It’s so bizarre to read this in the present, knowing how incredible TNG was, but I get it - the original crew WAS Star Trek to them.
The dedicated fans revived this series in syndication, well after it had gone off the air in 1969, and felt attached to the characters that they had obsessed over between then and the 1980s. Like modern fans, they thought that departure from what they knew would ruin it.
I wish I could go back in time and tell them that TNG is going to rock.
I never got into original series (and I existed before TNG) but something about TNG clicked.
Picard was a man of culture, not some Macho man to sleep with aliens of different colours.
Riker really came into his own as a second and had a different personality and perspective that added to the show
Data explored the concepts of AI and sentience and that mankind could create a new being (The measure of a man episode).
Jordi Laforge was inspiring that people with disabilities could be important and high ranking and overcome those challenges.
Sure, OS has its charm with fake Scottish man and Sulu and the radical idea not all Russians were insane. But I mean, Bones was just such a cliche (dammit Jim) and never really grew on me the way I’m sure he did the generation that loved John Wayne.
Yeah, what was revolutionary in the 1960s (humans of all nationalities working together) wouldn’t have been enough in 1987, but I appreciate that it set the groundwork for the series as a whole.
The acting in TOS is over the top and often silly, but I try to watch it as a product of its time - audiences didn’t really want their shows to have an edge or get deeply philosophical back then, so Roddenberry and team had to sneak that type of stuff in where they could. I have a soft spot for TOS and the campy characters and still think it’s a fun lighthearted watch.