Star Trek: The Next Generation

Name: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Sci-Fi

1987–1994SyndicationSci-Fi

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The Enterprise-D passing the camera at warp while Patrick Stewart reads the mission statement. Stately, slow and completely confident — it takes almost a minute and a half before anything happens, and it never once feels the need to hurry.

Star Trek: The Next Generation rebuilt its titles: three distinct opening sequences are catalogued here across seasons 1–7, running between 96 and 107 seconds.

At 107 seconds at its longest, it opens well above the 58-second median for sci-fi sequences in this catalogue.

It arrived on Syndication in 1987, when Romper Room, Truth or Consequences and Soul Train were also on the network.

Only 139 of the 2,618 shows catalogued here changed their titles at all; Star Trek: The Next Generation did so two times.

3 sequences4th most looked up of 248 in the 1980sIMDb ↗Official site ↗

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All 3 opening title sequences

Season 1

97s

The original cut, using the four-foot Enterprise-D miniature. Jerry Goldsmith's Motion Picture theme is joined to Alexander Courage's fanfare, and Stewart updates the narration to 'where no one has gone before'. Gates McFadden is in the cast cards.

Season 2

96s

Same footage, shorter crew — the cast cards drop from eight to seven with Denise Crosby and Gates McFadden both gone. Diana Muldaur was offered a place in the titles as Doctor Pulaski and turned it down, so the season's new doctor is billed as a special guest star instead and never appears here.

Seasons 3–7

107s

Rebuilt for season 3 around the new six-foot Enterprise-D model, which reads far sharper in the close passes, with a re-recorded and brighter arrangement of the theme. McFadden returns to the cast cards and the sequence stays put for the rest of the run.

More sci-fi opening titles from the 1980s

2 sequences

Quantum Leap

1989–1993NBCSci-Fi

Narration explaining a premise too complicated to infer, over a theme by Mike Post — the anthology format's problem solved in sixty seconds every week.

Season 1
Season 4

1 sequence

War of the Worlds

1988–1990SyndicationSci-Fi

A sequel to the 1953 film in which the aliens were never defeated, only dormant.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Twilight Zone (1985)

1985–1989CBSSci-Fi

The first revival, with the Grateful Dead re-recording Marius Constant's motif — the middle of three attempts at the same idea, all of which are now in this catalogue.