Original Set Design: *Herman Zimmerman
Visual Effects Supervisor: **Robert Legato (all odd-numbered episodes, 127-147 except 145); **Dan Curry (all even-numbered episodes, 128-148; EMMY NOMINATION, “Q Who” [142]); Coordinator: Gary Hutzel (145)
Post Production Supervisor: Wendy Neuss
Set Decorator: Jim Mees
Script Supervisor: **Cosmo Genovese
Special Effects: **Dick Brownfield
Property Master: **Joe Longo (all odd-numbered episodes, 127-147); **Alan Sims (all even-numbered episodes, 128-148)
Makeup Supervisor: **Michael Westmore (EMMY NOMINATION (with crew): “A Mother of Honor” [134])
Makeup Artists: Gerald Quist; Sue Forrest-Chambers (127-133); Janna Phillips (134-149)
Hair Designer: **Richard Sabre (EMMY NOMINATION (with crew): “Unnatural Selection” [133])
Hair Stylist: *Carolyn Ferguson (127-132); Georgina Williams (133-148 except 136); Shirley Crawford (136)
Production Associate: **Susan Sackett
Senior Illustrator: **Rick Sternbach
Scenic Artist: **Michael Okuda
Set Designer: *Richard McKenzie
Construction Coordinator: **Al Smutko
Sound Mixer: *Alan Bernard, C.A.S. (EMMY NOMINATION, drama series: “Q Who” [142])
Chief Lighting Technician: **Richard Cronn
First Company Grip: **Brian Mills
Costume Supervisor: *Janet Stout
Key Costumer: Cha Blevins (127, 129-133); Alison Gail Bixby (128)
Costumer: Amanda Chamberlin (134, 137, 139, 148); Charmaine Nash Simmons (135, 138, 140, 142, 145); Kimberly J. Thompson (136); Cha Blevins (141, 144, 146); Carol Kunz (143, 147)
Music Editor: *Gerry Sackman
Supervising Sound Editor: **Bill Wistrom (EMMY NOMINATION (crew): “Q Who” [142])
Sound Editors: **James Wolvington; **Mace Matiosian; *Wilson Dyer
Post Production Sound: **Modern Sound
Casting Executive: **Helen Mossler
Production Coordinator: **Diane Overdiek
Casting Associate: **Elisa Goodman
Computer Monitors: Sony Corp. of America (131-148)
Special Visual Effects: **Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) a division of Lucasfilm Ltd.
Additional Motion Control Facilities: **Image “G”
Video Optical Effects: **The Post Group
Special Video Compositing: **Composite Image Systems
Editing Facilities: **Unitel Video
Research: Eric A. Stillwell (148)
“Entity” Animation Sequence: Stokes/Kohne Associates, Inc. (127)
* * *
[*] denotes a first-season staffer; [**] denotes the only credited or co-credited person ever in that position.
The third-season cast shot; mother and son are reunited as Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher) returns.
THIRD SEASON
If TNG’s first season showed the birth pangs of creation and its second creaked with growing pains, then season three was the flowering of adulthood for a series grown confident at last of its direction, its roots, and its synthesis. “The stories this year are well-written, thought-provoking and entertaining,” Jerry Buck of the Associated Press wrote of the third season. The show’s success could be measured in more concrete ways as well, as throughout the season the series built on its opening 10.8 viewer rating and added to its affiliation of 235 stations, already the highest among syndicated shows.
Much of the credit for the show’s new-found confidence goes to the new head of the writing staff, Michael Piller. After Maurice Hurley left, Michael Wagner served briefly as coexecutive producer before recommending Piller, his Probe series associate, for the job.
“We did have a lot of chaos in the second season,” Rick Berman recalled. “Maurice was at the helm and we had a lot of turnover among the writers. Then Michael and I took over the helm in the hiatus and things settled down.”
Piller recalls it wasn’t quite so easy at first. “That was a panic-driven season—we were ‘riding the rims,’ as we called it,” he said. “I can’t claim full credit for [the success]; we had a lot of good writers here.
