Brooks also continues to do Sisko as Voiceovers in video games.
Cast members who praising their time on a show.
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Seems to me that Spiner was actually doing more of a service to the fans than he's been given credit for here.
If he hadn't had Data killed in Nemesis, there would be umpteen threads on the BBS right now about how "Data's supposed to be an android, but he keeps aging, WTF?" instead Spiner said, "well it's hardly realistic for me to keep playing Data at my age, so I won't insult the fans intelligence" and he's villified for it.
He appeared in Season 4 of Enterprise for the same reason Seth McFarlane did, because he's a fan and rang up the producers and said "i like the show, and i'd like to be on it if i could?" he hardly turned his back on the franchise!
And as for his comment about he liked the money coming in, so what? It sounds to me like something of a wry comment, or else a simple observation of fact. I know there are people who treat Star Trek like gospel or something, but the man's an actor, for an actor to have a 6 year contract, it probably was very reassuring!
If he hadn't had Data killed in Nemesis, there would be umpteen threads on the BBS right now about how "Data's supposed to be an android, but he keeps aging, WTF?" instead Spiner said, "well it's hardly realistic for me to keep playing Data at my age, so I won't insult the fans intelligence" and he's villified for it.
He appeared in Season 4 of Enterprise for the same reason Seth McFarlane did, because he's a fan and rang up the producers and said "i like the show, and i'd like to be on it if i could?" he hardly turned his back on the franchise!
And as for his comment about he liked the money coming in, so what? It sounds to me like something of a wry comment, or else a simple observation of fact. I know there are people who treat Star Trek like gospel or something, but the man's an actor, for an actor to have a 6 year contract, it probably was very reassuring!
We Trekkies are a fickle bunch.
Or to be more specific, he's done a single one since the show ended.
The more cynical may point to what an easy pay day that would have been for him.
I personally have no gripe with an actor who doesn't love Trek the way we do. I don't really see why it's a big deal so long as they did their job well.
It was stated in TNG's Inheritance that Data had an aging program.
Leaving aside how stupid that is as a concept, the rate it apparently worked means he'd look decrepit in a hundred years or so. By the time he's a thousand he'd be so wrinkled he'd look like a raisin that had been left in the rain.
Plus Data in AGT should have had an obvious age difference (don't mention the hair, since he's clearly dyed it!)
Thanks so much for the info, Therin. I hadn't heard the ins-and-outs about this before. While her colleagues can't be blamed for looking out for their own individual best interests, it must have left Farrel with a sour taste when Paramount finally exacted its revenge for her successful advocacy on behalf of herself and her buddies the previous year. Shabby, but then that's Hollywood.
It leads me to ask whether you have any insight into the real story behind Season 3's BOBW cliffhanger and the oft-repeated claim that it was deliberately left that way because the studio and Patrick Stewart were in the middle of negotiations and if worse came to worse that Frakes would commence season 4 as captain.
I've always wondered how true that was considering the 6-year contract that Stewart et al signed on for in the first place. Were the rumours just part of a manufactured keep-the-fans-on-edge studio play or were they based on something more substantive?
I'd been led to believe that the real spadework as far as negotiations between Stewart and studio are concerned came as season 6 was ending, when Stewart called a halt to his participation in anything beyond one more year of the series – which is when the movies came into play as part of the deal.
There's no way of knowing that it was the first thing he said in the interview. Editing can make the whole thing screwy that way. Could've been first, could've been an hour in. No way to know.
I don't really have a problem with an actor taking on a job for the money. I've done in before in my own acting/writing endeavors. There's a reason why John Carradine appeared in nearly five hundred films and TV shows over the course of his career. I also think it's important however to try and balance that need to work and make enough money to continue working with projects and ideas that stimulate the person creatively. If it's just for the money every single time, then there's a good chance that they won't be able to stick around for the long haul.
