UNCUT - Chaos on the Bridge (2014)

Ugh It’s too bad you guys found out that shatner is in generations

Other documentaries you might want to try (all of these with the recommedation of 3rd party review for spoilers): For the Love of Spock (2016; probably safe to watch now -- Leonard Nimoy's son talks about what it was like to grow up with him and his experience with Star Trek); Woman in Motion (2019; probably safe to watch now -- biopic on Nichelle Nichols and her entire career); The Captains (2011; safest to wait until after ST: Enterprise -- Shatner interviews each of the 1990s/2000s captains [if/when you get to it, please watch the recut episodic version rather than the film, the interviews, particularly of Avery Brooks are better]); The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek (2022; the first 7 episodes MAY be safe to watch as that's about where you are in Trek history -- docu-series hosted by Gates McFadden covering the full Trek production history); I'd also recommend exploring your blu-ray bonus features, but after you finish Enterprise, as they are an absolute minefield of old and new stuff.

Whatever anyone says about Gene, Star Trek is truly set apart from other Sci-Fi franchises by painting a positive view of the future, which was 100% down to him.

Such a great discussion! Toward the end of the video you asked about Gates' return for season three. Patrick Stewart actually went to bat for her himself and called her personally and asked if she would please consider returning. Coupled with an outpouring of letter writing from fans, she was brought back much to everyone's relief. Thanks for another interesting talk!

There is also a DS9 documentary made more recently. When DS9 ends, ask the Bridge Crew to check it for you.

Alex, Reading Rainbow did an episode where LeVar takes the viewers through the making of a season one TNG episode. It’s pretty fun, and you can find it on YouTube.

As an aside, my uncle was a guest actor on TNG. Season 1 episode 7 “Justice”. He was the guy with the syringe. It wasn’t a really big part or anything but I’m sure he would talk to you.

They did a talk with the actors and I think some writers for the early Season of Discovery. Wil Wheaton hosts it for some of the seasons.

At a NYC convention a couple years before TNG with Gene Roddenberry as guest. After his presentation, he played the famous bloopers. I took the opportunity to visit the dealer's room. To get there you have to walk through an ante room. I walked in and came face to face with Gene and Majel Barrett. Just us. She, resting her head on his shoulder, looking very much in love. I was taken aback. He put his hand out, I shook it, trying to think of something profound to say. I don't remember what I said, but he nodded and I moved past to give them their privicy. A great memory.

Hurley may have been an arrogant ass, and I wouldn't say he made too many positive contributions to Trek, but the guy who deserves the most hate IMHO appeared briefly toward the end, and that's Les Moonves. That guy 100% killed the best era of Trek when he cancelled Enterprise. Now, to the question of why only TNG got films, realistically the biggest factor is they were first. Obviously the TOS crew were first, but they'd had their time and were aging out when TNG began. TNG by the 3rd and 4th season had grabbed Trekkies enough to earn the title of true successor. With TNG overlapping with DS9 and the movies continuing to do so, TNG fans never really had to let go of TNG during DS9's run, and while it didn't live up to it writing wise very often, Voyager was a more accessible format to TNG fans missing the show than DS9. Beyond that, between 1987 and 2002 when the last TNG film came out, fans had had a decade and a half of non stop Trek(aside from summer breaks). 6 movies and 500+ eps. Franchise fatigue will set in eventually. I saw a graph tracking TNG/DS9/VOY viewing numbers and it was a steady decline franchise wide over that era, so I don't think DS9 or VOY really brought in or chased away many trekkies. For me and my family, it was all Trek, but with so much in those years, I think a lot of people had just had their fill. Now I happen to think despite the initially negative reaction Enterprise got, it was actually fairly solid in S1 and 2. It had missteps yes, but it wasn't terrible, and like it's predecessors really stepped up in the 3rd and 4th season. We can only speculate, but if the 5th/6th/7th seasons were going where we suspect, I truly believe ENT could have been a strong contender for best Trek series. Cutting the show short was the biggest missed opportunity in the franchise. I think after Voyager, they should have taken a 3-4 year break. They could have still got the main cast not too much older, and trekkies would have been hungrier for it. Anyway, long story short, fuck Les Moonves. There's not a ton in COTB that is new info to me, as I read most of this on Memory Alpha in the background info section of the various episodes and movies during my 2017-2020 rewatch of the franchise. Still, it was a fun watch. It's of course possible RDM did in fact discuss The Bonding. I'm sure these interviews were much longer, but not everything will make the final cut. Lastly, I'm struck by how much Patrick Stewart has aged in the last decade, and how much William Shatner hasn't. Not sure what keeps the guy going strong as he nears 100, but good on him.

