Would you believe that in 1985, a year before Paramount decided to make a new Star Trek series and two years before it aired, there was already a TV movie called Peyton Place: The Next Generation?
It was based on a previous TV show called, as you might guess, Peyton Place. It was a soap opera that debuted in 1964 (the same year as the first Star Trek pilot "The Cage") and lasted until 1969 (uh...the same year Star Trek went off the air).
Peyton Place: The Next Generation also starred Bruce Greenwood, and...okay, the simulation is just fucking with us now isn't it?
I mean, the explosive success of TNG could certainly be used to explain the use of "The Next Generation" in media after 1987: Bonanza, Degrassi, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, America's Test Kitchen, and many others. But before? This is like finding out "Make America Great Again" was coined in the 70s.
Bonus content: Dorothy Malone -- yes that Dorothy Malone -- played Constance in the 60s TV show but almost lost the job in the movie because the infamous Lana Turner (you might know her from the story where Sean Connery slapped around her mobster boyfriend at gunpoint) had played the character in a 1957 movie and producers thought they should bring her back.
