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Voyager
THE UNAUTHORIZED
TREKKERS’GUIDE TO
THE NEXT
GENERATION
AND
DEEP SPACE
NINE
BY JAMES VAN HISE
COPYRIGHT
Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space Nine are registered trademarks of Paramount Pictures Corporation. This book was not prepared, approved, licensed or endorsed by any entity involved in creating or producing the Star Trek television series or films.
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Pioneer Books, Inc. 1992, 1995
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006482918
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008240288
Version: 2017-01-10
HOW ENTERTAINMENT BECOMES LEGEND
The phenomenal success of Star Trek inspired two spectacular spin-offs, both of which have gone on to join the ranks of the most-watched television shows of all time.
This unauthorized guidebook, two complete volumes in one, examines both of these shows in fascinating detail – the characters and the creators, the episodes behind the episodes, the actors, the make-up artists, the special-effect geniuses and the voyages that landed on the cutting room floor.
This complete guidebook to The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine is more than just a reference book. It is a behind-the-scenes look at how a success story continues.
Author James Van Hise, considered by many to be the world’s leading Star Trek expert, is also known for his work as editor of Midnight Graffiti magazine, where he brought to public attention such authors as Stephen King and Harlan Ellison.
DEDICATION
Dedicated to
Gene Roddenberry,
who started it all
CONTENTS
COVER
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
PART I: INTRODUCTION
THE ENDURANCE OF STAR TREK
PART II: THE NEXT GENERATION
CHAPTER 1: ENTER THE NEXT GENERATION
Aboard the New Enterprise
Special Effects
CHAPTER 2: CHARACTERS AND CAST
Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Commander William Riker
Lt. Commander Data
Lieutenant Worf
Doctor Beverly Crusher
Lt. Commander Deanna Troi
Lieutenant Geordi La Forge
Security Chief Tasha Yar
Guinan
CHAPTER 3: THE NEXT GENERATION OVERVIEW
Season One
Season Two
Season Three
Season Four
Season Five
Season Six
Season Seven
PART III: DEEP SPACE NINE
INTRODUCTION: THE THIRD GENERATION
CHAPTER 1: THE BACKGROUND
Behind the Scenes: The Creation
Laying the Groundwork—From The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine
Special Corner of the Galaxy: The Realm of Deep Space Nine
Comparing Treks
CHAPTER 2: CHARACTERS AND CAST
Commander Benjamin Sisko
Jake Sisko
Chief of Operations Miles O’Brien
Keiko O’Brien
Major Kira Nerys
Lieutenant Jadzia Dax
Security Chief Odo
Doctor Julian Bashir
Quark
PART IV: APPENDICES
The Next Generation: Episode Guide Seasons 1-7
Season One
Season Two
Season Three
Season Four
Season Five
Season Six
Season Seven
Deep Space Nine: Episode Guide Seasons 1-2
Season One
Second Season
Brent Spiner—In Person
Honors for Gene Roddenberry
KEEP READING
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
PART
1
INTRODUCTION
THE ENDURANCE OF STAR TREK
“Like Spain’s Francisco Franco, Star Trek has been fatally dead for a long time. Now and then the mortuary shoots an electric current through the corpse, and the resultant spasm releases yet another manual or quiz or convention or novel or book of fan fiction or whathaveyou, but after nearly a decade there’s little life left in the old cadaver.”
—Gil Lamont & James K. Burk DeLap’s F & SF Review (March/April 1978)
This quote reflects the reception science fiction fandom gave Star Trek fans in the mid to late seventies. They looked down on Star Trek, and chose to dismiss it. These intemperate remarks ignored growing popular interests as fan interest attained a life greater than the TV image that inspired it.
This touched common chords in many individuals. Some went through life quietly enamored with the series, unaware they shared a common bond with countless strangers until they found a Star Trek fanzine or walked into a convention.
