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"Star Trek": The Story of the Most Daring Cliffhanger in "Next Generation" History
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Jun 22, 2015, 11:12:21 AM6/22/15
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by Aaron Couch
Ron Moore, Jonathan Frakes and more reveal how writing themselves into
a corner for "Best of Both Worlds" changed Trek forever: "All of us
were quite thrilled they had the balls to leave Picard on the Borg
cube."
In June 1990, many Trekkies considered the crew of the Enterprise-D
pretenders to the throne.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was closing out its third season, and it
was still struggling to step out of the shadow of Kirk's (William
Shatner) Enterprise. That was about to change thanks to a daring
cliffhanger pulled off in an era of television in which shocking deaths
and major plot twists weren't par for the course.
When "Best of Both Worlds: Part I" aired 25 years ago this week, it was
truly jarring to fans. The season three finale saw the return of The
Borg, the seemingly unstoppable villain introduced a year earlier. The
Borg captured Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and transformed him into
Locutus of Borg, a de facto spokesperson for the collective
consciousness. The episode ended with Picard's No. 1 Commander Riker
(Jonathan Frakes) giving a shocking order ("Mr. Worf, fire.") and the
screen cutting to the words "To be continued...", something it had
never done.
Written by Michael Piller and directed by Cliff Bole, "Best of Both
Worlds" is arguably the most influential arc in Next Generation
history. Along with "Best of Both Worlds: Part II" and its aftermath
episode "Family," the story introduced layers of psychological
complexity, bold storytelling and emotional depth the show had not yet
explored.
"RICK BERMAN CALLED ME AND SAID, 'THIS IS FANTASTIC!' "
Ronald D. Moore, member of the writers room: The story really goes to
Michael Piller, who was running the writing staff in the third season
when I joined the show. In the writers room, we would often talk about
revisiting the Borg. Piller said as the season went on that he thought
there should be a cliffhanger, which Star Trek had never done.
Jonathan Frakes, Commander William T. Riker: All of us were quite
thrilled they had the balls to leave Picard on the Borg cube. I don't
know if they were trying to threaten Patrick with renegotiations. It's
commonplace now. Shows like Lost and House of Cards — they'll kill off
a regular and think nothing of it. This was 1990. It was not
commonplace to be killing off any of your series regulars. That was a
big "who shot J.R." type of plot.
Moore: It was the only show that year that we didn't actually sit in
the room as a writing staff and break together. Michael said he wanted
to go do it. Michael had a very personal connection to that particular
story. The episode starts with Riker getting an offer to go command
another ship. That's at the heart of it. Michael said very overtly that
he was in a very similar place. He was the number two guy on the show,
and he was debating whether or not to leave Star Trek and go and run
his own show or if he wanted to remain second in command of the
Enterprise, as it were. So he was Riker, and he wrote the story from
that perspective.
Frakes: The episode was key to Riker's character. Previously, I thought
it was not very cleverly handled to have Riker say in the first two
seasons, "All I want is to have my own ship. I aspire to be a captain
in Starfleet." But then, when offered the ship, the writers put in
Riker's mouth that he didn't feel he was ready to captain, or he didn't
want to leave his friends.
Michael Dorn, Lieutenant Worf: We didn't know how they were going to
handle it in terms of the special effects with Patrick. At that point
we trusted each other, we trusted the producers and we trusted the
writers enough to know that it was going to be exciting.
Alan Sims, property master: My pride with those episodes would be the
prosthetic arms, for which I created remote control apertures. You
would see it flicker and flip back and forth. When the one Borg came to
the Enterprise and captured Picard, that was me off camera with a
little remote control with two control joysticks and antenna.
Michael Westmore, makeup artist: Patrick Stewart loved being in the
makeup chair. He didn't care what it was — whether he was doing a
Shakespearean character in the Holodeck or doing the old age makeup on
"Inner Light," Patrick loved getting in the chair and getting made up.
He would be putting his two cents in, "Oh, let's do a little more
shading right here." He loved that part of the process.
Moore: My favorite moment was seeing Picard in that Borg outfit for the
first time. When that reveal happens and he looks at the camera and
he's a Borg, and he says, "I am Locutus." It was a shocking moment. You
realize the show had gone someplace different. We all knew that
internally and were like, "Woah, OK. This is going to break some
molds."
