October 4, 1987
The last "debut day" finally arrives for TNG's syndicated premiere in those markets in the country choosing to air it on Sundays (including, for one, Oklahoma City!). For the week, the TNG premiere beat its network competition across the board in Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Miami and Dallas, to name a few.

October 8, 1987
Costume fans have a milestone to mark this day, when the first day of filming "Too Short a Season" featured actor Clayton Roehner as Admiral Mark Jameson wearing the debut of the "modern" admiral's uniform as designed by William Ware Theiss. Like the dress uniform jackets, it too would be tweaked and modified over the years through several versions with a different cut and rank insignia — until successor Bob Blackman's all-new white-jacket look of "First Contact."

October 9, 1987
Two weeks after principal photography ends on the episode "The Battle," the scenes for Picard's climactic return to his old Stargazer bridge are filmed as insert shots, with three uncredited extras — Jay Crimp, James Davidson, and Schae Harrison — portraying the bridge crew "ghosts" via an optical effect. One scene not filmed this day: the infamous tale still told of the poisonous cobra that was to have been filmed as Q's opening form in "Hide and Q," cancelled at the last minute for safety and an optical three-headed snake composite built instead by VFX supervisor Rob Legato.

October 14, 1987
Although the new series shies away from direct links to original Star Trek in order to more quickly find its own identity, the family ties remain. So it is that Michael Pataki — forever enshrined to Trek fans as Koloth's Klingon aide and the taunter of Scotty and Chekov in the K-7 bar of "The Trouble With Tribbles" — is cast 20 years later, late in the afternoon the day before he is to shoot.

October 20, 1987
For the first time ever, Patrick Stewart dons the trench coat and fedora of the fictional 1940s gumshoe Dixon Hill for "The Big Goodbye" and enters his Holodeck office environs, along with his secretary played by Rhonda Aldrich — a role not given the name "Madeline" until Season 2's "Manhunt." Stewart had worn the costume the day before in a bridge scene from the end of the episode, but this is the first time cameras roll on his San Francisco office set. Writer Tracy Torme's brainchild would turn up twice more in the series and then the big-screen "First Contact."

October 22, 1987
It's the second of Gary Armanac's two days filming as holo-Lt. McNary in the first Dixon Hill show, "The Big Goodbye," but a landmark for the new Star Trek staple, the Holodeck. In his final scene, in part blamed on Jaradan interference — or is it? — the cop's character has just learned of his own real nature as merely a Holodeck image, then stuns Picard and TNG viewers alike as he ponders: will he cease to exist when Picard "turns off" the program? From the Animated Series' "Rec Deck" malfunction factory, or the simple demo training device of "Code of Honor," who could have guessed just how far future Holodeck stories, addictions and even "photonic life" would evolve from what was first unleashed here?

October 23, 1987
It's only for a few scenes in the middle of shooting "The Big Goodbye," but modern Star Trek marks another milestone this day when the then-new New York Street backlot at Paramount Pictures is used for the first time ever for location shooting by a modern Star Trek spin-off. With LA's "New York" filling in for Dixon Hill's "San Francisco," the footage includes the classic streetside newsstand scene with character actor Dick Miller and the discussion of the "London Kings shortstop" who breaks Joe DiMaggio's record — later seen to be "Buck" Bokai on DS9.

October 27, 1987
After a seven-day shoot, filming wraps on "The Big Goodbye," the 13th hour of the still-young series (the 11th regular episode after the two-hour pilot). Thus, Season 1 of TNG has hit the midway point of its initial 26-show season — and despite some jitters, the show's future is now never really in doubt.

October 28, 1987
On the very first day of filming "Datalore," another legendary recurring Star Trek character is born before the camera. Actor Brent Spiner dons his android makeup and plays not one but two characters with it this day for the debut of Lore, Data's "evil twin" android brother — his earlier version by scientist Noonian Soong. To ease the confusion of planning and shooting, Lore is listed as a separate character for his scenes: #11 on the day's call sheet.

October 30, 1987
Perhaps one of the most unintentionally cruel scenes of the young series would be filmed on an otherwise innocuous day on the Bridge, the third of filming for "Datalore." At the time of the shoot, though, no one on TNG could have known how Picard and Crusher's "Shut up, Wesley" exchange would resonate once some fans took issue with the tendency of the gifted teen to solve the week's dilemma before his Starfleet elders — which hindsight now shows to have been exaggerated. Any responsibility would lie with the unsettled writing staff at the time, of course, but back in the day many fans unfairly took out their discontent on the actor himself, young 16-year-old Wil Wheaton. Today, with his career rebounding as a blogger, improv comic and sometime TV host, "young" Wil Wheaton may have the last laugh after all.

For more 20th-anniversary milestones, see TNG20 (September 1987), TNG20 (August 1987), TNG20 (July 1987) and TNG20 (March-June 1987)