Chaos on the Bridge
{4.5/5} “Some writers chafed at Gene’s vision of a better future where there was no conflict… I liked the dramatic constraints it put on me as a writer… I had to find new ways to tell stories.” — Brannon Braga
Chaos on the Bridge, released in 2014
When Paramount decided they were going to create a 2nd Star Trek series, Gene Roddenberry wanted in. Although he was set to retire, he didn’t want them to do it without him. So he put a team together to work on it. He was adamant that humans in the future would have reached a state of perfection. Gene and the network had arguments about all sorts of things, including whether the 1st episode should be 1 hour or 2 hours. Once they got started, one shocking thing that happened was that Roddenberry’s lawyer started writing notes on scripts.
This is a 1-hour documentary about what went on behind the scenes in the first few years of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s hosted by William Shatner.
It’s filled with commentary from people like Rick Berman, Maurice Hurley, David Gerrold, D.C. Fontana, Susan Sackett, Michael Okuda, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Denise Crosby, as well as studio executives.
Even if you already know the general idea, it’s an entertaining documentary. The 1st season alone had a turnover of 30 writers and staffers.
One interesting thing revealed was that actors strongly considered to play the captain were Mitch Ryan, Roy Thinnes, and Yaphet Kotto.
When writer Michael Piller comes on board and starts running the writer’s room, he has the idea that the show is about the characters, rather than the plots. So the question was, how would the events of an episode affect one of our characters? Ronald D. Moore thinks that without that change in perspective, the show wouldn’t have been as great and it wouldn’t have led to further series.
Directed by William Shatner (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier).