TNG@20 – Reading Rainbow Goes Behind The Scenes August 16, 2007
by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: TNG , trackbackAs part of our 20th Anniversary celebration of Star Trek The Next Generation, here are clips from LeVar Burton’s Reading Rainbow visiting the TNG set during the first season.
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1ST AHH SHIII YEH N I live in Australia as well so I’m reall surprised :P
Once again TNG Rules.
First? Sweet. First time ever.
Does anyone recognize that episode offhand? Is that “Lonely Among Us” with the Anticans and Selay?
I remember watching this in my high chair first run. I was already a li’l Trekkie. Good times.
Oh man I remember when this episode of Reading Rainbow first aired as a kid, I loved this one! I tried to catch it when it repeated as much as possible.
P.S. Well played, Lukas. Well played indeed. *grumble*
you guys can’t recognize the episode? I know the first season was not the best but come on I thought you early commenters would be the hard core.
first one to name the episode I will send a teaser poster #1
i will give a hint: this was a landmark episode in the series (to win the poster you also have to name why)
where no one has gone before.
it was the first episode to mention Captain Kirk and the first Enterprise.
and they left the galaxy.
well there was post stuff from that….but what episode were they shooting live…with all the scenes talking about the solar flares?
d’oh.
you should track down Michael Dorn’s appearance as Worf on Webster :-)
solar flares … the one with Merritt Buttrick and Judson Scott? where Tasha Yar says “just say no”?
or the one with the Klingons ….? Heart of Glory i think it was called …
it was the last episode filmed with Denise Crosby as a regular
to win the poster you must name the episode being shot in parts 1 and two (where Geordi is talking about solar flares) and the historical significance
was it called Symbiosis? the last one Denise filmed? I haven’t watched TNG in years.
i think she waves as the cargo bay doors close, doesn’t she?
The ep is ‘Symbiosis’. Historic because it includes Merritt Butrick & Judson Scott, both from Wrath of Kahn.
Steve is correct and first. Would have accepted the TWOK as historic as well. Steve email me your address for teaser poster #1
Ahh nuts. I must have been moments behind! Congrats Steve.
Holy shit, you mean I actually get something?
sorry sean….but thanks for playing. Yes steve…trekmovie.com…the site that keeps on giving.
dont worry folks I plan on doing some actual contests in the future….but maybe some more impromptu contests like this one as well.
so keep coming back…..you have to play to win!
TrekMovie.com – you can’t win it if you’re not in it.
Nice stuff – first time I have seen it. Sure does shatter the illusion though.
There were a bunch of first season eps, including the ‘Just Say No to Drugs’ episode with Metric Buttcrack and the ‘We’re Old, Give Us Yer Kids!’ episode. Plus a little ‘00110101110000100011100111′ thrown in.
I remember this from when it first aired. I can’t claim to have been young enough, and wasn’t even a Dad yet, but it caught my interest. Reading Rainbow ran for years and was very well made.
Who was in that very last frame, Bionic Bunny or pre-Silver Fox Jay Leno?
Oh, and are the rumors true that Bionic Bunny will play Kirk?
No worries Anthony. Fair is fair, and I was slow on the trigger! Next time.
I remember watching this when I was a kid too.
It’s still funny how much that beautiful TNG bridge looks like just a cheap wooden set without the sound effects added.
Say what you want about early TNG but I think the show was so much more entertaining then.
Frack! Robbed of first, and then I miss the prize!
:P
I remember watching this back in the day, and being totally floored that that scout ship was made out of disposable razors.
I find myself rather nostalgic for the old days of special effects, what with the tricks of light and moving the camera. There’s something wonderful about it, and in some ways CGI hasn’t improved upon the old techniques.
I wish they would use models for Trek Remastered, the Enterprise looks weightless!
#30
Yeah a lot of the charm and magic is gone now. Before you used to go “Wow, I wonder how they DID that??”
Now, you pretty much know how they’re all done– by a bunch of guys sitting in front of computers. It just doesn’t inspire the same sense of wonder.
Oh man, I remember watching this in 3rd grade. Then I took a bunch of glitter and a glass of water, and I tried to beam up my Galoob TNG figures.
Those are some cool memories, guys. I remember seeing this for the first time and being a sfx junkie, I was totally floored that they actually showed the filming model of the Enterprise. This being the land before the internets, getting any kind of behind the scenes goodies on Star Trek was like finding gold. And for all the TNG haters, I would just have to say that it was really a good show and I bet most of you watched it and liked it. It seems to be fashionable to pan it but it was easily 50 times better than 90% of what was being aired at the time.
