To Boldly Go Nowhere...

TrekToday posted a quick blurb about a TV Guide interview with Connor Trinneer. Though he wasn't happy with the script, he enjoyed that his character was the only Enterprise regular with an official send-off.

One paragraph in the post stood out:

Having the Star Trek: The Next Generation stars reprise their roles as Riker and Troi was scheduled before it was known that "These Are the Voyages..." would be the series finale, said executive producer Rick Berman. "If we hadn't gotten the ax, it still would have been our season finale," he said, noting that the six-year jump forward in time would have made it possible for Tucker to stay alive for the remainder of a seven-year television show.

Following the observations of many including my dear friend Dr. Heimlich, if this were true, Rick Berman was setting in stone absolutely no major changes to the NX-01 crew over the next few seasons, let alone over the next six years. And, we'd always have in the back of our minds the knowledge that Trip, the only dynamic character in the crew, would die needlessly. In other words, those of us who demand some quality to our entertainment are all the better that this franchise has been shut down.