Westmore: My son [Michael Westmore, Jr.] found the laser we mounted on
Patrick's head for the end of "Part I." It cost $200. It was a new
product on the market and had never been used on TV previously. We
thought, "Oh this is going to be great," but we go into the set, and we
can't see it at all. The special effects guy said, "Let me put a little
smoke in." And oh my God, that light cut right through everything. They
wanted Patrick to look directly in the lens, and nobody knew what was
going to happen at all. Patrick turns to the camera, and the refraction
between the laser and the mirrors in the camera made it look like it's
just shattered everything. It's the one time [executive producer] Rick
Berman called me and said, "This is fantastic! Oh my god." It blew
Paramount away. If it was an optical, it would have cost thousands of
dollars and we did it with a $200 laser.
"IS PICARD GOING TO BE KILLED?"
The episode electrifies audiences when it begins airing on
syndication June 18, 1990. Even Trekkies who refused to accept
Next Generation as legitimate are buzzing. Rumors of Patrick
Stewart's exit swirl, with fans waiting an agonizing three
months for the conclusion to air in September. Meanwhile, the
writers are tasked with figuring out how to follow up their
first cliffhanger ever.
Moore: What people forget now is in the first couple of seasons of Next
Generation, we were sort of not taken seriously as Star Trek. The fans
were split on the acceptance of the show. You would go to conventions
and there would be bumper stickers and t-shirts that basically said,
"I'm a real Trekker. Forget the bald guy." Stuff like that. We were the
second-tier Trek. When "Best of Both Worlds" came out, suddenly there
was all this buzz. And it got in the press and there was all this
tension and people were talking about the cliffhanger and Picard.
Jordan Hoffman, freelance writer/critic who specializes in Star Trek:
After that "To be continued…" we felt, "Is Picard going to be killed?"
After that episode, there was a lot of talk. Somehow we knew — there
were rumors that Patrick Stewart was going to leave the show. That was
definitely in the air. There would be somebody who goes, "You know
Patrick Stewart is leaving?" How do you know this? "Everyone knows it."
Dorn: We figured there wasn't any problem with Patrick's contract. He
was coming back. The interesting thing was, how were they going to play
that?
Moore: "Part II," we did break the story together in the writer's room,
but when Michael did "Part I," he said, "I have no idea how this thing
ends. We're going to end on this cliffhanger of "fire" and we're going
to figure it out next season." We all gather in the room, and it was
essentially a new writing staff. I was the only holdover from season
three. We sat down, and Michael was like, "All right, I don't know
where we're going. Let's just try to figure out something."
Hoffman: Something that younger people don't quite get was the fact
that Next Generation was on in syndication. It was not on a major
network. It was the first show to be in syndication to have tremendous
ratings. What that meant was it was on in different times of the day
depending on where you were. I would go down to my grandparents' on the
weekends. They were in southern Jersey outside of the Philly markets. I
lived in the New York market. You could catch it three times a week. I
relived that "to be continued…" moment over and over.
Moore: There were various efforts to try to keep the scripts'
distribution tight and the plot secret. They were trying to watermark
the scripts — which was a novelty at that point — and number them. It
was the pre-Internet days, so it wasn't like the files were being
passed around in emails. It was all hard copy stuff anyway.
Gary Hutzel, visual effects coordinator: The budget was small by
today's standards. A lot of stuff you see on the series wasn't shot on
a professional stage. A lot of it was shot in people's basements,
because there was no money.
Brent Spiner, Data: I remember Worf and Data beamed over to the Borg
ship to grab Picard and bring him back to the Enterprise. There was a
moment where a Borg is coming up behind me, and I turn and blast him
with my phaser. We shot a version of it where the Borg was coming up
behind me and I didn't even turn around. I just put the phaser over my
shoulder and shot it and blew it away. We thought that would be really
cool if Data just sensed it and didn't have to turn around. It looked
great, but they sent it to Rick Berman and he said, "That's ridiculous.
He can't do that. He doesn't have eyes in the back of his head." So we
didn't use that one.
Dorn: This might take away some of the drama for the audience, but
there is a scene where Data and I go and rescue Patrick. I had to
struggle with Patrick. He tries to hit me and I grab him and we're
going "ah, ah!" back and forth. And we just started cracking up. We
just started laughing uncontrollably. All of us laughed uncontrollably
most of the time on the show.
Marina Sirtis, Counselor Deanna Troi: The episode was a very important
one for my character [Troi is key to figuring out how to save Picard].
