Former Star Trek star William Shatner has made a heap of Trek documentary in late years , so when I see he had a young one about the first few years of Star Trek : The Next Generation , I was n’t certain if it was worth find out . But it totally was .
Shatner ’s new picture show , Chaos on the Bridge , is a retelling of the origins and shaky early years of TNG . And that ’s a issue that ’s been covered a lot before , in books as well as plentiful DVD / Blu - ray featurettes . But Shatner has managed to get access to a gross ton of executive director who were involved in the wonky former class of the Trek relaunch , including people like Jeffrey Katzenberg , and then - Paramount web Television president John Pike . And they ’ve been surprisingly candid with Captain Kirk .
Basically , the main arc of Chaos on the Bridge is all about Gene Roddenberry ’s involvement with TNG , and how Roddenberry ’s comment was mostly a net negative for the show . Roddenberry , of course , die in 1991 and is n’t here to fight down himself — but pretty much everybody call for with create TNG seems to agree that there were certain problem with Roddenberry , which closely kill the whole affair on a few occasion .
The photograph that emerges is of a man who was raging and virulent after years in the wilderness following the cancellation of the original Star Trek in 1969 . Roddenberry , according to all Shatner ’s author , had also get a huge ego after twelvemonth of go to conventions and college campus and verbalize to huge , adoring throngs — and the “ Great Bird of the Galaxy ” had start out to consider his own hype regarding his position as a great visionary who sharpen the way toward a utopian future for the human race .
Meanwhile , Roddenberry was increasingly dependent on his lawyer , Leonard Maizlish , who alienated both the studio apartment execs and the creative people on the show . Maizlish was known for being an scratchy , difficult somebody , but also for seek to see to it the creative direction of the show — writers would get scripts back with feedback that was apparently from Roddenberry , but was actually in Maizlish ’s handwriting . Even after the writers lodged a ailment and make Maizlish ban from the Paramount lot , he still sneaked back in and tried to depend through their computing machine when they were at tiffin .
In one memorable bit of the documentary film , Pike tell Shatner that during negotiations with Paramount , Maizlish started “ almost clutch his chest , ” and Pike yelled , “ I hope you die ! ” In another turn , author David Gerrold retrieve fantasizing about pushing Maizlish out the window .
One of the surprising affair in Chaos on the Bridge is the extent to which you rule out that Roddenberry really did n’t even want to do a young Star Trek show . He ’d baulk the approximation for years , pursue the shelving of his Phase Two project in the 1970s . And it was only after Paramount started make serious design to make a new Trek show without Roddenberry ’s intimacy that he gross out out and ask to be involved . Roddenberry go into a confluence , and seemed startled afterwards to observe that he was really signed up to grow a new Star Trek . At that period , in 1986 , he ’d been plan to retire officially in a couple of months .
But Roddenberry immediately pop to spar with the execs about the hereafter of Trek . The execs wanted the captain of the novel Enterprise to be a Captain Kirk clone ( but Roddenberry himself dead did not want Patrick Stewart , either . Interestingly , Pike pushed for Yaphet Kotto to be the police captain . ) And Pike recounts a encounter where he insisted that TNG call for to have a two - time of day pilot light , but Roddenberry was intransigent the pilot should be only one hour — leading to a confrontation where the show was nearly canceled before it started .
And once Roddenberry was work Star Trek , he had firm idea about how everything should scarper — and a lot of them were dictated by his new belief in his own status as a humanist seer who meet the future of the human slipstream as a kind of secular “ heaven ” where nobody ever had any conflict or dissonance of any kind . In one telling bit , Rick Berman ( an exec who later became the show ’s producer ) enjoin Roddenberry used to babble about being friends with L. Ron Hubbard — and Roddenberry would boast that he , too , could have get a religion if he ’d wanted .
( And in one hilarious bit , writer Ira Steven Behr recount severalise Roddenberry about his design for the delight planet Risa , which lead to Roddenberry order it should be full of womanhood do out and fondling each other . )
To make matters worse , Maizlish and the showrunner that Maizlish hand - picked , Maurice Hurley , both pushed Roddenberry ’s utopian imaginativeness further than even Roddenberry had wanted . Hurley recounts that by the center of the second season , Hurley was fighting Roddenberry because Hurley had gone further with the “ no conflict , everything is arrant ” ethos than even Roddenberry felt comfortable with .
At the same meter , it ’s clean that Roddenberry had some of the beneficial idea for the new show , let in preface Q , and having an older , more mature sea captain . [ Edited to bring : We heard from David Gerrold , who was a writer on the first two time of year of TNG , and Gerrold tell the older captain was n’t Roddenberry ’s idea at all . Said Gerrold , “ I publish the bible for that show , not Gene . He took credit for it , of course of study . And the thought of the older , more mature maitre d’hotel — that was mine . That way we could keep the Captain on the bridge and make the first officeholder the Mission Specialist . ” ]
Here are some clip from the documentary :
The combination of Roddenberry ’s universally - loathed attorney and Roddenberry ’s own press that the future had to be perfect ( which others then pushed even further ) led to a show that , as various writers point out , was largely driven by plots and “ noncitizen of the workweek . ”
Hurley attempt to put a halt to “ Conspiracy , ” the tale at the destruction of season one that showed the Federation had been infiltrate by alien leech , on the grounds that it was too dark — but was overruled by the studio apartment . Meanwhile , Hurley himself infix the Borg , as part of a be after time of year two arc in which the Federation is forced to tuck allies to defeat these novel adversaries — and time of year two would have ended with the Borg defeated , once and for all . ( But the writers ’ strike happen . )
A circumstances of the item about why the first two season of TNG were so dreadfully uneven will be familiar to anyone who ’s watched the Blu - electron beam extras . But Shatner , who worked with Roddenberry for years , is pretty merciless in break down his former boss ’ flaws . Shatner commit together a portrayal of a man who was losing his grip on the affair he had create — and whose utopian ideals had begin too unwieldy to provide for good storytelling .
Chaos on the Bridge is now available on digital platforms in the U.S. and U.K.
dvd reviewGene RoddenberryMoviesStar TrekTelevision
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