Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG, TNG) is a science fiction television series, part of the Star Trek universe created by Gene Roddenberry. Set in the 24th century, about 80 years after the original Star Trek, The Next Generation features a new crew and a new starship Enterprise.
ST:TNG premiered the week of September 28, 1987 with the two-hour pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint" and ran for 178 episodes in seven seasons, ending with the final episode "All Good Things..." the week of May 23, 1994. The series was broadcast in first-run syndication, with dates and times varying among individual television stations.
The show gained a considerable following during its run and, like its predecessor, remains popular in syndicated reruns. Its popularity led to the creation of a number of new Star Trek television series that would continue without interruption until 2005. Star Trek: The Next Generation is the only syndicated television show ever to be nominated for the Emmy Award for Best Dramatic Series. It was nominated for its seventh and final season in 1994. The series also formed the basis of the seventh through tenth movies of the Star Trek theatrical film series.
The voice over during each episode's opening credits was patterned after that of the original series—but its message was gender-neutral (coined in the story by James Kirk's alteration of Zefram Cochrane's original saying, at the end of Star Trek VI)—and was voiced by Patrick Stewart who portrayed Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise:
Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before
