Paramount considered a Star Trek film as early as 1972, and later planned the series Star Trek: Phase II with sketches, models, sets and props before shifting again to feature films with the Original Series cast.

The decision to create a new Star Trek TV series was partly driven by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy's high salary demands for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, making unknown actors more profitable for Paramount.

NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox all offered unsatisfactory deals for the new series, which convinced Paramount to distribute it directly through first-run syndication instead, offering it free to local stations as barter syndication.

Gene Roddenberry initially declined to be involved in the new series but joined as creator after being unhappy with the early conceptual work done without him.

The show's theme music combines the fanfare from Alexander Courage's original series theme with Jerry Goldsmith's theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and some early episode plots were derived from unused Star Trek: Phase II outlines.

Part of the transporter room set built for The Next Generation was reused in the original Star Trek films' transporter set, and some Original Series-era film sets were redressed for use on TNG.

Diana Muldaur, who played Dr. Katherine Pulaski in season two, had previously guest-starred in two episodes of the original Star Trek series.

Denise Crosby's character Tasha Yar was killed off near the end of season one, becoming the first regular Star Trek character to die permanently, though Crosby later returned playing Yar's half-Romulan daughter Sela.

NASA astronaut Mae Jemison played Lt. Palmer in the season six episode 'Second Chances', and the same season's finale cliffhanger featured a cameo by physicist Stephen Hawking.

After a chiropractor warned that cast members risked permanent skeletal injury from the extremely tight spandex uniforms used in the first two seasons, new two-piece wool uniforms were introduced starting in season three.

The 1988 Writers Guild of America strike cut season two from 26 to 22 episodes and delayed its start; the opening episode 'The Child' was based on an old Star Trek: Phase II script, while the season finale 'Shades of Gray' was a clip show.

During production of the season five episode 'Hero Worship', the cast and crew learned of Gene Roddenberry's death.

The Ten-Forward set, designed by Herman Zimmerman, was added on Stage 8 at Paramount Studios in season two and served as the crew's lounge, featuring a bar with windows showing a star field or other scenes via green-screen effects.

One of the three original filming models of the USS Enterprise-D sold at a Christie's auction in 2006 for $576,000, the highest-selling item at the event, purchased by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

The flute prop used in the acclaimed episode 'The Inner Light' was estimated to sell for at most $1,000 at a 2006 auction but ultimately sold for over $40,000.

The series finale in 1994 was watched by over 30 million viewers and ranked number two among all shows that week, and Toronto's SkyDome hosted a public viewing event where thousands watched the finale on the stadium's JumboTron.

Star Trek: The Next Generation became the first and only syndicated television series ever nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, achieved in its seventh season.