley Crusher leaning over the helm as they were returning the ultra-annoying Luxana Troy to Betazet...
"Mr. Crusher, set course to Betazet...WARP NINE!!!"
Stellar episode. Lwaxana was comic relief and to show Deanna's baggage. Definitely tough to watch sometimes and I wouldn't have her any other way 😁
I love how every Star Trek production used each other's sets and props.
So that's why they kept saying the title "Far Point Station" so often.. it added like 5 whole seconds
Brent Spiner’s second best role, after the iconic Bob Wheeler.
I can't get enough of those Night Court episodes when the Wheeler's showed up. Video collections of just Wheeler's....Soul food.
we ate the necco wafers
I guess I just don't have the knack for animal husbandry😊
He was in the rebooted “Night Court” too! S2 ep 11 & S3 ep13 😀
I beg to differ.
Imagine Captain Picard not bald and wearing a wig. They definitely made the right call
But they used the wig in a backflash brought on by alien species on Dr. Crusher
Agreed. Patrick Stewart with hair just looks wrong. I'm so glad they didn't go that direction of Picard being Kirk 2.0. The show wouldn't have been nearly as compelling.
I’m picturing Stewart’s rug flying first class, holding a glass of whiskey.
The sideburns acting like arms/hands? 😁
A cup of Earl Grey, hot.
Well, it actually happed just like that.
For the slush pile entry, I'm surprised you didn't bring up Rene Echevarria. The first episode he wrote was The Offspring, and it was a slush pile submission. They loved it so much, they hired him. He would go on to write for TNG and DS9.
Thanks for adding that.
And Ronald D. Moore. His script was used...they called him back again and again. Eventually he was on the writing staff full time, then he moved over to DS9 when TNG ended (he co-wrote Generations and First Contact) and then became head writer of DS9. From slush pile to co-show runner.
@johngill704 and of course went on to reboot Battlestar Galactica and is now behind For All Mankind. Moore is a legend.
@RobotImpurityAnd Outlander
@johngill704and on to For All Mankind and Outlander and Battlestar Galactica
I had no idea that the script writers had written a script with Robin Williams in mind
If that episode had been in the later seasons, it could have easily gone to Jim Carrey. I see him in the role every time I watch the episode.
15:09 Our elementary school in Rhea County, Tennessee, took part in a student-written episode contest. Me and my best friend wrote an episode-we were in 8th grade! They sent us a copy of “Darmok” as a sample script we could use to learn the scripting format. I’d give anything to have that script again now, over 30 years later.
Some high school senior in a big city won the episode and had their’s made… but we had fun the whole time, regardless.
my husbean is from Rhea County, and Darmok is one of our favorite episodes! That's so neat. :-)
I sent this to my husband and he actually knows you and says he still talks to you! That's wild. :D
They probably used your ideas for Discovery
When I finally got to meet Tasha Yar at a convention.
I told her how her death on TNG was the first moment that I realized my favorite character could die in movies and TV shows…
Apparently it’s a common thing for her to hear.
Denise Crosby
I remember racing home after school on my bike just to catch these episodes. It sure takes me back...
Yeah, same here.
My girlfriend, soon fiance and later wife, went over to my parents' house every week, grilled steaks and watched TNG with my folks. Definitely a great time in my life.
Sounds like a nice bike.
@KenFullman Depending on his age, I wonder if he had playing cards clipped to his wheels. SO nerdy (I did, but way before TNG, more around 1975-1976). And just to be clear, I think having the playing cards clipped to his wheels (if you don't get it, do a little research) would be awesome (again, I did).
@dbf1dware I used to use clothes pegs for the same effect.
Watching from Buffalo, New York, USA, April 15, 2026. Awesome! Simply awesome! Thank you!
as someone who had no family growing up, Picard (tng) was my role father model and Janeway (voyager) was my role mother. I turned out pretty alright :3
No, you didn't.
@demonmonsterdavehow would you know? And what kind of a comment is that?
@jexrabbit I know because I was there. It is a youtube comment.
@demonmonsterdavewhen a good comment goes wrong because of interpretation 😢
I love that Stewart lived in a small apartment for 2 years like some sort of student. Just for that alone he would have saved enough money for the rest of his life. While other stars "buy" the biggest house they can get a mortgage for, "buy" a car that costs as much as a nice apartment, and after a year they're back to living the lifestyle they were before with nothing to show.
People learn to invest and manage your money. You'd be surprised at how you can turn a small something into a decent something.
Stewart wasn't a star before TNG, and didn't really become one until later seasons - he always said that he never thought TNG was going to work out and that he'd be back looking for work. I think this mentality for the first few seasons kept him grounded and he stayed relatively frugal.
When talking about the fan submitted scripts, you failed to mention that René Echevarria got his job on TNG via that pipeline. He wrote a script that they liked and hired him as a full time member of the writers for the show. The episode that he wrote is also one of my favorites "The Offspring".
I was a media communication major in college when this first aired. I was able to commandeer our local film lab, sneak everyone in, and have my own private showing in stereo on the big screen.
Lol.. that's awesome 😊
I had no idea that one of my favourite episodes was a fan script! That warms my nerdy heart.
I guess the fact about the engine room was skipped because it is well known but for anyone reading that doesn't know - the engine room scene in episode 1 was written to force Paramount to build the set. Roddenberry knew the likelihood of it being built later was low so he forced their hand.
Jonathan Frakes (Riker), swinging his leg over a chair was also called "the Riker maneuver" 🙂
and wasn't the picard maneuver patric steward pulling his shirt down? 😄
And there was Brent Spiner viewing the bridge viewscreen (a greenscreen itself, image to be put there post production) with a fixed unblinking gaze and wholly in character -- this was called "Spinering." He said he would do it by not blinking and getting lost in the green until his cue.
As a kid (and even now), it always bothered me so much that the stars inside the planetary ring in the opening credits move out of frame with the planet while the background stars aren’t moving.
Same! I used to watch so close trying to figure it out, back on the old tv from the 80s lol
I would watch reruns late at night with one of my younger children...she thought you wear hair bands over the eyes like Geordie Laforge
Counselor Troy actually caused me to go grad school to become a therapist.
After doing TNG, I hope this channel also does Star Trek TOS as well as Galaxy Quest
I remember watching an episode of Star Trek TNG right before going into labor with my first son. Hard to believe he's almost 32 now
Close your eyes and you can totally hear Robin Williams saying " Berlinghoff Rasmussen."
#5 Q is one of the best characters in all of Star Trek.
I know a thousand tribbles that disagree.
Q is great but have you not seen DS9?
Never knew the background with Will Wheaton, 100 % don't blame him for walking away. Horrible for a young actor on his way up.....
I could literally watch hours of content like this. My favorite fact is that "growing the beard" is a idiom that came directly from TNG. After Frakes did that, the show became noticeably better.
My math teacher in 6th grade wrote a script for TNG! It was so amazing. Our entire school watched
Which episode was it? Also, my 5th grade teachers older brother played Commander Maddox in "The Measure of a Man".
God bless Roddenberry for creating Star Trek, BUT… TNG didn’t start getting good until AFTER he stopped meddling in the scripts creating horrible episodes like ‘Skin of Evil’.
Roddenberry gave the layout and steps. Once he left those studying underneath him perfected it.
I knew a lot of these, but I didn't know that fans wrote some of the episodes! That's wild.
It was a great one too! One of my favourites
The transporter effect was explained way back in the day by Levar Burton himself on a special behind the scenes of TNG episode of Reading Rainbow.
Yeah, I came on here to say this. It's one of the few on this list I knew because I watched that episode when it first aired!
Weird fact not included with Dr Pulaski
She also was in an Original series episode in her younger years!
2 different episodes. "Return To Tomorrow" as Lt. Commander Ann Mulhall and "Is There In Truth No Beauty" as Dr. Miranda Jones.
@soaringeagle5418 Yup!
You missed Stephen Hawking, the REAL Stephen Hawking also wanting to be on the show, and so it happened, when he was part of a holographic program (eps. "Descent part1")
I love it that JDL was so great as Q that they not only made him into a recurring character, but had him then reappear in three more series after TNG (DS9, Voyager, Picard).
