The only thing he did that was questionable was set up 4 shifts. That’s a big change and having engineering work around the clock is a bit of a dick move.
I never understood why the producers put Troi, Seven of Nine and T’Pol into those stupid catsuits in the first place. All of them looked so much more sexy whenever they wore the standard Starfleet uniform.
In addition to what was said about Berman, there’s also Gene Roddenberry. The best way I can explain how his opinion of women evolved over time is that he allowed Marina Sirtis to have that role on TNG even though she didn’t sleep with him. The same was not true of Nichelle Nichols in the 1960s.
Sirtis only stayed on the show after season 1 because Denise Crosby left. Not because there was a rift between them, but because she wasn’t crossing the “too many women on the show” threshold anymore.
Gates McFadden left TNG for Season 2 because she ran afoul of Maurice Hurley, one of Roddenberry’s lap dogs:
I had been in conflict with one of the male writer-producers about certain things I thought were sexist. What I’ve heard is that he said ‘Either she goes or I go.’ I was shocked that they let me go, because I knew my character was really popular. But he was going to be writing more and more and didn’t want to have to deal with me. What was great was they got rid of him and asked me to come back.
To his credit, Rick Berman asked her back, but I think it was only because Dr. Katherine Pulaski was such an unpopular character and the fans kept writing letters about bringing back Dr. Crusher.
Rick Berman and Gene Roddenberry understood, to varying degrees, that it was important to have women represented as strong, intelligent equals—but did not necessarily personally hold that value.
She was unpopular because she was mean to Data right after Measure Of A Man. I know she turned around some near the end but tbh I had a bad impression of her because of that.
She wasn’t mean to data she was skeptical about his nature. I consider her relationship with data one of the best things on the show, and episodes like the one where Riker commanded the other ship in a war games exercise showed her to be fond of data regardless of her position on his sentience. It would have been amazing to see her mind changed over the course of seasons.
JFC, I hope that the next incarnation of Trek has writers and producers that aren’t so sexist.
I say this as a dude who’s sexual awakening was a combination of Stevie Nicks, Deanna Troi (as I knew her then), and Ryan Reynolds. JUST LET PEOPLE BE WHO THEY ARE. I don’t know of any military institution (and let’s be honest, that’s what Starfleet is) that specifically dresses one officer different from another based on gender, and I can’t figure out why the concept would transpose itself into a show based on being progressive. The only example I can think of is the Salvation Army, which has all the dress code qualities of your average preppy high school 30 years ago. But don’t get me started on that racket…
I get shit for this but my opinion is almost the exact opposite. Watching her, it feels like they scraped Dr. McCoy’s lines from unused TOS scripts and directed her with “look, you’re just Bones as a woman”. There are also things I really like about her character, like being one of the only characters who can really butt heads with Captain Picard, but it feels like a retreading of old ground.
Troi was put in the catsuit from day one, to capture the teenage boy market (and most of the rest of the male market). They put her on a uniform at the height of Star Trek popularity.
Seven came in at season 4 of Voyager with the extremely tight catsuit. This is the third series of the 90s era plus a couple of movies, so franchise fatigue started to set in. They needed a way to boost ratings, and they already knew of one surefire way.
With Enterprise, they didn't even try to hide it. T'Pol could have very easily worn a standard Vulcan uniform, which we've seen multiple examples. The catsuit was blatantly used to try to regain some audience. Unfortunately they didn't realize until it was too late that good writing and multi-episode arcs were what we really wanted.
I'm not entirely sure that seven's catsuit was really what boosted ratings with adding her to the crew though.
The fact is, she was a good character with interesting development. She put life back into a kind of meh show and quickly became one of the stars over most of the original crew.
But ratings was, without question, the intent of that stupid outfit. It just makes me sad to think back that they might not have needed it.
She was added due to her looks, but she ended up being a surprisingly deep character. I like Steve Shives’s review of her character, and so did Jeri Ryan.
And it pretty much worked. Lots of TVs got tuned to UPN to check out Jeri Ryan’s tertiary adjunct.
And stayed tuned to UPN because Seven of Nine finally made the show work. She serves as a perfect foil for Janeway as well as that Pinocchio character that explores the human condition from the outside in, in the grand tradition of Spock and Data. And Jeri Ryan turned in 4 seasons of amazing performances in the role. All while vacuum packed from neck to ankles in silver vinyl.
Now Enterprise…it’s pretty obvious they tried to make that lightning strike twice with T’Pol but Jolene Blalock had some pretty big stilettos to fill and I don’t think she nor the writers really pulled it off. They of course ratcheted up the fanservice not only with T’Pol but with half the principal cast; Hoshi ended up pointlessly topless in one scene and Trip and Mayweather ended up in the decontamination chamber as often as T’Pol did. It was just generally a thirstier show, and that’s not the only thing about it that just didn’t work.
It kinda killed Enterprise for me. The catsuit and the gratuitous “decontamination” scenes. It felt really off.
It’s not like I’m prudish or anything, I like that kind of thing in certain contexts. But it’s Star Trek, I’m watching this thing to get my nerd on. Trying to sex it up just made it weird.
Absolutely way better here. Said it for years Starfleet uniforms > catsuit bullshit. That has to be a specific fetish of a Paramount exec, Rick Berman probably.
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