William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge

Moviecut—Chaos on the Bridge

source: Chaos on the Bridge

As an original Trekkie, I'll admit that I too, find the first two and a half seasons of TNG to be unwatchable. The show didn't get good until season three's Yesterday's Enterprise. This was when I came back (and recently, been driven away by the drek that's Discovery and Picard) and remained, until the terrible Enterprise, a die-hard fan. I know all the Roddenberryites out there are whining and crying, why do they hate Gene so much? How about because, as this shows, and many have said, he was a greedy, womanizing cretin who had exactly one great idea that he milked? He was to some an angel, to other's a nuisance. The truth is, while some wanted to buy into his self-serving legend, he was just a man. And he rarely gave credit to the brilliant people who created Star Trek with him. Also, as has been said long before this documentary, his ideas which permeated the first two and half terrible seasons, were ridiculous. There is NO way humanity will ever stop having conflict with itself. At best we might stop killing ourselves for the stupidest reasons, but even an argument is conflict. Anyway, this is a really excellent, eye opening documentary and should be watched.

To the Trek fan, I found this a fun story and interesting bit of history that was well worth watching. It feels rushed in parts, glossed over in others and one-sided, but overall, a fun retelling. I think everyone knows that the behind the scenes making of TV isn't always pretty. Some of the underbelly is shown and some grievances are aired, but there's enough Trek in this little film to keep the Trekie interested. An entertaining hour I thought. 8 stars, possibly 8.5

I'm not exactly a trekkie but I've read several books on both ST:TOS and ST:TNG so this isn't my first exposure to the "dirt". From all I've seen and read elsewhere this show rings true. It also has some new info I'd not run across before. Contrary to some reviewers I thought the pacing was fine, the graphics were a nice touch and it was really even handed in it's treatment of people. There were a couple of spots with bad editing such as one segment which begins with them talking about someone but they failed to include any intro to tell you who they were talking about. It took a minute to figure out who it was. As a viewer I disagree with many of the people interviewed who suggest that the first two seasons were not very good. Seasons 1 and 2 may have had a different focus but as a viewer of them without any foreknowledge that they supposedly weren't as good I never felt that way. They were fine. One interesting aspect revealed by the interviews is that there was much turmoil and angst going on almost the whole series. What they experienced did not, IMHO, come across negatively in the final product. To hear them tell it there were at least half a dozen people who in one way or another literally saved the show from going down in flames. The reality, again from a viewer's perspective, was that the show was fine throughout production and that the behind the scenes melodrama, which makes interesting background, wasn't actually all that big a deal to the final result. The drama of "I'll quit", or "you'll never work in this town again." add spice to people's lives but the show had a life of it's own and the two, while intertwined, did have their own lives. One of my favorite parts was early on discussing the casting of Picard. Many were considered but Patrick Stewart was not viewed as a serious contender in part due to his baldness. They relate the story of flying his cheap toupee from the UK to the US for a final casting call where he wore it. He left and took it off and then got a quick callback. He returned sans toupee. As Bill Shatner and others discuss all this toupee related trivia I kept looking at Shatner's toupee generated hair and wondering what was going thru his mind and whether he might have a typically Shatneresque remark. Sadly he did not. All and all a fun hour with some worthy tidbits for the Star Trek aficionado.

So, Gene Roddenberry was human! Leave it to William Shatner to dredge all this up and confront the actors, producers, writers, and studio executives which he interviews in this film. Somebody suggested that the music was inappropriate, however, since this movie was kind of made to look like it was based on a poker game which is totally appropriate for the next generation, the music is 100% spot on. I remember when this show first aired, when I watched Encounter at Farpoint, I was thinking to myself that there was some kind of dichotomy, some kind of split going on within that episode. The first part deals with exploring the new ship and showing its capabilities. The holodeck, the saucer separation. Gene had actually considered doing this in a possible fourth season of the original show, in the book "the making of Star Trek", Gene talks about a holographic recreation area for crewmembers and also the fact that the original Enterprise saucer section was detachable, just like the "D"- so none of that was new to me- as a matter of fact I was thinking congratulations for finally getting to these things. It was wholly ironic for William Shatner to produce and direct this documentary. When I was watching the first season of next generation, I just felt that there was something wrong. But I couldn't put my finger on it. Until I watched this documentary, and now I understand and I can even in my mind go through the seasons and the episodes and identify what was probably happening based on what I have been told through this documentary. And I also never realized that Tracy Tormé was the son of Mel Tormé- there is a great resemblance there. And Tracy is basically the one who thought up the Borg, originally they were going to be connected to the parasite-aliens from Conspiracy, but that never happened. But from the last two episodes of season one, we are set up for the possible invasion from somebody. Some people have complained bitterly about this movie, feeling that it degrades Gene, but I don't agree. This movie in no way changes how I feel about the man, he was the creator of Star Trek and he was always the great bird of the galaxy to me. Except that I don't agree at all with Maurice Hurley's contention that Gene's ideas about the future of mankind were "Whack-a-doodle". I actually thought some of Maurice' episodes were fairly good. But now that I know that he was elevated to the show runner position above two veteran Star Trek writers, and that he really didn't appreciate Gene's vision? To me that explains everything that was wrong with the first two seasons. And it wasn't Gene. Now I always thought the second season was a huge step up from the first season especially from the start with Riker sporting a beard and Geordi being elevated to the engineer. Good ideas. And despite what is said about Dr. Pulaski, I liked her more than Dr. Crusher. Because she was caustic and acerbic just like bones. She was a female bones. I loved her character and I love the actress Diana Muldaur - except that in the documentary she kind of looked like how she looked in the episode "Unnatural Selection". I wish they would have tapped her for the new Picard series. Anyways this doesn't make me hate the show or like it any less, this movie shines the light of truth onto something that we love, it explains a lot of things. And this could not have been done by anybody but William Shatner. God love William Shatner. Also one thing is very clear, during the whole production of next generation where Gene was involved, he was ill the entire time. The show definitely took it's toll on him, he wanted to retire, not make a new Star Trek show. But he did it, selflessly and at risk to his own health.

