Blood and Fire

June 11, 2012 3:52 AM

"Blood and Fire" is an episode written by David Gerrold for possible use on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The script was commissioned and written, but never actually filmed because certain studio executives had a negative reaction to its positive depiction of an openly gay couple. It was eventually adapted by Gerrold into a standalone novel. With Gerrold's permission, Carlos Pedraza rewrote Blood and Fire for the fan series Star Trek: New Voyages. Gerrold did a final draft polish and also directed the episode. The entire two part episode is available on You Tube: Part 1, Part 2

You may notice a familiar face in the cast (No Spoilers, sweetie.)

posted by wittgenstein (10 comments total)

Gerrold's book about writing The Trouble With Tribbles and getting it actually filmed was fascinating to read, and kind of ruined Star Trek for me. Literally one of those "seeing the sausage get made" things. Not that I ended up disgusted by the show after reading it, but more that it all became so transparent to me that I found it impossible to watch an episode without seeing its construction, and so the events and story got lost under the architecture for me.

Still, it was a valuable book to me, as it demystified television on some level.

This post is interesting. I look forward to watching the links when I get a chance.
posted by hippybear at 4:14 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think I'll have try watching ST:NW. I usually avoid any and all fan productions as the acting is always cringeworthy, but the first few minutes of an episode I sampled seemed decent in that regard.
posted by Zarkonnen at 4:22 AM on June 11, 2012

Gerrold's "Tribbles" book was one of those I re-read constantly through my youth, not just for the script but for the sausage aspect. I love writing and his experience cured me early on of any desire to screenwrite at all.... and I learned I'd much rather direct.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:44 AM on June 11, 2012

New Voyages: If what you like about TOS is the bad acting, then have we got great news for you!

(I love TOS with all my heart, but Jebus.)
posted by DU at 4:47 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I always mean to watch this, and don't.
But I am attracted by their passion, and that they have been doing it so long.
posted by Mezentian at 4:55 AM on June 11, 2012

Hippybear: then don't read Inside Star Trek by Herb Solow and Robert Justman. Everything you don't want to know about Gene Roddenberry plus "Hey, you know who stinks? Everyone else in the business!"

The only people that come out looking good are Nimoy and the other non-Shatner actors.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 5:18 AM on June 11, 2012

And from a series of links I followed out of this FPP, I found out that:

In the fall of 2002, Viacom, the owners of the UPN network on which Enterprise was aired, mandated that all fictional programs on its schedule would, sometime during the 2002-2003 season, produce a special episode addressing the AIDS-HIV pandemic.

(under the section Production history, which I can't link directly to)

I think that's pretty cool: an entire media conglomerate bringing this topic to the forefront of discussion, quietly, without patting itself on the back for its activism in the process. It's even cooler that they didn't mandate the message (AFAICT), just the topic.
posted by IAmBroom at 6:29 AM on June 11, 2012

That's a pity. I would loved to have seen "Tonight, in a very special Enterprise..."
posted by Mezentian at 7:46 AM on June 11, 2012

Nerdgasm alert : targaryen motto in homo star trek episode written by someone who shares a name with Darkstar. OMGWTFBBQ!
posted by lalochezia at 10:27 AM on June 11, 2012

I get the sausage-making aspect ruining the suspension of disbelief, at least in some cases, but I never really had that problem with Star Trek, maybe because it requires a pretty hefty suspension of disbelief in the first place. The Making of Star Trek is not only a great book on the creation and running of a TV show, it may be the first such book--it was published just before the start of the third season of the original series. (The DS9 Companion book is also great, with much less technical detail but much more inside baseball.) Part of my struggle as a young Trekkie was understanding why a show that great ever went off the air, and TMoST helped me understand that it was something of a small miracle that the show ever made it on the air in the first place.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:43 PM on June 11, 2012