The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition

by Larry Nemecek

  To make TNG’s Klingons distinct in general from those of the feature films, Westmore added a nose piece that continues the forehead ridge—a design inspired by dinosaur vertebrae. A unique set of crooked teeth was cast for each speaking actor, but the designer soon came to regret his early policy of casting each forehead with a different ridge pattern.

  Meanwhile, other design work still had to be nailed down, such as Geordi’s VISOR—Visual Instrument and Sight Organ Replacement—which provided with pain a full-spectrum electronic kind of “sight.” After the art staff had spent three months on designs that could work, Michael Okuda one day brought in—as many fans quickly guessed—a girl’s plastic hair barrette, and it was a hit! Remanufactured to fit LeVar Burton’s face, it still included some of Sternbach’s designs.

  It was also during this time that the final look, or set dressing, of the various standing sets was refined by Zimmerman and his set decorator, original Trek vet John Dwyer. Echoing a memorial from the first Trek movie, the main wall of the conference lounge (originally dubbed the “ready room” when that set was called the “away cabin”) was decorated with half-relief sculptures of the various Enterprise namesakes since the World War II American naval carrier, all in fiberglass-covered foam. They remained until after Season 4, when ST VI removed the ship wall to redress the set, but the stored ships returned in the finale flashback (“All Good Things …”/277-278).

  In Picard’s office, Zimmerman and Dwyer came up with the tome of Shakespeare (see notes, “Hide and Q”/111), the “batwing” desk, and the wall fishbowl with a rare tropical lion-fish soon nicknamed “Livingston,” after unit production manager and future producer David Livingston. “David’s a super-nice guy…. He was trying very hard to be stern and nobody really believed it,” recalled Dwyer. “So when this fish comes up and it sees you, up go its defenses; it’s always doing this and always facing you and it kinda reminded us a little bit of David.” Other long-running details included a crystal sailing ship that remained until late in Season 6 (see “The Chase”/246), Probert and Sternbach’s original painting of the Enterprise, and their model of the Stargazer, Picard’s prior ship. Their Stargazer work model, whose design was not accepted until needed in filming, actually had no stenciled ship name and carried the number NCC-7100—not that of the ship nor, supposedly, the class ship Constellation, NCC-1974 (see “The Battle”/110).

  As the work of carving out a new series went on, Paramount TV chief Mel Harris in early August spoke via satellite with those at the 170 initial stations that would carry the new series to more than 94 percent of TV households in the United States. Introducing a slick production featuring footage from the yet-unaired pilot and the new sets as background, he described for this business-oriented audience the commercial merchandising, media publicity, and promotional efforts—themed “The 24th Century is about to begin!”—for what he called “some of the best-looking television anywhere on anybody’s air this fall.”

  And the “final secret weapon” in this “unprecedented” effort? A one-minute commercial for TNG that would open some 2 million copies of the hit Star Trek IV videocassette, due for release just days before the new series’ debut. Harris estimated that this message alone would be seen by over a quarter of all American TV households in just the first month of release.

  Who needs an old network, anyway?

  The Response to “Farpoint”

  For all the pressure, work, and long hours, the result seemed to please most critics. Ed Bark of the Dallas Morning News, writing for the Knight-Ridder-Tribune service, thought the pilot “soared with the spirit of the original,” coming off as a “fine redefining of a classic and a considerable breakthrough for non-network syndicated television.” Don Merrill in TV Guide proclaimed that TNG “is a worthy successor” to the original and said GR had “lost none of his ingenuity or his taste in selecting stories.” On the other side, while John J. O’Connor in the New York Times hoped “that things would get a little livelier in coming weeks,” he may have needed to do his homework: in discussing the “new” technology of the show he included the “doors that open and shut effortlessly”!

  And then there was the most important judge of all—the audience. Thanks to the lore of the original series, the heavy advance promotional campaign, and maybe even the often skeptical press, “Encounter at Farpoint” beat its prime-time network competition in Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, Miami, and Denver. This time around, the audience ratings would be on Trek’s side, and despite a few rough times early on, the new series would never have to look over its shoulder again.