Before Star Trek’s fitful return to the screen in the 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a backlash of anti-Star Trek sentiment raged. It began with the attitude that “those people” were “invading” otherwise sedate science fiction and comic book conventions.
I wonder how many times those critics have watched the new incarnations of Star Trek in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. How quickly passion doth ebb and flow.
EMBRACED BY THE MASSES
Critics to any new series were reacting to a TV show that had perished in 1969. They thought it should be buried. Many of these detractors read novels by dead authors or comic strips by dead artists. They pursued interests without practical purpose and with no hope of continuation by their talented creators. But Star Trek, they felt, was just a TV show in reruns.
Reruns (or reprints) can still be appreciated. H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, E. E. “Doc” Smith, Edgar Allan Poe, Clark Ashton Smith, Rod Serling, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and many others, including H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, left books behind for fans to enjoy. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, yet Sherlock Holmes is appreciated by more people today than ever before. Every year, it seems, someone is inspired to take pen in hand and create an “untold” tale of London’s famous sleuth.
“New” is not an easy word. Harlan Ellison is fond of pointing out that, “Any book you have not read is a new book.”
I raised these points in a reply when the remarks that opened this article first appeared. I had hoped for a reply befitting the stature of the magazine. Instead I witnessed the death of the publication. It ended in 1978 while the “corpse” of Star Trek looks amazingly healthy these days.
SURVIVAL TRAITS
Why did Star Trek endure? Its whole proved to be greater than the sum of its parts. A special spirit struck a responsive chord in many people. It delivered something people searched for and wouldn’t find again until Star Wars appeared in 1977, namely, optimism. They both offered a future in the stars, no matter what squalor lay at our feet.
When Star Trek premiered in 1966, the dream of reaching beyond the mortal confines of our world still seemed a dream. America was plunged deep into the quagmire of Southeast Asia. The future offered little when friends and relatives came home in bodybags.
Then Star Trek brought new hope. It proclaimed that not only would there be a future, but the future worked. The starship Enterprise astonished audiences with its futuristic design, giving us what appeared to be a window into a new, better world.
INSIDE THE ENTERPRISE
Then the noble captain of the ship, Captain Kirk, appeared; fearless, yet touched by every death. McCoy, the ship’s doctor and the captain’s close friend, acted as his devil’s advocate, offering the voice of traditional humanity. At the perimeter stood Spock, cool and austere, always logical. Spock was the enigma. He was second-in-command and possessor of an alien heritage.
The stories offered reality. People thought and bled; they made mistakes and expressed personal beliefs. Many episodes, including “The Naked Time,” forced deeply rooted doubts of the day to the surface. No other cast of science fiction characters had ever tried this before.
Space: 1999 arrived in 1975. Audiences waited for something good. It didn’t have to be Star Trek; it just had to be enjoyable. The dreadful series triggered a violent backlash. One critic aptly dubbed it Space: 1949. It was so relentlessly awful that audiences felt betrayed.
Much the same expectations and resentment would also accompany the arrival of Battlestar Galactica.
Star Trek characters, on the other hand, took on lives of their own. Each script added bits of characterization. Viewers felt they recognized the humanity of the characters on screen.
ALWAYS ETHICALLY CORRECT
Captain Kirk and his crew were idealizations. When push comes to shove, they do the right thing: Kirk, Spock, and McCoy don’t possess normal human foibles. They might get angry, but then they meekly apologize. They always make the right ethical choice.
In Harlan Ellison’s “The City on the Edge of Forever,” Harlan wanted Kirk to try to save Edith despite knowing the disastrous consequences of her continued life. Kirk would have failed but he would have tried. This was Harlan’s version for which he won the Writer’s Guild Award. Gene Roddenberry thought Kirk would do the right thing when the time came, no matter how painful. Ellison insisted that bringing Edith to the future would bring the same result as letting her be run down in the street. Roddenberry (with an assist from Gene L. Coon) rewrote Ellison’s screenplay. Captain Kirk deliberately prevented McCoy from saving Edith. Kirk experienced great anguish, but he did the right thing.
