A question about Roddenberry's first intentions for TNG.

[Technocide]

Seeing as Roddenberry pretty much set a strict set of rules on how humans and their interaction could be depicted on TNG , doesn't Tasha Yar's backstory kind of conflict with those rules?

Wasn't Roddenberry's idea meant to be that humans had become morally perfect as a whole, free of conflict and great diplomats...in groups anyway. Tasha Yar's backstory of growing up on a human colony that that ended up in savage anarchy conflict with that idea?

Or am I misinterpreting something here...

 

[BillJ]

It's easy to be perfect when your belly is full and your sleeping in a warm bed. Apparently neither of these existed on Turkana IV.

Humans are only "morally perfect" in Roddenberry's universe when their needs are being met.

 

[Christopher]

Well, the idea was that Tasha's colony had failed and degenerated from the higher ideals of the Federation. Despite what some have claimed, Roddenberry didn't propose that humans had become innately perfect, just that they'd learned how to overcome their darker side. It wasn't some magical species-wide improvement but the result of civilization maturing to new levels. He always recognized that it would be a struggle to reach that point (indeed, his portrayal of global war in "Encounter at Farpoint" and his earlier Genesis II/Planet Earth pilots made it clear that he thought things would get worse before they got better), so there's no inconsistency in postulating an isolated segment of humanity that hadn't succeeded in that struggle, a group that had fallen behind while Earth/Federation civilization as a whole rose to new heights.

Indeed, the idea behind Tasha's characterization was that she idolized the Federation and what it stood for. So she fit right into GR's glorification of the human potential, by being someone who could look on this perfected society and speak about how much better it was than the alternative. There are none so devout as the converted.

Also, for what it's worth, keep in mind that Roddenberry was not the sole creator of TNG, regardless of what the credits say. It was actually a joint creation of Roddenberry, David Gerrold, D. C. Fontana, and Bob Justman. So others could've had a hand in the character's backstory.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I remember thinking that in 1987...that Yar's story was a little too 'rough' for how clean the show was trying to be.

 

[Tomalak]

Yeah, the idea was more that Earth is a paradise, and therefore humans living on Earth had evolved to the utopian, Roddenberry ideals. There wasn't something genetic that made humans somehow perfect by the 24th century - this is why the DS9 idea that "it's easy to be a saint in paradise" isn't at odds with Roddenberry's box.

 

[Technocide]

Well, the idea was that Tasha's colony had failed and degenerated from the higher ideals of the Federation. Despite what some have claimed, Roddenberry didn't propose that humans had become innately perfect, just that they'd learned how to overcome their darker side. It wasn't some magical species-wide improvement but the result of civilization maturing to new levels. He always recognized that it would be a struggle to reach that point (indeed, his portrayal of global war in "Encounter at Farpoint" and his earlier Genesis II/Planet Earth pilots made it clear that he thought things would get worse before they got better), so there's no inconsistency in postulating an isolated segment of humanity that hadn't succeeded in that struggle, a group that had fallen behind while Earth/Federation civilization as a whole rose to new heights.

Indeed, the idea behind Tasha's characterization was that she idolized the Federation and what it stood for. So she fit right into GR's glorification of the human potential, by being someone who could look on this perfected society and speak about how much better it was than the alternative. There are none so devout as the converted.

Also, for what it's worth, keep in mind that Roddenberry was not the sole creator of TNG, regardless of what the credits say. It was actually a joint creation of Roddenberry, David Gerrold, D. C. Fontana, and Bob Justman. So others could've had a hand in the character's backstory.

Thats a good way of looking at it, thanks.
Shame that it took until DS9 to actually look into that idea, but atleast it was evaluated at all.

 

[Eckauskas]

To be fair, didn't Roddenberry have major problems about including Klingons and Romulans in TNG? I'm sure I read somewhere that he didn't want to see old races brought back.

Which is maybe why we didn't see very much of the Vulcans.

 

[Tomalak]

To be fair, didn't Roddenberry have major problems about including Klingons and Romulans in TNG? I'm sure I read somewhere that he didn't want to see old races brought back.

Which is maybe why we didn't see very much of the Vulcans.

The new ship was supposed to be in unexplored parts of the galaxy, so he didn't want to rely on TOS villains like the Romulans and Klingons. Part of that was making the Klingons allies of course, but it took some arm-twisting from Bob Justman to get the "Klingon marine" into the crew.

