William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge Page #2

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they had nothing. Do you go back and conceptualize

what this show is? Gene brought in almost

immediately, Eddie Milkis, Bob Justman,

me, Dorothy Fontana. Arnold:

People that he had trusted

and relied on heavily during the original

series production. We began to meet

at lunch time at the Paramount commissary,

in the private room there. Gerrold:

Everybody in the commissary

would watch us walk in and walk into the executive

dining room. "There goes a hundred million

dollar deal on the hoof." And it was fun,

it was really fun. Arnold:

The fans you would have thought

would've been Gene's biggest supporters,

absolutely not. I think that a lot

of the fans were very verbal about someone taking away

Captain Kirk. Gerrold:

They were angry because

he didn't have Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in

the new series and how dare

he call it Star Trek. I had done a show

called Get Smart Again, which was off of the Get Smart

series, and I think there's a big problem

if you try to recreate,

it's quicksand. Crosby:

When I got this script

to come in and audition for The Next Gen

and I thought, "Oh my God,

I don't know if this is something

that anybody should be doing because it was such an iconic

thing, Star Trek at this point. "You cannot revive an

iconic series, you cannot

replace those guys." This had the markings

of some little seedy... John De Lancie:

It was both really exciting

and also, there was this thing

in my mind of going, "Ooohhhh, are we trying

to create or recreate?" Ronald D. Moore:

In the 1970's people started

saying that Gene was a visionary,

he had this utopian vision

of the future. I think that he started

to believe that and then Next Generation

became a vehicle to demonstrate this utopia. I remember he used to tell me

that L. Ron Hubbard was a friend of his

and that he went and

started a religion. Gene always thought

that if he had wanted to, he probably could have done

the same thing. Gerrold:

He would go to conventions

and he loved being the great bird of the galaxy.

Who wouldn't? He gave college lectures

for years in the 70's and tens of thousands

of people would show up

at these lectures. He was starting to believe

his own publicity. Isaac Asimov sent Gene

a copy of his book called

Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Gene got very

interested in learning

more about humanism. Shatner:

The research prior

to The Next Generation lead him to have a thesis that,

if not perfection, man was evolving

in a humanist way. In The Next Generation

he tried to impart his humanistic philosophy. Most science fiction

that we experience today is a relatively dismal view of what the future's

going to be like. Gene was obsessed with

the idea that the future

was going to be better. There was tremendous

anticipation because it was the rebirth of this

phenomenally successful series. Barry Diller had this idea

of starting a fourth network. Pike:

And he wanted to take

Star Trek and use that as the corner stone

of a new network. We had the commitment

to do the new series and we assumed it would be

a twenty-six episode commitment. Well, at the eleventh hour

they cut that to thirteen. I can't make the numbers

work at thirteen,

I need twenty-six. I'm not sure what to do here, but let me go explore

the other three networks. It was a science fiction

show and at that point in the mid eighties there was no

science fiction on television. First, I went to NBC,

to Brandon Tartikoff,

it was dismissed out of hand. I then went to ABC

and Brandon Stoddard, and he thought it was

simply a bad idea. The third meeting was with Kim

Lemasters, President of CBS

Entertainment, and he said let's do it

as a mini series. Well, that clearly

doesn't work. It is then when we went back

at Paramount. Lucy Silany who was

President of distribution said, "Wait a minute, I can

give you twenty-six episodes. Why don't you produce

the program and we will take it out

in first-run syndication." Well, nobody had ever done

a program like that in

first-run syndication. Tell me what first-run

syndication is. First-run syndication is

programming that is basically sold market by market,

station by station, on independent stations,

wherever they wanted to place it

or on network stations outside of the so-called

prime time which is

eight to eleven. So, all of a sudden

we went from a corner stone

for the Fox Network, to this new hybrid for

first-run syndication and by the way, Gene Roddenberry

believed we were going to do

a network show. The studio, I think it's

in their manual, tells you that the director,

the producer and the studio are always going to be

loggerheads about something. Because they have

different needs? Because they feel that

that's how they can control the cast,

the budget. This was a low-budget

television show and it had enormous

expectations. How did you know that? Star Trek has always been

a low budget production. And Star Trek always has

enormous expectations. - Yes.

- I see. Berman:

The first meeting that I went to

in Roddenberry's office, the big discussion was

whether it would be a one-hour or a two-hour pilot. Roddenberry wanted it to be

a one-hour pilot, the studio wanted it to be

a two-hour pilot, and it was a big,

blustery argument. Pike:

The premier episode,

we have to make a splash with, and that must be

a two-hour episode. Roddenberry didn't want

to do a two-hour. Pike:

I thought Gene was going

to come across the table at me, "We're not doing a two-hour

and I'm not writing a two-hour." And I said, "Gene, quite frankly

if you do not do this, I will bar you from the lot.

We are going forward with

a two-hour. I don't know who's going

to write it, and now everybody

is looking around the room and nobody is saying

nothing. I'm looking to my left

where my bosses are, I'm looking to my right,

where the syndication

people are. There's poker being played

right here. And nobody is backing me

because when I said, "I will lock you out of this

lot, I'm not kidding you." What were you thinking? I'm thinking what if

he gets up and walks out, I'm screwed. If this program were not blessed

by Roddenberry, we would've placed the franchise

in serious jeopardy. These millions of dollars

are hanging on his, yes, to a two-hour. Pike:

And it's more like tens

of millions of dollars, it's a lot of money. All right,

so you were bluffing. I was bluffing. Holy cats. And he knew

I was dead serious. - But you were bluffing.

- I was bluffing, he blinked. - You play poker?

- Occasionally. I was asked to come in,

by Gene, and he said, "Would you write the pilot?" And I brought

in Encounter at Farpoint. So I was writing introduction

of the new Enterprise, the new crew,

the new captain, obviously. David Gerrold:

Then he says, "I have to add

thirty minutes to the script because the studio

wants my name on the pilot." which was a lie. Gene wanted Dorothy

to write the two-hour script. She said she couldn't do it, she said I can't in less

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