Although the characters in Star Trek are enduring, and certainly more believable than those on Lost in Space, Space: 1999, and others, they are still idealizations. Trek characters look like human beings only by comparison with other TV series from that period. They are noble and unblemished, but they agonize over decisions such as in the above example from “The City On the Edge of Forever.”
EARLY EVALUATIONS
After the cancellation of Star Trek in 1969, a revival wasn’t dreamed. Fans were grateful for any mention of their favorite show, however tepid. One example is the brief dismissal given it by John Baxter in his 1970 book Science Fiction in the Cinema, where he devotes only three paragraphs to the series.
Baxter praises “The Menagerie” but drop-kicks stock sets with formula situations, discussing “Patterns of Force” (Nazi Germany) and “A Piece of the Action” (Chicago in the thirties) while ignoring such key episodes as “City on the Edge of Forever,” “This Side of Paradise,” “Mirror, Mirror” and others far more representative of Star Trek. He singled out “Charlie X” for praise, but never mentioned the obvious inspiration of Stranger in a Strange Land.
Baxter never mentions the series’ characters, even though fifteen years before Hill Street Blues, and half a decade before M*A*S*H, Star Trek presented an ensemble cast representing wide interests and appeals.
A SAFE PORT
Although both the original Star Trek and its offspring, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, have been accused by some critics of science fiction of avoiding current social issues, the entire Star Trek family continues to express hope for the future, hope that mankind’s possibilities are endless. And this, if nothing else, leads to a safe port in a troubled modern world.
PART
2
THE NEXT GENERATION
CHAPTER
1
ENTER THE NEXT GENERATION
“We grew beyond the original show. We love the original and those actors, but we see the world differently now and our show reflects that.”
—Gene Roddenberry USA Today November 1, 1990
In 1987 something controversial was done. Star Trek was brought back to weekly television without any of the familiar faces who had graced the name since 1966. Gene Roddenberry was still at the helm, and the universe portrayed was not so different from what we had first been introduced to years before.
When Paramount announced that Gene Roddenberry was creating the first Star Trek spin-off series, and that it would be set seventy-five years beyond the Trek universe we were all familiar with, it was inevitable that this meant changes. How sweeping would those changes be? Clearly the technology would be updated, just as it had been for the motion pictures. Would the philosophy behind the show be retooled as well?
NOT AGAIN …
“When Paramount originally approached me to do a new series, I turned them down. I did not want to devote the tremendous amount of time necessary to producing another show. In order to keep the original series going, I practically had to disown my daughters. I had no time for them when they were school age. I did not want to do that to my life again. There is only one way I know to write and produce and that is to throw my energy at the project all the time. So when they began to think about a second series, I said I would not do it. Then they said, ‘Well, suppose we figure a way that it could be done so you would be in charge?’ I thought they were kidding. The studio said that I could be in full control of the creative standard. I asked a few questions, and they said, ‘Yeah, sure, you must know these things because you’ve been doing them anyway under network guidance.’
“I told the studio that if they went the syndication route I would go for it. Not only would I go for it, I would go for it full blast. I told them I would find ways of doing Star Trek that would give them extra elements. I think we have done that.”
A Star Trek series would be launched with an all new cast, set (somewhat vaguely) seventy-five years after the original series, and featuring the Enterprise of that farther future, the fifth of its line, NCC 1701-D. Paramount was banking that a syndicated show would generate revenues. It seemed impossible, but … it happened. Gene Roddenberry worked hard to produce a new Star Trek that would be true to the ideals of the original but still have its own flavor.
Not having to deal with network or studio interference was a major load off him, and he made certain that no one broke that promise. Early in the new show’s production, a group of junior executives walked into Gene’s office and began going over a script demanding changes. He pointed out they had no right to do this under the terms of his contract and threw them out!
