And the Sky's the Limit': The Writers of the 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' Series Finale Look Back, 20 Years Later

Twenty years ago, Star Trek: The Next Generation writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga faced the TV writer's equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru (that's a no-win scenario, for you non-Trekkers out there): Not only were they tasked with scripting the first TNG movie, 1994's Star Trek: Generations, but they also had to craft a two-hour series finale that would put a bow on Star Trek: TNG's seven-season TV run. And oh yeah, write both scripts at the same time.
The result: All Good Things the immensely satisfying and beloved TNG finale that aired May 23, 1994
  twenty years ago this week. When Yahoo TV reached out to Moore and Braga to speak about the finale, they both seemed surprised to learn it's been twenty years since it first aired. And shockingly, neither has actually watched the episode in the two decades since. ("Maybe I will for the Blu-ray or something," Moore laughed.)
But both graciously spoke to us at length about their memories of writing and filming the landmark episode, including how they landed the coveted assignment, the comedic subplot that didn't make it into the final script, and why they think "All Good Things…" turned out so much better than Star Trek: Generations did.

"I don't know how or why, but I'm moving back and forth through time."

Moore and Braga had been working on the Generations film script for a full year when it came time to write the TNG series finale. And they weren't expecting to get the call.

Moore: "It was actually kind of a surprise. There was an assumption for the whole writing staff that [executive producer] Michael Piller was going to write the finale. He was the showrunner, so we kind of assumed he would reserve that for himself. But he was busy with Deep Space [Nine], and at one point, he just said, 'No, Ron and Brannon, I want you guys to write it.' We were surprised, and honored."

Braga: "I don't even know why we were necessarily asked to write the finale, given that we were writing the movie at the same time. All I can say is we were much younger. It's hard to imagine doing that again. But we were very much into it, and we loved the show, and ironically, the finale turned out better than the movie, so… but it was hard to do. We were both working around the clock."

Once they got the assignment, Moore and Braga huddled with the TNG writing staff to hammer out a concept for the finale. The plot: Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) finds himself jumping back and forth between three timelines  past, present, and future  all at the behest of Q (John de Lancie), the omnipotent troublemaker who put humanity on trial in the TNG pilot "Encounter at Farpoint"… and isn't done toying with Picard yet.

Moore: "It was kind of late in the game; we really didn't have a lot of time to figure it out. There had been various ad hoc discussions over the [previous] year or two about what a series finale could be, among the staff. Nothing really formal. And some of the ideas that coalesced that we knew we wanted to do were, just do a Q show. There was a general thought of, we should go back and do something with Q for the finale. It would kind of bookend the entire series."