William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge Page #4

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at Paramount. Lucy Silany who was

President of distribution said, "Wait a minute, I can

give you twenty-six episodes. Why don't you produce

the program and we will take it out

in first-run syndication." Well, nobody had ever done

a program like that in

first-run syndication. Tell me what first-run

syndication is. First-run syndication is

programming that is basically sold market by market,

station by station, on independent stations,

wherever they wanted to place it

or on network stations outside of the so-called

prime time which is

eight to eleven. So, all of a sudden

we went from a corner stone

for the Fox Network, to this new hybrid for

first-run syndication and by the way, Gene Roddenberry

believed we were going to do

a network show. The studio, I think it's

in their manual, tells you that the director,

the producer and the studio are always going to be

loggerheads about something. Because they have

different needs? Because they feel that

that's how they can control the cast,

the budget. This was a low-budget

television show and it had enormous

expectations. How did you know that? Star Trek has always been

a low budget production. And Star Trek always has

enormous expectations. - Yes.

- I see. Berman:

The first meeting that I went to

in Roddenberry's office, the big discussion was

whether it would be a one-hour or a two-hour pilot. Roddenberry wanted it to be

a one-hour pilot, the studio wanted it to be

a two-hour pilot, and it was a big,

blustery argument. Pike:

The premier episode,

we have to make a splash with, and that must be

a two-hour episode. Roddenberry didn't want

to do a two-hour. Pike:

I thought Gene was going

to come across the table at me, "We're not doing a two-hour

and I'm not writing a two-hour." And I said, "Gene, quite frankly

if you do not do this, I will bar you from the lot.

We are going forward with

a two-hour. I don't know who's going

to write it, and now everybody

is looking around the room and nobody is saying

nothing. I'm looking to my left

where my bosses are, I'm looking to my right,

where the syndication

people are. There's poker being played

right here. And nobody is backing me

because when I said, "I will lock you out of this

lot, I'm not kidding you." What were you thinking? I'm thinking what if

he gets up and walks out, I'm screwed. If this program were not blessed

by Roddenberry, we would've placed the franchise

in serious jeopardy. These millions of dollars

are hanging on his, yes, to a two-hour. Pike:

And it's more like tens

of millions of dollars, it's a lot of money. All right,

so you were bluffing. I was bluffing. Holy cats. And he knew

I was dead serious. - But you were bluffing.

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