This period marks the rise of the first Next Generation spin-off, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the first two seasons of which aired alongside the final two seasons of Next Generation.

Years Six and Seven were good for Q, who (after taking Year Five off) appearing in no less than three episodes in Year Six (“True Q,” Deep Space Nine‘s “Q-Less,” and “Tapestry”) and in the two-part Next Generation finale. Lore returned in the Next Generation season-six finale / season-seven debut “Descent,” while Dr. Noonian Soong (though dead) appeared (as a hallucination) in season six’s “Birthright, Part 1″ and (as a hologram) in season seven’s “Inheritance,” which introduces another android to Data’s family, his “mother” Juliana Tainer. The Borg appear briefly in flashback in the Deep Space Nine series debut, “The Emissary, Part 1,” before appearing in (the aforementioned) “Descent.” Interaction with the original show included an appearance by Montgomery Scott in the sixth-season “Relics” and the return of the Mirror Universe in Deep Space Nine‘s “Crossover.”

This period contains a total of 98 episodes: 52 of The Next Generation and 46 of Deep Space Nine.