Takei's Claims About Shatner

Ehh... the universe has an objective reality, regardless of fan opinions.

Here's a third season crew picture of the Enterprise. I have a jigsaw puzzle of it.:



During the 1st season, sure, she's a guest star -- she was only in 2 episodes.

In seasons 2 and 3, she was in 23 episodes. Chekov was in 36. Is Chekov a "regular"? Objectively so. And Chapel was in two thirds as many episodes.

She's not M'Benga or Hansen. And she's not Leslie or Hadley either. She's clearly of a piece with the rest of the crew, if the least frequent. Someone has to be.

(now, if you want to discuss what her contract details are vis. a vis. everyone else's, that's also an objective reality, and something @Maurice might be able to she light on...)

 

@Harvey can correct me, but AFAIK Majel was never under contract,

 

That's interesting -- so, for instance, Grace Lee Whitney was (for 13 episodes), but Barrett was just a "we'll call you when we need you" and she just happened to get called every other week?

 

She was the producer's girlfriend.

 

Three episodes, the ones mentioned earlier and "Operation Annihilate!" at the very end of the season.

 

George wasn’t always under contract, either. Guaranteeing X out of Y segments ties the producers hands because they have to pay those actors whether they use them or not. D’Agosta recommended against picking up Grace’s contract because they weren’t using her enough to justify the cost, so he recommended hiring her on a freelance basis…but instead they just dropped her entirety. Nichelle was only under contract for the front half of the second season, and she appears way more than Majel did.

 

I'm paraphrasing a Gene Coon memo from memory here, but his words were along the lines of "It'll be a rare script indeed where Chapel is written out before shooting."

Majel was never under contract as Chapel, only hired on a per episode basis to play the part.

 

Makes sense. Why antagonize your executive producer by writing out his girlfriend? I'm sure it was easier just to give Chapel some minor bit of business (and really, that's all she does in the majority of her shows) and pick other battles to fight.

 

Huh!

I wonder how Nichols felt about being secure for half a season and then losing it.

Ah, thank you. I had a niggling feeling I had forgotten a 1st season appearance. So, 22 episodes across the next two seasons.

 

off topic (apologies) : this photo always bothered me.

Dear photographer- please ask Nicole to take a step to the right so she’s not blocked , and fills the gap more symmetrically.

ocd rant finishes

 

I feel like this was the secondary camera. Everyone is looking off stage and we've all seen the group shot where they are looking towards camera.

All depends on how Roddenberry spun it. He probably blamed the Network execs.

 

Whether that was before or after Nichols stopped sleeping with him may also have had an impact.

 

It seems this is one of many from the same shoot. You may be able to find one you like better.

 

More likely this is a second photographer, probably a behind-the-scenes one. They're all looking in a direction that would feature them all without being blocked. And it's "Nichelle."

 

Autocorrect. Mea culpa

 

No biggie. Autocorrect is evil.

 

Agreed, he's a bit phony and takes himself a bit too seriously, even the self parodies he engages in are very calculated. The tragedy related to his former wife gives off some Robert Wagner-type vibes so there's that potential character question always lingering in the background but its faded with time.

That being said, the character Kirk as he portrayed it is fantastic, and Kirk is the most emtionally sincere and relatable Captain in the Trek universe (Sisko being a close 2nd). Shatner, Nimoy and DeForest Kelly also carried the series and the films as performers, so for me there will always be a bit of a soft spot as far as Shatner is concerned. He's a smug egotist but not detestable in his personal appearances and outside of Takei, there aren't stories featuring bad character traits brought up that aren't already obvious and known.

 

There's no reason to suspect Shatner of wrongdoing in Nerine's death. So I must object to that part of your post.

 

Ummm.... There are a lot of people that suspect Wagner of wrongdoing... Including, but not limited to, the detective in charge of the case, the captain of the yacht, and Lana Wood...

 

Shatner, however, was not suspected of any wrongdoing in the death of Nerine