David Gerrold finally speaking out about TNG behind-the-scenes

[Christopher]

Re: David Gerrald finally speaking out about TNG behind-the-scenes

I don't believe the other shows had a similar situation of bringing in another writer for a rewrite.

Doesn't matter. The WGA rules are as I quoted them. A writer who gets a "Story by" or "Written by" credit on the pilot is eligible for creator credit if the series bible writer doesn't get it; it doesn't say anything about the specifics of the writing history, just the final credit.

You've got that backwards. Fontana wrote the original story — "Meeting at Farpoint" — that eventually became the script for "Encounter." She was the writer on the production staff that was tapped to write the first episode.

The studio wanted a two-hour premier movie. Roddenberry wanted a one-hour. To pad out Fontana's story, Roddenberry added the Q element.

Indeed, the Q subplot screams Roddenberry -- the all-powerful alien testing humanity, the endless speechifying about how humanity has perfected itself, plus the "Post-Atomic Horror" stuff which was more or less recycled from the backstory of Roddenberry's Genesis II and Planet Earth pilot movies.

 

[Joe_Atari]

Has anyone besides Gerrold gone on the record about Maizlish's behavior on TNG? Especially Fontana and Justman?

All I can find is a quote from Alexander Courage, a tweet from Rick Berman, nothing substantial. Of the 30 people that supposedly left TNG because of Maizlish, surely some of them have spoken up. They can't be afraid of the guy; he's been dead for over 20 years!

I nominate Leonard Maizlish for a future entry in Harvey's Fact Check blog. Just who was this guy, and why was he hell-bent on taking over Star Trek and ruining Gerrold's career?

 

[Harvey]

Archival materials about early TNG are scarce, so I couldn't add much. Maizlish is a subject of much disdain in Joel Engel's Roddenberry biography, although I can't remember at the moment who speaks about Maizlish other than Gerrold. Maybe Fontana?

 

[Joe_Atari]

Re: David Gerrald finally speaking out about TNG behind-the-scenes

To pad out Fontana's story, Roddenberry added the Q element.

Indeed, the Q subplot screams Roddenberry...

And on a related point, Leonard Maizlish supposedly championed John de Lancie for the role. A good call that.

 

[Joe_Atari]

Archival materials about early TNG are scarce, so I couldn't add much. Maizlish is a subject of much disdain in Joel Engel's Roddenberry biography, although I can't remember at the moment who speaks about Maizlish other than Gerrold. Maybe Fontana?

Thanks Harvey. Alexander Courage said in an interview that he thought it was Maizlish who engineered the whole "writing lyrics to the Trek theme for half the royalties" scheme. Since that goes back to the original run of the series, what's the earliest mention of Maizlish you've found in your research? Any idea when he started representing Roddenberry?

 

[Christopher]

Has anyone besides Gerrold gone on the record about Maizlish's behavior on TNG? Especially Fontana and Justman?

All I can find is a quote from Alexander Courage, a tweet from Rick Berman, nothing substantial. Of the 30 people that supposedly left TNG because of Maizlish, surely some of them have spoken up. They can't be afraid of the guy; he's been dead for over 20 years!

Here's a PDF pertaining to a lawsuit by Roddenberry's ex-wife Eileen against Roddenberry and the Norway Corporation, claiming that Eileen was cheated out of her fair share of the profits from Star Trek. Maizlish is mentioned as GR's attorney as far back as 1969. Apparently, a jury in a 1993 civil trial found that Norway and the Roddenberry estate had committed fraud in the matter, but their only finding against Maizlish was for conspiracy to commit fraud. But the court of appeals overturned the fraud ruling, on the grounds that the divorce agreement was not intended to encompass profits from future revivals of Star Trek, since such things could not have been predicted in 1969.

So, yeah, there doesn't seem to be much corroboration for Gerrold's allegations about Maizlish. Berman's tweet does support the assertion that Maizlish was the one giving story notes in Roddenberry's name, but Berman doesn't go as far as Gerrold's claim that Maizlish was actually rewriting scripts in violation of WGA rules.

