Many people complain about the number of Five Year Mission stories that are told, even today after 50 years. I wondered how many had actually been given to us over the years:
Five Year Mission:
79 Episodes
22 Animated Episodes
13 Bantam Novels
18 Bantam Short Stories
57 Gold Key Comics
1 Whitman YA Novel
47 UK Comics
6 Record Comics
4 Random House Children's Books
89 Pocket Novels
3 Pocket Novellas
24 Pocket Short Stories
2 Pocket Ebooks
2 Pocket Young Adult Novels
2 Marvel Comics
5 Marvel Comic Stories
23 DC Comics
1 DC Comic Story
1 Amazing Stories Comic
1 Wildstorm Comic
14 Toykopop Comic Stories
52 IDW Comics
18 IDW Comic Stories
For a grand total of 481 missions depicted so far in the Five Year Mission. And those don't count stories told through flashback in other adventures. There are quite a handful of them which I've not numbered. The vast majority of these tales take place in the final half of the five years, but for the sake of argument that rounds to about 94 adventures per year. It next occurred to me to see how many missions have been depicted by the crew of the Enterprise-D during her seven and a half years in service:
Enterprise-D Missions
178 Episodes
1 Film
61 Pocket Novels
1 Pocket Novella
34 Pocket Short Stories
106 DC Comics
8 DC Comic Stories
5 Marvel Comic Stories
5 Wildstorm Comics
1 Wildstorm Comic Story
4 Tokyopop Comic Stories
26 IDW Comics
12 IDW Comic Stories
For a total of only 441 missions spread out over seven and a half years, for an average of only 59 adventures per year. I almost expected for there to be surprisingly more TNG adventures than Five Year Mission adventures, but it turns out that the obvious answer is that the Five Year Mission has been explored far more than even the TNG era.
What does this all mean? I'm not sure. But at least we now know.