Will Wheaton was so cute to me when he was on this show. I was in love with him as a preteen. 🤣🤣🤣
nothing paedo about being in love with preteens ... oh ... wait
9:45 I absolutely love that they reused set pieces, cuts down on waste and if I was one of the people who made that set piece, I'd want them to get the most out of it.
16:40 If I had been assigned to the Enterprise D, I would have either been the helmswoman or in engineering.
I still believe to this day that they really scewed up with how they handle Wesley. They could have a really cool spin-off that was totally different with Wesley going off to other places that Star Fleet couldn't ever travel to with The Traveler. Sort of like old Dr. Who.
Agreed. The worst part is that the control move they pulled against Wheaton didn't even make sense, at least not how it was explained here.
No one liked Wesley though.
@SlamminUK Shut up Wesley!🤣🤣🤣
@STARSHIPTROOP 🤣
It was his choice. He thought he could do better than star trek and didnt want to be only known for it. Ironically, it would have been huge for his career to stay.
Regarding fact #1 - Patrick Stewart had been in Sci-Fi before Star Trek. He was in the 1984 version of Dune (as Gurney) and he was in the cult classic Lifeforce. Also, either I am a super Star Trek nerd (I'm not) or many of these facts are recycled endlessly for channels like these because I've heard them all many times before.
Rasmussen was max headroom? Wow, never seen that before..
Jonathan Frakes (Riker), leaned on furniture like that, due to a back injury from moving furniture.
Some of his leaning was also to keep him in the same shot with his shorter costars. They also often framed shots where he would be standing on the other side of a room speaking to someone close to the camera in an over-the-shoulder POV.
Oh, the irony.
I love, love, love your channel. But the random arrow you show in every thumbnail is getting old. You are better than that and you don't need it. Oh, and the "swoosh" sounds Alexander Courage made with his mouth were the Enterprise passes the opening credits in the original series, not TNG.
@jediknightjairinaiki560 "You hurt my back, I lean on yours. Take that, swivel chair!"
@LarryLeeMonizYou're just going to have to get over it.
20:11: That's not Roddenberry's lawyer. It's Maurice Hurley, TNG's head writer for the first two seasons.
thank god he left the show. should have fired hurley long before.
A few more interesting facts. In the episode Symbiosis there were 2 Star Trek alum that appeared as gust stars(Judson Scott who played Joachim in Star Trek 2 and Meritt Buttrick who played David Marcus is Star Treks 2 and 3). The episode had an anti drug message. One society made the drug and another was the buyer. So basically you had Space crack.
One of the legacy's of their open script submission was Ronald Moore. He submitted a script and though heavily rewritten his name was on it. This eventually got him into the writer room full time he then went on to produce DS9 and Battlestar Galactica. If that hadn't worked out he was going to join the Navy.
Lol where would I be, in engineering figuring out where Ashley Judd went.
Love that John De Lancie was scouted because of Days of Our Lives
Great performers get noticed. Doesn't matter from where. He is a trained stage actor. Did a lot of work with South Coast Rep. I was a Theatre Major around that time and remember seeing him there. Really fine Actor!
@JuliaKappI wasn't dissing days of our lives or soap acting
I was there for Days of our Lives and John de Lancie's character was wild. He got abducted by aliens once, maybe that was when he was recruited by the Q Continuum. John de Lance was the entire reason I got addicted to Days of Our Lives in the first place. When I saw him in the first episode of TNG I was jumping up and down. 😂🥳
0:38 season 2 onward we had Rikers gangster lean head tilt whenever he walked. Left side is the crip side as per Snoop. What a commanding SOB
This was great - only wish you mentioned why Denise left the show
I needed some Star Trek TNG to brighten up my day. Thank you! :)
Mike and Rich Evans have entered the chat.
I wish they would. I can listen to Mike and Rich talk TNG all damn day.
Wow, Wheaton was treated horribly. Shame on them.
He has written memoirs. Well worth a read.
One thing a lot of these type of "bet you didn't know this about star trek" youtube videos fail to mention is that in the 1980s, it was extremely rare for a movie star to do network television shows, they thought it was a step down. It was as if your movie career was over so now you're moving to network TV shows. There was a huge stigma attached to it, which is why a lot of Hollywood movie actors wouldn't do TV commercials - and if they did, they went into other countries to do them where nobody in the U.S would see them. When Wesley tried to do a movie, they saw it as a bit of a betrayal.