In discussing what the most difficult aspect was of creating Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gene quoted one of the original cast members who had commented on trying to create a new version of a classic. “The most difficult aspect?” Gene replied. “Leonard Nimoy said it. You can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice. I was thinking, yes, he’s probably right.”
RECAPTURING A DREAM
The thing that attracted Roddenberry to the new series was that he wouldn’t have to deal with networks. “And then they said, maybe you shouldn’t [try to do a new series] because it’s impossible, and my ears perked up over that. The most difficult aspect was to go against all of that and put a show together and believe you could do it, and collect people that could do it, and collect a cast that in its own way has the qualities of the old cast. It was the impossibility of it that was the most difficult.”
Roddenberry described what he hoped to accomplish with the new series when he stated, “What we want to do is to grapple now with the problems of the eighties and nineties and the turn of the century. I think we are going to surprise you on technology. You can only go so far in making things smaller and faster and more powerful. What other things should technology be worrying about? We’re going to be getting into those areas. There’s a reason to do another Star Trek now. We did the original Star Trek about the problems of the sixties. Many people forget that, in the mid-sixties, when we put on a multiracial crew, that was considered awful. People were shocked.”
When asked what he kept from the old Star Trek to please audience expectations when creating The Next Generation, Gene explained, “While I listen to the audience, one of the secrets of whatever success I’ve amounted to was that I never make shows for the audience. I listen to good advice, but the only person I make shows for is myself. I love any help you can give me, but I’ll be damned if I’ll make a show for you! I make it for myself and if you happen to like it I’m delighted that you do and great; we’ve got the best of both possible worlds. Writers and producers and directors and so on that create a show for specific audiences do schlock work. They should do selfish work; proudly selfish work, and that happens to be true about painters, and sculptors, too.”
THE NEW CREW
More worrisome at the time was resistance from old fans, although this turned out not to be the problem it could have been. Still, creating a new series when the original has grown to mythic proportions is a heavy proposition. As might be imagined, it took some doing. The characters took time to settle in. Once they did, they were believable.
First there was Captain Jean-Luc Picard. For this demanding role, Gene cast British actor Patrick Stewart, a noted Shakespearean with roles in films besides extensive stage work.
CAPTAIN AND COMPANY
Gene said, “Patrick Stewart was my first choice after looking at him hard and long because here I’m faced with a bald-headed man for a captain and I’m used to him being jolly with hair, and Bill was rather athletic. The longer I looked at Patrick Stewart and saw the actor who was there, and the power that was there that was a different kind than Bill’s, the more I became sure that he was the man. I’m so delighted to have him I cannot tell you! When you look at dailies, you always watch Picard even when he’s not doing anything! Because he is doing something here [points to his head] constantly! England produces great actors and he’s an example of that.”
Roddenberry wanted no one character to emerge as the star. A whole ensemble of players was created for the new Enterprise. Since Captain Picard would never beam down to an uncharted, possibly hostile planet in this modern version, Gene in essence divided the command function in two, providing Picard with an executive officer, William Riker. There has been speculation that Picard and Riker are the two aspects of Captain Kirk, split in half. It is conjectured this was done both for dramatic reasons and to prevent any single actor from attempting to dominate a true ensemble program. In a nod to the old show’s first pilot, as well as to nautical history, Riker is often referred to as “Number One.” Riker, a canny poker player, is not afraid to take risks. He weighs them carefully, assuring the safety of his superior officer.
The notion of having “Away Teams” instead of sending the ship’s executive officers on dangerous missions was suggested by David Gerrold.
THE COUNSELOR AND THE ANDROID
Gene also created a new position for The Next Generation, that of Ship’s Counselor, and a new alien race—the Betazoids. Although this position can be occupied by a member of any race, Picard is highly fortunate that his ship’s counselor is a Betazoid. Betazoids are extremely empathic, if not telepathic, and can read minds to varying degrees. Picard’s counselor, Deanna Troi, is a beautiful half-human woman, who can sense emotions with great acuity. Combined with extensive psychological training, this makes her a vital part of the captain’s decision-making process. “Captain, I sense …” has become as familiar a line to Next Generation fans as “I’m a doctor, not a …” was for those of the original series.
