Now I'm going to close my eyes and count to ten, it makes the chase more interesting...
for me.
Less sexist.
One...
Racist and sexist.
Two...
Sexism and racism.
Three...
Sexist and racist and...
Four...
I think this is sexist, I think this is this.
You're trying my patience.
Why is it EVERYTIME anything with any wisdom is said
it's a maaale character who talks to him?"
5, 6,7, 8, 9, 10.
I always see you, I'm very particular about my doctors.
Well you better get a new one, because I'm not a doctor on this ship anymore.
I left town and moved to the mountains, to the High Sierra Nevada with my husband, and eh
thought that I'd left all this behind, and got a call for this and couldn't turn
it down it was just too exciting, so here I am.
Pulaski is being played by Diana Muldaur who played twice in the original Star Trek series
and and who I have admired for years.
She is playing the ship's doctor and she will give it the the kind of strength it needs.
We started the second season very late, and we started it without Gates.
Are you alright Sir?
Sir?
End of the first season Hurley became the successor to all of the other writers, and
was going to be coming back as the head writer.
He felt very insistent about a new doctor.
Is there something you're not telling me?
She found out that her co-star was earning more than her.
Aah you have spirit for one so small.
Gates was a little bit high-handed, and you know, uhm maybe being eh a little demanding.
Eh second season I wasn't there because I disagreed with the writer.
I felt that he was writing uhm the character of Crusher, eh I, I, I had said to him,
I said "You know can we just talk about why is it that if I've raised this kid on my own,
and he's, he might be obnoxious about it, but he has saved the ship about 6 times in
a row, and there have to be some of those genes that are Beverly Crushers.
So why is it EVERYTIME anything with any wisdom is said
it's a maaale character who talks to him?"
That's an interesting question.
Mm yeah, for a later discussion.
If a man's difficult it's artistic temperament.
If a woman's difficult she's a bitch.
Right.
Precisely.
But then they asked me back and fired him, so that's just the way it worked.
*applause*
But you know, it coulda not happened that way.
Bravo, bravo.
I think everybody's impression is that Star Trek was on for years which it wasn't,
but it's become so major and is so major that there's no question in everybody's minds that
it was just on for years and years, one of the biggest successes in history
which it was not originally.
There was nobody I hated in the beginning.
I'm glad that they brought her back.
Uhm you know, I missed Gates the whole time she was gone.
Somebody do something with that kid.
They asked me back and they fired him, so that was, that was a good end haha.
*applause*
Alright, but
let's keep this between you and me.
Eh you know I knew eh Gates when you were Cheryl, didn't I.
He did. I did.
We've known eachother long before the series.
Yah that's part of the problem, you know.
But I did uhm court the fans because I was gonna be fired the first season.
Right, why?
Uhm because Gene Roddenberry felt that there was one too many women on the show
for an action adventure show.
Lwaxanna Troi, Gene had come home one day and said
"I have a character, you're gonna lover her, you don't have to act".
That's right, th... that's how he introduced me to the eh to the part and he said
"It's sort of the anti-mam of the galaxy, and eh come on in you're gonna have a ball"
We're not taking anybody's place, we don't want you to start, to stop loving the other guys
and you know shift your loyalties over to us,
we're just continuing on the legend like I said OK.
*Applause*
Well I was ordered to report here for landing party duty.
In the beginning of the show there was some all this stuff with the fans going 'we don't
like you' and then a couple of people you know there were cast changes and things like
that and, and there was all this negativity surrounding it.
*Applause* Isn't Wil Wheaton great?
Yes.
Aren't we all surprised?
Yes.
I knew that, I knew that.
He's great, I'm gonna tell you he's got to do every single convention because I've been
out on a couple and uhm sometimes people aren't very nice about Wes, but eh he's a great kid
and if he was 10 years older he would not stand a chance.
Haha.
And the fans meanwhile were writing all these letters of support, and so I thought you know
I should do something just to say thankyou, because it's a wonderful thing when people
are really generous, and they're, they're not just writing and say give me 18 autographs
on an index card, but they really say, we really liked your work.
I can't believe that you're not, you're not there,
or perhaps someone just wanted it to look that way.
And she's right there
*Applause*
*Woos* *Applause*
Mother on stage
*Applause*
and they were really lovely letters I got, and it, it made me feel wonderful.
So I, and I would get them from children and adults, every uhm age range, and the upshot
was, eh well I don't know if it's the only reason, no one will say that, but I think
it must have had some influence.
I was uhm asked back for the third year.
*Applause*
Now does she look amazing or what?
Yeah.
But all I can say is that I had the most fun working with Mum here, and uhm I can't wait
to work with her again, so eh bring back, bring back, bring back my Mum.
She introduced me to the fans, she was at a convention there
and she introduced me to the fans who couldn't care less.
Our show wasn't on the air yet, they had no clue who I was, they weren't interested, they
wanted to see their, you know they wanted to see Kirk and Spock and Sulu you know, (Right,
right) uhm so but she, she said "Wait for me in the bar" and I waited and she came out,
and she knew.
Why should you run?
Could it be possible that you don't know who I am?
