What do you think made The Next Generation so popular for fans?

Next Generation was popular with the fans because they sensed the camaraderie between us. Whenever I do a convention or run across a fan in the street - at the airport, in a shop, wherever - one of the things they always ask me is, 'Did you get on as well as it seemed you did on the screen?'. That makes people watching feel that they're included in the family.

One of the things, of course, was that Gene had said from the beginning that because humanity had evolved so much, by the 24th century, there would be no conflict. It's an awful thing to say in a dramatic sense, because what we learned at drama school was that conflict is drama. To find a way around that was sometimes testing, but it worked because of how well we got on. We'd probably had a little spat here and there on screen, I can't remember, but I'm sure we did and the fans felt included in that. They felt that they were just embraced into this cast because we embraced each other.