  Notes

  1. Interview by David Schonauer, New York Times News Service, March 1988.

  2. Schonauer, ibid.

  3. “Inside ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation,’” Mark A. Altman, Galactic Journal, No. 23, Winter 1988, p. 42.

  4. Photos of a model of this early design are in Starlog, No. 118, May 1987, pp. 14-15.

  5. Dan Madsen, Official Fan Club Magazine, No. 60, February-March 1988, p. 3.

  6. Zimmerman also designed the senior officers’ quarters with a window wall that could be tilted to simulate an outer location in either the upper or the lower half of the saucer. His Ten-Forward and observation lounge followed over hiatus, before he and Dwyer’s departure for Star Trek V.

  7. A similar incident occurred with the first optical-effects house used on the original series, Milkis recalled, but at least the models that had been built could be photographed by someone else.

  8. David Gerrold, Starlog, No. 118, May 87, p. 15.

  9 The Propagator, March 1987, Vol. 2, Issue 30; Lisa Wahl, editor; Hawthorne, Calif.: Mark “Adam” Baum, contributor, cited copies he’d received from “friend of a friend” employee at an unnamed L.A. talent agency.

  10. OFCM, No. 70, Oct.-Nov. 1990, p. 4.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Marc Shapiro, Starlog, No. 124, Nov. 1987, p. 50.

  ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT

  * * *

  Production No.: 101-102 (as two separate episodes)/721 (as two-hour TV movie pilot) Aired: Week of September 28, 1987

  Stardate: 41153.7 Code: ef

  Directed by Corey Alien

  Written by D. C. Fontana and Gene Roddenberry

  Music by Dennis McCarthy

  GUEST CAST

  Q: John de Lancie

  Groppler Zorn: Michael Bell

  Admiral Leonard H. McCoy, retired: DeForest Kelley

  Conn Ensign: Colm Meaney

  Mandarin Bailiff: Cary-Hiroyuki

  Main Bridge Security: Timothy Dang

  Bandi shopkeeper: David Erskine

  Female computer ensign: Evelyn Guerrero

  Drugged military officer: Chuck Hicks

  Lieutenant Torres: Jimmy Ortega

  * * *

  The U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-D, one of the new Galaxy-class starships, is launched with veteran Jean-Luc Picard in command and facing a puzzling first mission. While picking up new crew members from Deneb IV on the rim of explored space, they must figure out how the low-technology Bandi there could have built the gleaming new Farpoint Station they now offer to the Federation for use as a base.

  The new ship is almost sidetracked permanently by a being claiming to be part of an all-knowing super race known as “the Q.” This Q, who considers humanity too barbarous to expand further, hijacks Picard’s command crew and sentences them to death in a kangaroo court. Picard is able to save their lives only by offering to prove humanity’s worth during his ship’s up-coming mission to Farpoint.

  Freed by Q and allowed to arrive there, the crew can find no explanation for the Bandi’s mysterious new technology until a vast alien ship appears and opens fire on the old Bandi city. Q tries to goad Picard into firing on the newcomer, but the Enterprise away team finds that the attacker is actually a sentient life-form trying to free its mate from the Bandi’s clutches. Farpoint Station, it turns out, was built entirely by this enslaved creature. As the freed aliens leave the planet, a d
isappointed Q vows he’ll be back to test humanity yet again.

  Initially, Q (John de Lancie) tried to condemn Picard and all humanity.

  Unlike original Trek, TNG’s pilot depicted many of the characters’ first meetings.

  For the first time, a Trek pilot had been presold as a series, shifting the pressure from selling the show to introducing the characters, But that by no means simplified the work of the writers.

  Fontana’s more action-oriented original outline concerned a being captured by a simian race known as the Annoi. The captors built an orbiting gun platform around the alien, intending to use it to fuel their dreams of expansion, while feeding their prisoner just enough of the mineral balmine to keep it alive. The USS Starseeker arrives with the Enterprise, but is destroyed after opening fire when the Annoi demand the two crews beam down, surrender, and become balmine gatherers. As part of an away team sent to disable the platform, Troi makes mental contact with the captive entity and persuades it to crash-land on the planet, where her people will help it to free itself by leading a prisoners’ revolt. In later drafts the people would come to be called the Annae and the starship opening would be deleted, but many of the plot points and character introductions can be seen in this earliest concept.

