It was much the same with Star Trek. When Gene Roddenberry stayed in his producer lane in TOS and don't have the personal fame and influence that came later, he was able to gather an amazing group of people to make some great high-concept sci-fi. There's a reason that the venn diagram of "worst TOS episodes" and "Gene Roddenberry decided to try writing" is almost a circle.
But his personal fame grew, he had less and less people around him to rein in his worst ideas, and the result was TNG seasons 1 and 2. It wasn't until he was too ill to micromanage that TNG found its feet instead of being TOS with find-and-replace'd names in the scripts.
It was much the same with Star Trek. When Gene Roddenberry stayed in his producer lane in TOS and don't have the personal fame and influence that came later, he was able to gather an amazing group of people to make some great high-concept sci-fi. There's a reason that the venn diagram of "worst TOS episodes" and "Gene Roddenberry decided to try writing" is almost a circle.
But his personal fame grew, he had less and less people around him to rein in his worst ideas, and the result was TNG seasons 1 and 2. It wasn't until he was too ill to micromanage that TNG found its feet instead of being TOS with find-and-replace'd names in the scripts.