If you’re a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and want to hear some really cool stories about the making of both series and the wild way Star Trek led to Ronald D. Moore getting his break in Hollywood, you’re in the right place. That’s because last week I did an extended interview with Ronald D. Moore as part of our Collider Connected interview series and he shared some great behind-the-scenes stories about being part of Star Trek including many I didn’t know. If you’re not aware, Moore wrote over twenty-five episodes of TNG, fifteen episodes of DS9, and was one of the writers on Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact, so he has a lot of firsthand knowledge.
Anyway, back when TNG was filming on the Paramount lot in the late 80s, they offered weekly tours so fans could see the sets up close. It ends up Moore was dating a girl at the time who had a contact at Star Trek and she got him on a tour scheduled for about six weeks from when she asked. Moore decided he’d write an episode of The Next Generation while he waited for the tour and bring it to set to try and land a job. Here’s how Moore described it:
“I just decided I was going to give it a shot, and I sat down and wrote an episode and I tucked it under my arm and I brought it with me on the set tour. I convinced the guy that was giving the set tour, his name was Richard Arnold to read the script. He liked it and gave it to my first agent. Richard was one of Gene Roddenberry's assistants. So the agent submitted it to the show formally. It sat in the slush pile for about seven months. Then Michael Piller, the late Michael Piller came aboard at the beginning of the third season, looking for materials, started going through the slush pile, found the script, bought it, produced it, asked me to write a second one. I did a second one. Then after that he brought me on staff and I was there for 10 years. It was a very lucky, amazing break that I got. I was very young. I was like 25.”
In this day and age something like this would probably never happen due to all the rules in place about unsolicited submissions, but it’s incredible to hear how Moore got started.
Besides sharing how he got started, Moore talked about the incredible production challenges trying to make twenty-six episodes a season on TNG, why they weren’t allowed to tell season-long storylines, how the writers were essentially working all year long, co-writing the TNG series finale "All Good Things" and how they came up with the idea of Picard playing poker with the crew at the end of the episode, and so much more.
After we discussed TNG, we dove into DS9 where Moore talked about why he landed on that series and not Voyager, how DS9 was able to push boundaries like featuring the first same-sex kiss on Star Trek, how the writers room was different from TNG, why they didn’t map out a season-long arc, the newfound respect for the series that it didn’t have as it aired, and more. Finally, at the end of the interview, Moore shared what props he took home from set and how he saved something very cool from the dumpster when the sets were being destroyed.
Like I said previously, if you’re a fan of TNG or DS9, you’re going to love hearing Moore share some behind-the-scenes stories that I’m sure you don’t know.
Due to how much these series mean to me, I’m doing something a bit unusual for this interview: you can either watch what Moore had to say in the player below, or you can read the full transcript further down the page. I know some of you prefer watching videos while others would rather just read the text. As usual, below the video is a listing of what we talked about.
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