Star Trek: The Next Generation had a Writer/Director’s guide, commonly referred to as the bible. Within this guide was a list of 13 things that were not to ever happen on TNG (i.e. commandments).
Here we will look at each commandment, and show when TNG maybe didn’t follow their own rules.
All blockquotes and episode details are from Memory-Alpha.
Rule #1. Stories which do not materially involve our own crew. Yes, we do like to see interesting new characters — but only when used in addition to an interesting story line involving our continuing characters.
TNG Episode 7×15 “Lower Decks”
Junior officers speculate on the reasons for recent unusual actions taken by the command crew near the Cardassian border.
This episode only has the main cast in the periphery, and focuses on four junior officers and their attempt to receive a promotion.