A lot of the time, I was decorative. Hey, that was fine. I was a very
ugly child, so if you had said to me when I was 13, "One day you are
going to grow up to be this sex symbol," I would have asked if you were
high. But, as far as character development goes, the third going into
the fourth season, where my advice was listened to, I always used to
treasure those moments. Every weekend at a convention, someone will say
to me it was so nice to see a competent woman on a TV show who wasn't
"the bitch." Troi was strong and professional, but took a pride in her
appearance. It was kind of a first, to have a professional woman, who
wasn't "the bitch." It was very important to me that the writers began
to see Troi as a whole person. I think it kind of started with "Best of
Both Worlds Part II."
Westmore: Creating the Borg took a lot of makeup artists and it took a
lot of time. Not only because of the makeup, but because they had the
suits to put on. It was a process that probably took at least three
hours at that time. We had it down to a system, where we could line
them all up and make them up very fast. For the faces, I found every
makeup artist shades differently. In the early shows, all the Borg had
all different looks to them because of all the different techniques
people used to shade. Later, I took an airbrush class and I could
literally airbrush each one of them in a minute and a half. It was
easier for me to do than for a bunch of makeup artists, where there'd
be some great ones and there'd be some not so great ones. That was the
beginning of Star Trek using the airbrush. After that point, I insisted
any makeup artist I hired knew how to use an airbrush.
Hutzel: My coordinator Judy Elkins, had a great idea as we were
preparing to do the destruction of the fleet. We didn't have that much
money to work with, and we had to physically build everything. How do
we show an entire fleet destroyed? We invited people from the art
department and other people on the show for a kit bash. We got
spaceship models and all destroyed them. And we gave them our own names
and whatever we wanted and put on them the ships for the shot. We were
able to get quite a few ships made that way with pretty minimal effort
and money. I rigged them all with internal lighting to make them look
like they are on fire and we shot then that way. The toy company gave
them to us for free.
Spiner: Near the end, I'm hooked up to Patrick. It's a tribute to
Michael Westmore's genius and his son Mike Jr. who did all of the
electronics. They always did a great job of opening up my various bits.
They opened up every part of my body, save one — and they were saving
that one for I guess in case we did another movie (laughs). Michael
Westmore is a genius.
Hutzel: I had to build the Borg ship because we couldn't afford a
modeler to make it. I just brought a whole bunch of models. I put
chicken wire over a framework. And I stapled that on and I attached a
board and attached all the plastic to it. We hung the cube on one of
the sound stages and the pyrotechnician came in and he rigged it. Back
then, if you really wanted to blow something up, you would use primer
cord. Nobody really does that anymore because it's dangerous. But this
thing is loaded with primer cord. They let it rip. I didn't know that
putting chicken wire inside of something with primer cord would cause
it to become a big grenade. And so when it went off, stuff flew
everywhere. Fortunately it was a safe situation and no one got hurt.
They'd cleared the stage before we fired it, but we came back in and
saw the mess on the floor and bits of chicken wire stuck on the walls.
THE AFTERMATH
The arc would go down as one of the most daring in Star Trek history.
It also gave birth to "Family," an understated but highly acclaimed
episode which saw Picard deal with the psychological trauma of becoming
a Borg, as well as Star Trek: First Contact (1996), the Next Generation
cast's most beloved film.
Moore: That was the turning point on Next Generation's acceptance as
Star Trek, among the fans and with the public. Suddenly we had done
something that was legitimate and got people's attention and told a
great story. From then on out we carried the torch. We were legitimate
and that was the show that turned it around for us.
Frakes: The cool thing about the story was that he was forever haunted
by Locutus being in his DNA. [He was?] That informed the first movie
that I directed, First Contact.
Moore: The second half of the show was kind of not as satisfying as the
first half, in all honesty. It was a little too technobabble. It
doesn't quite have the oomph that "Part I" did. But Michael [Piller]
was fine with that. He launched us into more character-based
storytelling. The next episode was "Family," which was a complete
character episode, which I got to write. It was set down on Earth after
Captain Picard's experience in "Best of Both Worlds." He goes home and
you meet his brother. There was no action-adventure component to that
episode. It showed you Piller was determined to make the show more
character-oriented and more about the people on the Enterprise, instead
of the alien on the week.
Dorn: In the end, Patrick, although he was back and he was fine and he
was like, "Yeah, I'm fine. Everything is great," you knew by his look,
and by the way he felt and looked out the window that it wasn't over.
