Stinky spandex, purloined prosthetics, attempted assassinations, and temper tantrums aren't things you'd normally associate with Star Trek: The Next Generation, but those are just a few of the slightly strange things that went on behind the scenes.
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00:00Stinky spandex, purloined prosthetics, attempted assassinations, and temper tantrums aren't
00:05things you'd normally associate with Star Trek The Next Generation, but those are just
00:09a few of the slightly strange things that went on behind the scenes.
00:14Going into the first shoots for Star Trek The Next Generation was strange for Patrick
00:17Stewart.
00:18Before joining the new series ahead of its 1987 premiere, he'd been a serious stage actor
00:23and a highly regarded member of the National Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
00:28There, he'd become used to highly focused work environments.
00:31In his memoir, Making It So, Stewart recalled that the informal antics of his new co-stars
00:36bothered him so much that he called a cast meeting.
00:39When he began to chastise them, fellow cast member Denise Crosby replied,
00:43"'We've got to have some fun sometimes, Patrick.'"
00:45Stewart retorted,
00:46"'We are not here, Denise, to have fun.'"
00:49Everyone laughed.
00:50Stewart later acknowledged that he was being a serious wet blanket at the time, and that
00:54his reaction to fun is itself pretty funny in retrospect.
00:58But the Patrick Stewart of 1987 took this all pretty poorly.
01:02In the face of his colleagues' laughter, he went to sulk in his trailer.
01:05Finally, co-stars Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner knocked on his door and gently talked
01:10their new show lead down.
01:12Stewart admitted that, much like Captain Picard himself, it took most of that first season
01:16for him to shed much of his straight-laced demeanor.
01:19"'You thought I was asleep, didn't you?
01:26Acting.'"
01:27Stewart was so unsure that the show would keep him, due to creator Gene Roddenberry's
01:31displeasure with his casting, that he didn't even bother unpacking his bags for the first
01:35month and a half of filming.
01:37Stewart eventually relaxed on set, and it's made apparent by anecdotes that later came
01:42out from the crew, as well as Stewart himself.
01:44As told by Worf actor Michael Dorn at Fan Expo 2010, he'd routinely attempt elaborate,
01:50Shakespearean assassination attempts on Patrick Stewart during long breaks between takes.
01:55And according to Dorn, the captain would respond in kind, staging an equally dramatic death
02:00from the captain's chair.
02:01Long shooting hours also led to other on-set antics.
02:04Dorn, stuck in his prosthetic Klingon makeup for hours at a time, seemed to be a particular
02:09target because he was the most ready to break his stern character.
02:13Towards the end of the week, Stewart recalled in his autobiography that it became a contest
02:18to make him laugh hard enough that his false mustache would peel off.
02:21"'Captain, magnetic seals in there and—God, Jesus!''
02:26One of the earliest on-set pranks related to a write-up Stewart got in the early days
02:30of Next Generation.
02:32In a cast lineup published in the Los Angeles Times, Stewart was referred to as an unknown
02:36British Shakespearean actor.
02:38He claims that he wasn't so bothered by the assessment, but Brent Spiner took it a step
02:42further by creating a sign that he taped to the door of Stewart's trailer that read,
02:47"'Beware!
02:48Unknown British Shakespearean actor.'"
02:50Stewart says that he still has the sign, even decades later.
02:54The Klingon forehead has been a particularly thorny problem throughout the history of Star
02:58Trek.
02:59In the original series of the 1960s, they had noticeably smooth domes that did little
03:03to distinguish them as aliens.
03:05By the time they started popping up in the feature films, they sported dramatically ridged
03:09foreheads and more complex costumes.
03:11"'What happened?'
03:12"'Some kind of genetic engineering?'
03:14"'A viral mutation?'
03:16"'Would you not discuss it with outsiders?''
03:19The real-world explanation was that the franchise had a bigger budget, and that stylistic change
03:24carried through into the 1980s, when the glowering Lieutenant Worf made his appearance.
03:29But you may notice yet another Klingon forehead transformation between Season 1 and Season
03:342 of Next Generation.
