Chaos on the Bridge

We all love a good gossip fest, and William Shatner's expose of the troubles dogging the early years of Star Trek TNG ('The Next Generation) makes for plenty of entertainment.

This show is pretty lightweight and doesn't take itself too seriously, which is certainly down to Shatner's own direction and presentation. I found it enlightening to watch this immediately after the 50th anniversary documentary that paints such an uncritical view of the Star Trek universe.

If you believe the actor who played Captain Kirk in the original series might have some agenda at work in denigrating TNG, that may be true, but Shatner plays it fair and even-handed when it comes to doling out blame. And it's not as if the film is a work of fiction. There are plenty of people willing to appear on film shoveling the dirt, including Sir Patrick Stewart himself.

Shatner's film is amusing and fascinating more for casting the human condition in sharp relief rather than telling us anything we didn't already know about the TNG series itself. It's likely to affront some TNG fans, but if you accept that the human beings working on the series are more fallible than the crew of Enterprise D, you will likely appreciate and enjoy this minor gem.

I found Mr. Shatner's work here very interesting, well developed, and it contained the real story behind the re-booting of Star Trek with Star Trek -- TNG. I can't imagine the series with any of the final three actors who read for Captain Picard and they were very lucky someone insisted Sir Patrick Stewart get a reading too. I always thought Gene Roddenberry was the driving force behind the franchise . . . and it turns out TNG happened, continued and flourished in spite of him more than because of him. But it's a great example of holding something too tightly -- he was getting older and trying to catch lightning in a bottle the second time. Nothing takes away from the Roddenberry legacy. The story of how Rick Berman became the driving force behind TNG was interesting to learn. I guess I best liked Patrick Stewart's behind-the-scenes recollections since, in many ways, he personifies TNG. There was more than enough new details and information to keep this life-long Trekkie involved.

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.

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.

"Chaos on the Bridge" has a story worth telling (the creative staff disorder during "The Next Generation"'s nascent years), but it suffers from that reality TV editing that ruins everything. You know the kind: the rapid cuts and frenetic pacing, like the producer (or Shatner in this case) has a deathly fear of slowing down. It's the last thing a Star Trek documentary needs. I know it's not comprehensive, but even at a mere 60 minutes, surely there's some room to let the thing breathe.

That said, there's enough here to entertain even the ardent TNG fan. I was surprised to learn that Mitchell Ryan and Yaphet Kotto were among those actors considered for Captain of the Enterprise for Paramount's glitzy new Star Trek series. And that the revolving door creative staff was due to a leadership vacuum.

I genuinely like the spirit of this thing, and would love to see someone tackle a broader documentary down the road (one that covers the series as a whole). Shatner's onto something here, if he wants to shed light on Star Trek shows.

Just stop cutting it like a reality show.

6/10