We didn't know how it wasn't going to be over, but it wasn't over.
Interestingly enough, it culminated in First Contact, the movie.
Moore: We had to kind of fight for "Family." [Star Trek creator] Gene
Roddenberry hated it. He wanted to throw it out. My only story meeting
with Gene was that episode. It was me and Michael and Rick Berman, who
was running the production side of things, we all met in Gene's office
and Gene just said "this isn't the 24th century." "These brothers
reflect outdated, 20th-Century modes of childhood development. Mankind
had solved these kind of issues by then. I hate this." I sat there and
I was a really green writer. I was like, "Oh my God, what are we going
to do? I'm dead." We walked out in the hall and I just looked at
Michael and Rick and was like, "What do I do now?" They said, "You know
what? Just go write your story, we'll work with Gene." That was the
last I ever heard of it. So they went off behind the scenes and did
something and got him to back off or let it go or kind of distracted
him with something else, because then we did the show.
--
So to recap:
Iraq is imploding
Islam is spreading
Russia is expanding
The US is being invaded
Vets are dying
IRS is lying
And Obama is politicizing a shooting in South Carolina
Ron Moore, Jonathan Frakes and more reveal how writing themselves into
a corner for "Best of Both Worlds" changed Trek forever: "All of us
were quite thrilled they had the balls to leave Picard on the Borg
cube."
In June 1990, many Trekkies considered the crew of the Enterprise-D
pretenders to the throne.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was closing out its third season, and it
was still struggling to step out of the shadow of Kirk's (William
Shatner) Enterprise. That was about to change thanks to a daring
cliffhanger pulled off in an era of television in which shocking deaths
and major plot twists weren't par for the course.
When "Best of Both Worlds: Part I" aired 25 years ago this week, it was
truly jarring to fans. The season three finale saw the return of The
Borg, the seemingly unstoppable villain introduced a year earlier. The
Borg captured Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and transformed him into
Locutus of Borg, a de facto spokesperson for the collective
consciousness. The episode ended with Picard's No. 1 Commander Riker
(Jonathan Frakes) giving a shocking order ("Mr. Worf, fire.") and the
screen cutting to the words "To be continued...", something it had
never done.
Written by Michael Piller and directed by Cliff Bole, "Best of Both
Worlds" is arguably the most influential arc in Next Generation
history. Along with "Best of Both Worlds: Part II" and its aftermath
episode "Family," the story introduced layers of psychological
complexity, bold storytelling and emotional depth the show had not yet
explored.
"RICK BERMAN CALLED ME AND SAID, 'THIS IS FANTASTIC!' "
Ronald D. Moore, member of the writers room: The story really goes to
Michael Piller, who was running the writing staff in the third season
when I joined the show. In the writers room, we would often talk about
revisiting the Borg. Piller said as the season went on that he thought
there should be a cliffhanger, which Star Trek had never done.
Jonathan Frakes, Commander William T. Riker: All of us were quite
thrilled they had the balls to leave Picard on the Borg cube. I don't
know if they were trying to threaten Patrick with renegotiations. It's
commonplace now. Shows like Lost and House of Cards — they'll kill off
a regular and think nothing of it. This was 1990. It was not
commonplace to be killing off any of your series regulars. That was a
big "who shot J.R." type of plot.
Moore: It was the only show that year that we didn't actually sit in
the room as a writing staff and break together. Michael said he wanted
to go do it. Michael had a very personal connection to that particular
story. The episode starts with Riker getting an offer to go command
another ship. That's at the heart of it. Michael said very overtly that
he was in a very similar place. He was the number two guy on the show,
and he was debating whether or not to leave Star Trek and go and run
his own show or if he wanted to remain second in command of the
Enterprise, as it were. So he was Riker, and he wrote the story from
that perspective.
Frakes: The episode was key to Riker's character. Previously, I thought
it was not very cleverly handled to have Riker say in the first two
seasons, "All I want is to have my own ship. I aspire to be a captain
in Starfleet." But then, when offered the ship, the writers put in
Riker's mouth that he didn't feel he was ready to captain, or he didn't
want to leave his friends.
Michael Dorn, Lieutenant Worf: We didn't know how they were going to
handle it in terms of the special effects with Patrick. At that point
we trusted each other, we trusted the producers and we trusted the
writers enough to know that it was going to be exciting.
