A Brief Guide to Star Trek (23 page)

The most challenging part to cast was that of android Data, the series’ Spock substitute. Among those considered was the six-foot-nine-inch actor Kevin Peter Hall (also being considered for La Forge); Mark Lindsay Chapman, a TV movie regular; and Eric Menyuk, later to play the otherworldly ‘Traveler’ figure on the show. Ironically, most of the actors who auditioned for the role were well over six foot in height, indicating that the original conception for the android was more of a Gort-type character from
The Day the Earth Stood Still
(1951), or the Norman android seen in
The Original Series
episode ‘I, Mudd’. A change came about when the character was perceived as more of a Pinocchio-like figure, an artificial man who wants to be ‘a real boy’. That allowed the casting of the far shorter, but much more exuberant Broadway musical star Brent Spiner. He would bring a different approach to the Spock-like role of the non-human character who spends the series discovering and exploring his own ‘humanity’.

There was a change in feel for the new
Enterprise
. Instead of a functional, military-style vehicle, the new starship would be more like a flying city, carrying families of serving officers. This would mean all the support facilities (including leisure) that any city would have, such as schools, health facilities, entertainment centres and so on. Even the bridge had a more ‘domestic’ make-over, with wall-to-wall carpeting and a less functional look, giving it the feel of an upmarket hotel foyer.

‘Some people were afraid of the new
Star Trek
because the old people wouldn’t be in it’, recalled Justman. ‘I don’t think that lasted too long. People resist change [but] the great thing about people interested in science fiction is that they have open minds. They’re eager for new ideas.’

The Next Generation
had to deliver the same but different – it had to be
Star Trek
as audiences would recognise it, but brought up to date for the 1980s, and it also had to compete to some degree with the
Star Trek
movies. New production techniques and new technology, especially in the field of special effects, helped the show look more sophisticated than the tired 1960s
version. However, some of Roddenberry’s ideas – which he held to stubbornly – got in the way of good dramatic storylines. Roddenberry had long contended that humanity in the future would be free of interpersonal conflict (ironically, an edict he had fought on
The Lieutenant
). The problem was (as Rick Berman realised) that this does not make for engaging drama. Conflict is at the heart of most drama, whether between the central characters of a TV show or between ‘our’ team of heroes and some external threat or danger. ‘We had to manufacture our conflicts from other than interpersonal conflicts among our characters and that does make it very difficult to write’, said Berman. ‘With
Star Trek
you’ve got two sets of rules: the rules of science and the rules of
Star Trek
. Writers have to be willing to follow both sets of rules. It’s difficult.’

The first thirteen episodes of the new series were widely considered to be rather disappointing, especially given the high hopes for the show. There was a ‘revolving door’ policy towards writers as the production team – and Roddenberry in particular – struggled to bring
Star Trek
up to date. Many writers would contribute one or two episodes during the first season before their services were no longer required. It took a while for the show to evolve into its comfort zone, a process that did not really happen until after Roddenberry’s involvement ended and Berman took full control.

The double-length pilot episode, ‘Encounter at Farpoint’, had to lay out the basics of the new show. D. C. Fontana – who’d written several episodes of the original series – scripted the opening instalment, with heavy rewriting by Gene Roddenberry. As well as establishing the new crew of the
Enterprise
(and allowing the actors to become familiar with their characters and each other), the opening episode had to tell an engaging story – one that would bring back a curious audience for the following episodes. The episode featured Roddenberry’s long-running obsession with alien beings who appear God-like in the character of the omnipotent, manipulative ‘Q’. John de Lancie’s character would feature throughout the series (and spin-offs) as
an antagonist (and occasional ally) to Captain Picard. He would be pivotal in the series’ final episode, which would see a return to events at Farpoint Station. The opening episode features the maiden voyage of the
Enterprise
NCC-1701-D, introduces the crew and throws them into conflict with Q, who tries to warn them that man’s exploration of space has gone far enough. The new crew find themselves put on trial for the wrongs done by humanity in space exploration. Picard successfully argues that the situation at Farpoint Station should be used to test man’s worthiness to continue venturing outward into space. It’s a talky show that spends more time worrying about setting up the series than trying to entertain.

