What was the quintessential Star Trek quality that made the The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine work?

I think we had a whole new generation of audience who knew about Star Trek but didn't know it that well. The thing that makes any good television show work is the characters, both in terms of the characters that are created, the actors that play them and the words that we write for them every week. and with Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner and company we just had a great mix of characters.

I think the most important thing that we took forward to Deep Space 9 was this, idea of trying to create an atmosphere that would allow us conflict within the characters. It was something that was sorely missed, because Roddenberry felt very strongly that we shouldn't have any conflict between the characters.

On Deep Space 9, we had a shape shifter who was the security chief of the station; we had, Kira, who was a Bejoran as the First Officer; we had the sleazy bar tender, Quark; we had Cardassians who had previously run this place. There were a lot of great non-humans around that allowed us to develop conflict, and it made the writing of the show much, much easier for us and more enjoyable.