Alan Sims, property master: My pride with those episodes would be the
prosthetic arms, for which I created remote control apertures. You
would see it flicker and flip back and forth. When the one Borg came to
the Enterprise and captured Picard, that was me off camera with a
little remote control with two control joysticks and antenna.
Michael Westmore, makeup artist: Patrick Stewart loved being in the
makeup chair. He didn't care what it was — whether he was doing a
Shakespearean character in the Holodeck or doing the old age makeup on
"Inner Light," Patrick loved getting in the chair and getting made up.
He would be putting his two cents in, "Oh, let's do a little more
shading right here." He loved that part of the process.
Moore: My favorite moment was seeing Picard in that Borg outfit for the
first time. When that reveal happens and he looks at the camera and
he's a Borg, and he says, "I am Locutus." It was a shocking moment. You
realize the show had gone someplace different. We all knew that
internally and were like, "Woah, OK. This is going to break some
molds."
Westmore: My son [Michael Westmore, Jr.] found the laser we mounted on
Patrick's head for the end of "Part I." It cost $200. It was a new
product on the market and had never been used on TV previously. We
thought, "Oh this is going to be great," but we go into the set, and we
can't see it at all. The special effects guy said, "Let me put a little
smoke in." And oh my God, that light cut right through everything. They
wanted Patrick to look directly in the lens, and nobody knew what was
going to happen at all. Patrick turns to the camera, and the refraction
between the laser and the mirrors in the camera made it look like it's
just shattered everything. It's the one time [executive producer] Rick
Berman called me and said, "This is fantastic! Oh my god." It blew
Paramount away. If it was an optical, it would have cost thousands of
dollars and we did it with a $200 laser.
"IS PICARD GOING TO BE KILLED?"
The episode electrifies audiences when it begins airing on
syndication June 18, 1990. Even Trekkies who refused to accept
Next Generation as legitimate are buzzing. Rumors of Patrick
Stewart's exit swirl, with fans waiting an agonizing three
months for the conclusion to air in September. Meanwhile, the
writers are tasked with figuring out how to follow up their
first cliffhanger ever.
Moore: What people forget now is in the first couple of seasons of Next
Generation, we were sort of not taken seriously as Star Trek. The fans
were split on the acceptance of the show. You would go to conventions
and there would be bumper stickers and t-shirts that basically said,
"I'm a real Trekker. Forget the bald guy." Stuff like that. We were the
second-tier Trek. When "Best of Both Worlds" came out, suddenly there
was all this buzz. And it got in the press and there was all this
tension and people were talking about the cliffhanger and Picard.
Jordan Hoffman, freelance writer/critic who specializes in Star Trek:
After that "To be continued…" we felt, "Is Picard going to be killed?"
After that episode, there was a lot of talk. Somehow we knew — there
were rumors that Patrick Stewart was going to leave the show. That was
definitely in the air. There would be somebody who goes, "You know
Patrick Stewart is leaving?" How do you know this? "Everyone knows it."
Dorn: We figured there wasn't any problem with Patrick's contract. He
was coming back. The interesting thing was, how were they going to play
that?
Moore: "Part II," we did break the story together in the writer's room,
but when Michael did "Part I," he said, "I have no idea how this thing
ends. We're going to end on this cliffhanger of "fire" and we're going
to figure it out next season." We all gather in the room, and it was
essentially a new writing staff. I was the only holdover from season
three. We sat down, and Michael was like, "All right, I don't know
where we're going. Let's just try to figure out something."
Hoffman: Something that younger people don't quite get was the fact
that Next Generation was on in syndication. It was not on a major
network. It was the first show to be in syndication to have tremendous
ratings. What that meant was it was on in different times of the day
depending on where you were. I would go down to my grandparents' on the
weekends. They were in southern Jersey outside of the Philly markets. I
lived in the New York market. You could catch it three times a week. I
relived that "to be continued…" moment over and over.
Moore: There were various efforts to try to keep the scripts'
distribution tight and the plot secret. They were trying to watermark
the scripts — which was a novelty at that point — and number them. It
was the pre-Internet days, so it wasn't like the files were being
passed around in emails. It was all hard copy stuff anyway.
Gary Hutzel, visual effects coordinator: The budget was small by
today's standards. A lot of stuff you see on the series wasn't shot on
a professional stage. A lot of it was shot in people's basements,
because there was no money.
