My girlfriend at the time even went so far to make me a uniform, right after the premier of the pilot episode, that I was able to wear in time for a science fiction convention in November. I didn't win a prize, but I was one of only two people at that particular convention to have a Next Gen uniform, so I was pretty pleased with myself about that.
At the time, I was dazzled by Encounter at Farpoint, although in retrospect I see its flaws and the awkwardness of the whole show in that first season. There were some definite highlights (mostly when they harkened back to the original series, such as episodes like The Neutral Zone and Heart of Glory, and darker episodes such as Conspiracy) and some definite lows (The Naked Now, Justice, and When the Bough Breaks), but on the whole I was hooked and would remain so for its entire run.
Looking back, I think some of my attraction to the first couple of seasons was nostalgia, and I was definitely willing to put up with inferior quality just for the sake of having new Star Trek at all. But some of my current dissatisfaction with the early episodes is tinged by my comparisons with the later episodes. I see something like Too Short a Season or Angel One, both of which had a lot of great potential, and wonder what they might have been had they been done in the fifth season.
While it did tend to wind down in the last two seasons, even they had absolutely terrific episodes (True Q, Ship in a Bottle, Gambit Parts I and II, Lower Decks, etc.) and the series finale was a fitting capstone to the whole. On the whole, I probably prefer this series to the original, although Deep Space 9 is still my favorite overall.
For whatever reason, they never really hit their stride in films, never matching the power of a Wrath of Khan or even the joyful romp of The Voyage Home. They did manage to accomplish something I never thought possible, though; they managed to make a Trek movie (Nemesis) that was worse than Star Trek V.
