PBS is showing a behind the scenes special about TNG on PBS called "Chaos on the Bridge" William Shatner is hosting the show.
I didn't realize it wasn't recent. my local PBS station informed me this was airing after I'd asked them if they were going to be showing the "Remembering Leonard" film (which they said they weren't going to be atm (but said they should be sometime this winter) So I am sorry if there was any confusion. I still enjoyed it, and it was new to me. still it felt kind of strange to have William Shatner interviewing the TNG cast and the writers,etc, and talking about Gene Roddenberry like he didn't know exactly what it was like to work with Gene. (I know he did, but seeing the POV from the TNG crew mixing the past with the more present, was kind of odd to me)
And it is "special", an hour of BTS people complaining about Roddenberry being crazy and a control freak, which is then topped off by Maurice Hurley saying when he ran a single season of the show he would have dumped the entire crew and the ship would have spent the season searching for a new crew?????? Talk about crazy and controlling! It sure shows the Hollywood distortion wave in full force given the people on this show are all featured on official DVD's and Blu-Ray talking about how great it was working with Roddenberry on the show and that he was involved in everything and the greatness of it all. What a pack of BS artists!
Tis the problem with the official releases of the TNG materials - you're only allowed to dredge up so much dirt by the studio. An independent documentary production like Shatner's is allowed more leeway, since it's not directly controlled by TPTB at CBS. If you read a little bit into the production of the series, beyond what they show in the documentaries, I think you'll find Chaos on the Bridge paints those first couple years fairly accurately.
Keeping up appearances for sure. I remember Roddenberry had reduced input in TNG midway through season 1 and the general feel of the show did start to improve. Roddenberryisms (like Admiral Hansen in TBOBW drooling over Shelby) would still be put in at times, but in a far more reasoned manner than overt slop like what "Justice" was rewritten as being. And it's not (for me) to say Roddenberry et al didn't have moments of goodness or greatness, the fact that the stuff put under the rug came out coughing leads to a perception because one was led on. The truth is often toward the middle, rarely on either extreme. I can't blame the people for hyping up the good stuff about Gene, and it's very easy for people to get wrapped up and dwell on the negative stuff. Hurley's vision of the show, for season 2 - the one he helmed, is one of my favorites. Space isn't a nice place - few wonders, more horrors. Sometimes heavy-handed, especially when he pens the story, but the heavy-handedness actually works to the story's benefit. There's still optimism, but he throws in a ton more danger to make it feel more tangible, more realistic. Season 2 having examples from the physical threats like the Borg (Hurley's creation, made allegedly as a slam against Roddenberry's ideals for the show since the Borg are also a collective where everyone works together, necessities are met, blah blah blah -- just to a more sinister outcome, but I'm thankfully he didn't have the Borg ship corridors (or the Enterprise's for that matter) playing muzak, 1970s disco, Muskrat Love, or anything by the Jefferson Airplane)... and Q being more serious in his playing morality games that actively hurt or killed people (Q Who) - only "Q-Less" in DS9 would dare to get as dark in tone and do so tangibly (AGT has the annihilation of humanity but as epic as it is, it didn't have the impact of the ship being sliced up or Vash's venom cure being removed so she's writhing in the corridor and suffering horribly for all to see)... to incompatible technology (Contagion) ... to psychological horror (Time Squared, Schizoid Man, others)... heck, the guy helming the show helped make "Unnatural Selection" better than TOS' "The Deadly Years" (but opened up a lot of future conveniences as a result but "the rapid aging trope" has never worked well to begin with, the cure is always magical...) But ditching the entire TNG crew would have been a mistake, IMHO. But to this day S2 is one of my favorites (almost proto-DS9 in some ways, more and other than just Q being more than a toddler prankster). Didn't Hurley also create Lore, Data's sadistic and the original prototype predecessor? ("Datalore" has some problems, but Lore's sadism definitely feels like something Hurley would hurl in, which helped save the story (IMHO)... ) I'd read "Gene Roddenberry - The Man and the Myth Behind Star Trek" several years ago; the TNG chapter toward the book's end was rather surprising reading. Snippets from "Chaos" seemed to corroborate that book as well...
Maurice Hurley, from what I read, tried to protect Gene's vision and craft entertaining television. (I think Gene was talented but his talent lay in hiring others to implement his vision while he supervised) It was probably an extremely challenging position to be in. Hurley made some enemies for sure, wrote a few stinkers like Shades Of Grey, but he wrote some amazing episodes(11001001, Heart of Glory) created the Borg, the Binars, hired Melinda Snodgrass, and knew when it was time to exit. Rick Berman has said his contribution is not recognized as well as it should be.