Brent Spiner, Data: I remember Worf and Data beamed over to the Borg
ship to grab Picard and bring him back to the Enterprise. There was a
moment where a Borg is coming up behind me, and I turn and blast him
with my phaser. We shot a version of it where the Borg was coming up
behind me and I didn't even turn around. I just put the phaser over my
shoulder and shot it and blew it away. We thought that would be really
cool if Data just sensed it and didn't have to turn around. It looked
great, but they sent it to Rick Berman and he said, "That's ridiculous.
He can't do that. He doesn't have eyes in the back of his head." So we
didn't use that one.
Dorn: This might take away some of the drama for the audience, but
there is a scene where Data and I go and rescue Patrick. I had to
struggle with Patrick. He tries to hit me and I grab him and we're
going "ah, ah!" back and forth. And we just started cracking up. We
just started laughing uncontrollably. All of us laughed uncontrollably
most of the time on the show.
Marina Sirtis, Counselor Deanna Troi: The episode was a very important
one for my character [Troi is key to figuring out how to save Picard].
A lot of the time, I was decorative. Hey, that was fine. I was a very
ugly child, so if you had said to me when I was 13, "One day you are
going to grow up to be this sex symbol," I would have asked if you were
high. But, as far as character development goes, the third going into
the fourth season, where my advice was listened to, I always used to
treasure those moments. Every weekend at a convention, someone will say
to me it was so nice to see a competent woman on a TV show who wasn't
"the bitch." Troi was strong and professional, but took a pride in her
appearance. It was kind of a first, to have a professional woman, who
wasn't "the bitch." It was very important to me that the writers began
to see Troi as a whole person. I think it kind of started with "Best of
Both Worlds Part II."
Westmore: Creating the Borg took a lot of makeup artists and it took a
lot of time. Not only because of the makeup, but because they had the
suits to put on. It was a process that probably took at least three
hours at that time. We had it down to a system, where we could line
them all up and make them up very fast. For the faces, I found every
makeup artist shades differently. In the early shows, all the Borg had
all different looks to them because of all the different techniques
people used to shade. Later, I took an airbrush class and I could
literally airbrush each one of them in a minute and a half. It was
easier for me to do than for a bunch of makeup artists, where there'd
be some great ones and there'd be some not so great ones. That was the
beginning of Star Trek using the airbrush. After that point, I insisted
any makeup artist I hired knew how to use an airbrush.
Hutzel: My coordinator Judy Elkins, had a great idea as we were
preparing to do the destruction of the fleet. We didn't have that much
money to work with, and we had to physically build everything. How do
we show an entire fleet destroyed? We invited people from the art
department and other people on the show for a kit bash. We got
spaceship models and all destroyed them. And we gave them our own names
and whatever we wanted and put on them the ships for the shot. We were
able to get quite a few ships made that way with pretty minimal effort
and money. I rigged them all with internal lighting to make them look
like they are on fire and we shot then that way. The toy company gave
them to us for free.
Spiner: Near the end, I'm hooked up to Patrick. It's a tribute to
Michael Westmore's genius and his son Mike Jr. who did all of the
electronics. They always did a great job of opening up my various bits.
They opened up every part of my body, save one — and they were saving
that one for I guess in case we did another movie (laughs). Michael
Westmore is a genius.
Hutzel: I had to build the Borg ship because we couldn't afford a
modeler to make it. I just brought a whole bunch of models. I put
chicken wire over a framework. And I stapled that on and I attached a
board and attached all the plastic to it. We hung the cube on one of
the sound stages and the pyrotechnician came in and he rigged it. Back
then, if you really wanted to blow something up, you would use primer
cord. Nobody really does that anymore because it's dangerous. But this
thing is loaded with primer cord. They let it rip. I didn't know that
putting chicken wire inside of something with primer cord would cause
it to become a big grenade. And so when it went off, stuff flew
everywhere. Fortunately it was a safe situation and no one got hurt.
They'd cleared the stage before we fired it, but we came back in and
saw the mess on the floor and bits of chicken wire stuck on the walls.
THE AFTERMATH
The arc would go down as one of the most daring in Star Trek history.
It also gave birth to "Family," an understated but highly acclaimed
episode which saw Picard deal with the psychological trauma of becoming
a Borg, as well as Star Trek: First Contact (1996), the Next Generation
cast's most beloved film.