William Shatner did a great job. I love that he was unafraid to puncture the myths that surround Gene Roddenberry, yet he wrapped up the movie with a defense of the man. I was aware that Roddenberry had a bad drug habit. But I was unaware that apparently Roddenberry's drug habit, even in his advanced age, was so severe that his wife Majel needed to "dump him" onto a train that took him to a detox center. She did it every weekend for months at a time during the first season of The Next Generation. Mind blowing. As the writers who are interviewed for this story pointed out, he was a large, robust figure who could have lived to age 90 if he had not poisoned himself. The launch of The Next Generation forced him to sober up. Ironically, although people pointed out that he just wanted to enjoy retirement and felt somewhat like the new series was being foisted on him, it's likely that he would have died during 1987 if he had not had it in his life. I will probably never forgive Next Gen writer Maurice Hurley for forcing out the loveable and sexy Gates McFadden for a season, but I must admit that he was an extraordinary and colorful character. I'm very appreciative that Shatner profiled him just a year before he died in 2015. RIP, you "wacky doodle" (yet intriguing) man.

This documentary rushes through separate lines spoken by former TNG actors, writers and directors, edited together to form a narrative of the creative and production problems behind TNG starting out. To glue this narrative together and not just have people talking on screen, it is full of cartoon animation and animated photos too support the storyline of what the old crew is sharing. The pace and production style of distraction makes it a little hard to follow, but if you're a true TNG fan, you'll still appreciate the back story of the first seasons of TNG and learn about a few interesting decisions that made TNG turn around and become a sustained success.

It's apparent that Gene Roddenbery wasn't 100% by the time TNG rolled around. However, I would say the bigger problem with TNG had to do with the jackace who claims Roddenberry was nuts for wanting no conflict between the crew members and all the other Hollywood no-talents that agreed with jackace's conformist TV views. It's been a couple of years since I watched so exact name I forget but some typical Hollywood moron in this was claiming Star Trek should be like every other TV show. The only reason this once cancelled show is still a phenomenon today is it wasn't like every other show on TV. Crew members should hate each other, stab each other in the back, call each other names and apparently come to blows every week because that was 80's TV was this no-talent's argument. This is going along with all other Hollywood no-talents with their totally insane "making it more realistic" garbage we've heard for years. You can't make the easter bunny "more realistic". It's like claiming had the easter bunny starred in the Die Hard movies instead of Bruce Willis, the easter bunny would be a believable action hero and gotten more action movie roles. You can not make the already unrealistic Star Trek set hundreds of years in the future "realistic" by using current conformist, overused, beyond boring garbage that Hollywood copycats use in dramas set in the 1980's or any time up until now. Giving this Hollywood hack so much screen time and Shatner sort of being persuaded he was right is like if this jackace had asked why do we need Hobbits in Lord of the Rings since Hobbits don't exist or why is there magic in Harry Potter when magic doesn't exist. It's a beyond insane exercise and shows a beyond simple mind for this jackace and Shatner and anybody who buys the garbage. Warp drives and the planet Vulcan don't exist so why should Earthings getting along be so outrageous in a totally made up future that doesn't exist anyway? Nothing makes Superman, an alien, more realistic. Nothing makes Star Wars, in a galaxy far, far way, more realistic. And wanting TNG crew members to be Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza, Cosmo Kramer and Elaine Benes "friends" who actually hate each other and argue all the time doesn't make Star Trek more realistic either. The conflict was supposed to come from the Romulans, Ferengi, Cardassians, etc. so this simple-minded jackace and Shatner basically calling the genius Roddenberry insane for wanting Earthlings to get along in the future is beyond a waste of time. I enjoyed hearing from other TNG cast members, Shatner not a cast member but always giving his 2 cents anyway, but this is a middle of the road 5. Anybody giving it a 9 and 10 isn't a Star Trek fan and are in fact calling Roddenberry a hack and calling this conformist, no-talent, no ideas, simple-minded, complaining, typical Hollywood jackace the genius. Shame on all you phony fans.

I really enjoy having Shatner lead the documentaries for the development of star trek. My only wish is that they had delved into the writers issues developing TNG more... It just, maybe in hind sight, appears obvious to me that the creation of story conflict is easy between the federation values and of its characters against an antagonist. I think there is more to the story of the first two seasons of TNG than they could have dug into.. I'm happy this documentary was made. The interviews with the contributing cast and etc were very I intriguing as both a trekkie and an outsider interested in TV or movie production.