The Ferengi were supposed to be the new recurring villains, but their introduction was completely botched by all concerned, and it was back to the drawing board. Maurice Hurley came up with the Borg, who were originally to be an insectoid race who sent out the parasites in Conspiracy.

 

[Christopher]

Yep -- the goal was to create a show that could stand on its own rather than just relying on TOS concepts. The later shows reincorporated so many ideas from TOS that we sometimes forget just how much TNG tried to distance itself from it for most of its run. Heck, it's been reported that when he made TNG, Roddenberry preferred to treat much of TOS as apocryphal. He was dissatisfied with a lot of it due to the budgetary and technical limitations of the time, and probably due to being 20 years older and figuring he could do better now (most creators look back on their earlier work with a degree of embarrassment), so he intended TNG to be where he finally "got it right," with TNG canon superseding TOS in the event of contradiction. (You can see the seeds of this in his novelization of TMP, in which he basically asserts that TOS was a 23rd-century dramatization of the "actual" adventures of the Enterprise and that a number of things in it had been exaggerated or distorted for dramatic effect.)

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ That would explain his attitude towards TAS.

 

[Wingsley]

I heard from some people who communicated with Richard Arnold (Roddenberry's aide back in those days) that at some point Paramount relieved Roddenberry of his rights to TOS. Whether that meant his royalties were threatened was never clear to me, and I had to wonder about the accuracy of the story. I brought this up because it made me wonder if Roddenberry lost control of the STAR TREK franchise in some fashion, and TNG was his way of re-asserting himself as The Boss.

IIRC, the Los Angeles Times magazine did a wonderful story (written by Sheldon Tietelbaum) in 1990 or '91 about TNG, and it echoed some of the findings of Cinefantastique magazine on the subject. Roddenberry supposedly asserted a stricture of "drama without conflict", wherein the sarcastic wit and argumentative bickering and other cyncial banter between senior officers that became a trademark of TOS (some of the most memorable lines of TOS between Kirk, Spock and McCoy) was banned from TNG. There were critical remarks made by former TNG writers, Tracy Torme among them, who questioned the wisdom of Roddenberry's alleged policy. (And I'm putting it politely.) I seem to recall the derive use of the term "Mouseketeers" to slam TNG.

The thing that confused me about this "drama without conflict" notion was the appearance of Diana Muldaur as Dr. Pulaski. She reminded me a great deal of my favorite TOS character, and smartass extraordinaire, Dr. McCoy. I thought she was a breath of fresh air for TNG, but then she only lasted for one year. It made me wonder if there was something to those articles.

In one of the later Cinefantastique articles, "First Contact" writer Marc Scott Zicree is quoted as accusing Roddenberry of making off-the-wall suggestions about that episode (apparently, by this point the elder Roddenberry was simply serving in an advisory capacity to the TNG staff), allegedly suggesting of the Malkorians that they should be "a totalitarian society, where everyone is happy". At that point, I didn't know whether all these Hollywood types were were just slinging mud at each other, or if Roddenberry was just off the deep end, or maybe there were just seething politics inside the studio causing the then-legendary turnover in the writing staff, or maybe it was a mix of all of these things.

The bottom line for me is that there were some weird aspects to TNG, DS9, VOY and even ENT. The behavior of the characters seemed to be steered to avert some alleged problem with TOS that was never there. Never in the entire original series did anyone ever try to suggest that Captain Kirk and his peers somehow lived in a Utopian society. Yet TNG stories and the behavior of its characters seemed to suggest that the Good Ship Enterprise (D) was a "shining city of the hill" (or whatever the Gipper said) and Starfleet officers were all boy scouts. Then subsequent series tried to tackle this imaginary issue by showing different bands of merry astronauts living some banner that said "we're not a Utopia" or some variant of same. It never made sense, because that was never what TREK was all about.

I assumed that Roddenberry made up some rules about character interaction in TNG to prevent TNG's cast from being compared to TOS. If you take out most of the wisecracks and arguing between Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and all the characters are just being good scouts all the time, how could you possibly compare TNG to TOS? Problem solved.