“I will claim credit for my contribution, which is that I just have an idea for what I think makes a good dramatic story, and that I can help the flow of development in the room [at writing staff meetings].”
Piller took over beginning with “The Bonding” (153)—thanks in no small part to his and Wagner’s “Evolution” script (150), which made a good impression on Roddenberry and Berman, now the real chief of day-to-day operations as the Great Bird eased away from hands-on duty.
“I take great pride in trying to protect Gene’s universe, which I feel after four years is mine as well,” Berman said later. “Gene has come to trust me and because of that his involvement can be lessened without any conflict.”1 After getting the new series off the ground and solidly on course, GR was affectionately likened by one staffer to the queen of England: proudly surveying, and still involved with, all that he had set in motion.
Piller was a New York native who originally worked in local TV news. After arriving in Los Angeles, he began reading scripts and learning about writing while working first as a censor and then as a programmer at CBS for series ranging from The Dukes of Hazzard and The Incredible Hulk to Cagney and Lacey. Thinking he could do as well, he wrote and sold a script each for C&L and Simon and Simon, then left the network and joined the staff of Simon, where he went from writer to producer in three years, working for a time with Maurice Hurley.
Helping to ease his transition were Hans Beimler and Richard Manning, who came back for the whole season while changing their title during the hiatus from executive script consultant to coproducer. Melinda Snodgrass, promoted to their old title from story editor, was joined on the staff by Ira Steven Behr as a writing producer beginning with the year’s ninth show, “The Vengeance Factor” (157). Also having a hand in scripts were Richard Danus, who helped with “Booby Trap” (154) and became executive story editor from that point through “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (163), and Ronald D. Moore, a talented fan whose dream came true when his spec script for “The Bonding” got him hired as story editor beginning with “Sins of the Father” (165).
Patrick Stewart gets to act in his beloved Shakespeare as a holodeck actor with Data (from “The Defector”/158).
On-screen, the creative staff’s efforts produced a year of highlights that saw Beverly Crusher return to the Enterprise, her son get promoted to full ensign, the captain slug a terrorist on his bridge, Riker and Troi finally find time for a kiss, Worf get disgraced, Data find himself “with child,” Geordi change his luck with women, and more and more being revealed about O’Brien—but not his first name!
The year-long letter-writing campaign to return Gates McFadden to the show was not directly mentioned when a change of heart in the great “chemistry experiment” over TNG’s doctors was announced. “Diana Muldaur is a marvelous actress and it’s obvious that I think so because I’ve used her many times,” Roddenberry would say later. “But it’s all just chemistry. Beverly had that little something…. Somehow the way the captain bounces off her works well. It works with Muldaur, too, but it just seems to work a little more with Crusher.”2 He would also say, “It was always our intention to leave the door open for her to return to the show.”3
“It was our opinion, Gene’s and mine, that the Pulaski role was not working out either,” Berman said. “And rather than going and looking for a third doctor in three years, we approached Gates about coming back, and she very graciously did.”
McFadden, by the way, had not been idle during her year off. She had appeared in two movies, The Hunt for Red October (though much of her part ended up on the cutting-room floor) and Taking Care of Business (with John “Q” de-Lancie as a subordinate), and she had starred in an off-Broadway play, To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday. Muldaur would go on to create a similarly crusty, though ill-fated role, that of Rosali
nd Shayes on L.A. Law.
As the writing staff began to find its rhythm at last, the production office quietly went about its business. Retaining administrative oversight of special effects, associate producer Peter Lauritson was promoted to the new title of coproducer after the fourth episode, “Who Watches the Watchers” (152). Also, beginning with “Captain’s Holiday” (167), Michael Okuda and Rick Sternbach would add technical consultant to their art titles, cementing the unofficial role as science experts they had been performing for the writers ever since the pilot.