Much love and big props to the crew of the D.
LOL Burton seemed so young and naive there he was much more interesting once he matured a bit he was great in the movies and the later seasons of TNG.
LOL Anthony quick question how does it feel to put the “OFFICIAL” Star Trek website to shame when it comes to this film??
#30 — Yeah, I grew up with CGI and I still feel nostalgic for the days when they were using old razors and spare parts for the sfx…
God, those buttons in the electronic editing room looked more complicated than the control panels on the Enterprise…
Interesting clips I’ve never seen before.
Btw…it will be great to resume the ‘preview’ videos of TOS Remastered at some time in the future again, as I’ve been missing them…
#35 I’m pretty sure he’s acting that way on purpose, Lukas. Reading Rainbow is a kids show. I’ve never seen it myself but I get the impression that it is skewed young. He’s talking to kids, not adults.
I bet he wasnt that green.
Oh, and Anthony…
Just a thought, but as regards your latest poll, ‘which Star Trek actor rumout do you hope is actually true?’…can you please add the choice of ‘Non of the above’ to questions like this, or some of us here can’t vote at all… ;)
Levar Burton was and remains a real class act. His decades of dedication to Reading Rainbow is truly inspirational. As a real TNG-ekkie, I loved the presentation. Thanks for sharing it, Antrhony.
I’m not a fan of TNG, but I did watch all of the episodes, and I even have this same episode of reading rainbow recorded on tape somewhere. Just because I was left unsatisfied after 7 years, doesn’t mean I didn’t start watching it with great enthusiasm! I really liked Levar Burton, he was, hands down, the most “natural” acting actor of the bunch. After all, that is the whole point of good acting, to look like you’re not acting, and he pulled it off wonderfully. Darn shame he was never used to his greatest potential.
Levar always comes across as a nice guy in interviews. Although his myspace page seems a little weird, if indeed it really is his myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/levarburton
This is where I learned that they hung the D upside down, I remember seeing this. For a while I played with my die-cast D upside down to replicate the actual shooting.
BTW, I was young enough to play with toys back then. :-P
When Star Trek had its 20th anniversary TVH was out in cinemas..and its major success led to the creation of a 2nd series…
When TNG had its 20th….ummm…a new novel came out..
#45
When TNG had its 20th, the franachise had been run into the ground and was pinning high hopes on the next movie to revitilize it.
I see some of you are just stupid TOS fanboys.
Michael you are right on, but the ’stupid’ but is flaming…I agree with your sentiment, but not with your wording
People like it or not this is a ’star trek’ site. And I love TNG. I also love TOS and guess what I love a lot of ENT too. and DS9 may be the best of the lot
so quit it with the ‘my trek is better than your trek’ crap…it is repulsive.
what about Voyager?
Enough with the Trek-bashing. It’s like everyone think it makes TOS better that we slam the other series.
EACH of the series had their pluses and minuses.
Personally, I think Voyager and Enterprise both catered to 13 year old boys. At the same time, there are many episodes of each that I still enjoy.
There are also about 5-10 TOS episodes that fall into the “Wish They’d Never Made ‘Em” pot.
Trek is a fine wine. Not every vintage is the best, but there are lots o’ good ones.
Anthony ,you are right stupid was a bad word.
I grew up on TNG, so it’ll always be special to me. I just feel like after a while, it was just accepted that there’d always be new Trek. Even when I stopped watching Enterprise, I knew Trek was going on. Sudden;y, we enter a period where there isn’t new Trek. That’s what I mean by “run into the ground:” We had so much, we started to take it for granted. Maybe the producers even took it for granted a bit.
I want this movie to be good. I miss my buddies. All of them. Even Wesley.
#’s 50 and 52-
I’m with youse guys.
BTW- That Levar Burton Myspace is a bit off. Nothing against anyone’s socio-political leanings, I just didn’t figure him to be the “power to the people-the man is keeping the brother’s down” type. He seems to think a bit much of himself, too.
And here I thought that Reading Rainbow was just about kids books.
About the Trek-baiting:
Its not pretty, no. And while its not worthy of approval, I think its understandable. The original series (and by extension, its fans) did not get a lot of love in the Berman era. Berman, et al, gave many the impression that they were basically embarrassed by the original show, its style, its tone, its look, its music, its actors, on and on. And a lot of the fans of the later-era shows piled on – “its cheap”, “its cheesy”, “its campy”, “the effects look awful”, “Shatner’s acting is terrible” – particularly in comparision to the shows they liked, which were “mature”, “sophisticated”, “relevent”, et cetera. That was a period of wandering in the wilderness for people who really liked the original show. You don’t get much more outsider-ly than being insulted by Star Trek fans.
