Star Trek is enjoying a resurgence on the small screen with CBS All Access, but the franchise was nearly destroyed by hubris and disastrous decision making at the executive level at the turn of the century. The only reason Star Trek: Discovery has been framed as a franchise revival is that, not so long ago, it was dead and buried by its former corporate overlord, Paramount Pictures. It's important to understand the state of the franchise when the wheels began to come off.

In 1994, Star Trek was arguably at the absolute height of its popularity. The cast of Star Trek: The Original Series took a final curtain call in the well-received 1991 film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine launched in early 1993, the first show in the series to feature a non-white lead in Avery Brooks' Commander Benjamin Sisko. Above all, Star Trek: The Next Generation was a genuine cultural phenomenon. By its final seasons, the show had viewing numbers that were in the same ballpark as other '90s primetime television heavyweights, like Home Improvement and Seinfeld. Unlike those shows, however, TNG was syndicated, meaning it wasn't produced for one individual network, but sold to individual affiliates across the nation. It was unprecedented, even in that era, for a syndicated show to be so successful, and the nature of that format meant The Next Generation was almost certainly the most profitable scripted drama on television during its lifespan.

Not only was the show a massive hit, the quality was so high that it began to transcend the trappings of genre television, in those days considered lowbrow entertainment by many in the industry. Star Trek: The Next Generation defied those standards with high production values, thoughtful scripting, and an ensemble cast stacked with the kind of talent Star Trek really hadn't seen before. The show earned an Emmy nomination for Best Dramatic Series in 1994, one of the very few sci-fi shows to earn that honor. So how did Star Trek go from a pop culture behemoth to an also-ran in a decade? There's no one decision that crashed the franchise; rather, an almost unthinkable cycle of poor decisions that the series is only now recovering from. Let's take a look at how things became so dire so quickly.

Again, by 1994, Star Trek: The Next Generation was one of the most critically and financially successful shows on television, and its popularity was only increasing as time went on. However, the decision was made by Paramount and longtime Star Trek producer Rick Berman that the show would end that year, after seven seasons. Plenty of shows have gone out at the height of their popularity, but generally, that's because the show is finished telling the story it set out to; Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones are prime examples. TNG's cancellation had nothing to do with such high minded artistic considerations; the show's abrupt end was largely a decision made out of corporate greed. Around the seventh season is when shows tend to get more expensive to produce, as cast contracts generally run out around then and new, much pricier deals must be struck. However, the nature of The Next Generation's distribution model meant that, while more seasons would have been slightly less profitable, it still would have easily been one of the most profitable shows on television for many more years.

Paramount decided that cancelling The Next Generation in its prime would solve two problems; the TNG cast could replace The Original Series cast in the film series, and the studio could create a new Star Trek series that evoked the flavor of TNG, but without the expensive cast. It was also decided that this new Star Trek series would be the flagship show of Paramount's new television network, UPN. As for the TNG cast, Paramount simply assumed audiences would flock to theaters to see Picard and Data take on bigger and badder threats every two or three years. To put it mildly, Paramount's plans didn't work out how they suspected.