The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek

I had to come to IMDb to determine the proper order of the episodes.

This is basically a longer version of William Shatner's great movie, "Chaos on the Bridge"

I was aware of the fact that Gene Roddenberry had been relegated to practically a fan of his own show after his failed interference with The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan.

And I never knew that Gene had a substance-abuse problem, it makes me relate to him a lot more, I know how terrible that can be.

This is a man who single-handedly created one of the largest television franchises ever, and then he was kicked out of it, and cheated out of his well earned royalty monies.

And he has a remarkable success story in how he clawed his way back not only his well deserved royalties but also to being in charge of Star Trek the Next Generation, through the machinations of Leonard Maislish, as told in the episode "Queue for Q". As despicable as the man appeared to be, he is responsible for one thing that we can all be thankful for: he brought John De Lancie in to play Q.

But what was good for Gene Roddenberry was not good for Star Trek the Next Generation, and we get to hear all about that in this series.

Gene personally wrote "The Cage", "The Menagerie", "The Omega Glory", some of the best episodes of the original series. And it even appears as if the original series when renewed for its third season at 10 o'clock Friday night, Lost a lot when Gene stepped down as Producer... so we can't really completely blame the horrible Friday night death slot, but also the fact that the show's main driving force was no longer involved in making the show.

But in this series, we learn about Gene's inability to write a movie script of any worth. Granted, he was a brilliant television producer and television writer. But he wrote script after script for proposed movies, and also the proposed "phase 2" television show which never happened, all miserable failures.

I could not understand how such a brilliant man could fail in this way.

But he made a big comeback for TNG, he was given back all, er, most of the authority that he lost. But he never really wrote any more episodes for television or elsewhere other than half of "Encounter at Farpoint", stepping on DC Fontana's toes in the process.

I was glad that they interviewed Diana Muldaur for this. I always thought that she had deliberately played Dr. Pulaski as if she were a female Doctor McCoy, and I always thought she was brilliant in that role. But I find it sad that she did not like working on the show, especially after adding so much to it.

Every television show has its dark spots, Trek has had its share.

It just goes to show that the cast and crew of this franchise are human beings, nothing more.

This is a brilliant and brutally honest series, expanding upon William Shatner's revelations from "Chaos on the Bridge".

But if you are watching this on Prime, come back to IMDb to find out the proper order of the episodes because they choked the duck, totally mixing up the order of the episodes so that the narrative makes no sense. I actually had to stop playback and come here to find out what was missing.

Overall it had a lot of ground to cover so kudos there. I did not care for the short takes and goofy approach - whoever decided to take that tack I think a bit over used.

One thing that I noticed after the last episode was besides mentioning the music themes was the lack of the music scoring in general - specifically TOS incidental music - name any show you can recall the music during the episodes (maybe outside of Mission Impossible) that you can, years later, recall the music... Klingon theme, Doomsday/Immunity Syndrome theme, 'spore' music, etc.

Other than that not addressed, it was a decent show. Gates did good job narrating.

And yes Enterprise theme stunk - made me not want to watch.

I was born in the late 60s, my dad liked Star Trek TOS when I was a youngster in the 70s and so mum was ok with me watching it too. I really enjoyed the animated series at the time but quickly forgot it as when I was 11 The Motion Picture turned up. Since then there have been a succession of films and series and there's been something new in terms of Star Trek for most of my life.

Having watched now the first 5 episodes it has been wonderful to revisit the beginning, the talented and creative people and real world things that happened. Disputes, tight deadlines and plan B, C or D situations that still somehow came together to create something that has always been really special in my life and that if so many others.

It's been so interesting to see archive footage of some of the team who aren't with us anymore and also learn so many things already (only half way through) that I didn't know before.

The Star Trek franchise does a celebratory 11-episode documentary series on itself. As with this type of shows, one has to be weary about personal slants of its creators. Of course, Gene is long gone and nobody has to tip-toe around his drug use. Nobody is deliberately trashing the man, ok except for one guy. They do walk that line of celebrating the show while not hiding its warts. This is very much for its fans. There is some fun information. Quite frankly, I remember the Desilu logo but I didn't know about Lucy fighting for the show. I do have a question or two which the show fails to answer. That's fair enough. This has good info and has some fun.

Loved this Star Trek 55 anniversary documentary! I am not sure how I missed this when it was first released, but I am happy I found this recently. It is a lovely summary of 55 years of Trek with new tidbits of info I never had heard before. I am so glad to add this to my Star Trek DVD collection. I like the layout starting with the beginnings and then covering each show. I hope they do something similar in the future when the 60th anniversary rolls around. There have been new shows since thiw doc was made. Specifically ST Strange New Worlds comes to mind. And I felt that Gates did a great job narrating.