Why didn't DS9 etc get movies? I can't discuss it fully without spoilers, but what I can say is oversaturation was a part of it. Star Trek had done 25 seasons of tv and six movies over the course of 19 years without any kind of a break. The sequel shows never hit in pop culture like Next Gen did. I think Berman has said, in retrospect, DS9 never got a fair chance because it always had to share the spotlight with another show. He felt if it had gotten to stand alone in season 3 more Trek fans would have given it a chance and realized how great the show had gotten.

Hey TA, the Blu-ray’s do have detailed documentaries about each season, and they feature behind the scenes stuff on many of the episodes. I know there is a lot of commentary from some of the people you wanted to hear more from and on more of the episodes you wanted to hear more about. I think those documentaries were created in or around 2001 for the release of the DVD set

God this documentary smacks so hard

I don't think there are a lot of good guys and bad guys here. It's been my impression that pretty much anyone who was born in the 40s or earlier was absolute dick in Hollywood and that's just how it functioned: Roddenberry, Hurley, Berman, the other producer in this, just all alpha-male survivor-of-the-fittest bullies, with lots of womanizing thrown in.

Some of the blu rays have more behind the scenes material. Some nuggets in interviews and a couple commentaries...when the time comes. I don't know if that stuff is on the full season set.

If you can find it, there was a makin of documentary that came out in 1988, covering TOS and TNG season one called Star Trek from one generation to the next. Hosted by Patrick Stewart as an intro for a rare color print of The cage that had been found in the paramount vault and restored. Absolutely no spoilers but with interviews with Gene, Hurley and the cast.

You guys give Nicholas Meyer a lot of shit but he had a hand in writing the Voyage home and possibly Search for Spock? He and Nimoy were carrying the franchise back then.

Hey, surprised no one's mentioned this (that I can see) but after the last episode of s7 on netflix there is a 45 minute retrospective hosted by Jonathan Frakes that was filmed for tv at the same time as the finale and features real behind the scenes making of footage of that episode and interviews with a lot of the cast and crew, much like what Alex was asking for *Unfortunately I've just rewatched it to check for spoilers and because the finale and 'Generations' were made so close together there is a little bit of footage from the movie which would be spoilers, but definitely you guys should check this out after watching the movie I really think you would enjoy it. Hope you guys had a good Christmas, really looking forward to you starting Voyager next year! Cheers

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion is definitely something you should get a copy of, if you don’t already have one. It is an exhaustive look at the series, featuring interviews with every aspect of the production for every single episode. It’s an incredible behind-the-scenes look at a Star Trek series. I know there’s a TNG Companion as well, but I don’t think it’s as comprehensive. Definitely can’t read the DS9 Companion until you’ve finished the series, though. They tend to discuss the whole series at times even in the early season episode chapters.

Maurice Hurley DOES deserve a fair amount of credit for how bad scripts were in the first few seasons, but it was clearly a group effort. Despite his writing woes, it still amuses me that the ONLY episode in which he had sole script credit was Q Who, one of the best-written episodes of the first two seasons, and led to so many interesting things in the TNG verse.

So glad you guys watched this. I tend to side with Hurley in this situation except for his dismissal of Gates. Fun Fact: Hurley was the original voice of the Borg in "Q Who."

You guys were talking and seemed to miss the name Shatner gave the production company for this, Wackadoddle Productions. 😉

Lovely Xmas treat, thank you! Merry Christmas back at y'all! Ms. Sackett was the personal assistant/mistress you read about in my take on the all kinds of behind the scenes ironic Ménage à Troi, which she co-wrote. Thanks again for the Xmas surprise!

Also, when you finish the newer movies, I recommend the 2 volumes of "The Fifty Year Mission: The complete unauthorized oral history of Star Trek." It's just a collection of a bunch of interview answers arranged into a narrative that goes into a lot of BTS stuff, with a lot of contradictions too. Also, the guy that gave Gene Roddenberry that book on "Humanism" was Isaac Asimov, a prolific Science Fiction author. He wrote "I, Robot" and the "Foundation" series of Novel. He coined the word "robotics" and of course, had the idea of positronuc brains, which is what Data is said to have. None of the adaptations of his works do justice to his stories or ideas.

Also, Majel was famously Gene's mistress during early TOS while he was still married to his first wife.

Regarding Maurice Hurley, I've been watching Miami Vice, and it's a pretty good show, (Though very 80s) and the impression I get is that shows like that are what Hurley knew how to do, and Star Trek was so far out of his wheelhouse and he was struggling to figure out how to do it, and had Gene's directions and tried to stick to those very strictly along with his TV producer ego power trips and just couldn't grasp the show, nor how to run it. He made a lot of bad calls, but I gotta respect him for at least TRYING to follow what he thought Gene wanted and for leaving when he knew he was doing a bad job.

the bluerays you have from TNG has for every season on the end and in the many times middle interviews with writers, actors, producers, directors.