 

[Maurice]

A quick thought about Gerrold's "blacklisting".

Hollywood is a small town, and it has a long memory. It's entirely possible that just by filing a grievance with the WGAw Gerrold could get a rep for not "playing ball", regardless of how much or little Gene or Paramount badmouthed him.

I'm not saying such a thing is right or just desserts, but it doesn't take much to get a "rep" in an industry where Two Degrees of Separation seems to be the rule.

 

[Jonesy]

It is a shame that we didn't get to see the version of TNG that we would've gotten in the absence of Leonard Maizlish, a TNG with Fontana, Gerrold, and Justman as the guiding spirits (along with Roddenberry, to the extent that he was able). It probably would've been more old-fashioned and less successful than the TNG we ultimately got under Piller, but I'm still curious about what it would've been like.

That's an interesting thought. Of course it would be a much different series than what we received. However, I have this feeling that it would've perhaps mined into some more provocative subject matter.

Still, it seems that Paramount was perhaps the Big Brother in this situation too, and perhaps they would've reigned in the more extreme ideas no matter who was in charge.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

^Most likely, Paramount and Berman were scared of what the religious right would have said about episodes like 'Blood & Fire' back in 1987 (which sadly has not really changed now, going by the reaction to the episode when it was finally produced as an episode of Phase II.)

 

[BillJ]

^Most likely, Paramount and Berman were scared of what the religious right would have said about episodes like 'Blood & Fire' back in 1987 (which sadly has not really changed now, going by the reaction to the episode when it was finally produced as an episode of Phase II.)

"Blood and Fire" was pretty poorly done.

It wasn't that it couldn't be done, it was already being done on TV. Heck, MASH and All in the Family had done episodes about homosexuality more than a decade earlier. Star Trek just did those kinds of things with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop.

 

[Trek Survivor]

^Most likely, Paramount and Berman were scared of what the religious right would have said about episodes like 'Blood & Fire' back in 1987 (which sadly has not really changed now, going by the reaction to the episode when it was finally produced as an episode of Phase II.)

To be fair, "Blood And Fire" looked all set to be a TERRIBLE episode - written with the subtlety of a brick. Gerrold is not as good as he thinks he is.

As BillJ says, TV shows had done plenty of "issue" shows around homosexuality, they were just done a heck of a lot better than this effort.

Despite all its self-congratulatory comments about being progressive and addressing issues, Trek rarely did it that well.

 

[Christopher]

^Most likely, Paramount and Berman were scared of what the religious right would have said about episodes like 'Blood & Fire' back in 1987 (which sadly has not really changed now, going by the reaction to the episode when it was finally produced as an episode of Phase II.)

But that just shows how much more cautious TNG was than TOS, which was more willing to push the envelope and risk controversy with things like the Kirk-Uhura kiss in "Plato's Stepchildren" (not the "first interracial kiss" as often asserted, but still daring for its day). Or than DS9, which created a similar controversy with its same-sex kiss between Dax and Lenara Kahn in "Rejoined." The "religious" right is always going to out there stamping and shouting for attention; what matters is whether you let them bully you or not. "Blood and Fire" wouldn't even have had a kiss, just two guys holding hands in the background of a story that was an allegory for the AIDS scare.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

"Blood and Fire" was pretty poorly done.

It wasn't that it couldn't be done, it was already being done on TV. Heck, MASH and All in the Family had done episodes about homosexuality more than a decade earlier. Star Trek just did those kinds of things with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop.

Strange, that's what most people would say about the plot of Star Trek Into Darkness (Kirk looking for revenge due to the terrorist attacks and the use of drones, as well as the crash of the Vengeance into San Francisco)-just sayin'.

^Most likely, Paramount and Berman were scared of what the religious right would have said about episodes like 'Blood & Fire' back in 1987 (which sadly has not really changed now, going by the reaction to the episode when it was finally produced as an episode of Phase II.)