 

[Tomalak]

I heard from some people who communicated with Richard Arnold (Roddenberry's aide back in those days) that at some point Paramount relieved Roddenberry of his rights to TOS. Whether that meant his royalties were threatened was never clear to me, and I had to wonder about the accuracy of the story. I brought this up because it made me wonder if Roddenberry lost control of the STAR TREK franchise in some fashion, and TNG was his way of re-asserting himself as The Boss.

I thought he'd sold off any remaining owership rights he had to Star Trek at some point in the seventies, which is why Paramount were able to jettison him from the film series so easily. He was only retained as "creative consultant" as a matter of courtesy.

They didn't have to bring him back to make TNG, but apparently none of the suits at Paramount were sure what to do about it. They knew they wanted a new Star Trek TV show, but didn't have a clue what form it would take. Roddenberry was brought back on because there was a sense that only he knew how it worked. It was one thing making films based on established characters and settings, but something new required some GR magic.

IIRC, the Los Angeles Times magazine did a wonderful story (written by Sheldon Tietelbaum) in 1990 or '91 about TNG, and it echoed some of the findings of Cinefantastique magazine on the subject. Roddenberry supposedly asserted a stricture of "drama without conflict", wherein the sarcastic wit and argumentative bickering and other cyncial banter between senior officers that became a trademark of TOS (some of the most memorable lines of TOS between Kirk, Spock and McCoy) was banned from TNG. There were critical remarks made by former TNG writers, Tracy Torme among them, who questioned the wisdom of Roddenberry's alleged policy. (And I'm putting it politely.) I seem to recall the derive use of the term "Mouseketeers" to slam TNG.

Hadn't be basically alienated the entire writing staff by the end of the first season? David Gerrold left very early on, after finding that instead of being the head writer, he was just a story editor, and clashing with Roddenberry over scripts, culminating in Blood and Fire. Tracy Tormé was very critical of the direction the show was taking, and didn't get on with Roddenberry or Hurley.

Then Maurice Hurley pissed off most of the cast and crew in the second season, and things didn't settle down until Michael Piller came on board in the third season. It seems Roddenberry's day to day influence was declining around that time as well, and Piller was able to act as a conduit between the writing staff and Roddenberry's memos, creating a more happy and creative environment.

But he said himself in FadeIn that he had become the new Roddenberry for the writers on Voyager, with some of them refusing to come back if he remained Executive Producer after the second season.

The thing that confused me about this "drama without conflict" notion was the appearance of Diana Muldaur as Dr. Pulaski. She reminded me a great deal of my favorite TOS character, and smartass extraordinaire, Dr. McCoy. I thought she was a breath of fresh air for TNG, but then she only lasted for one year. It made me wonder if there was something to those articles.

Yeah, it does seem at odds. Maybe after the behind the scenes turmoil of the first season, he was throwing a bone to the writers, allowing them to add a bit more conflict between the characters. She's basically a McCoy clone, who in turn was the same basic doctor character that had always been in his drafts, be it as Boyce, Piper or McCoy. Playing it safe perhaps?

 

[Christopher]

My understanding is that Roddenberry's rule wasn't "no conflict," it was "no petty conflict." I.e. the characters are emotionally mature enough that they don't come into conflict for juvenile or absurd reasons like lying to each other or being jealous or resentful of each other or being generally dysfunctional and screwed up. Too much fiction defaults to dysfunctional, irrational behavior to generate gratuitous conflict in situations that well-adjusted people could resolve easily. I like to believe GR's idea was that there would still be conflict, but it couldn't come simply from human venality or childishness; rather, it had to be meaningful, the sort of conflict that could arise when well-adjusted people who like each other nonetheless find that they have fundamentally different priorities or responsibilities.

And as Michael Piller said from time to time, that limitation was actually a positive challenge to the writers, because it forced them to avoid the usual lazy fallbacks that writers use to generate conflict and instead put more thought and care into coming up with conflicts that were actually meaningful rather than just some stupid misunderstanding or clash of egos.

 

[BillJ]

I heard from some people who communicated with Richard Arnold (Roddenberry's aide back in those days) that at some point Paramount relieved Roddenberry of his rights to TOS. Whether that meant his royalties were threatened was never clear to me, and I had to wonder about the accuracy of the story. I brought this up because it made me wonder if Roddenberry lost control of the STAR TREK franchise in some fashion, and TNG was his way of re-asserting himself as The Boss.

