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By GustavoLeao / 21:53, 1 March 2013 / General Star Trek
Trekcore just wrapped a 5-part interview with ROGER LAY, JR. who is producing content for the Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Enterprise Blu-Rays.
TrekCore: Looking at the Enterprise DVDs, it’s arguable that they got the best VAM package back in the day, with all of the deleted scenes and blooper reels. Does that make it difficult for you, as a producer, to top that for the Blu-rays?
Roger Lay, Jr.: It could be, if it was just the case that I was a VAM producer who didn’t know the franchise and didn’t have what I have now – this relationship with all the creative people from the show. I’ve been doing all these other creative pieces for TNG and we’ve found a good rhythm and we’ve found something that works. I think, for us, it became pretty obvious where we needed to go with these Blu-ray sets. On TNG, we had a very heavy focus on the VAM, because you had the Okudas and the guys at CBS Digital dealing with the episodes – on this one, I’ve been, with Angelo Dante, an overall Blu-ray producer on everything. We’ve been finding really cool vintage stuff, to present as stand alone pieces and also material to incorporate into the new documentaries. I’ve been even more involved with the day to day production of these blu-ray sets for Enterprise than with the TNG sets.
What was lacking, from those DVD special features that were there before, was a chronological exploration of how the show came together, why it came together the way it did, why they made the creative decisions they ended up making… you needed that, kind of like a "Stardate Revisited" documentary, like we did on TNG Season One. That’s kind of what we did – again, the centerpiece is a ninety-minute, feature-length documentary which answers all of those questions. It really presents a clear idea of where the franchise was at the time; where the creators were at the time; why they made the decisions they did. Some of the things, you never would have heard about in terms of why the show came together the way it did; even some casting choices that didn’t come together. You get that sense of, "Oh, this is how it all happened. This is why it is the way it is." – rather than those individual featurettes you had before, that just kind of highlighted specific elements about the show, or just certain episodes – now you ge a look at the first season as a whole and the journey that led to it.
The deleted scenes have been ported over; everything has been ported over. We found the original presentations for the network; we found the syndication presentation and we also found the cast introduction – I don’t know if you’ve seen that – it’s one of the first days of filming, Rick Berman is on set; he addresses the fans and he welcomes them to the set; he introduces Scott Bakula as the new captain, and Scott introduces the entire cast. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that. We found a really good master of that, so that’s in there as well.
I also wanted to focus on this dynamic that we discovered – when we were doing the TNG Blu-rays – of getting people together again. Like the TNG cast reunion, the writing staff reunion, the art department reunion that you’re going to be seeing on Season Four of Next Generation – we found that there’s this great reaction when enough time has passed, and you put people together in a room. It just helps trigger wonderful emotions and recollections from one another and they are now more willing to say things or express feelings they’d never expressed before. So we thought, why not get the two men responsible for the show together for a candid conversation? – and I’m really excited about this piece, I really want to hype this one; I think even Trek fans who don’t care about Enterprise will dig this piece… I’m not just shamelessly plugging this Blu-ray set, but you should really pick up this season one set, because of this piece called "In Conversation" with Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. I don’t know if Rob told you, but… our brains exploded when we were filming this thing. We couldn’t believe what we were getting. These are the 'bad boys’ of Star Trek, the two guys who made every decision that every fan either loves or hates, and they finally sat down for ninety minutes… very candid, answering every question and every topic we threw at them --from why they made the creative decisions they made, to how they see each other and their role or place in the Star Trek legacy, even Rick on what it feels like to be considered ‘the guy who killed the franchise’TrekCore: It’s a really interesting point, because Rick Berman is one of the people who is most tied in to this sort of thing, he likes to be a little bit political and give very politically correct answers to questions… but suddenly, according to Rob, when he was put together with Brannon, they both just opened up and gave you stuff that we’d never even dreamed of them saying before.
Roger Lay, Jr.: Yeah! It helped that now they trust us, and they have a relationship with us; it’s not just a documentary crew that they’ve never met showing up. We’ve been working with them now for a year and a half on the TNG stuff; we’ve spent a lot of time with them. They’ve seen our work at this point, they’ve seen two Blu-ray sets of Next Gen, and they’ve loved everything they’ve seen. Brannon and I have been working very closely on Enterprise; from the beginning, we sat down, spent hours conceptualizing these things; Brannon simply said "What do you need from me?" and I’d say, "Show me your early [show] bible, show me this, show me that." He also put me in touch with a lot of people… so there’s a relationship now where they trust that we’re doing good work, and that we’re there for the right reasons; they’re open and honest about their answers, which is immensely helpful. Some of the stuff that’s there - we got away with murder! We were asking all these things, and they would just answer; one after another, they were just batting them back.
I think that if you just care about the making of television programs or anything along the lines of how this industry works – or even how the Star Trek franchise ran for so many years under the guidance of one man, how this franchise has functioned, even if you’re not a fan of Enterprise – this piece is really important to see. Here are the two people that, for the most part, kept it running for the majority of all those key years. By the way, Rick did twenty-five seasons of television on Star Trek – and four films – not a lot of people have that to their credit. Whether you like the decisions that he made or you don’t, not a lot of people have accomplished that. Just like people saying he ‘killed the franchise’, well, there wasn’t really much of a franchise until he came along. The show was dead, Gene was trying to bring it back; but Rick was key in helping turn a very risky proposition to catch lightning in a bottle for the second time into four shows, four major motion pictures, a theme park attraction, and a multi-million dollar merchandising machine. He kept that machine going for 18 years and that’s pretty amazing and fascinating.
What Rick did brilliantly – and you’ll see in the documentaries and also in the "In Conversation" piece – he kept the machine going. Rick wasn’t the guy there coming up with brilliant story ideas, or thinking about what’s the best story to tell; he was the guy making that machine function so that all the other individuals who were in place – like Michael Piller, like Ira Behr – could do what they did best. I really, honestly think that if Rick hadn’t been there for those 18 years, it would have been a very different story. And it’s quite remarkable. It’s interesting to see him talk about it… he’s a very nuts-and-bolts kind of a guy. He’ll give it to you straight. He saw it as a pipeline that needed to be fed, needed to be on time, needed to function on schedule and with a specific budget; he did it. He pulled it off, so I’m really happy that he sat down with us and answered all these questions, and just really put all these things into perspective. I’m hoping that fans will check out that piece; I really feel that if you don’t care about Enterprise, and you’re not even thinking you’re going to give it a second chance now, with these Blu-rays, at least check out "In Conversation", because it’s really fascinating.
It’s one of those things… Rob and I, as Trek fans, were sitting in the edit bay watching it, just going, "We can’t believe this happened." If we remove ourselves from the equation as the guys who did it, who made it happen, we’re still just there, mesmerized. We’ve always wanted to see this. As fans, we always wanted to see these two – especially Rick – talk about these issues and address all these topics, and here it is! We have it! I’m hoping that fans will respond positively to that. It kind of continues the tradition we’ve had with all the Next Gen pieces; really giving the fans candid, insightful, interesting pieces of material. Not just fluff pieces that you sit down, and go "Oh, I learned nothing from this. What a waste of time! What a missed opportunity!"

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