Keeping in mind DS9 itself opened on a direct TNG tie in, sprinkled TNG villains through the first season, then brought back every Klingon captain from TOS, and finally just went all in and edited everyone into a TOS episode so Dax could swoon over Spock’s eyes and Sisko could sneak Kirk’s autograph…
Every Trek show since the original has referenced the others like this. I think it’s good fun.
They also just introduced one of the main characters of TNG in season 4, even referencing a TNG movie. It is wild to assume Star Trek was never self-referential lol
Voyager referenced or included TOS and TNG characters in at least eight episodes of season 3.
“Flashback” was the big Sulu/Rand/Kang 30th anniversary tribute
“Death Wish” had Q and Riker
In “Alliances” Tuvok talks about Spock and recaps the events of Undiscovered Country
McCoy was mentioned in “Lifesigns”
Data was mentioned in “Prototype”
Sulu was mentioned in “Tattoo”
Picard and Moriarty were mentioned in “Alter Ego”
Picard was mentioned again in “Scorpion”
That’s basically a third of the season, assuming I didn’t forget any. And that’s not even counting things like the mention of Wolf 359 in “Unity” or the koon-ut-kal-if-fee in “Blood Fever”.
And that’s from the show that went out of their way to make it hard to use existing concepts.
Trials and Tribble-ations is a masterwork. Star Trek’s penchant to self reference can make great things. But it can also make episodes like many of the Enterprise ones.
Keeping in mind DS9 itself opened on a direct TNG tie in, sprinkled TNG villains through the first season, then brought back every Klingon captain from TOS, and finally just went all in and edited everyone into a TOS episode so Dax could swoon over Spock’s eyes and Sisko could sneak Kirk’s autograph…
Every Trek show since the original has referenced the others like this. I think it’s good fun.
And TNG has appearances from several TOS cast members reprising their original roles; Deforest Kelly, James Doohan, Mark Leonard and Leonard Nimoy.
They also just introduced one of the main characters of TNG in season 4, even referencing a TNG movie. It is wild to assume Star Trek was never self-referential lol
Voyager referenced or included TOS and TNG characters in at least eight episodes of season 3.
That’s basically a third of the season, assuming I didn’t forget any. And that’s not even counting things like the mention of Wolf 359 in “Unity” or the koon-ut-kal-if-fee in “Blood Fever”.
And that’s from the show that went out of their way to make it hard to use existing concepts.
That’s right, I completely forgot about Worf, and also the O’Briens!
How could you forget about Keiko! Lol
Trials and Tribble-ations is a masterwork. Star Trek’s penchant to self reference can make great things. But it can also make episodes like many of the Enterprise ones.