Did the guys ever watch the Reading Rainbow episode from 1988 with behind the scenes for TNG? LeVar Burton was the host, of course. Aimed at kids, but still some interesting stuff.

Damn, so when are we doing a s1&2 rewatch with all this wacky context???

shatner's done quite a bit in the doc field with the franchise but much of it you cannot watch yet

Gene's whacka doodle vision is what kept trek alive 60 years

The captains summit is a good one when you’re all done. You could do mind meld with shatner and nimoy done before their falling out

Btw there’s a gofundme for David Gerrold who is battling leukemia. I donated the man has contributed tribbles to my life

A nice Christmas gift I haven’t seen this since it came out looking forward to watching it with you guys

Thanks for doing this, what a fun Christmas present. Merry Christmas boys! When you get to the modern era you need to watch Center Seat, it's an 11 part documentary series on the history of the series that goes into a lot more depth on later seasons and beyond. If you liked this you'll love that.

Nicholas Meyer is probably the 2nd or 3rd most pivotal behind the scenes person in ST. After the middling reaction to TMP he saved the franchise, and it's safe to say that without Wrath Of Khan being a success, there would have been no further movies, and therefore no TNG, DS9 and every show since, and ST would now just be a show on MeTV, sitting comfortably in repeats alongside shows like Gilligan's Island, Bonanza and I Dream Of Jeannie.

One of the big mysteries that never got explained is just what and why there were issues with Diana Muldaur and why she too was not happy and wanted no part of it.

Leonard Maizlish has one unquestionably positive contribution to Star Trek. When he was in the hospital recovering from surgery he watched John De Lancie on a soap opera and told Gene that he had to cast this guy as Q: As de Lancie tells it, Maizlish passed himself off as a producer and went over everyone's head to get him the part because of a role that the actor once played on the long-running soap opera, "Days of Our Lives." "[Maizlish] said, 'This is a payback,'" de Lancie recounted of his conversation with Roddenberry's attorney — an infamous figure who meddled with scripts and production staffers. As he tells it, the lawyer once had a quadruple bypass surgery, and during his lengthy recovery, watched de Lancie play the soap's eccentric advice columnist, Eugene Bradford, every day. "'You made me laugh when I thought I was gonna die,'" de Lancie said that Maizlish told him.  Read More: https://www.looper.com/2006061/why-john-de-lancie-cast-q-star-trek-the-next-generation/

This is the video of the Good Morning America debacle. At 5 minutes and 45 seconds is when they cut to the guy in Patrick's uniform shows up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krl6ti5kCxM&

well when u get to the end of DS9 u hva e documentary too and they are currently finishing a voyager one so lost to look forward too

As far as really getting in depth interviews with the cast, you really should watch some of the documentaries on the blu-rays of the show. I'm not talking about watching them for the channel, I mean just to answer some of your own questions. Some of them are two and three parts and the ones on the Blu-ray set are really good.

Thanks for this & Merry Christmas! 🎄 Looking forward to you guys watching the documentary “Trekkies” someday, but that didn’t come out theatrically until DS9 S6, so perhaps a candidate for the ghost of Christmas future✨

Just to enhance on David Gerrold saying TMP was a disaster. Gerrold likes TMP, he was talking of the studio execs view. Even though TMP made enough money to make a profit, they were still put off by the final cost of the movie and blamed Roddenberry. Even though a lot of the cost was from the studio itself ping ponging Star Trek between a TV and movie project. When TMP was finally solidified into a theatrical project, it was after sets were built and the model was built to do TV and they could not be used for movies but they were already payed for. This is part of the thing that made TMP one of the most expensive movies of its time.

I really love the motion graphics in this one. It’s also the documentary Shatner removed himself the most from the narrative, which is nice.

455 films makes the absolute best trek documentaries they're cut above the rest imo.

The mistress thing. Susan Sackett wrote a book about her relationship with Gene: "Inside Trek: My Secret Life with Star Trek Creator Gene Roddenberry" You missed that this title is shown with her name at least once. So Shatner didn't diss her. She dissed herself.

Maurice Hurley, Star Treks biggest op came up with Starfleet's biggest op? the Borg !!!

I totally understand Alex' desire to know everything but as someone wo has made documentaries myself I have to say that you have to be focused to search answers for your question within your given time. The question here was how TNG came together and survived despite all the obstacles. I think Shatner and his team did a superb job to give insight into that.

You’ll have to wait awhile because of spoilers, but The Shat DOES do another one of these. It’s called The Captains and Bill interviews Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula, and Chris Pine.

