William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge Page #7

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series. Like The Borg, the idea of Q, the holodeck in my opinion

was Gene's greatest invention in the Next Generation it was very

ahead of his time Making a show is difficult under

any circumstances, especially early on, but

the story telling got sharper. As it went on. As the show found itself. It had the advantage

of having a great brand

behind it before it started. People were giving it

more of a chance to last longer than a show that had no

brand recognition whatsoever. The fan base kept the show

on the air for those first

two rocky years. And that's an amazing

salute to the audience that's out there for

this material. They were going to stick

with it, they were going

to stick with it and believe it was going

to be better. The ship had tilted,

you know, all the way

over on its side already and Rick

was just at that point

tearing his hair out. The first day I walked

into someone's office and they said come

into this bathroom. I used to have a big board

that was in my bathroom. And there on the wall

printed out was the name of every writer who had

gotten fired so far in

the first two seasons. How many names? It was a lot of names

on a show that was only

around for two seasons. I have the third season

fixed in my head as being a time when there

was a change in style. Berman:

Michael Pillar was a writer

who had written on a number of network television

shows and a very rigid producing writer when it came to the

process and he believed that the process that existed prior

to his arrival was a mess. Shatner:

In the context of the way

Maury Hurley ran his room. How was the room that

Michael organized? Ira Behr was sort of his number

two and Ira was the guy in the trenches with us. Michael had never run a show,

Michael wanted me to deal with the writers.

Michael stayed in his room as often as he could to do re

writes. When I finally got a script of my own to write,

I came up with this idea of this pleasure planet. Captain's Holiday,

the visit to Risa it's the only planet name

I actually remember. Patrick kept saying

the trouble with the show is there's not enough f-ing and

f-ing. Fighting and fornicating. And I said I have a feeling

our audience might like to see our captain just getting blown away

by meeting somebody new. The writers were real excited.

Well Rick says, "You've got to go in to see

Gene. So I go in and he's very nice but he says,

"I like the idea of pleasure

planet and I want it to be a place where you see

women fondling and kissing

other women, and men hugging and holding

hands and kissing and we can imply

that they're having sex

in the background. Huh, really?

I'm going, "Oh, man, I'm in

the freakin' twilight zone." I go back to Rick,

he goes, "Pft, pay no

attention to that, just get the

captain laid." I think Gene knew

that there had been this subtle erosion of his

authority and power. The equation moved from Gene,

Rick, Michael to just Rick and Michael, because Gene's health

had started to fail and he was less and less involved. They knew there were

workarounds for things they wanted

to have done. And Michael along with Rick

found a way to make the show work better. Michael refocused the show,

he said this is all about

our characters this is a war story,

this is a Picard story, this is a Data story.

How is this episode going

to affect one of our people and make it a character-oriented

show in that sense? And that fundamentally

shifted the direction of

everything. Michael Pillar who's very

adept at creating conflict between characters

that was so organic that you didn't question it. - Data.

- And what Klingons do

to their children. Data, I am not talking

about parenting, I am talking about the

extraordinary consequences of creating a new life. Does that not describe

becoming a parent sir? Moore:

When I started in third season, we were still the bastard

step child of Star Trek. All we were still getting

was Picard isn't Kirk and there's no Spock. And we were the pretenders

and we weren't Star Trek and there's only one real

Star Trek and that was the one with Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Even though Gene

was running it. How did you feel when

you heard that there was going to be

a new Star Trek? Did that piss you off?

Seriously. I had a twinge. Absolutely,

it was a sense of loss. When I heard Star Trek

and my name isn't

associated with it. I had a twinge to saying,

"You're now the captain

to Patrick." It wasn't until after

The Best of Both Worlds cliff hanger that you felt the

whole thing shift and suddenly we were Star Trek. I am Locutus of Borg.

Reistance is futile Your life as it has been

is over. Mister Worf, fire. But what was genius

is that it took Picard who compared to Kirk was an

administrator more than an adventurer and by cutting him

off and turning him into a Borg it kind of gave his

humanity back to him Making the man more human

and vulnerable and prone to error

and mistake, was a great decision. When I came in, I sensed

that there was a

transition going on. Gene was beginning to phase

out and Rick

was ceasing power. Rick was generous and allowed

me into some of his thinking and some of his long-term

planning and to just talk in a relaxed way about

the future of the series which I'd never really been able

to do with Gene Everybody that

worked there could see the deterioration of Gene is his

walking, his talking and his ability to kind of communicate

had changed drastically When a powerful figure

like a king or an emperor has their faculties erode and

therefore their power erodes that diffusion of power Eventually I think Rick Berman

solidified the power,

he replaced Gene. Gene was clinging to the

world he had built trying to make it the most beautiful

thing it could be. A vision of humanity

and I think he became

far more obsessed with his legacy then he was with his

history of a storyteller. The guy who created Star Trek

why in trains with the stars. As his health failed,

as his faculties were failing

I got sense from a man that things were simply

slipping away from him We had been sitting watching

dailies after lunch and Michael Pillar pulled

every body into his office and every body came from the

set, I knew something was up but I didn't know what it was

and I had a really bad feeling

and he announced that Gene Roddenberry

had died that morning. Shatner:

Gene's passing brought

an end to an era, but also gave a new group of

talented writers and producers an opportunity to take the

franchise to new worlds If we had not shifted

from plot to character in the third season the show

would've continued but I don't think it would've broken through

the way it did. I think it would've been that other series

that they did of Star Trek and I get the feeling that Star Trek

would of kind of stopped there would've been a Deep Space Nine

there would not have been a Voyager and so on and certainly

not more movies. If he had not come back

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