I thought they had been turned down by several other people before offering Roddenberry the opportunity to make a new Star Trek, including Greg Strangis and Leonard Nimoy.

Can't remember where I heard this...

 

[Tomalak]

I heard from some people who communicated with Richard Arnold (Roddenberry's aide back in those days) that at some point Paramount relieved Roddenberry of his rights to TOS. Whether that meant his royalties were threatened was never clear to me, and I had to wonder about the accuracy of the story. I brought this up because it made me wonder if Roddenberry lost control of the STAR TREK franchise in some fashion, and TNG was his way of re-asserting himself as The Boss.

I thought they had been turned down by several other people before offering Roddenberry the opportunity to make a new Star Trek, including Greg Strangis and Leonard Nimoy.

Can't remember where I heard this...

Hmmm, not heard about Strangis, but the Nimoy connection rings a bell.

 

[Noname Given]

To be fair, didn't Roddenberry have major problems about including Klingons and Romulans in TNG? I'm sure I read somewhere that he didn't want to see old races brought back.

Which is maybe why we didn't see very much of the Vulcans.

The new ship was supposed to be in unexplored parts of the galaxy, so he didn't want to rely on TOS villains like the Romulans and Klingons. Part of that was making the Klingons allies of course, but it took some arm-twisting from Bob Justman to get the "Klingon marine" into the crew.

The Ferengi were supposed to be the new recurring villains, but their introduction was completely botched by all concerned, and it was back to the drawing board. Maurice Hurley came up with the Borg, who were originally to be an insectoid race who sent out the parasites in Conspiracy.

Actually, the original premise they were kicking around was that the 1701-D was a colony ship heading to another Galaxy - and as such had left everything they (and we) knew behind. The studio balked a bit as they felt fans wanted some connection to what they knew before; so they settled on - Yes, it's still on patrol in the Milky Way; but now there can be whole families and children aborad as StarFleet no longer seperates them for years.

Also, Worf was supposed to be part of a Klingon officer exchange program - and was originally slated to appear in the first 6 episodes before returning to the Empire; but the character drew a good response from audiences, so he was made a regular.

 

[Tomalak]

Also, Worf was supposed to be part of a Klingon officer exchange program - and was originally slated to appear in the first 6 episodes before returning to the Empire; but the character drew a good response from audiences, so he was made a regular.

Really? I heard Justman fought to get him in the main cast, succeeding at the eleventh hour, and Dorn ended up with a contract just like everyone else. I've never heard it was due to audience reaction before.

 

[Harvey]

Since Dorn was listed as a regular from day one, I doubt it had anything to due with audience reaction, though his growing role over the years could certainly be credited to that (in part).

 

[Christopher]

Also, Worf was supposed to be part of a Klingon officer exchange program - and was originally slated to appear in the first 6 episodes before returning to the Empire; but the character drew a good response from audiences, so he was made a regular.

That can't possibly be true. It takes a lot more than six weeks to produce an episode of a TV series. By the time "Encounter at Farpoint" aired in the week of September 28, 1987, they would've already been writing "The Big Goodbye" and "Datalore" and breaking episodes from even later in the season. It wouldn't have been feasible to incorporate responses to audience reaction until the season was at least half over.

Unless you're referring to test audiences who were shown the pilot in advance of the premiere. Test audiences often do have an influence on show content. But as Harvey said, Dorn had regular billing in the main titles from the very beginning. If he'd been a pilot guest who was upgraded to regular thanks to test audience response, the credits would reflect that. Credits indicate who got paid what; if Dorn had been paid as a guest star in "Farpoint," it wouldn't be possible or ethical to credit him as a regular in that particular episode, regardless of his status in later episodes. The fact that he's billed as a regular from the get-go means he was paid as a regular from the get-go.

 

[Noname Given]

Also, Worf was supposed to be part of a Klingon officer exchange program - and was originally slated to appear in the first 6 episodes before returning to the Empire; but the character drew a good response from audiences, so he was made a regular.

Really? I heard Justman fought to get him in the main cast, succeeding at the eleventh hour, and Dorn ended up with a contract just like everyone else. I've never heard it was due to audience reaction before.

You may be correct. What I posted was my recollection of what was said during a panel Maurice Hurley was a member of at a local science fiction con I attended in late 1989.