@zidbits1528Wil Wheaton had already done movies before TNG, stand by me being most notable.
I don't care about the transporter (though it'd be cool.) I just want humanity to evolve.
In high school, this was my Star Trek
17:03 What does "both back to back best picture winners" even mean? A) Amadeus was released almost 10 years after Cuckoo's Nest. B) How could any two events occur "back to back" without it applying to "both"?
Please do a deep dive on Star Trek: Enterprise with Scott Bakula. It’s my favorite Trek or at least top 2
Ahhhh.... The good old days. Now we have Kurtzman Trek.
Uhg! Kurtzman Trek. Is it even Trek. Press X to doubt.
One personal weird fact about TNG is that the day after Encounter at Farpoint premiered, I witnessed my first earthquake cuz on October 1st, 1987, Southern California was rocked by the Whittier Narrows earthquake
And???
The thing that irks me is that Wesley Crusher, (prior to the Corbamite manouver), was never given promotion from Ensign to Leutenant or even higher.
As the guy who played harry Kim was told someone has to be the ensign
I remember learning about the glitter thing from a star trek focused episode of Reading Rainbow.
One of the facts you missed is Mick Fleetwood was in an episode of TNG as an alien.
Barely. He was covered head to toe in a costume. We couldn’t see him at all. He never spoke a word. A telephone pole could have played that role.
@JaneKaplun-js4lpirrespective. He was still in it.
Franks had a bad back injury and sat and leaned a certain way to relieve pain.
Very well researched and very interesting. Didn't think there was anything left I didn't know about TNG but a few of those facts were new to me :)
I always thought that the Transporter shimmer was made with the shiny 'pom-pom' things that cheerleaders wave about so vigorously...
Q was such an influential character that he ended being the direct inspiration for Discord in My Little Pony Gen 4
who was voiced by John de Lancie... I tell you, the face I made when I realised why Discord's voice was so familiar when I watched MLP with my kids? Priceless
The Borg were originally supposed to be insectoid. They were developed by Maurice Hurley during the 1st season and was supposed to play into the "Conspriacy" episode. When he left, the idea was completely reworked to be the Borg.
I think one of the reasons why Lore worked was that he wasn't just David Hasselhoff with a fake mustache.
The role allowed Spiner to tap into his full range of acting skills.
Oh c‘‘mon, give Garthe more credit ;-)
The most obvious reason Lore works is because he's a blast. Data is so regimented and logical, you rarely see the superhero he is. Enter Lore and you get an idea of just how powerful Data is - without him becoming evil himself. Also, Lore is a blast. And Brent Spiner got to go ham too, yes. He did a splendid job.
The one scene from TNG that will always stay with me is from an episode that otherwise escapes me. Picard, Data, Riker, Troi, Worf, and LaForge are in the conference room. There is a four way argument between Riker, Troi, Worf, and LaForge, with all four of them talking at the same time. Data is, of course, sitting calmly. Picard lets it go for a few seconds and then taps his finger on the table two times. Instantly the room is silent. I was impressed just how much respect these characters had for the captain's character that he could swing this kind of authority.
If only the rest of the show could carry this kind of weight in its portrayal of the crew.
There were scores of former soap actors on Star Trek which you could research.
I thought the amount of horse-play on set before action was called would at least get a mention during the segment talking about how Patrick Stewart lived out of his suit case. Spiner used to talk about it at conventions: during season 1 Stewart took every shoot with the same level of seriousness he'd always taken on the Shakespearean stage all the way up until the episode they filmed where Tasha Yar died. He told other cast (mostly Spiner and Burton, though those two used to get almost everyone going--except the season 2 doctor) that they took acting seriously where he came from when they would get up to their shenanigans. Before filming one of the scenes where Picard went to the surface, Stewart went on set and started singing "The hills are alive..." And from that day forward, he was just as silly and carefree off-camera as Spiner and Burton.
Geriody was not hiding. He was keeping the ship running. And I be a engineer under him
3:43 Not to forget the opening of Mahler’s 1st Symphony was quite obviously thrown in as well.
Matt Frewer was the better choice I think. Not only was he perfect, but Robin Williams was such a massive star I think it would have ruined the suspension of disbelief.. you'd be looking at Star Trek.. feat. Robin Williams. ? Weird..