It doesn't bother me in the least that some of the people from Trek took on their respective gigs because of the money it promised. Because clearly guys like Spiner found the work itself to be engaging and were able to focus on that more fully once they got the money more or less out of the way. Once you know you don't have to worry about rent for a little while you can start to focus on the work itself. And if the actor truly does love what they're doing, then you'll see that reflected in their performance.
It doesn't bother me in the least that some of the people from Trek took on their respective gigs because of the money it promised. Because clearly guys like Spiner found the work itself to be engaging and were able to focus on that more fully once they got the money more or less out of the way. Once you know you don't have to worry about rent for a little while you can start to focus on the work itself. And if the actor truly does love what they're doing, then you'll see that reflected in their performance.
Well, the ironic thing was that she didn't learn her lesson. She activated about pay rises and improved conditions on "Becker", too - and found herself replaced the next season by a different actress playing a different character. Have you ever met a really gung-ho union rep in the lunchroom? They can be the nicest of people but sometimes they are on the prowl for a new issue they can sink their teeth into. Not everyone wants the union rep to activate on their behalf. Other people just want to get on with their regular job. Actors often prefer to leave all that salary negotiation stuff to their agents.
The "oft-repeated claim" was mentioned in many articles and interviews at the time. Check out some old "Starlogs".
All of a sudden, people here are mentioning "six year" contracts? That's not how it works. The standard industry contract is for five years. On TNG, DS9 and VOY, the main cast signed a five-year contract. That locked them into an incremental pay-scale for five years. Then they negotiated an additional year when that contract ran out. Then they negotiated again for their final year. It probably wouldn't have been viable, budget wise, for any of the shows to go for an eighth year, attempting to carry such a huge salary budget.
Some actors refuse to sign a 5Y contract. eg. Whoopi Goldberg and Diana Muldaur. Also Michelle Forbes when Ro was mooted to co-star on DS9 (the character becoming the non-Starfleet Kira Nerys when Forbes refused to sign.)
What happens is that around about Season Three, the actors notice that the starting salary for actors on new shows being put into production is higher per actor than they are locked into for several more years. On a SPFX-heavy show, especially, the studio doesn't have spare money to toss around. Even the permanent sets of each ST series were budgeted across a projected five years, meaning that Paramount accountants probably did a lot of book-fiddling on ENT, which finished at the end of only four years.
Note that, even though Scott Bakula had nowhere to move on contract negotiations, he did successfully lobby for a shorter-than-usual Season Four. It freed him up for more time with his family.
As I understand it, Stewart was locked into his standard five-year contract just like the others, but he was the inarguable star of the show and, when the star and his agent are complaining people lesson. His agent had probably complained that starting salaries on new series had jumped incredibly, and they were asking for some kind of better deal. Imagine the panic if a star walked... even if it meant him paying a huge release fine, or taking a case to arbitration, to get out of his contract.
Precedents: the aforementioned Farrah Fawcett-Majors, sued for breach of contract for failing to report to the set of "Charlie's Angels" for her second year. And remember Valerie Harper vanishing after Season One of "Valerie", forcing the show to become "Valerie's Family", and then "The Hogans"? The show must continue, but the hurried rewriting headaches are massive. "Charlie's Angels" was easier, since Cheryl Ladd had already been signed as a fouth Angel, but the studio hated losing its poster girl. Valerie Harper's character was killed off off-screen because production could not be halted any longer.
The writers on TNG were warned that if Stewart's agent couldn't be pacified he might walk. With that in mind, they deliberately painted Picard into a corner. Michael Pillar said they didn't even work on the script for Part 2 of "The Best of Both Worlds" until they knew if they had Stewart back or not. Picard may well had stayed Locutus, and been lost to the Enterprise crew forever, or maybe even saved for guest roles as a highly-paid recurring villain. Who knows!
Meanwhile, we also don't know what concessions Paramount agreed upon re Stewart's contract at the end of Season Three. Maybe he got a better trailer, a private phone, the right to direct episodes, a bigger cut of royalties, additional likeness approvals, guaranteed less time in the makeup chair (Michael Dorn fought for that to join DS9), and so on?