So flashforward to now. “The Franchise” was run into the ground, steered there by people who were around too long and burned out. The broader audience had ceased to care and – let’s be fair – the last two series on the air were pretty shaky. By the time the 40th anniversary rolled around, the “new era” shows had pretty well worn themselves out and the one aspect of Star Trek that was drawing a lot of attention was the one that had been previously pushed to the back – the original show and characters, the remastered episodes, and the new movie – the show that had previous been dumped on by a lot of people for some period of time. So the irony is unavoidable and there’s no way that some folks can help but crow about that. There’s absolutely an element of schadenfreude and getting even. It may not be pretty but I think its at least understandable. Nobody likes to be told the thing they love stinks. I don’t think its justified but I think it comes from a real place.
And for the sake of full disclosure, I love the original show the best. But I also enthusiastically watched and enjoyed TNG when it originally aired – although in retrospect, I also see that it could sometimes be boring, talky, bland and a bit full of itself. I thought Deep Space Nine was incredibly dull in its first season, but after that it became something truly remarkable and was far and away the most sophisticated Star Trek. For a time, was as good as anything on television. Kira’s arc over seven years was amazing to watch. I thought Voyager had a terrific premise and pilot, but its producers lacked the courage of their convictions and it quickly devolved into a TNG retread that was going through the motions. Likewise, Enterprise had a strong premise which the show unfortunately spent most of its run trying to get away from, and by that point, it just suffered from too much of the same for too long. New blood was needed and now we’ve got it. I wish them well and I hope they don’t fuck it up :-)
Wow, I’m talky and opinionated today.
it is important to me that this site be a ’star trek’ site. It is just a coincidence that the film and Trek remastered were TOS related. But this site has run articles on every new tng product (books and comics) in the last year and we want to do more and more non TOS stories. It is not our fault that CBS/Paramount have focused on TOS. If the new film was being made by a dif directors and was a post TNG story and they were doing a remastered DS9 we would cover that. This site is to be welcome to all fans from all franchises. No one is a better fan and no one can claim to be a fan of the better series.
There will be no more belittling or attacking of fans of any series. This is a star trek site and we are all star trek fans. Many of the people here have made this place feel unwelcome to non TOS fans. Next time I see someone do that they will be banned…no warning.
Feel free to debate or discuss…not all trek is good and not all trek series were as consistent. But no more flaming people for liking one series over another.
These vids remind me of what I liked about early TNG.
Season 1 was a bit variable story-wise, but I liked the vibrant scores by Ron Jones ( who sadly did his last TNG score at the end of year 3, being replaced by the much blander Dennis McCarthy stuff) and the edginess and feeling of danger that you get in year 1 and 2 especially. (Wesley gets skewered, Remmick gets exploded; if nothing else “Shades of Grey” was a bookend of sorts on this early trend).
Year 3 it started to get less edgy, but conversely the plots and character work got better thanks to Michael Piller coming in.
Years 4-6 were pretty steady, but getting progressively “safer” as time went by until year 7 when the wheels started to come off a bit.
But lots of awesome TV from every season. :-)
We all have our Spock’s Brain and Hippies in Space to contend with.
And I love each and every one of my pretties!
I guess I now feel emboldened enough to reveal the fact that I am a Voyager fan and find the constant Voyager bashing on this site to be a rather tedious.
Was it the best Trek series? Nah
Did it live up to it’s potential? No.
Was it the useless pile of poo that a lot of people seem to think it was? Definitely Not!
I guess I’m in the minority thinking that 7 of 9 was a a wonderfully complex character with a fascinating array of possibilities, and much more than a babe in a catsuit. Jeri Ryan played her to the hilt
I found Janeway to be a fascinating character, and much more in the vein of a “Kirk type” intrepid explorer than Picard. (and don’t get me wrong I LOVE TOS and TNG) She was tough when she needed to be, but not afraid to be vulnerable sometimes. I remember being especially moved at the end of “Prime Factors” When she confronted Tuvok after he betrayed her trust, telling him “you are my conscience.”
The Doctor always got a laugh from me in the comedic episodes and even touched my heart in some of his more tender moments.
