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Posted:
09:59:07 on May 07 2002
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: People
Tracy Torme (son of Mel Torme) was a member of TNG writing staff during its
first two seasons, and he talks in the June 2002 issue of Star Trek: The Magazine about his sometimes tumultuous experience in the show's early years. He had a very close relationship with Gene Roddenberry and as
a result, Roddenberry excused him from some of the staff writer
responsibilities like attending the story break sessions or rewriting
scripts from others. He worked on his own and had a commitment to deliver three scripts each season.
Torme said he was always trying to push the boundaries:
"To my mind, during the first season, one of the problems with the show was
that it played it very safe and was timid in what it was doing. There was a
kind of conservative overview - 'We'd better not make it too funny or
strange because that might alienate people.' That conservatism carried over
into the second season. I definitely had a sense that I wanted to rock the
boat. I felt that was not a disloyal thing for me to be doing, because most
of the shows were going to be fastballs down the middle. I thought if I
throw some curveballs in I'd be doing the show a service. That wasn't what
the show was going to be every week, so why not do some that were a bit
different?"
In the first season, his three scripts were "Haven," the Peabody award-winning "The Big Goodbye" and the controversial "Conspiracy" (which was rejected by
the head writer Maurice Hurley but Torme was able to use his close
relationship with Roddenberry to get made).
When the second season started, the producers decided to change the doctor
character in order to introduce more conflict between characters. Torme had
his own ideas about that change:
"I made a strong pitch for a race of aliens that is known for absolute
honesty at all times. To them, telling even a small lie is just as bad as
telling a monstrously huge lie. I thought it would be interesting to have a
doctor who is always going to tell the truth about your status as a patient
and about what they think of you. I pushed for that because I thought,
'Let's not just bring another human doctor. Let's do something that, just by
its nature, will stir up some controversy and conflict.' I really felt that
it would have been a great thing for them do to but there was just no
reception to it at all and it was never seriously considered."
His first script during the second season was supposed to be a Spock episode, but that was shelved when they could not sign Leonard Nimoy (they eventually
did a Spock episode in the 5th season they went with a different story):
"I was going to write the Spock episode. That would have been something I
would have really enjoyed; it would have been fun to bridge the two series.
I actually wrote up what I think would have been an amazing story, but for
whatever reason, it all fell apart and I put it away. It was going to go
back to the Guardian of Forever."
Instead, his first second season script was "The Schizoid Man". Some changes
were made to his script by Hurley, including removing a scene where data is
bald like Picard (earlier in the episode data had a beard like Riker), but
he is basically happy with that episode. The changes made in "The Schizoid Man" were just a precursor of things
to come, causing major conflict between him and Maurice Hurley.
His next episode was "The Royale." His script was much different than the
final filmed version; in his story the hotel was based on the memories of
the dying astronaut (and not a book) and the astronaut appears as a
character. A lot of changes were made to the script, the last straw being the
removal of the astronaut and he became so dismayed that he removed his name and
used a pseudonym instead:
"I really felt it would work. I remember thinking, 'This is going to be a
mind bending show'. I loved the surrealism in it. They made a big point at
the time - 'We don't want to do big guest roles. We want to concentrate on
our characters.' So the astronaut became a skeleton and everything about him
in the piece was gone. That was the biggest thing I had a problem with in
the rewrites; he was the heart of the story for me. Piece by piece, when I
would see these rewrites on this draft, I just thought, 'oh, my God' because
it was so different. That's where 'Keith Mills' came to life. I found it
very painful. I don't think I've ever watched the whole episode, because I
don't think I could make it through it."
His final script was "Manhunt." Again, there were major changes made to his
script, mostly to the Dixon Hill scenes, and again he used a pseudonym.
After his experience with "The Royale," he was not entirely committed to
"Manhunt" and has never seen the episode:
"I really didn't put much of my heart and soul into it. I had to do it
because I was under contract. I knew this thing wasn't going to be done the
way I wanted, so I basically didn't get attached to it like I did to 'The
Royale'. I used a different pseudonym as a further protest. It's
interesting, because in the Writers Guild you're allowed to have two
pseudonyms and then they are with you for the rest of your life. These are
the only scripts that 'Terry Devereaux' and 'Keith Mills' ever wrote before
they vanished from the face of the Earth!"
At the end of second season Maurice Hurley left the show, so Berman asked
Torme to return but he decided it was time to move on. Looking back he has
mostly good memories: "I had fun. I had a good time there."
He has high praise for Berman:
"Rick Berman has an incredible capacity for keeping everything on track and
he played a pivotal role in shepherding the series through some difficult
times."
The person who had the most profound effect on him was Roddenberry:
"My relationship with Roddenberry had a big effect on me and changed the
course of my career in a lot of ways. He had a lot of affection for me and
really took me under his wings. Very early on he told me that he felt that I
would be creating my own show someday, and he showed me the benefits of
doing that. That really sparked my interest in creating my own shows, which
I really don't believe I ever would have done otherwise. I owe him a lot."
After leaving Trek, Torme went on to co-create 'Sliders' and was the
executive producer of that show during its first two seasons.
For more of this article, check out the June 2002 issue of Star Trek: The Magazine and thanks to TrekWeb's 'Cyrus' once again for the excerpts.
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