David Livingston continued his role as cost estimator and Berman’s liaison to all the non-effects departments. Producing an episode from script started now with early casting concept sessions involving Piller, the writers, and casting director Junie Lowry-Johnson; she did the actual casting with Berman and the episode’s director. Newly hired costume designer Bob Blackman was then involved, after which Livingston would oversee early production meetings with the design and FX staff, the writers, Berman, and Piller. Livingston then kept tabs on all the ideas springing into action—production designer Richard James’s set concepts, Westmore’s makeup plans, hairstyles, Sternbach and Okuda’s ideas—and made a last-minute check-in with all of them two days before principal filming began.
Blackman was among a slew of new people who came aboard for the third season, replacing his departing friend Durinda Rice Wood. One of his first tasks was to oversee the cast’s long-sought end to the original uniforms. Made of spandex that had to remain taut, the hot one-piece jumpsuits actually led to fatigue and lower back pain among the actors. The new outfits cost $3,000 each and were phased in only for those above ensign rank. They were made of “breathable” wool gabardine and kept to a one-piece version for the women because of the design line.
A new main title greeted viewers beginning with the third season, featuring an incoming route from outside the Milky Way rather than a departure angle from the solar system. Also, a four-foot filming miniature of the Enterprise was built at mid-season, first turning up in “The Defector” (158). Though smaller, it was actually more detailed and for the first time accurately depicted the front Ten-Forward windows.
Mark “Sarek” Lenard is visited by Walter “Chekov” Koenig.
THE ENSIGNS OF COMMAND
* * *
Production No.: 149 Aired: Week of October 2, 1989
Stardate: 43133.3 Code: ec
Directed by Cliff Bole
Written by Melinda M. Snodgrass
GUEST CAST
Ard’rian McKenzie: Eileen Seeley
Haritath: Mark L. Taylor
Kentor: Richard Allen
O’Brien: Colm Meaney
Gosheven: Grainger Hines
Sheliak: Mart McChesney
* * *
The reclusive Sheliak Corporate breaks its 111-year silence with the Federation to demand that Tau Cygna V, ceded to it by treaty, be cleared of a human settlement within three days.
Forgotten by the UFP, a strayed colony ship deposited settlers there ninety years earlier. They have tamed the desert and now number over 15,000. News of the colony is doubly surprising, since the settlers had to adapt to the fatal hyperonic radiation that bathes the planet.
Because of that danger, Data is sent to announce the evacuation. But he runs up against a stubborn leader, Gosheven, who shrugs off the unseen Sheliak’s threat and won’t budge despite his people’s growing qualms. Picard and Troi ask for a delay from the Sheliak, but the presumptive race is as stubborn as the Tau Cygnans.
Data gets nowhere in his mission, despite the help of a farsighted Cygnan woman, Ard’rian, until he finally shows the settlers the danger they face by launching a frightening, though restrained, show of force.
Picard congratulates Data on the creativity of his effort after achieving a victory of his own—beating the arrogant Sheliak with their own treaty to get the evacuation delayed.
A shocked Ard’rian (Eileen Seeley) watches Gosheven (Grainger Hines) threaten Data.
Though filmed first, this segment was aired after “Evolution” opened the third season. Director Cliff Bole once again came up against the budget ax as he watched his episode take a $200,000 cut at the last minute, although the impact doesn’t seem as drastic as it did on “The Royale” (138). In fact, a story line with more romantic overtones between Data and Ard’rian seems to have been the main casualty, leaving the issue of Data in command of reluctant charges to be explored more forcefully later in “Redemption, II” (201).
As happens occasionally, credit for a major guest player did not appear on screen. Actor Grainger Hines’ dialogue all had to be dubbed in by another actor, and he asked that his name be pulled, Back under the monster suit is Mark McChesney, who played Armus in “Skin of Evil” (122). Data’s oft-seen evolution as a violinist, one of many arts he tackles to study humanity, begins here (“Sarek”/171, “In Theory”/199, “Lessons”/245, “Inheritance”/262). O’Brien is seen playing the cello here as well.
In another example of intergenerational continuity, the old duotronics computers that Ard’rian refers to as her guess for Data’s control basis is the system installed aboard Kirk’s Enterprise, a contemporary of her colony ship. Invented by Dr. Richard Daystrom, it was the success he was trying to surpass with multitronics at the time of the 1968 episode “The Ultimate Computer.”
