Unsurprisingly, news of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s cancelation after two seasons has brought out some strong opinions among Trekkies. Some were genuinely delighted by the show’s mix of Trek lore and high school drama. Others thought the series showed promise, but needed some correction in later seasons, just like most other Trek shows. And a particularly vocal group praised the news as it ends a series that wasn’t real Trek.One cannot help but think of those fans when hearing about the memories Gates McFadden, Dr. Beverly Crusher of The Next Generation fame, shared about early fan reaction to her show. “In the beginning I was actually really scared of fans and conventions,” McFadden told attendees at MegaCon 2026 (via The Popverse). “I didn’t know what was expected of me. And also in the beginning, the fans were not as complimentary as they are now. They wanted it to be the original show. But I’ve learned so much about the show and the franchise, let alone how much importance it has been in individuals’ lives.”cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});In the defense of some of those fans, TNG had a famously rough launch. Built out of the remains of a sequel series called Star Trek: Phase II, which would have been about Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew on new adventures, and seen by creator Gene Roddenberry as a way to regain the control he had lost over the movies, TNG‘s first two seasons suffered from bland plots, out-of-date clichés, and a checked out Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard. The series didn’t find its groove until season 3, when it became the classic series it is today.Fans use the phrase “Growing the Beard” to describe the uptick in quality of a Star Trek show, a reference to Riker gaining facial hair after season 1. In fact, all of the ’90s Trek shows underwent similar arcs. It took two seasons of Deep Space Nine for the Dominion to become the major threat (and for Sisko to grow his goatee and shave his head). Voyager became a much better show when Seven of Nine joined the crew in the season 4 premiere (after Janeway styled her hair into a bob). And the fourth of final season of Enterprise is far, far better than anything that came before, despite all the hairstyles staying mostly the same.Modern Trek shows haven’t had quite the same arc. Discovery did get much better after jumping 900 years in the future at the end of season 2, and Star Trek: Picard was stronger when it turned into a TNG reunion for its third season. But Lower Decks and Prodigy were good all the way through their runs, and Strange New Worlds is threatening to take the opposite trajectory, as the third season is far worse than anything in the first two.There’s no telling if Starfleet Academy would have followed the same trajectory of ’90s shows, or if it would have stayed the same, or if it would have dipped in quality. But McFadden’s comments remind us not only that taste is subjective, but that “real Trek” is often hated by fans, at least at first.The post Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Remembers When They Weren’t Real Trek appeared first on Den of Geek.