You know she's married to the boss, she knew I was getting fired, so she said to me
"Do you eh have you started doing conventions yet?", and I said "No", "OK, you have to start doing conventions"
she didn't tell me why, but she gave me a phone number of an agent and said
"OK make the call", and I started doing conventions, and because and I built my fanbase.
He needs a doctor.
I found my tricorder, come to my room.
*laughter and woos*
*claps*
That is what Jean Luc wanted to hear Doctor Crusher say
*laughter and woos*
*claps*
But, but uhm to attempt to strike a serious note.
This might be a good time to leave.
I came in with a better salary than most of them so I had a few problems with
that as far as the people that had already been there for a year were concerned, so that was a bit of a problem
eh 'cause I came in right up there.
You mean jealousy, I know.
The return of Beverly Crusher, eh Gates McFadden
will be back as the doctor, and for Captain Picard that means that there's going to be
a certain extra frisson
on the ship whenever she and I are together.
Oh!
you couldn't be more wrong sir, you couldn't be more wrong, oh genuinely, and if it looked
like that I'm so sorry, but when you come up and present the award
just f**king get on with it.
I was uhm asked back for the third year, and they decided that maybe the new direction
wasn't the good direction.
Did you get more money?
Well I'm not telling.
I mean if they realised they made a (Aahaha) mistake, and you had been so sad (Aahaha)
in New York I think there should be some you know, little bonus in there somewhere.
Well I would hope.
There is a memo which came from Gene to everybody on the production saying that he did not want
to hear my name mentioned again.
I think there were people that didn't want me to continue.
It was Patrick who called me, and said would you consider (darling)
would you consider coming back?
Stay out of this you mangy fools.
I'm Doctor Pulaski Chief Medical Officer.
I understand you perfectly.
But Michael Dorn and I could really create things.
We could really just take off, and fun things happened and the tea ceremony happened,
and uhm I, I as my character I took great delight in, in Worf.
Uhm I loved my things with Worf.
Doctor,
I wish to thank you.
I'll speak for myself, you, you, because I was the last one cast it was sort of like,
uhm, uhm kind of the odd man out and that type of thing.
Everybody was very nice, it wasn't like that.
We're all just working, all just working.
Long hours.
Long hours working.
But I think that probably for me the second year
was when it started to kind of really
kind of gel.
The year that I was gone.
*Laughter* We we're both gone.
The year that you were gone, yes, that was, It started... that was the year that we really
felt good *Laughter*about what we were doing.
And then it all fell to hell.
And then she comes back, and then NO, eh but I think that, I think the second season for
me was when you, when you started, when you started going O.K. and we as a group, uhm
although we were all headed in that direction eh the first season.
I love Denise.
What do you mean?
It was eh, it was a good choice to come back haha.
*slow hand clap*
Haha haha.
Boo.
I don't know, the, the bond between all of us became so strong during those 7 years,
6 years in your case Gates, but *Laughter* not not really comradely of me to bring that
up, but, but I believe in truth.
Owww.
Such a great enemy, I mean the Borg.
Oh that was, just, maybe.
There were two really great creations I think on Next Generation, one was the Borg who,
just an awesome obstacle, and the other was the holodeck.
You can't outrun them, you can't destroy them.
If you damage them, the essence of what they are remains.
And then they fired him.
He, he, he, he wasn't there haha *applause*
He's gone.
*applause*
I think this is sexist, I think this is this.
Is Patrick had called me "darling" uhm you know it just hasn't been the same.
Eh would you think of coming back?
And then Rick Berman called me, and then finally I got the offer.
That's how bad it was.
Take that you big bully.
I was floundering a bit for a few of the years, but it took, it took quite a while, and I
feel it was really the seventh season it started to get back to more of who I actually thought
the character I had first signed up for was.
I don't want to keep from working at Paramount for the rest of my life, but after Gene died
the, the entire office of his office was cleared out by the next morning at 7:30.
Little things like that.
Are you kidding?
I wonder if I shouldn't warn him.
No, as ships doctor I consider it an excellent exercise for his reflexes and agility.
Doctor!
An extraordinary performance and thankyou for detaining my victim.
Doctor.
You're not attending the dinner with the rest of us this evening?
Well I've already eaten, but thanks Captain.
I'm taking responsibility for this, and eh you can hiss me if you wish.
Eh, it's uhm very interesting to reflect on your experience
of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and what it meant to you then, what it is, has meant
to you, what it means to you now, and what you think it ought to mean for the future,
and us, who have a completely different relationship with that material, and I sometimes worry
a little bit at events like this that we disappoint you a little, in that the kind of things that
you want us to talk about are very difficult for us to analyse, and discuss, partly in
my case 'cause it was 30 years ago and I can't remember breakfast time.
*Laughter* Uhm, and so it, excuse me.
If there has been a disappointment at all in, in hearing our analysis, and memories
of you know, we've laughed so much tonight because those are the memories that we have,
largely, certainly they're my memories.
So I apologise, but *Applause*
I am so sorry, but we are... oh they've gone.
We are out of time.
Thankyou so much.