In 1988 you joined the cast of Star Trek The Next Generation.
I did. How did that come about?
That came about because Gene Roddenberry asked me if I would
and I loved working with him, and I said that would be wonderful.
We started the second season very late, and we started it without Gates.
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.
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 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 six times in a row,
and there have to be some of those genes that are Beverly Crushers, so why is it
EVERY time anything with any wisdom is said it's a maaale character who talks to him.
If a man's difficult it's artistic temperament, if a woman's difficult she's a bitch. Right.
There was nobody I hated in the beginning. I'm glad that they brought her back,
and you know I missed Gates the whole time she was gone.
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.
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.
I know how difficult it was for you being away.
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?
Michael Dorn and I could really create things we could really just take off, and a lot of
things happen and the tea ceremony happened, and uhm I, I as my character I took great
delight in Worf. I love my things with Worf.
I don't I mean I, I, I don't know. 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 at all, just working, all just working. Long hours.
Long hours working. But I think that probably for me the second year is when it started to kind of
really kind of gel. The year that I was gone. Haha haha. We we're both gone.
The year that you were gone, yes, that was, that was the year that we really felt good 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 it, 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 mean I love Denise
I don't know,
the, the bond between all of us became so strong during those seven years, six years in your case Gates, but
not really comradely of me to bring that up, but, but I believe in truth.
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 seven thirty.
Little things like that.