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Settling in on sofas and easy chairs across the continent on September 28, 1987, even the most hard-core Star Trek fan couldn’t have imagined what was about to unfold.

I’m not referring to the actual premiere episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Encounter at Farpoint,” a two-hour outing that was received generally well by TV critics of the day. I’m not even referring to the run of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG, as fans call it) itself, which became one of the most successful shows on television during its seven seasons, and certainly the most successful of any of the Star Trek shows to date.

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I’m talking about the four television series and the equal number of feature films that came after TNG, and almost certainly because of it, an astonishing 320-plus hours — more than 13 continuous days — of original sci-fi content. (For those keeping score at home, I’ve excluded the J.J. Abrams film reboot of the original television series with Kirk, Spock and McCoy recast for a depiction an alternate timeline, but did include this week’s double-length premiere of the latest incarnation of the franchise: Star Trek: Discovery.) You can also add novels, video games, comic books and enough merchandise to founder a merchant marine.