But that just shows how much more cautious TNG was than TOS, which was more willing to push the envelope and risk controversy with things like the Kirk-Uhura kiss in "Plato's Stepchildren" (not the "first interracial kiss" as often asserted, but still daring for its day). Or than DS9, which created a similar controversy with its same-sex kiss between Dax and Lenara Kahn in "Rejoined." The "religious" right is always going to out there stamping and shouting for attention; what matters is whether you let them bully you or not. "Blood and Fire" wouldn't even have had a kiss, just two guys holding hands in the background of a story that was an allegory for the AIDS scare.

That's true, but unfortunately, the Religious Right has more of an effect than it used to these days (or maybe Roddenberry, Mazlish, and Berman just didn't have the stones to tell the religious right where to go [which only confirms what I've said previously about Roddenberry not being up to the task of being a show-runner like he used to be.])

 

[BillJ]

"Blood and Fire" was pretty poorly done.

It wasn't that it couldn't be done, it was already being done on TV. Heck, MASH and All in the Family had done episodes about homosexuality more than a decade earlier. Star Trek just did those kinds of things with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop.

Strange, that's what most people would say about the plot of Star Trek Into Darkness (Kirk looking for revenge due to the terrorist attacks and the use of drones, as well as the crash of the Vengeance into San Francisco)-just sayin'.

I don't understand what Star Trek Into Darkness has to do with David Gerrold, TNG or "Blood and Fire"?

 

[T'Girl]

the Religious Right

Not really the big boogieman you seem to be implying.

I'm religious, on the right politically on some subjects, but also bisexual, I found the "bedroom scene" in Blood and Fire to be awkward and out of place with the rest of the storyline. It suddenly was just there.

If a version of Blood and Fire had been an episode of TNG hopefully that scene would have been considerably toned down, or removed entirely in favor of something more subtle.

While a AIDS episode could have been good message episode in TNG's first season, considering the allegorical mess Enterprise made of their mandated AIDS episode maybe it's best TNG never went there.

 

[Maurice]

That bedroom scene didn't exist in the original "Blood and Fire". The fanfilm version of it was very different than the original script, and padded up the wazoo.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Has anyone besides Gerrold gone on the record about Maizlish's behavior on TNG? Especially Fontana and Justman?

Numerous people talk about Maizlish in the documentary Chaos on the Bridge, in which his antics feature prominently.

 

[Christopher]

Here's TrekCore's review of Chaos on the Bridge:

http://trekcore.com/blog/2015/07/review-chaos-on-the-bridge/

 

[Shaka Zulu]

"Blood and Fire" was pretty poorly done.

It wasn't that it couldn't be done, it was already being done on TV. Heck, MASH and All in the Family had done episodes about homosexuality more than a decade earlier. Star Trek just did those kinds of things with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop.

Strange, that's what most people would say about the plot of Star Trek Into Darkness (Kirk looking for revenge due to the terrorist attacks and the use of drones, as well as the crash of the Vengeance into San Francisco)-just sayin'.

I don't understand what Star Trek Into Darkness has to do with David Gerrold, TNG or "Blood and Fire"?

I was mentioning how people saw Star Trek Into Darkness's plot the same way as you said 'Blood & Fire' was done.

 

[BillJ]

Strange, that's what most people would say about the plot of Star Trek Into Darkness (Kirk looking for revenge due to the terrorist attacks and the use of drones, as well as the crash of the Vengeance into San Francisco)-just sayin'.

I don't understand what Star Trek Into Darkness has to do with David Gerrold, TNG or "Blood and Fire"?

I was mentioning how people saw Star Trek Into Darkness's plot the same way as you said 'Blood & Fire' was done.

So it had nothing to do with the conversation other than being a drive-by slam at another part of the franchise. "Blood and Fire" was actually part of the discussion. Thanks for playing though.