Moore: That was the turning point on Next Generation's acceptance as
Star Trek, among the fans and with the public. Suddenly we had done
something that was legitimate and got people's attention and told a
great story. From then on out we carried the torch. We were legitimate
and that was the show that turned it around for us.
Frakes: The cool thing about the story was that he was forever haunted
by Locutus being in his DNA. [He was?] That informed the first movie
that I directed, First Contact.
Moore: The second half of the show was kind of not as satisfying as the
first half, in all honesty. It was a little too technobabble. It
doesn't quite have the oomph that "Part I" did. But Michael [Piller]
was fine with that. He launched us into more character-based
storytelling. The next episode was "Family," which was a complete
character episode, which I got to write. It was set down on Earth after
Captain Picard's experience in "Best of Both Worlds." He goes home and
you meet his brother. There was no action-adventure component to that
episode. It showed you Piller was determined to make the show more
character-oriented and more about the people on the Enterprise, instead
of the alien on the week.
Dorn: In the end, Patrick, although he was back and he was fine and he
was like, "Yeah, I'm fine. Everything is great," you knew by his look,
and by the way he felt and looked out the window that it wasn't over.
We didn't know how it wasn't going to be over, but it wasn't over.
Interestingly enough, it culminated in First Contact, the movie.
Moore: We had to kind of fight for "Family." [Star Trek creator] Gene
Roddenberry hated it. He wanted to throw it out. My only story meeting
with Gene was that episode. It was me and Michael and Rick Berman, who
was running the production side of things, we all met in Gene's office
and Gene just said "this isn't the 24th century." "These brothers
reflect outdated, 20th-Century modes of childhood development. Mankind
had solved these kind of issues by then. I hate this." I sat there and
I was a really green writer. I was like, "Oh my God, what are we going
to do? I'm dead." We walked out in the hall and I just looked at
Michael and Rick and was like, "What do I do now?" They said, "You know
what? Just go write your story, we'll work with Gene." That was the
last I ever heard of it. So they went off behind the scenes and did
something and got him to back off or let it go or kind of distracted
him with something else, because then we did the show.
--
So to recap:
Iraq is imploding
Islam is spreading
Russia is expanding
The US is being invaded
Vets are dying
IRS is lying
And Obama is politicizing a shooting in South Carolina
Adam H. Kerman
Jun 23, 2015, 7:26:59 AM6/23/15
to
>http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-trek-story-daring-cliffhanger-803642
Levels of emotional complexity? "Best of Both Worlds" does not work on
that basis. It works because it's a rousing adventure and, for Next Generation,
they put actual thought into creating the plot and did have enough material
for a two-part episode.
"Family" introduced layers of psychological complexity? Oh, go fuck yourself.
"Family" is one of the worst Next Generation episodes. It's truly horrid.
It's laughably awful because we discover Picard's brother is some idiotic
throwback, living on some stupid farm rejecting modern life. You start with
crap like that shoved in your face and the conflict between the two brothers
comes off as phoney. Furthermore, since when did Picard have a brother?
It's not retconning (because it wasn't established that Picard didn't have
a brother), but the brother comes off as a cardboard character, existing
solely for the plot. Picard's emotional outbursts are entirely phoney.
Viewers should despise "Family" in particular because this utter crap
episode is juxtaposed with entertainment that went above and beyond.
Stupid stupid stupid
Ubiquitous
Jun 23, 2015, 7:55:44 AM6/23/15
to
In article <mm4gqS$aoj$1...@news.albasani.net>, a...@chinet.com wrote:
>Levels of emotional complexity? "Best of Both Worlds" does not work on
>that basis. It works because it's a rousing adventure and, for Next
>Generation, they put actual thought into creating the plot and did have
>enough material for a two-part episode.
>
>"Family" introduced layers of psychological complexity? Oh, go fuck yourself.
>"Family" is one of the worst Next Generation episodes. It's truly horrid.
>It's laughably awful because we discover Picard's brother is some idiotic
>throwback, living on some stupid farm rejecting modern life. You start with
>crap like that shoved in your face and the conflict between the two brothers
>comes off as phoney. Furthermore, since when did Picard have a brother?
>It's not retconning (because it wasn't established that Picard didn't have
>a brother), but the brother comes off as a cardboard character, existing
>solely for the plot. Picard's emotional outbursts are entirely phoney.
The worst thing about "Family" was that Picard had completely recovered by the
>Levels of emotional complexity? "Best of Both Worlds" does not work on
>that basis. It works because it's a rousing adventure and, for Next
>Generation, they put actual thought into creating the plot and did have
>enough material for a two-part episode.
