A Brief Guide to Star Trek

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 orvacant 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’. Thecharacter 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