#35 The New Age Generation, part 3
The concluding part, examining some more key behind-the-scenes figures.
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In parts 1 and 2 of this essay I discussed episodes from the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The matter of a New Age sensibility on TNG only really concerns the opening season and the one following. Season three saw a major change of style and content, with The New Age Generation entering, well, a new age. The questions I’ll explore in this final part are, firstly, how that big change came about, and, secondly, why that very interesting mystical theme I’ve been elucidating did not survive into the new era.
I wrote of my fondness for the first two seasons of TNG in part 2. For me, there are episodes in these seasons that, while often lacking polish, evoke a sense of mystery and the weird to a degree rarely achieved in later years. There’s also less political correctness and more sly, cheeky humour. In general, the earlier episodes have less of an air of predictability about them. Unlike episodes from season three onwards, they don’t feel like they conform to a house style, and on balance I like it better that way.
Part of the distinctiveness of seasons one and two is, of course, this New Age current I’ve been describing. Ron Jones aside, it’s quite difficult to identify whose contributions created that current on early TNG. Why? Well, something that comes through loud and clear in the behind-the-scenes literature is that a lot of script rewriting took place on the show. Only rarely do we know precisely who was responsible for any given part in a rewritten script.
Gene Roddenberry did a lot of rewrites, especially in season one. This caused the writers who were getting rewritten (which was probably most of them) considerable frustration. Roddenberry was pedantic about what was, and was not, Star Trek. He was obsessively concerned that his vision be faithfully represented on the show. If anyone else’s idea of Star Trek contradicted his, their contribution was to be rejected. And, in most cases, that individual was fired.
G.R.’s conception of the 24th century was singular. Humanity has risen above trivial desires and petty conflicts. Earth is close to a paradise, with violent conflicts between peoples and nations a thing of the past. This utopia has been achieved through a combination of moral and technological progress.
What that vision translated into in practical terms were Roddenberry’s dictums for TNG, chief among them being “no conflict between the main characters.” Many writers understandably found this dictum in particular maddening. They argued—quite rightly, of course—that conflict is fundamental to drama. Ways of getting around it were found; for instance the use of guest stars. An abrasive visiting Starfleet officer, like Kosinski in “Where No One Has Gone Before”, was always a reliable source of friction. Another trick was to place a main character in a completely different environment, as in season two’s “A Matter Of Honor”. There an officer exchange programme sees Riker serving aboard a Klingon vessel. Yet another solution, rarely employed for obvious reasons, was to explore an alternate timeline. This was done most memorably in season three’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, which takes place in a darker timeline in which the Federation is at war with the Klingons and losing. A fascinating aspect of this episode is seeing the alternate Picard and Riker at loggerheads, clearly irritated by each other.