Published Aug 10, 2026, 2:15 PM EDT
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All good things must come to an end, even the seven-year mission of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That series overcame a rocky start to become one of the most beloved science fiction series in TV history, but by the time the seventh and final season came along, cast and crew were ready to disembark from the USS Enterprise. Gates McFadden related a tale of those days at Fan Expo Boston this weekend, at a Next Generation panel moderated by Collider's Steve Weintraub.
Episodic television has always had long hours, but the schedule on The Next Generation, which required makeup and prosthetics, special effects, stunts, and hours in uncomfortable Starfleet uniforms, was particularly arduous. McFadden and castmates Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes, who also participated in the panel, related the rigors of their 22-plus-episode seasons; Frakes noted that the cast members of Starfleet Academy, which he has directed for, were exhausted after three episodes of their relatively brief ten-episode seasons. Adding to the stress was the challenge of memorizing their dialogue, which was laden with alien names and technobabble. But one episode was the breaking point for McFadden, and luckily, it was the last one: the acclaimed two-part finale, "All Good Things...":
"I was shooting something in Portland at the time, and I had to come back, and then I had to do a scene...they had glued grey hair, pieces of grey hair, but the glue wouldn't come off. I had a 23-hour day, that was my overtime. It was 23 hours, and I was like, 'Thank god this is the last episode,' because I don't think I could do that every day."
McFadden had the challenge of playing her character, Dr. Beverly Crusher, across three different time periods in that episode, which required a number of wardrobe and costume changes. Unfortunately for her, no sooner had she finished the series finale than she was tossed into the TNG crew's first theatrical movie, Star Trek: Generations, which kicked off production four days after the series wrapped.
What Happened on "All Good Things..."?
In the grand finale to The Next Generation, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) faces his final test at the hands of the god-line entity Q (John de Lancie), with all humanity hanging in the balance. His mind is constantly shifted between three time periods; his first days commanding the Enterprise, as seen in the series' pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint"; the present, when an anti-time rift is forming in the Romulan Neutral Zone; and the future, when the Enterprise's bridge crew has drifted apart. In that future, Crusher has married and divorced Picard, and now commands her own ship, the medical frigate the USS Pasteur.
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Release Date 1987 - 1994-00-00
Network Syndication
Showrunner Gene Roddenberry
Writers René Echevarria, Maurice Hurley, Richard Manning, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Tracy Tormé, Hannah Louise Shearer, Stuart Charno, Ira Steven Behr, Sara B. Cooper, Peter Allan Fields, Herbert Wright, Frank Abatemarco, Burton Armus, Hilary Bader, Morgan Gendel, David Kemper, Michael I. Wagner, Philip LaZebnik, Robert McCullough, Susan Sackett, Nick Sagan, Fred Bronson, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Sam Rolfe
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Commander William T. Riker
English (US) ·