Patrick Stewart’s 7-Part Sci-Fi Masterpiece Officially Returns to Dominate Streaming 39 Years Later

Nearly 40 years after its debut, Star Trek: The Next Generation is finding renewed attention as viewers honor Patrick Stewart by spending time once again with Jean-Luc Picard. Stewart passed away on Oct. 28 at his Los Angeles home at the age of 86, with his family confirming complications from Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia. The Next Generation entered Apple’s chart at number five as a new entry, sitting among current heavyweights like From and the recently revived Twin Peaks, which is remarkable company for a syndicated drama that wrapped its original run in 1994.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Returns to the Charts After Patrick Stewart’s Death

It’s hard to overstate what an unlikely triumph the show was in the first place, which makes its longevity all the more striking. When Paramount launched a Star Trek sequel series in 1987 without any of the original cast, the conventional wisdom said it couldn’t work, and the casting of a bald Shakespearean stage actor in his late forties as the new captain did little to quiet the skeptics.

Stewart himself reportedly didn’t unpack his bags for weeks, assuming the show would fail. Instead, The Next Generation ran 178 episodes across seven seasons, became the rare syndicated drama to earn a Best Drama Emmy nomination, and spawned four feature films plus the sequel series Picard, which gave Stewart a three-season coda ending in 2023. The finale of that run sits at 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which suggests the character’s farewell landed about as well as these things ever do. What gives the current moment an added poignancy is how recently Stewart was reflecting on all of it.

This year marks Star Trek‘s 60th anniversary, and in July he spoke to TV Insider about the role’s place in his life, saying, “Without question, Jean-Luc is the most significant role of my career. And I will be forever grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of what is now such a historic franchise.” He also looked ahead to the show’s own milestone next year, noting:

“All of these anniversaries are wildly surreal for me, but the 40th anniversary of The Next Generation is particularly remarkable. I still remember my first day driving onto the Paramount lot like it was yesterday.”

Audiences Are Honoring Patrick Stewart by Returning to Jean-Luc Picard

Those comments now read as something close to a farewell, whether or not anyone understood them that way at the time. The loss also lands during an unusually heavy stretch for the franchise. Walter Koenig, the original series’ Chekov, died just days before Stewart at 90, leaving William Shatner and George Takei as the only surviving members of the original main cast. Stewart is the first of the Next Generation principals to pass, which has clearly hit the fandom in a particular way, since his cast always represented the younger guard. The tributes are already taking organized form beyond the charts. Pluto TV is streaming all 13 Star Trek films for free beginning Nov. 1, including Stewart’s four Next Generation movies, and the nostalgia network H&I has programmed a five-episode TNG tribute block for Nov. 2.