It seems like a lot of classic and iconic moments were happy accidents - and they had a lot of them throughout the 7 seasons!
I was 6 years old in most of 1987...now im 45. I love TNG, but man, my go to will always be DS9
The fact that Guinan and Q were written into the show and that one scene between them. Chef's kiss.
One last time? The trial never ends.
‘Hiding’ in engineering’? That’s un-called for. Other than that, great video!
That rubbed me the wrong way as well!
Patrick Stewart didnt unpack for two years, but he took decades to admit the impact it had on his career. For years, he treated Picard as just another role he played - very similar to Harrison Ford.
Love this deep dive. TNG is one of my most favourite tv shows of that era.
About the pilot's script; In the docuseries The Center Seat was mentioned that the scriptaddition from Roddenberry made D.C. Fontana angry because he did often rewrite scripts without notice and more so Roddenberry got a writerscredit and royalties. It was one the reasons Fontana left the show after two seasons. Also that lawyer of Roddenberry was an interesting story too, also covered in The Center Seat.
27:40 unintentionally having the security guy, the KLINGON, standing around and "being on guard" at all times seems fitting.
The Teleporter effect was actually created for the ORIGINAL Star Trek, they put glitter in a glass, stirred it, super imposed it, and voila, transporter... It was used in TNG because it worked so well.
I read somewhere that the effect was created before TOS and taken from an early Twilight Zone episode
The point about fan stories sparked a memory of Ronald D. Moore submitting a script for TNG and then getting hired as a screenwriter. He also then moved over to DS9 and then obviously created the BSG reboot series. Without them accepting fan scripts his career may never have happened.
They did the Crushers dirty, didn't they?
But when she came back she got exactly what she wanted. The later seasons, when she took the lead, she proved she was the smartest person in the room.
Fun fact: Stewart only did the interview for The Next Generation because the companion for Doctor Who at the time convinced him to do it.
They were in the same building practicing for their respective theatre performances at the time and he asked her how she could do "that sci-fi rubbish".
She told him it was fun cause she got to practice her speaking by reciting technobabble and made-up alien names.
He gave a similar response to his friend and fellow performer McKellen when he was auditioning for X-Men and suggested him for the role of Magneto.
Evidently it worked, and here we are today.
thank you for this nice video.
If I recall from interviews, DC Fontana was handed the pilot and told to make it longer. She created and wrote Q, at least she claimed that.
I was one of the "writers" who submitted a script for TNG. I was pleasantly surprised that they actually read it!!
Congratulations! I wish I had such a badge of honor. Bravo
18:26 These are the same people that offered him a character title bump instead of an actual pay raise
16 Brent Spnar was Pierre in Dude, where's my car.
I tried to watch that movie, really... But shut it off after 5 minutes 🤷
I was one of those spec script writers. I still have the scripts, that were eventual rejected. Some aspects from both scripts did make there way into future episodes though.
I guess I'm unusual, I loved Doctor Pulaski!!
She had her moments especially the aging episode. But as a TOS fan knowing it was the same actress who held Sargon's wife's consciousness was made me at least sympathetic to her
@ChristopherM720 I have seen almost all Star Trek, not the new online stuff. I loved her McCoy-ish way. That episode with Lwaxana was priceless! I hated that she left. Funny, I never could find anything to make me relate to Dr. Crusher. And that episode when Worf was injured and she REFUSED to let Worf do what was absolutely the Klingon way, made me despise her. Don't even get me started on that whole mess of her grandmother's lover - the ONLY episode I will never watch for a 2nd time in the entire Star Trek universe are episodes about Beverly. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest!☺
I liked Polaski over Crusher
@shatshatington I'm glad I'm not the only one!
I have always liked both doctors
The theme tune really is a patchwork. It is also partly inspired by a track from Richard Harvey's Fantasia (1984). Another section of the same track was worked into the Picard theme.
Fantasia II has also been drawn on for other Trek themes including Voyager and DS9.
I'd be in the lower decks... Hey! That sounds like a cool idea for a Star Trek show!
On Adult Swim.
This was an awesome collection of Treknology. Thanks for it and keep being you.