Deanna once had a relationship with Riker, but it seems to have mellowed into an abiding friendship. Only in season six when a transporter-created double for William Riker was introduced did the old romance again resurface. Marina Sirtis enjoys the irony of being a British actress playing an alien on American television.
Most controversial at the show’s inception was the android science officer, Data. Many saw him as a transparent Spock substitute. Indeed, there are many similarities between the two, but the differences have been developed more thoroughly. A much closer predecessor of Data is found in the android in The Questor Tapes. Gene cast Texas-born Brent Spiner as Data. He was very well prepared for his role by a strong belief in extraterrestrials.
THE DOCTOR AND THE ENGINEER
An Enterprise without a ship’s doctor would be unthinkable. Gene provided Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher. Dr. Crusher is the first regular role in a television series for actress Gates McFadden. The compassionate, dedicated doctor is the mother of a precocious youngster, Wesley Crusher. Not coincidentally, Gene’s middle name was Wesley. Wesley Crusher was played by Wil Wheaton, who left the series in its fourth season to pursue school and a film career. Because he left on amicable terms, an opening was left for him to return to the show at any time, even if only in guest star roles. He came back for one in season seven’s “Journey’s End.” Wheaton wanted to return to the status of being a regular on the final season, but what the actors called “studio politics” prevented that. Others connected with the show have stated that “Journey’s End” wrote a finish to the character of Wesley, who will apparently not be appearing in the Next Generation feature films.
McFadden was replaced by Diana Muldaur in the second season of The Next Generation and Roddenberry even issued a press release telling fans not to bother writing to him about the decision because his mind was made up—that is, until he changed it again and brought Gates McFadden back to the role in the third season.
Another new character, eventually to be promoted to the post of chief engineer, is Geordi La Forge. The role is named as tribute to the late Star Trek fan George LaForge, a cerebral palsy sufferer whose long survival was attributed to his strong identification with the show. Geordi contributes to the tradition of a multiethnic cast in Star Trek. He is blind, but due to the advanced technology of the twenty-fourth century, can see by means of an electronic visor linked with his nervous system. He can even see visual ranges inaccessible to most human beings. Geordi is a sincere, likable, confident man with slight insecurities. He always perseveres, communicating freely with others. The opposite of Picard, he affects an informal approach to life and is not hung up on protocol. Actor LeVar Burton, best known as the young Kunta Kinte in the classic miniseries Roots, plays the role. This character was reportedly created by David Gerrold.
A KLINGON ON THE BRIDGE
The biggest shock in The Next Generation’s crew roster was Worf … a Klingon. Since Kirk’s heyday, peace has finally been negotiated between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Negotiations were underway at the time of the events of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, a fact referred to by Commander Kruge in that film. This was further developed in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The two spheres of influence strive to get along and have established some mutual trust. There are no other Klingons in Starfleet.
Worf is unique. He was raised by humans after his family was killed in the massacre of their outpost during a surprise Klingon attack—an event that still haunts him. He is like Spock in that he is the product of two cultures, a warrior Klingon dedicated to his own culture but tempered by exposure to human ideals. Worf was added after the pilot for The Next Generation and does not appear in “Encounter at Farpoint.” For a time, he would be little more than a grouchy guy standing in the background recommending aggressive action. He would be featured in more and more episodes, eventually opening up a window on the fascinating world of the Klingons. The six-foot-five Michael Dorn was cast as Worf. Dorn was born in Liling, Texas, but raised in Pasadena, California, just minutes away from Hollywood.
With the cast set, The Next Generation got under way. Creator Gene Roddenberry handed the executive producer’s reins over to Paramount’s Rick Berman.
