Star Trek: 10 Biggest Takeaways From Patrick Stewart's Memoir (and One That Wasn't)
10. The Early Days Were Challenging To Revisit
The stories from the set of TNG are in some cases almost mythological in their retelling. Some haven't made it into the book but the tale of Stewart buying a Honda Prelude while everyone else was upping their game to BMWs and Mercedes is fairly funny.
Stewart stayed away from conventions until a couple of years into the show's run, choosing to focus on building the role when he realised that it would be sticking around for more than a single season.
Stewart rewatched the entirety of the show as research for Making It So and in the process found the first season cringey, taking issue in particular with The Naked Now and unsurprisingly Code of Honor which immediately followed it. He does feel that the show really peaked in its fifth and sixth seasons, making light of Jonathan Frakes' directing and the true family nature of the cast.
Another point of note is that Stewart himself did not want TNG to run beyond seven seasons. He felt that the final year just didn't produce the quality of episodes that he had been used to. He may have been the only cast member who didn't want the show to go on.