I’m not sure when exactly we knew that the seventh season of TNG was going to be the final one, but as far as final seasons go, it didn’t really blow me away. Compared to other final seasons — House, Buffy*, and Deep Space Nine, to name but a few — it was decidedly lackluster… but there were a few high points.
I was exposed to Star Trek a lot as a child. It was something my father was into, and being a kid, I wanted to like the same cool stuff as my dad. So I got into wrestling, and The A-Team, and Knight Rider, and this old TV show that seemed to be on Channel 6 a lot called Star Trek. In it, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock traveled the galaxy, learning about stuff and getting into fights in their giant spaceship. It was cool, and even if it made me a bit of an outcast at school, so what? I still liked it.
And then, in 1987, my dad came home with the VHS tape of Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home, which we’d seen in theaters the previous fall. Attached to the beginning was a trailer for a new version of the show called Star Trek: the Next Generation.