William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge Page #2

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had problems with Leonard. Gene wanted to be

the good guy so the lawyer

got to be the bad guy. Leonard was carrying the wrath

of Gene for all these years because Gene felt

he had gotten screwed

on the original series. Paramount owns the rights.

There was never any dispute

about that, but Gene Roddenberry

is the creator of Star Trek. Gene had as much celebrity

as the show itself. I actually thought he was

imperative to the DNA of a successful reboot

of Star Trek. So, what happens? I needed Gene Roddenberry

and I needed to make a deal and Leonard Maizlish

knew exactly where he had me. Pike:

Look, his job was to represent

Gene Roddenberry, and as tough as he was,

he did a hell of a job

at doing that. We made the deal giving Gene

a compensation package that was sufficient

to Gene and to Leonard. Paramount would still own

the property Star Trek, but Gene would take

his fair share out. And by the way... it was a handsome share. So, Gene said yes

to doing a series, and then suddenly he's startled

by his own statement. Yeah, I don't think

he was prepared for

what that meant. And he wasn't a fit man. Gerrold:

Every weekend Majel

would pour him onto the train and send him to La Costa

the facility where

they'd dry him out. Because of the drinking, because

of the recreational drug use, he needed to clean himself up. Which he did, over the next

couple of months. As everything

was being worked out, the I's were being dotted,

the T's were being crossed. Now it was decided, all right, Gene, you will

assemble your team. Does anybody have a concept

at this point? No, they had no cast,

they had nothing. Do you go back and conceptualize

what this show is? Gene brought in almost

immediately, Eddie Milkis, Bob Justman,

me, Dorothy Fontana. Arnold:

People that he had trusted

and relied on heavily during the original

series production. We began to meet

at lunch time at the Paramount commissary,

in the private room there. Gerrold:

Everybody in the commissary

would watch us walk in and walk into the executive

dining room. "There goes a hundred million

dollar deal on the hoof." And it was fun,

it was really fun. Arnold:

The fans you would have thought

would've been Gene's biggest supporters,

absolutely not. I think that a lot

of the fans were very verbal about someone taking away

Captain Kirk. Gerrold:

They were angry because

he didn't have Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in

the new series and how dare

he call it Star Trek. I had done a show

called Get Smart Again, which was off of the Get Smart

series, and I think there's a big problem

if you try to recreate,

it's quicksand. Crosby:

When I got this script

to come in and audition for The Next Gen

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