Fontana and Gerrold felt badly treated by Roddenberry in the development of
The Next Generation
. Gerrold had effectively written the series bible, which Roddenberry claimed as his own, and had incorporated suggestions from others such as Justman. Fontana essentially served as de facto story editor, alongside Gerrold, working on developing scripts – although neither received the appropriate credits and remuneration for those jobs (in breach of Writers Guild rules), while Roddenberry claimed the credit for his ‘vision’ of
Star Trek
.

During this time Roddenberry’s lawyer Leonard Maizlish became involved in the creative side of the series, accompanying the ‘Great Bird’ to meetings and serving as his messenger whenever bad news had to be delivered. Over time, as Roddenberry’s health began to fail, Maizlish would become even more prominent, supposedly representing Roddenberry’s views on all things
Star Trek
, delivering comments on scripts and even attempting his own rewrites (again, in contravention of Writers Guild rules).

Many on the production would later tell tales of Roddenberry’s erratic conduct during the early years of
The Next Generation
. The creator was rightly protective of his creation, but to some it seemed as though Roddenberry had taken up permanent residence in the twenty-fourth century. His poor health contributed to temper tantrums and confused feedback on story outlines and scripts. At other times Roddenberry seemed distant or
vacant during meetings, or sometimes did not recognise colleagues when passing them in corridors. Joel Engel’s un -authorised biography itemises a lengthy list of drugs, prescribed and illegal, that Roddenberry was using at this time, on top of a copious alcohol intake. He speculates that the ‘Great Bird’ may have suffered some form of brain damage related to his dia -betes, high blood pressure and alcoholism. Certainly, whatever the direct causes, Roddenberry’s failing health at the end of the 1980s contributed to his eccentric behaviour in the production offices of
The Next Generation
.

Despite that, for many of the writers and young staffers on
The Next Generation
, the chance to work with an idol like Gene Roddenberry was irresistible. However, during the first three years of the series, twenty-four different writers or writer– producers arrived at and departed the show in rapid succession, three times as many as might be expected on any average series. Many found it difficult working for Roddenberry, or failed to match their work to his concepts for
Star Trek
. It was a shocking discovery for many of the series’ aspiring writers that their idol had feet of clay and was, in fact, an obstruction to them getting their work done. Roddenberry re-adopted his 1960s habit of rewriting everything that came in – after all, he was Mr
Star Trek
– but more often than not he would make the script worse through his interference. Other producers would have to rescue scripts they thought could be brought to the screen, working around Roddenberry’s unwanted input. ‘No one but Gene could be recognised as a contributor to ideas for the show. No one else could write a final draft . . . Perfectly good scripts [were] rewritten by Gene into something far less . . . in the space of nine months no fewer than eight writing-staff members left the series’, remembered D. C. Fontana of the situation in the writers’ room.

The Next Generation
would ‘live long and prosper’, surpassing its confused origins and outliving the Great Bird of the Galaxy himself. The first season introduced Q, the Ferengi and explored the possibilities of the holodeck in ‘The Big Goodbye’. The
character of Data was expanded, with the introduction of an evil ‘brother’ dubbed Lore in ‘Datalore’, while Starfleet Academy finally became a focus of
Star Trek
as Wesley Crusher applied to become a cadet. The character of Worf allowed for the beginning of an exploration of Klingon culture that would expand in later years, and a major character – Tasha Yar – was killed off towards the end of the first season in ‘Skin of Evil’.

The second season improved dramatically on the first, with a new doctor – Katherine Pulaski played by Diana Muldaur, who’d featured in two original series episodes, ‘Return to Tomorrow’ and ‘Is There in Truth No Beauty’ – replacing Beverly Crusher. Whoopi Goldberg – a huge
Star Trek
fan – joined the series as mysterious
Enterprise
bartender Guinan. A writers’ strike cut the episodes from twenty-four to twenty-two, with scripts originally developed for
Star Trek: Phase II
revived and reshaped for
The Next Generation
, including the opening episode ‘The Child’. Character development received new attention from incoming producer Maurice Hurley, with story and character arcs meaning that the
Enterprise
crew developed and changed rather than following the end-of-episode ‘reset’ button that often returned things to ‘normal’ on the original
Star Trek
series. The episode ‘Q- Who?’ introduced new alien adversaries the Borg (derived from Cyborg, meaning artificial human). Data received a lot of attention, as did the slowly expanding Klingon culture, very little of which had been seen on
The Original Series
.