CREATIVE CONFLICTS
D. C. Fontana signed on as story editor, but soon left, unhappy with the treatment received by her script “Encounter at Farpoint.” Sadly, the episode kicked off the new series with less than a bang. Fontana’s initial story received a forced graft of Gene Roddenberry’s “Q” subplot and the two concepts didn’t cross over, much less merge. Instead of a genuine, two-hour movie, audiences received two separate stories. Like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, “Encounter at Farpoint” moved slowly, too enamored of its own special effects. It was no surprise that Gene Roddenberry’s name was on the screenplay. Roddenberry said, “In the first Star Trek [series], I rewrote or heavily polished the first thirteen episodes so that Mr. Spock would be the Mr. Spock that I had in mind. This was enormous labor, and then this began to catch on and we got some good writers on this.
“In Star Trek: The Next Generation I rewrote thirteen episodes. I don’t want to act out a big ‘I did this, I did that,’ but as far as the basic original writing, I had to do that again, with few exceptions. It is the way episodic television is. Now as the year’s gone on,” he said during the first season, “I’ve found some good people and I hope to find more. We got some good writing in the old series, and we’ve had some good writing in the new series. Most of the writing comes from very few, very good people who labor hard. Very often they are staff people.”
Special effects for the first season were provided by Industrial Light and Magic, but they soon proved too expensive. Other effects teams were sought out. With a per episode budget of over a million dollars, The Next Generation was a major gamble for Paramount. They had to use the budget to the best of their ability.
GROWING PAINS
The first season of The Next Generation was erratic. The actors had yet to settle into their roles, and the scripts, often rewritten by Gene, were uneven. Controversy ensued when both D. C. Fontana and David Gerrold felt they had contributed to the development of the series concept and neither received credit. Gene never acknowledged them. In fact, in regard to Gerrold, he went so far as to comment that “… Gerrold [had] been condemning the show, constantly. I had him on staff for many, many months, [and] he never wrote an episode we could shoot.” He had, but Roddenberry refused to approve it. This contributed to their professional break.
Fontana is harder to dismiss. She worked on a total of four scripts for the first season of The Next Generation. She left following a particularly ugly encounter with Roddenberry when he supposedly asked her to write an entire script and attach his name as cowriter so that he could meet the studio’s demand for his writing a certain number of scripts during the first season. When she refused because it would be a violation of Writer’s Guild rules, Roddenberry claimed that he was the one who got her into the business (which wasn’t true) and felt that she was ungrateful for not doing him this favor.
The dispute between Gene, Fontana, and Gerrold was settled behind the scenes for a monetary sum. No on-screen credit was given. Some regard this as more important than a lump sum payoff, because without screen credit there is no public acknowledgment of what a writer created. In spite of the settlement, Roddenberry may well have felt that he’d won.
The second season of The Next Generation showed marked improvement. Changes were evident. Jonathan Frakes now sported a beard. Some viewers, unimpressed by the first season, now use the sight of a clean-shaven Riker as their cue not to watch a rerun.
TWO NEW SECOND-SEASON ADDITIONS
Doctor Pulaski, ably played by Diana Muldaur, a veteran guest star of the original Star Trek, joined the cast in the second season. Despite Muldaur’s fine acting, this character didn’t work. Perhaps the problem was that the crusty, no-nonsense Pulaski seemed to be a female “Bones” McCoy. The character provided much-needed friction on the bridge, but never really came to bear on the plots much.
Another new character also came onboard in the second season, although she may have been there all along for purposes of continuity. Guinan is a mysterious alien woman of great age who functions as bartender and freelance counselor in the Enterprise’s open lounge, Ten Forward. She serves synthehol, a marvelous brew whose mildly intoxicating effects can be shaken off at will. Guinan’s background is intentionally shrouded in mystery. Although not featured on a weekly basis, she is a recurring presence.
