James Hise - The Unauthorized Trekkers’ Guide to the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine

Roddenberry did do an episode questioning religion, “Who Watches the Watchers?” in season three. On a primitive planet, an off-world survey team is accidentally discovered by the inhabitants, who come to regard the Enterprise crewmen and their miraculous feats (appearing and disappearing) as the actions of gods. “I’ve always thought that, if we did not have supernatural explanations for all the things we might not understand right away, this is the way we would be, like the people on that planet,” Gene explained. “I was born into a supernatural world in which all my people—my family—usually said, ‘That is because God willed it,’ or gave other supernatural explanations for whatever happened. When you confront those statements on their own, they just don’t make sense. They are clearly wrong. You need a certain amount of proof to accept anything, and that proof was not forthcoming to support those statements.”

HARD WORK BUT FEW REWARDS

The one thing that did disappoint Roddenberry about doing The Next Generation was the little recognition it first received. Even though it did achieve a Peabody Award for the first season episode “The Big Goodbye,” it remained largely ignored thereafter, in spite of episodes like “Who Watches the Watchers?” and “Justice.”

“It is a source of considerable amusement to me that we can do shows like this and get little or no public reaction. If these things were to be done on Broadway or in motion pictures, they would have stunned audiences. The audiences would have said, ‘How wild, how forward, how advanced.’ Because these subjects are done on a syndicated television show, in our time slot, no one really notices them.

“I thought several times that the world of drama would have stood up and cheered us, but no, only silence. There is one advantage. All of these episodes are brought back and rerun every year. What will happen with Star Trek: The Next Generation is almost identical to what happened to the original Star Trek as larger and larger audiences become acquainted with the program. The original Star Trek audience now says, ‘Hurrah, what fine shows!’ This has brought us considerable pleasure that they would notice it. Star Trek: The Next Generation is on that path now and more so. The time will come when the second series will attain its true stature. I just hope some of it happens while I am still alive. I’m not jealous that I don’t have praise. This happens very broadly in contacts with humans. The world is not necessarily poorer because a painter or playwright is not recognized in his or her lifetime.”

NEW BUT FAMILIAR

Since Gene Roddenberry understood his audience, he did not stray far when he re-created Star Trek . Andrew Probert, who had contributed to the redesign of the Enterprise for Star Trek: The Motion Picture , was tapped for the job of redesigning the Enterprise for its new and far more advanced version. Although looking more sleek with a slightly squashed appearance, it was still quite recognizable. The biggest change was internal, such as the addition of the holodeck. The kinds of recreation areas on the original Enterprise were rarely referred to outside of the first movie. The only one that comes to mind is a reference to the “bowling alley” in “The Naked Time,” and it has never been established whether or not this was a joke. After all, with the way the original Enterprise would periodically hurl its crew back and forth, the thought of bowling balls having similar violence done to them could only cause one to imagine large holes in the bulkheads on a fairly regular basis.

The other design alterations on The Next Generation extended to the expected: the uniforms, hand weapons and other items such as the tricorder. Just as they had been redesigned for the Star Trek movies, they were redesigned for the TV series. Again, the designs were superficial and seemed to have been done mostly for purposes of merchandising: more new Star Trek toys could now be licensed by Paramount.

Although set seventy-five years after the original series, the technical changes were not as major as they could have been. By making the changes so slight, Roddenberry insured that the old Star Trek fans would more willingly accept this new version in spite of the completely new cast.

FINE-TUNING THE STAR TREK PHILOSOPHY

In describing the future life he envisioned for Earth in the twenty-fourth century, Roddenberry stated, “I do not perceive this as a universe that’s divided between good and evil.”

For The Next Generation , Gene Roddenberry chose to expand the Trek philosophy, and perhaps he went a little too far. Roddenberry decided that his crew of the Enterprise- D would, frankly, be perfect. He decreed that they would get along without complaint and never have the kind of personality clashes experienced by Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The only time disagreements appeared on TNG was when someone who was not a part of this tightly knit inner circle came aboard, such as when Ensign Ro stepped aboard in the fifth season (about the time Gene Roddenberry died).

Otherwise the main crew members, consisting of Picard, Riker, Data, Dr. Crusher, Geordi, and Troi were always in harmony. Worf was the only wild card, but then he’s allowed to be—he isn’t human. Tasha Yar seemed to have the makings of a character with spunk and personality, but she was quickly dispensed with.

Roddenberry remained the eternal optimist, in spite of all the failures, disappointments, and difficult times he had endured during the years between the cancellation of Star Trek in 1969 and its return to life in 1979. Roddenberry continued to promote his philosophy of life that consisted of bold optimism (there will be a future and it will be wonderful), a belief in social progress, the benefits of technological advancement (he did not equate progress with the diminishing of the quality of life), the pursuit of knowledge, life affirmation (he objected to Captain Kirk’s casual killing of the Ceti Eel in The Wrath of Khan ), the tolerance of other cultures, and secular humanism (the dominance of reason and experience over supernatural deities and mysticism).

MAKING THE OLD WAYS BETTER

It is because Roddenberry’s basic Star Trek philosophy had been reinterpreted and sometimes altered in the motion picture treatments that he made certain that all of his beliefs for the Star Trek universe were firmly in place for The Next Generation . With that as an underlying philosophy, the shows therefore exhibit a point of view and occasionally moralize.

There were some contradictions in the original philosophy, though, which Roddenberry himself sought to correct in The Next Generation . Instead of having the Klingons dismissed as being just the bad guys, he rewrote them as a proud warrior race with a culture as deep and diverse as anything seen on the other worlds in the Federation.

The Next Generation continued the use of the transporter with little alteration other than in visual effects and the sound. This is explained by the difference in technology. For instance, in The Next Generation episode “Relics,” when a ship is found with the old-style transporter in it, the old-style sound effect is used when the transporter beam materializes. The transporter is perhaps the prime example of Star Trek magic. Created for the convenience of scriptwriters, it allows for the characters to move from the ship to a planet and back again instantaneously, thereby dispensing with scenes of ships landing and taking off again.

REWRITING THE RULES OF REALITY