03:35First Season Worf has kind of a smooth forehead.
03:38It's nothing like the original Klingons, but from the second season onwards, his forehead
03:42ridges became more defined.
03:44It's been informally explained as a part of the Klingon aging process, but the behind-the-scenes
03:49rumor is that, between seasons, the facial prosthetics applied to actor Michael Dorn
03:54went missing.
03:55While that seems like an unlikely explanation, since complex aliens usually have a lot of
04:00backup pieces made for filming, the official Star Trek X account confirmed the rumor in
04:052014.
04:07One of the most notorious Star Trek episodes is Skin of Evil, in which security chief Tasha
04:12Yar is abruptly murdered by an angry puddle of black slime.
04:16Actor Denise Crosby was reportedly displeased with the evolution of her character, but she
04:20did return to the show later after asking to come back, as both an alternate universe
04:25version of herself and her own daughter.
04:27In Skin of Evil, the black goo monster called Armus was an especially gross part of production.
04:33According to actor Jonathan Frakes, who had to go in the goo himself, when he asked the
04:37show's prop master just what was in the glop, he was told it was a mixture of Metamucil
04:42and black ink.
04:43The real endurance test was for stunt performer Mart McChesney, who spent four days in the
04:48cumbersome goop suit.
04:55Though the glop was reportedly non-toxic, it proved to be a massive mess, and the crew
05:00set up a hose to routinely rinse themselves off.
05:03It wasn't even the grossest thing Frakes did for the love of the show.
05:06In the episode Conspiracy, Commander Riker pretends to be taken over by a bug-eating
05:11alien, and to prove his allegiance to the invaders, he consumes a wriggling worm.
05:16But as a final indignity, the shot wasn't even used in the episode.
05:20It wasn't just the complex alien makeup that was agonizing, but the everyday Starfleet
05:25costume as well.
05:26William Weartice, who designed some of the original series' costumes, was called up to
05:31design the first round of looks for Next Generation.
05:34In contrast to earlier movie uniforms, he went back to a softer look and used plenty
05:38of heavyweight spandex.
05:40Patrick Stewart wasn't much of a fan, and neither were other cast members who felt that
05:45the form-fitting material and one-piece suits were rather unforgiving.
05:49Costume designer Robert Blackman also reported that the suits retained a lot of bad smells,
05:54resulting in a wardrobe department that reeked of sweat and dry-cleaning chemicals.
05:58"...smells musty in here."
06:00In making it so, Stewart wrote that these original uniforms were so constricting they
06:04could get painful.
06:05But showrunner Gene Roddenberry didn't want to change his futuristic vision.
06:10Stewart and his agent finally decided to get a doctor's note confirming that the uncomfortable
06:14uniforms were causing harm.
06:15"...one of the things you have to be on Star Trek is uncomfortable in your costume.
06:20It adds character."
06:21The costumes underwent a change after that, but Stewart still had to constantly straighten
06:26his new two-piece outfit, a move that became known as the Picard Maneuver.
06:32Musician Mick Fleetwood doesn't seem like someone who'd get stage fright.
06:35Sure, he's part of the legendary rock band Fleetwood Mac, but he's also a serious Star
06:40Trek fan.
06:41And because his sister was a close friend of Patrick Stewart at the time, he managed
06:45to land himself a small role on the show as one of the series' strangest cameos.
06:49"...what a handsome race."
06:53Fleetwood was so serious about his role that he shaved off the beard he had for 30 years
06:57to play a goofy-looking fish alien who mostly spoke only one word.
07:02"...fall out, fall out, fall out."
07:04But according to anecdotes told by other cast members, he apparently had a bad case of nerves
07:09on set.
07:10Brent Spiner noted during a fan convention appearance, probably in jest, that Fleetwood
07:14couldn't land his one line, and joked about holding up cue cards and miming to help Fleetwood
07:19along.
07:20"...that is an outrage."
07:21Whether true or not, Fleetwood admitted he was very far out of his element, indicating
07:25some kind of strife on set.
07:27He told the Vancouver Sun,
07:29"...I was basically an idiot, trying to do what I was doing."