When it comes to simply presenting the information from the Roddenberry Archive, it's useful. However, Cushman tends to editorialize or grossly misinterpret the facts.
Good Behind the Scenes Books
- Thread starter Ceridwen
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My impression was that he gets some dates wrong, and when he doesn't really know some behind-the-scenes situation, he might spin a plausible anecdote figuring no one will ever know the difference. But sometimes the lifelong fan will happen to know when Cushman pulls this and he's way off.
OTOH, I recall director Ralph Senensky blogged that he loved the write-up on his episodes.
Cash Markman is little more than an armchair historian. His writing demonstrates a lack of understanding of the documentary evidence and treats long after-the-fact statements as having the same historical weight as primary sources. In his write-up about "Spectre of the Gun", we caught him making up events that didn't actually happen because they were in scenes omitted from the script before shooting, as proved by the daily production reports.
Neigh.
And then there was this…
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Is there another way to browse this information in print or online? I went to the Roddenberry Archive's website, but it seems to be all videos and VR recreations.
Unfortunately, the RA hasn't been putting any of the documents online... yet. I think that's the intent in the future. The only places to browse the scripts/memos in person is either at the private Roddenberry Archive somewhere in Los Angeles, or UCLA's special collections library which has Roddenberry's TOS papers only, as well as Bob Justman's.
The other place I thought to look was the website for Larry Nemecek's The Trek Files but it looks like the actual "files" themselves are all stored on Facebook (which I don't use).
The walled gardens of the modern Internet continue to vex me.
The walled gardens of the modern Internet continue to vex me.
They've uploaded all the shared documents to The Trek Files' Memory Alpha page:
The Trek Files
The Trek Files: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast is a podcast that airs on Roddenberry Podcasts as well as most other podcast platforms, beginning on 23 January 2018. It is hosted by Larry Nemecek. Each episode looks into a document from the Roddenberry Archive, with extra context and analysis...
memory-alpha.fandom.com
I quite enjoyed Allan Asherman's The Star Trek Compendium during my burgeoning fandom days. Bits of behind the scenes info on each episode but not so much that it's overwhelming for a new fan.
I also second this recommendation if you want to go deeper on the series' production.
How would you rate Gerrold's WORLD OF?
I barely recall it. I don't remember it being much about BTS stuff.
In the second half of the book, he negatively dissects ENTERPRISE INCIDENT, plus describes his vastly different original CLOUD MINDERS outline, in which Uhura is severely injured.
He also hated "The Omega Glory," had not one nice word for it IIRC, and he absolutely trashed Lost in Space. I'm mean, like this was a moral conflict and he was fighting evil. It was a bit much.
I think books like Gerrold's are fine so long as you accept that it is one man's account and that man has his own biases, as well as a fairly decent chip on his shoulder, about Roddenberry. Take things with a healthy grain of salt.
It's been many years since I've read it, but as I recall, he makes quite a few decent points. In fact, his argument was the basis for TNG's stance that the captain normally doesn't beam down to the planet every week. I recall being entertained by the book, so there's that.
However, it's clear that he and Roddenberry had their share of disagreements over the years. And it's also clear that Gerrold has a very high opinion of his own writing skills.
It's been many years since I've read it, but as I recall, he makes quite a few decent points. In fact, his argument was the basis for TNG's stance that the captain normally doesn't beam down to the planet every week. I recall being entertained by the book, so there's that.
However, it's clear that he and Roddenberry had their share of disagreements over the years. And it's also clear that Gerrold has a very high opinion of his own writing skills.
The Gerrold-Roddenberry dust up is similar to the Harold Livingston-Roddenberry fall out during the production of "Star Trek II"/"TMP" in that Roddenberry kept rewriting/inserting things into the script for "In Thy Image" without Livingston knowledge or approval.
Indeed. If anything, Gerrold was a primary source for painting Roddenberry as a god, besting even the job Roddenberry did for himself.
Gerrold's attacks were directed against Fred Freiberger. Gerrold's ego had been bruised, as Spock would say, during the third season. He set out to cleverly undermine Freiberger by trashing his artistic judgement, and then damning him with faint praise (e.g., saying Freiberger knew how to manage an episode budget). This kind of thing was in The World of Star Trek (1973) and Gerrold's monthly Starlog column, circa late '70s or early '80s.
The Gerrold schism was also generated through the toxic influence and interference of Gene's lawyer, Leonard Maizlisch.
Yeah, when Gerrold was basically co-creating TNG with Fontana and Roddenberry, he was trying to get GR to approve an AIDS allegory episode that GR kept encouraging but never approved despite a series of rewrites. Maizlish, who apparently rewrote some episodes in violation of Guild rules, reportedly (well, reported by Gerrold) called Gerrold a number of nasty homophobic insults. Gerrold took his unused story and adapted it into Blood and Fire, a book in his Star Wolf series. He gets his own back at Roddenberry and Maizlish there.
I believe it was Chris Kreski who did most of the research, interviews, and writing for Shatner on those books.
Marc Cushman is not my idea of a bright guy. When the following appeared in the first edition of the first book, people pointed out that this was a not a real book cover but a fan creation. He refused to believe that and asked how anyone could prove it wasn't real. I posted in the discussion that not only have I been collecting Star Trek books since the early 1970s, not only did I have the first exhaustive Star Trek books website, I am also a professional librarian who's familiar with resources like Bowker's Books in Print. If Bantam had published this book, it would be in BiP, it would be in OCLC WorldCat, it would almost certainly be in ABEbooks, etc. His response was basically, well, that's just your opinion, I think it's real. It was still in the Expanded and Revised Edition.
I believe it was Chris Kreski who did most of the research, interviews, and writing for Shatner on those books.
Marc Cushman is not my idea of a bright guy. When the following appeared in the first edition of the first book, people pointed out that this was a not a real book cover but a fan creation. He refused to believe that and asked how anyone could prove it wasn't real. I posted in the discussion that not only have I been collecting Star Trek books since the early 1970s, not only did I have the first exhaustive Star Trek books website, I am also a professional librarian who's familiar with resources like Bowker's Books in Print. If Bantam had published this book, it would be in BiP, it would be in OCLC WorldCat, it would almost certainly be in ABEbooks, etc. His response was basically, well, that's just your opinion, I think it's real. It was still in the Expanded and Revised Edition.
Probably for the best. 1987 TNG would've probably ending up producing something as insulting as "Code of Honor".
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