Data’s shuttlepod is named for Ellison Onizuka, one of the seven real-life astronauts who died aboard the U.S. space shuttle Challenger when it exploded after launch in 1986. During filming, Tibet’s exiled Dalai Lama and his entourage of monks—all of them Trek fans—visited the sets and surrounded Brent Spiner as Data on one of the colony village’s sets to pose for a photo.
EVOLUTION
* * *
Production No,: 150 Aired: Week of September 25, 1989
Stardate: 43125.8 Code: ev
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Teleplay by Michael Piller
Story by Michael Piller and Michael Wagner
GUEST CAST
Dr. Paul Stubbs: Ken Jenkins
Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg
Nurse: Mary McCusker
Crewman No.1: Randal Patrick
* * *
What starts out as a science project in genetics for Wes almost dooms not only scientist Paul Stubbs’s lifelong project but the ship itself.
Stubbs has come on board with a specially designed probe, set to be launched to study the once-in-a-lifetime stellar explosion of a neutron-supergiant binary. The project is threatened, though, by malfunctions of the Enterprise’s main computer core.
The reason for those malfunctions? Wesley’s science project, in which he allowed two medical microbiotic “nanites” to interact. The creatures bred and escaped into the ship’s computer core, which they are now “eating.” Attempts to placate or talk to the nanites are thwarted when an obsessed, impatient Stubbs sterilizes a core element of nanites with a gamma radiation blast.
But the nanites’ deadly response—they shut down the ship’s life-support system—convinces even Stubbs they are intelligent, and he apologizes to them after Data volunteers himself as a face-to-face communication conduit.
Satisfied with the goodwill shown them, the high-order nanites want only to keep “exploring” and ask for an uninhabited world to colonize. They even help reconstruct the ship’s computer in time to make Stubbs’s project a success.
The script that brought Michael Piller into the TNG fold was designed as a “growth show” for Wesley, and on his own initiative Piller added the plot points about Beverly Crusher’s reappearance when it became clear this episode would actually lead off the season.
The nanites, through Data, confront Dr. Stubbs (Ken Jenkins).
One scene cut for time’s sake included a corridor conversation between Wesley and his friends, pointing up how immersed in work and cut off from social life he’d become. Scott Grimes as Eric and Amy O’Neill as the blond Annette were to be given credit until their lines were
cut, but they can be seen in the crowd Beverly eyes suspiciously in Ten-Forward at show’s close.
Piller delved into his own love of baseball to round out the similarities between Wesley and Stubbs (played by Ken Jenkins), whom he envisioned as a forecast of the hard-driven, often friendless youngster at age forty. The players Stubbs refers to brought about the climax of the classic 1951 National League playoff when Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants broke open the tie game with a homer off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, bringing in runners Whitey Lockman from first and Alvin Dark from second, Wesley’s interest in baseball was mentioned long ago in “Justice” (109), although we leam here that his late father taught him the game. We also discover that Guinan was married at least twice and has “a lot” of children, one of whom is several hundred years old.
Stubbs’s “egg” satellite module was reworked from the viral containment unit built for last season’s opener, “The Child” (127); the computer core access is built on the old movie bridge set. A nice touch is the warning sign in the shuttle bay: “Warning: Variable Gravity Area.”
THE SURVIVORS
* * *
Production No.: 151 Aired: Week of October 9, 1989
Stardate: 43152.4 Code: sv
Directed by Les Landau
Written by Michael Wagner
GUEST CAST
Kevin Uxbridge: John Anderson
Rishon Uxbridge: Anne Haney
* * *
Answering a distress call from Delta Rana IV, the Enterprise arrives to find the planet ravaged and its 11,000 colonists dead—except for two elderly botanists, Rishon Uxbridge and her unfriendly husband, Kevin. The two say they don’t know why they were spared death, but they refuse to be evacuated.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion: Revised Edition Page 17