  DeForest Kelley’s one-hundred-thirty-seven-year-old “Admiral McCoy” provides a surprising and poignant send-off on TNG’s maiden voyage.

  Gene Roddenberry added the Q subplot, partly because of indecision over the length of the pilot. “Gene wanted an hour show, but the studio wanted a two-hour movie,” as originally announced, Berman recalls. “They tried to get him to agree to a ninety-minute show as a compromise, but they eventually won out.” According to Justman, both the ship separation sequence and a touching scene in which an aged Admiral McCoy meets Data were a help in filling out what Fontana had intended to be a ninety-minute script.

  “As I had feared, the show was woefully short when we cut it together,” Justman said. He added that director Corey Allen’s typically faster-than-usual scene pacing increased their difficulties. “In order to make the show two hours we had to skillfully edit it and cut it not as tight as we ordinarily would for pace. So at times that two hours drags a bit here and there.

  Despite that, the final version is missing a short scene that was included in the final draft script dated April 13. In that scene Riker is introduced to Geordi and an enthusiastic ensign named Sawyer Markham. Riker overhears the ensign calling Picard “the old burrhog” when the Enterprise is overdue.

  Other slight changes from the final draft script: Torres, the crewman frozen by Q, was initially named Graham; Troi, too, was frozen by Q after rushing to Tasha’s aid; and Picard’s tag line, “Let’s see what’s out there,” was added.

  The dates of the new United Nations and its demise are initially 2016 and 2049, changed to 2036 and 2079 during filming. Though sixties Trek indicated that Earth avoided a nuclear war, references to a “post-atomic horror” here would be cemented further (“Up the Long Ladder”/144, “A Matter of Time”/209), Deneb IV hosted a wild shore leave for Kirk and Gary Mitchell in the second Trek pilot.

  The Fontana-written McCoy scene is in the final draft script, though the “old country doctor” is given the age of 147, not 137, and is identified merely as “Admiral”—presumably to keep the cameo scene a secret, and it largely worked.

  “It was a late addition,” Justman said later of the McCoy scene. “I think it had been on Gene’s mind, and he invited De to lunch and he said, ‘How would you feel about it?’—expecting De to say no-and De said, ‘I’d be honored.’ And not only that, but he refused to take any more than SAG scale [Screen Actors Guild base salary]. He could have held us up for a lot of money, but he didn’t. And it really got to me; it was a beautiful, beautiful scene,”

  “I just wanted scale, to let it be my way of saying thank-you to Gene for the many good things he has done for me,” Kelley said later.

  Actor Colm Meaney, who didn’t get a regular role in the original casting call but won the role of the battle bridge conn ensign, would return once (“Lonely Among Us”/108) before landing, in Season 2, the role of Chief Miles O’Brien and, in 1993, joining spinoff Deep Space Nine. The Dublin native and Irish National Theatre vet had stage roles in London, New York, and Los Angeles and played an English thief on One Life to Live. After he settled in Hollywood, his later film career included Far and Away, The Commitments, and The Snapper.

  Though his role remained nameless for one and a half seasons, Colm Meaney’s O’Brien appeared on the Battle Bridge in “Farpoint.”

  The first TNG guest star and soon to be its first recurring guest, John de Lancie had acted since age fourteen and attended Juilliard, even though he didn’t take up the profession full-time until the late seventies. De Lande collected a good share of guest roles in film and TV, but he achieved his widest fame thanks to a three-year stint as villain-turned-comic inventor Eugene on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives. Berman later recalled that it was Leonard Maizlish, GR’s attorney, who first recommended the actor. Also, Michael Bell later appeared in “The Homecoming” and “The Maquis, Part II” on spinoff Deep Space Nine.

  Already being pumped up as the new alien threat, the Ferengi, too, are mentioned, although they would not be seen until the third regular episode aired (and the fifth filmed).

