The original Star Trek series was released two decades before Star Trek: The Next Generation, but how many years separated the two shows in the universe? Star Trek: The Next Generation had big shoes to fill when it premiered in 1987 and jump-started the Star Trek TV franchise years after the cancelation of The Original Series. It presented an entirely different view of the Star Trek universe, and it was clear that a lot had changed since Captain Kirk commanded the USS Enterprise.
Star Trek's entire timeline was documented with precision by writers, and nearly every important moment was assigned a specific point in the history of the future. As such, the intervening years between Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation were quite specific, and that strong sense of continuity was one of the most important aspects of the franchise as a whole. The adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise-D were products of their own time within the Star Trek universe, just like Kirk and Spock's were before them.