>
>"Family" introduced layers of psychological complexity? Oh, go fuck yourself.
>"Family" is one of the worst Next Generation episodes. It's truly horrid.
>It's laughably awful because we discover Picard's brother is some idiotic
>throwback, living on some stupid farm rejecting modern life. You start with
>crap like that shoved in your face and the conflict between the two brothers
>comes off as phoney. Furthermore, since when did Picard have a brother?
>It's not retconning (because it wasn't established that Picard didn't have
>a brother), but the brother comes off as a cardboard character, existing
>solely for the plot. Picard's emotional outbursts are entirely phoney.
end of the ep and the effects of being Borgified were never mentioned again.
This was my first observation of the "reset button" so often used in Star
Trek. It wasn't until Babylong 5 that we had long term repurcussions of
charss' actions.
>Viewers should despise "Family" in particular because this utter crap
>episode is juxtaposed with entertainment that went above and beyond.
Savage Brit
Jun 23, 2015, 11:22:49 AM6/23/15
to
Why were no quotes from Michael Piller used? He was interviewed extensively
about this episode as well as ST: TNG in general.
about this episode as well as ST: TNG in general.
David Johnston
Jun 23, 2015, 12:01:39 PM6/23/15
to
On 6/23/2015 5:55 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
> In article <mm4gqS$aoj$1...@news.albasani.net>, a...@chinet.com wrote:
>
>> Levels of emotional complexity? "Best of Both Worlds" does not work on
>> that basis. It works because it's a rousing adventure and, for Next
>> Generation, they put actual thought into creating the plot and did have
>> enough material for a two-part episode.
>>
>> "Family" introduced layers of psychological complexity? Oh, go fuck yourself.
>> "Family" is one of the worst Next Generation episodes. It's truly horrid.
>> It's laughably awful because we discover Picard's brother is some idiotic
>> throwback, living on some stupid farm rejecting modern life. You start with
>> crap like that shoved in your face and the conflict between the two brothers
>> comes off as phoney. Furthermore, since when did Picard have a brother?
>> It's not retconning (because it wasn't established that Picard didn't have
>> a brother), but the brother comes off as a cardboard character, existing
>> solely for the plot. Picard's emotional outbursts are entirely phoney.
>
> The worst thing about "Family" was that Picard had completely recovered by the
> end of the ep and the effects of being Borgified were never mentioned again.
> This was my first observation of the "reset button" so often used in Star
> Trek. It wasn't until Babylong 5 that we had long term repurcussions of
> charss' actions.
>
>> Viewers should despise "Family" in particular because this utter crap
>> episode is juxtaposed with entertainment that went above and beyond.
>
> Yeah, there's also that...
>
Well at the time it was remarkable that the characters trauma lasted for
> In article <mm4gqS$aoj$1...@news.albasani.net>, a...@chinet.com wrote:
>
>> Levels of emotional complexity? "Best of Both Worlds" does not work on
>> that basis. It works because it's a rousing adventure and, for Next
>> Generation, they put actual thought into creating the plot and did have
>> enough material for a two-part episode.
>>
>> "Family" introduced layers of psychological complexity? Oh, go fuck yourself.
>> "Family" is one of the worst Next Generation episodes. It's truly horrid.
>> It's laughably awful because we discover Picard's brother is some idiotic
>> throwback, living on some stupid farm rejecting modern life. You start with
>> crap like that shoved in your face and the conflict between the two brothers
>> comes off as phoney. Furthermore, since when did Picard have a brother?
>> It's not retconning (because it wasn't established that Picard didn't have
>> a brother), but the brother comes off as a cardboard character, existing
>> solely for the plot. Picard's emotional outbursts are entirely phoney.
>
> The worst thing about "Family" was that Picard had completely recovered by the
> end of the ep and the effects of being Borgified were never mentioned again.
> This was my first observation of the "reset button" so often used in Star
> Trek. It wasn't until Babylong 5 that we had long term repurcussions of
> charss' actions.
>
>> Viewers should despise "Family" in particular because this utter crap
>> episode is juxtaposed with entertainment that went above and beyond.
>
> Yeah, there's also that...
>
even one more episode. It was after all before continuing arcs came in
as a thing on American television. That being said I was disappointed
that Picard was even still alive and didn't much enjoy Family.
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