William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge Page #4

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that looks like a big jellyfish? It didn't even really have

an ending and it was a smash. Did you realize that

The Next Generation it was possible

to characterize it as Gene Roddenberry's

dream of heaven? I would never have thought

that at the time, but now that we're talking with

his conception of the future and human beings in the future,

and Q, Q is God. I mean, just look

at the character, look at

everything about the character. Gene was a well known atheist,

but he invents Q. Typical, so typical. Savage life forms

never follow even

their own rules. As I sit here

it's pretty startling, God's a character,

a literalized character, On Star Trek

The Next Generation. - By an atheist.

- By an atheist. Very interesting. Stewart:

I had never filmed in Hollywood

in my life before. I had no ambitions to

film in Hollywood. I didn't know how to wear

these costumes, I didn't know how to speak

or move or sit, but I was going to work

and work and work and work. I would always be prepared,

I would know my lines when

I came on set. Frakes:

Sir Patrick took

the work very seriously, and if we fooled around,

which we would do, we, meaning the Americans

of the cast, and if he was not in the mood

he would let us have it. Stewart:

I thought there was

a lack of concentration and focus on the set. That people were taking

this far too lightly. We would sing and we would dance

and we would wrestle. Bill! You're acting

like you didn't do this? - No!

- Oh, Bill! Okay, so here's 6

of the 7 of you are singing and dancing. No. Maybe not

at the same time. Sackett:

People did not realize

the closeness that we had. We did have a long lasting,

personal, very intimate

relationship that developed

over fifteen years. This was his final chance

and he knew it pretty much. That this was his last gasp

because it is hard to go back

to do something you had done

twenty years before. He was feeling the need

for some support and he wasn't getting it

from anybody except Maizlish. Once Leonard Maizlish was there, I wasn't even invited

to meetings anymore. So, it was like, okay,

I no longer have input on

the show, why am I here? We keep hearing Maizlish's name,

what was the magic there? There was none. No, but why was he there? - To help Gene.

- In what way? To keep him protected. I wouldn't say that he was

the puppet master of Gene, but Gene was not just

having his doubts about his ability to write,

but he was also having

some health issues. Gene started experiencing

a series of mini strokes. But it was one meeting

when the other producers and I, and Gene were in,

Gene got up to turn and he literally

went in a circle and

slammed into a wall. Gene's energy level

was so up and down and Gene's direct activity

with the show was so mercurial

it was all over the map. By that time Gene was... his condition was deteriorating

worse and worse. And people were being fired

left and right, and screaming matches

in the hallway, and all kinds of insanity

was going on. And so the leadership

that you needed from your executive producer

was not there. We were shutting down sometimes

because there was no captain of the ship

at that point. - There was a power vacuum.

- Very much so. Hurley:

I get a call from Paramount saying come and meet

Roddenberry, we want to consider you

as a writer for Star Trek:

The Next Generation; I said that's a joke,

that's a joke. But I want to meet Roddenberry. Who wouldn't wanna meet

Roddenberry? I was coming off two cop shows. I was coming off Miami Vice,

very good show. Equalizer, very good show. So he gives me

the first episode to rewrite. We pass each other

in the hallway four or five times a day,

he won't look at me. Apparently Gene didn't like

what he wrote. It was probably the first time

we heard them battle. And he raises up

behind his desk, this great bird-like creature and he points his finger

at me like this and he says, "You don't know

the difference between

shields and deflectors." And that went on for weeks. What did that say to you about

what you were confronting? He didn't want me,

Hurley the writer. He didn't want me

to write me, he wanted me

to write him. Hurley:

Gene's ideas about the future

and about man are wacky doodle. He sees us now in our infancy

where we just gather

and accumulate like a three-year-old in a crib,

that's mine, that's mine, give me this, you can't have

that I need this, I need that. He believed that mankind

in the twenty-fourth century had resolved all conflict

between themselves. That developed between

the first Star Trek and the second Star Trek. Gerrold:

Back in the 60's, Gene

wanted to be the womanizer and always gets

the beautiful woman and always punches out

the bad guy and always wins. And in 1986, Gene is not

going to be down there on

the front lines punching, but he will be the all-seeing

advisor, the wise man. Gene's conception on Next Gen is almost heavenly in that everyone's at peace. Hurley:

It takes away everything

you need for drama in Gene's wacky doodle

vision of the future. Shatner:

The real trouble in year one

is the dictums, how to get a

good script out. If you tell a writer

that the characters can't

have conflict between them, you're just cutting

his legs off. Some writers chaffed against

Gene's vision of a better future where there was no conflict. The essence of drama

is conflict. There was no evil. There's no money anymore. There was no jealousy. There's no fighting anymore. No separate individual

goals or ideas. We couldn't negotiate. No tension, what? I liked the dramatic

constraints it put on

me as a writer. Really? Well, I had to find new ways

to tell stories. When you look at

the original series there's a lot of conflict

between those characters, They argue a lot, and crewmen on the Enterprise

are yelling at each other. If our people are perfect

and have no conflicts or problems between them,

there is no story here. We would walk around

in each others' offices going, "I don't know how

to write about that, I don't know how to write

about perfect people." That was Gene's vision

of Star Trek:
The Next

Generation, take it or leave it

and work within it or don't. The dictums gave the writers

a lot of stress and struggle, and then in most cases,

Gene would just take the scripts

and rewrite them. And these writers

were not used to that and that was very frustrating

and a lot of writers left. And the turnover

that first season was thirty writers and staff

members left the show. The first season of a TV show

with that kind of turnover? There was a writer

who wrote an episode, he was a huge Star Trek fan,

he was so excited. Gene called him to say

congratulations and Gene

told him how great it was. The next day Gene came

to him and said, "I'm sorry, friend, but we're

going to have to part company and he thought,

"Oh my God, Gene

is leaving the show." And then found out

the furniture in his office had been moved into the hallway

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