Which Cast Got Along the Best? And Worst?

[Lucky]

I know some of the casts had feuds, like TOS or VOY, but it seems like TNG, ENT and DS9 all got along pretty well, or at least kept any problems to themselves.

[Anji]

My vote goes to TNG. Their mutual respect for each other showed right on screen.

[LobsterAfternoon]

TNG seems to have had the most friendly cast.

[Melakon]

What difference does it make? Production ended years ago. Was every one of your working environments without petty fights in the workplace?

What matters is the work onscreen.

[Lucky]

Melakon wrote:

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What difference does it make? Production ended years ago. Was every one of your working environments without petty fights in the workplace?

What matters is the work onscreen.

Maybe that's what matters to you. I just find behind the scenes stuff interesting, and I'm always interested in how that translates onscreen. I haven't read much behind the scenes stuff about the shows so I was curious which casts seemed to get along best and which didn't because I was curious if that translated onscreen. Like Anji said, the respect the TNG crew had for each other did seem to bleed through to the screen, I always thought they seemed like a family, especially in All Good Things.

[Melakon]

From all the background info I've read, and behind the scenes footage that's escaped, the TNG cast does seem the most closely knit. This might be because in 1987, no one really knew if a new Star Trek series with new characters would work. Especially as it wasn't a network show, and syndicating a brand new dramatic series hadn't been done in decades. They were all either climbing the mountain or falling off the cliff together. The only familiar names to American television audiences at the time were LeVar Burton (Roots in 1977) and Wil Wheaton (who'd had a hit film the year before with Stand by Me). This stepping into the unknown likely helped the cast to bond quickly.

[Trek Survivor]

Agreed on TNG cast getting along the best.

TOS probably the worst?

From various interviews, it seems the DS9 cast were not all that close (though there were some close relationships amongst that)m but never "didn't get along", merely were just professional to each other and never really moved beyond that into friendship etc. There was an interview with Armin Shimmerman who highlighted this with regards to "Mr. Brooks".

Dave Rossi, back in the Star Trek Monthly magazine circa 2006, suggested that esp. around season 2/3 time, there were some arguments amongst the cast.

Not sure about Voyager, but I understand some of the cast resented Jeri Ryan initially.

[DS9forever]

The TNG cast sounded like they could be unprofessional at times - one director refused to come back.

[1001001]

Having just seen much of the TNG cast together in San Francisco, I think it's fair to say they got along very well (and still do). Marina Sirtis did say that they chased one director off with their shennanigans, but it wasn't about them not getting along.

Michael Dorn said that, compared to the TNG set, DS9 was "grim". I don't think that was about the cast not getting along necessarily, but other factors.

[Jonas Grumby]

If you consider TOS separately from the TOS movies, the only real "regular cast" members were Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley, and by all accounts, they got along with each other just fine. There does seem to have been some professional rivalry between Shatner and Nimoy (publicly acknowledged by both of them) but it doesn't seem to have ever gotten out of hand. And, indeed, the two went on to become lifelong best friends.

[CaptPapa]

Jonas Grumby wrote:

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If you consider TOS separately from the TOS movies, the only real "regular cast" members were Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley, and by all accounts, they got along with each other just fine. There does seem to have been some professional rivalry between Shatner and Nimoy (publicly acknowledged by both of them) but it doesn't seem to have ever gotten out of hand. And, indeed, the two went on to become lifelong best friends.

Sounds pretty accurate from what I've read about them, which is a fair amount. Sometimes I think maybe I find out more than I care to know. And sometimes I wonder how much of the supposed bad feelings were manufactured to make a living on the convention circuit.

[R. Star]

Meh, hard to say on the outside. They're all going to say they got along and acted professionally after all, regardless of how they really felt.

Talking down to your castmates is pretty much the quickest way to get blacklisted in Hollywood... or be a Republican, one of the two.

[magarity]

Melakon wrote:

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LeVar Burton (Roots

Roots? No, sorry, Burton will always be "the Reading Rainbow guy" as far as I'm concerned.

[Lance]

R. Star wrote:

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Meh, hard to say on the outside. They're all going to say they got along and acted professionally after all, regardless of how they really felt.

I do recall Robert "Chakotay" Beltran making comments to the effect of how the TNG cast were more of a family, but that the VOY cast simply didn't bond like that on their set. There was certainly more tension on the VOY set, even if it never did spill into outright hostility. And certain cast members, particularly Robert Picardo, seemed to have got along well with everybody.

[ZapBrannigan]

Lance wrote:

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I do recall Robert "Chakotay" Beltran making comments to the effect of how the TNG cast were more of a family, but that the VOY cast simply didn't bond like that on their set. There was certainly more tension on the VOY set, even if it never did spill into outright hostility. And certain cast members, particularly Robert Picardo, seemed to have got along well with everybody.

My recollection from an interview somewhere was that Beltran seemed to resent how the writers gave Picardo so many good storylines and things to do.

If I got this right, Beltran was told that "the Doctor" was getting good material because Picardo would come up with ideas himself and pitch them all the time. And Beltran complained about it, essentially saying "that's not my job" and you should be coming up with better things for me to do.

I found it ironic that when they finally had Chakotay carry an episode, it was that terrible boxer illusion/fantasy/metaphor story which for me was by far the worst show of the series. They gave him an episode, but it was a boring and murky story that no one could have carried off-- except possibly Jeri Ryan, who would have shined in the topless scenes.