The second lengthy volume (over 800 pages!) of Star Trek’s fifty-year mission isn’t as exciting as the first tome. That first extended work dealt with the original Star Trek series and the subsequent movies and was quite interesting. This volume, like the first, is a series of quotes from the key players involved in Next Generation, its subsequent movies, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. There’s also a brief section on the new Star Trek movies and some series which never made it to air.
This series of interviews seems to be heavily weighted toward the writers of the series and the problems they created and encountered while working on the shows. A lot of the same names appear over and over in different Star Trek programs as the years go by. All the complaints seem the same: too many chefs, studio greed, lack of funds, actor overreach, executive producer micro-management. Although Gene Roddenberry died partway through the Next Generation series, the obsession with maintaining the “Star Trek” way continued down through Enterprise’s truncated run (unlike the others which went to seven years) of four years.
In addition to the crappy working conditions where the writers weren’t really allowed to write (they only polished scripts given them by the executive producers), some of the actors also wanted to control the show. Patrick Stewart lost major points with me by his crude demands. He even brought in his own writer for one of the movies AFTER the Star Trek writers finished writing it. Brent Spiner also had script approval. It’s a wonder anything got accomplished.
The Avery Brooks quotes were interesting as the first black captain, but the studio wanted the space station to have blasters on it so it could move around more and to get rid of Alexander Siddig. Although I knew most of the background dirt on the original series, it was interesting to hear of the in-fighting and idea squashing in the spinoffs, but it got boring after a while. I totally sympathized with Captain Janeway when the studio brought in Seven of Nine in her painted on catsuit to increase the “T&A” factor. Enterprise, in trying to please us Trekkies and the studio, decided to do cookie-cutter scripts and died an early death.
I’m glad J.J. started with fresh writers, directors, and actors. It really brought a new viewpoint to a show I’ve loved since I was a kid. But even he had trouble juggling the many bosses, and I doubt we’ll ever see a fourth movie. He may surprise me. Paramount is not about to let their golden goose retire.