By the third season in 1989, Roddenberry had more or less withdrawn from any creative input. For the first time Rick Berman and Michael Piller were able to take active control of the show without Roddenberry, resulting in a maturing of the series’ storytelling and the production of more sophisticated episodes such as ‘Yesterday’s
Enterprise
’.
The Next Generation
was a series that had begun to grow up. Ira Steven Behr joined the show in the third year and would go on to become a driving force behind the second spin-off series,
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
.

Season four saw Brannon Braga and Jeri Taylor join the show – they would later go on to run spin-off
Star Trek: Voyager
. Season three had ended on a dramatic cliffhanger – a first for a
Star Trek
season finale – with ‘The Best of Both Worlds’ seeing Captain Picard captured and transformed by the Borg. Opening episode of the fourth season, ‘The Best of Both Worlds, Part II’, both resolved the storyline and became the episode that saw
The Next Generation
pass the seventy-nine episodes produced for
The Original Series
. Unlike the
Star Trek
of the past, the effect of Picard’s experiences was explored as the damaged captain came to terms with his confrontation with the Borg in the next episode of season four, ‘Family’. The series reached 100 episodes with the fourth season finale, ‘Redemption’.

The remaining three seasons of
The Next Generation
extended and deepened the new
Star Trek
mythology that the show had built up. Klingon and Vulcan storylines would come to dominate, with Worf involved in a Klingon civil war, while the two-part story ‘Unification’ depicted an attempted reconciliation between the Romulans and the Vulcans. The episodes featured a guest appearance by Leonard Nimoy as Spock in a promotional tie-in with the sixth
Star Trek
movie,
The Undiscovered Country
. Nimoy’s Spock was the last of four original series characters to appear on
The Next Generation
. ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ had seen DeForest Kelley reprise the role of an elderly Dr McCoy, giving a seal of approval to the new 1980s show. Mark Lenard later appeared as Spock’s father, Sarek, in an episode built around his character, while ‘Relics’ would see James Doohan’s Scotty arrive in the twenty-fourth century thanks to a transporter malfunction.

By the end of seven years on air,
The Next Generation
returned to its beginning. Double-length season finale ‘All Good Things . . .’ revisited the events of ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ with the return of the malevolent Q. In the wake of the new
Star Trek
series came a new generation of science fiction television shows, such as
Quantum Leap
(1989–93),
Sliders
(1995–2000), and the epic
Babylon 5
(1993–8), as well as fantasy series like
Buffy the
Vampire Slayer
(1997–2003). Of course, the show also spawned three additional
Star Trek
spin-offs in
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
(1993–9),
Star Trek: Voyager
(1994–2001) and
Star Trek: Enterprise
(2001–5).

The command crew characters of
The Next Generation
were closer to Gene Roddenberry’s original ideas for the 1960s series, which had been seriously derailed by the popularity of Spock and the dominance of the Kirk–Spock–McCoy triumvirate. However, the characters on the bridge of the
Enterprise
continued to be split down the traditional
Star Trek
opposition of science versus emotion. In Picard there is something of the Vulcan in his unemotional aloofness that often sets him apart from the rest of the crew. With Riker filling the womanising action-hero role previously filled by Kirk (all emotion),
The Next Generation
allows the captain to step back from the immediate crisis and have a broader overview. When Picard meets Spock in the 1991 episode ‘Unification II’, Spock sees much of his Vulcan father in the human captain of the
Enterprise
(Sarek and Picard shared that most intimate of connections, the Vulcan mind-meld). It is only through mind-melding with Picard that Spock finally understands his father’s true feelings for his half-human, half-Vulcan son.