As I said, everyone's contracts - except, I assume, Gates had a new 5Y contract to start Season Three - came up for renewal after Season Five. There were huge negotiations going on behind the scenes, but the cast were essentiall happy on the show, so there was little doubt they'd all sign. Then, for Season Seven, the added carrot was a major motion picture deal.
^
Therin, appreciate your response.
As to the 6-year contract thingy, I don’t know about anyone else on the board but I’ve read several interviews and attended a number of conventions over the years where Stewart discusses it, most recently in startrek.com's interview in October 2010:
Q: The Next Generation debuted 23 years ago last week. How true is the story that you thought Next Gen would provide you with a few months work and income, and an opportunity to get a nice tan, and that you’d then head back home to England?
Stewart: Well, that is what I was advised when I was offered the role, which was on a Monday, lunchtime, and told that I had until Friday lunchtime to make a decision. I was shocked because I’d never for a moment believed that I would get cast in Star Trek. I’d been called back to Los Angeles three times from the UK for auditions. So I raced around L.A., talking to anybody I knew I had any connection with, who was in the television and film industry, asking their advice. “What should I do?” I was to discover I had to sign a six-year contract. I was very naïve about the conditions attached to series television in the U.S.A. Every single person I spoke to – agents, directors, screenwriters, other actors – said, “Oh, don’t worry about six years. You’ll be lucky to make it through the first year.” Everybody felt it was madness to try to revive an iconic series like William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy’s Star Trek. So, on the basis of that advice I signed the six-year contract.
Therin, appreciate your response.
As to the 6-year contract thingy, I don’t know about anyone else on the board but I’ve read several interviews and attended a number of conventions over the years where Stewart discusses it, most recently in startrek.com's interview in October 2010:
Q: The Next Generation debuted 23 years ago last week. How true is the story that you thought Next Gen would provide you with a few months work and income, and an opportunity to get a nice tan, and that you’d then head back home to England?
Stewart: Well, that is what I was advised when I was offered the role, which was on a Monday, lunchtime, and told that I had until Friday lunchtime to make a decision. I was shocked because I’d never for a moment believed that I would get cast in Star Trek. I’d been called back to Los Angeles three times from the UK for auditions. So I raced around L.A., talking to anybody I knew I had any connection with, who was in the television and film industry, asking their advice. “What should I do?” I was to discover I had to sign a six-year contract. I was very naïve about the conditions attached to series television in the U.S.A. Every single person I spoke to – agents, directors, screenwriters, other actors – said, “Oh, don’t worry about six years. You’ll be lucky to make it through the first year.” Everybody felt it was madness to try to revive an iconic series like William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy’s Star Trek. So, on the basis of that advice I signed the six-year contract.
^My larger point about the cliffhanger and Stewart is whether the rumours about contractual difficulties leading to further rumours about Stewart not returning in season 4 etc were not just untrue but were in fact deliberately created by Paramount during the summer hiatus to create viewer interest in BOBW II – which of course, they did.
I don’t have old Starlogs but you did get my scurrying to my various Companions and Captains’ Logs and it seems to me that this hypothesis might hold some weight.
According to ST: NG Companion, it was only After [BOBW I’s] airing, rumors circulated among fans that Patrick Stewart's contract talks with Paramount had stalled, and that Picard would be killed off, with Riker becoming Captain while Shelby would become his first officer. This culminated in an unprecedented level of interest in the next season opener, with Paramount running ads and radio spots specifically for the episode. [quote source: memory-alpha BOBWII]
I don’t have old Starlogs but you did get my scurrying to my various Companions and Captains’ Logs and it seems to me that this hypothesis might hold some weight.
According to ST: NG Companion, it was only After [BOBW I’s] airing, rumors circulated among fans that Patrick Stewart's contract talks with Paramount had stalled, and that Picard would be killed off, with Riker becoming Captain while Shelby would become his first officer. This culminated in an unprecedented level of interest in the next season opener, with Paramount running ads and radio spots specifically for the episode. [quote source: memory-alpha BOBWII]
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