  One scene in “Farpoint” was shot on location in Los Angeles’ famous Griffith Park: the scene at the holodeck stream where Riker and a soggy Wes meet Data.

  And the cannibalizing of old Trek sets continued: part of the Klingon Bird of Prey sickbay from Star Trek III was turned upside down to become part of Zorn’s council room wall.

  Interestingly enough, the end credits were on a crawl but would be listed on cards screen by screen for the remainder of TNG’s run. Also, the opening credits do not include the name of the character along with each actor’s name, as they would later.

  For trivia’s sake, aside from Troi’s appearance in it here, the final bridge scene shows Tasha as the only other regular of either sex to wear the “skant” unisex miniskirt uniform; Troi would return to regulation wear by a fluke in Season 6 (“Chain of Command, Part 1’/236). And, indicating that the time frame of the series was still not set, Data refers to himself as a member of the “Starfleet Class of ’78,” but his graduation date is later set via data screen as 2345 (“Conundrum”/214).

  *Note: Numbers following episode titles are production numbers: episodes in this book will be discussed in production order.

  The first season “Smoky Bridge” cast shot—this time with Worf.

  FIRST SEASON

  After its successful launch, TNG faced the even larger task of staying on schedule while fleshing out the new mythos, meeting all expectations, and silencing its naysayers. Although the budget would be upped to $1.5 million per episode by year’s end, the season would prove to be a shakedown cruise for the 129 full-time actors, producers, crew, staff, and designers aboard.

  Filming began on July 6, 1987, for the very first hour-long episode, “The Naked Now,” only ten days after “Farpoint” wrapped and with very few alterations in the series’ infant format. One change concerned the character of Deanna Troi. Deemed too “loose” and cheerleaderlike in her skant, she was given a nonregulation uniform and a severe bun hairstyle. At the same time, Troi’s telepathic abilities were softened to mere empathy with most species—a lessening blamed on her half-human genes—to avoid the emotional soliloquies even the actress cringed over in “Farpoint.”

  Still, the writing staff would continue to find the Troi character one of the hardest to write for. According to Marina Sirtis, the character was almost dropped in November after Troi went unused in four shows: “Hide and Q” (111), “Datalore” (114), “11001001” (116), and “Heart of Glory” (120).1

  An unused post-pilot Troi look: both the “bun” and the “skant.”

  Despite those who complained of a copycat format and episodes, ratings began to rise as soon
as the series hit the air. “The Naked Now,” the first regular installment, would continue the pilot’s success by taking its time slot in Boston, Denver, and Houston, according to A. C. Nielsen. TV Guide reported on December 26 that thirteen ABC affiliates and two with CBS had dumped their network programming to carry TNG in prime time, and perennial sixth-place Chicago station WPWR-TV jumped to the number two slot at 6:00 P.M. on Saturdays with TNG—an 1,100 percent ratings increase.

  However, because TNG was syndicated, its success would take some time to catch the attention of both the industry and the public at large since the series never showed up in the weekly Nielsen Top 10 lists. For a nationwide gauge, a composite had to be compiled by weighing the demographic figures in each market against those of other series.

  The studio reported that fan mail was running 95 percent in favor of the new show, while the Colorado-based “Star Trek: The Official Fan Club” reported a 90 percent approval rate in mail from members. So much for the worry that TNG couldn’t hold its own without rehiring the original actors or recasting the 1960s roles. This was a great relief for Paramount and all concerned, considering their investment of money and Trek’s good name.

  But then reports began to surface regarding the turnover in the writing staff that had been under way since before cameras rolled on “Farpoint.” After Milkis’s exit, Gerrold left in May of 1987, before weekly production began, although he received a “program consultant” credit through the seventh show filmed, “Lonely Among Us” (108). At the time he said he was leaving to write and produce a four-hour CBS science-fiction miniseries called Trackers, but later Gerrold let it be known he was upset about “promises made and not kept.” He was apparently referring to the shelving of an allegorical script he’d written about AIDS, called “Blood and Fire.”