Star Trek: The Next Generation should’ve had an eighth season

Star Trek: The Next Generation should’ve gotten an eighth season.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was canceled after seven seasons for several reasons. Part of the reason was due to the financial costs of the show. With Paramount already putting Deep Space Nine on the air at this point, and Voyager on deck, the folks at the studio opted to focus on the less expensive shows. That wasn’t the only reason, it was a minor one at that, but it went hand in hand with the idea of converting the television series into a film series. It was all about maximizing profits at this point.

So The Next Generation finished its seventh season, things end and then the film series begins in earnest. The first film, Generations, had a nice hook of bringing in the original cast and the Next Generation cast; pairing Jean-Luc Picard and James Kirk for the first time ever. That film was met with a mixed reaction. Then First Contact came out and delivered one of, if not the best, Star Trek film ever. People were excited until they weren’t thanks to Insurrection and Nemesis. Those films hobbled the film franchise and caused Paramount to go in a different direction.

Should’ve had an eighth season.

While we’d all be for First Contact still being a film, the fact is nothing about that film couldn’t have worked as two, three, or even four-parter on The Next Generation. James Cromwell wasn’t such a huge star (as opposed to Tom Hanks) that you couldn’t have gotten him to do the role of Zephram Cochrane anyway. It could have been fleshed out even more, with even more twists and turns to be highlighted and utilized.

You could have also just done the eighth season, used Generations as a two-parter instead, and then started the film franchise with First Contact. Who knows if the change of having an eighth season would keep the franchise from having two subpar films back-to-back that ended the film franchise but it may have done just that.