Also, there's a DS9 look-back documentary called "What We Left Behind" that's an absolute blast and has a lot more of the kind of stuff you wanted from this one. Obviously you have to get through DS9 first, though.

Maurice Hurley died in 2015.

Thanks for this, guys! Merry Christmas!

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this with you guys. Hopefully more Trek documentaries to come. Merry Christmas, Alex and Josh!

The trip to Tahiti was right before Conspiracy was filmed. Gene hated the story and refused to let it be made. They were under the gun to get the last two episodes in the can, and the writer's strike was already looming over their heads. They HAD to get the last two shows done. Hurley sent Gene off on vacation and immediately greenlit Conspiracy and The Neutral Zone.

One thing this documentary does, for me, is make me feel sorry for Diana Muldaur. She's tossed into this cast, with all the chaos, replacing Gates, who they all loved. Her role is mainly medical technobabble, and she's given this "pick on Data because that was how McCoy and Spock were" part that makes fans hate her. She was probably relieved when the year was over.

Also I think you should check out “Futures End” - the documentary that came out just before Generations. Some nice behind the scenes stuff for the series but there are a few spoilers for the movie so maybe wait until you’ve seen it. It’s on the blu ray

Good doc, a bit rushed for me. The broad strokes are there though. If you want a deep dive then maybe check out the documentaries on the blu rays

YESSSSSSSSS. Now THIS is a Christmas Break gift that I can watch in my room when I escape from my family. This is such a delicious behind-the-scenes documentary. I ate it up when I watched it the first time. Excited to watch it again through your eyes. Merry Christmas, boys.

I’ve seen this before, and now I have an excuse to revisit. Surprised it has no future spoilers, but I trust the mods.

Watching this, I kept thinking of a quote from one of those Darren Franich–authored Star Trek retrospectives that I will not link to because maybe it's spoilery: "[Robert] Wise directed The Motion Picture. He is one of perhaps twenty people who you could say saved Star Trek, and he is one of perhaps thirty who you could say almost destroyed Star Trek. (The lists overlap. Gene Roddenberry’s on both, at the top.)" That sums it up well for me. Gene Roddenberry's franchise took a bunch of twists and turns over its existence, and it ended up somewhere very different from where it started, and so did he — but he brought us one of the greatest franchises ever on this planet, dammit, and for that I'd say the chaos was worth it.

Les Moonves hated Star Trek so Eff him.

the bonus features on the season 1 dvd has great info on the casting process, makeup tests, etc if youre interested in checking that out on your own!

Part of what makes doing behind-the-scenes interviews with the TNG cast so accessible and appealing is those cast members truly loved each other and still do. They still keep in touch. I've heard that has not been true of any of the other casts. More behind the scenes drama and dislikes among at least some of the cast members of the other shows. For example, it took decades before Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner admitted they had some pretty competitive and contentious moments while filming TOS.

If you enjoyed Shatner's enthusiasm and role in this, you'd probably really love the one he did before this called The Captains (as mentioned by someone else below). That is one you'll have to wait a couple of years to watch and has a different feel, but it's fascinating to hear and see Shatner talk to the different leads of Star Trek that succeeded him on screen. He apparently still reads all the time and is constantly interested in new technology and ways of thinking. For a man associated with having a huge ego, he has a passion for learning about things not related to him.

Yeah, Josh, there are some interviews with people like Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga, but unfortunately they get ruined from a spoiler perspective by an audience member or an interviewer asking about something that you guys have not seen yet.

I had never actually watched this before. Thanks for posting it.

You’re both a long way from being able to watch Shatner’s documentary “The Captains”…at least until after you watch 2009’s “Star Trek” movie…but that is arguably his best documentary on the franchise! It comes with more complete interviews as well. I had a lot of fun watching Chaos with you guys, as always! I also remember a certain shout-out, similar to yours, from me to Maurice Hurley at the end!! That guy was some piece of work! He died in 2015, so I’ll respectfully leave it at that. Merry Christmas and have a very Happy New Year to you both and everyone here! 🖖

Awesome! I was looking for a reason to watch this again. There's a couple other documentaries you guys would LOVE. Shatner made STAR TREK: MEMORIES, with original series clips, interviews and behind the scenes stories. It's based on his 2 books ST MEMORIES and MOVIE MEMORIES. I believe it has clips from GENERATIONS, so watch that first. Then after the 2nd season of VOYAGER watch the 25th Anniversary Special. In the late 80s, there was a big deal about found footage from THE CAGE, so they restored it and released it on VHS. They had another documentary about that. DS9 has a documentary for it's release also... if memory serves, it's in the DS9 DVD season sets. It has a few clips from season 1 with tons of interviews.