There were some fascinating aliens (The Vidiians, the Hirogen)
and some not so fascinating (any alien of the week that had a couple of random ridges taped to his forehead.)
People complain about the re-set button episodes, like Year of Hell, but I’m inclined to give Voyager a break here. We see the crew struggling to survive in the most dire of circumstances, with the ship in pieces and Janeway’s heroic and dogged determination to keep going. GREAT drama here. Would it have been cool to see the crew forced to live with their circumstances while rebuilding the ship over the course of a few months or even years? sure! But in the end we all know that studio meddling more than anything else had more to do with bringing everything back to the status quo in time for next week’s episode.
Yes, it would have been great to see the Maquis/Starfleet tensions last longer.
Yes, sometimes the Borg were too wimpy.
Yes some episodes had an illogical premise with plot holes you could drive a truck through.
But dang it I just can’t bring myself to hate this series.
I’ve been re-watching the episodes on DVD, so maybe that’s coloring my judgment. But Like it or not, Voyager is a piece of Star Trek history, and I for one am glad it is.
There! I feel better.
there is nothing embarassing about being a VOY fan. I like many episodes of VOY…like Year of Hell. my issues with VOY is that it had a great premise that it never fulfilled. In a way Year of Hell is a great example. Originally that was prposoed as a year long arc…great idea! but that was considered ‘too edgy’ and of course serialized shows would never work on TV (um X Files, Lost, Alias, Heroes, etc). I have always thought that DS9 had a lame premise that it turned into gold, and that VOY had a great premise (ship alone against adversity, conflict within the crew, etc) that it never fully utilized. That being said I agree that 7of9 was a good character well played by Jeri Ryan (albeit a character that was as overused as Wesley saving the day waaay too often). Picardo was great…the Chaotica stuff was fun. I have to admit it is my least favorite Trek but I dont hate it….and it is welcome here on Trekmovie.com…hopefully there will be more stuff to cover related to it
These behind-the-scene videos are instructive because all the work you see in clips 2 and 3 is what would have to be redone for TNG to be remastered in HD. Mind-boggling.
It was great Burton and Paramount cooperated on this Reading Rainbow episode and made it so great. Note in clip one LeVar talks over the turbolift doors sliding and the actual wood-scraping sound is replaced with the sound effect, which means LeVar had to loop that dialog. It was just as much work as doing a Star Trek scene.
I, personally, regret how so many, like to lump all the Trek eggs, into one big happy basket called “Star Trek”. Despite the dramatic differences, I understand it’s trendy and convenient and people won’t stop referring to it all as “Star Trek” just because I don’t like the practice. But do these same people refer to CSI: Miami as CSI? Or CSI: New York as CSI? When discussing “The GIrl from UNCLE”, do you refer to it as “The Man from UNCLE”? It’s almost insulting to the original shows. The actual show that was created with a given name should keep that identity and not be stirred into a kettle full of other shows that are so vastly different. It’s a dis-service to all those who worked on the originals. And vice versa. If the cast and crew of Star Trek: Voyager deliver a knock-out episode…why should it be labeled as a great episode of STar Trek? IT really shouldn’t. No more than Caruso in CSI: Miami should be given credit for the exemplory work of the cast and crew of the original CSI. But the practice will continue to happen because there is so much in the Trek universe that it simplifies things. It’s a shame, really. After 5 shows and literally hundreds of episodes, they all tend to blur together as “Star Trek”. And they really shouldn’t as each show is unique in it’s own way.
#59
“The Doctor always got a laugh from me in the comedic episodes and even touched my heart in some of his more tender moments.”
“Critical Care” was always one of my favorite Trek eps of all time. That moment when the Doc realizes that he really wanted to poison the hospital administrator was really powerful.
I love the way Burton delivered his lines in Reading Rainbow…It’s especially awesome how occasionally in TNG he relapsed into his Rainbow mode and talked like he was teaching little kids how to read.
#62
I think the reason everyone lumps Trek together (especially shows after TNG) is because all the behind the scenes people had worked on TNG.
Don’t know if this is exactly the same for the CSI shows.
Watch these through to the end and note who the director of “Reading Rainbow” was… Yup, way back then it was Dean Parisot. As in the same Dean Parisot who would go on to direct everyone’s favorite Star Trek spook, Galaxy Quest, in 1999.
Weird how these things come full circle.
“There will be no more belittling or attacking of fans of any series. This is a star trek site and we are all star trek fans. Many of the people here have made this place feel unwelcome to non TOS fans. Next time I see someone do that they will be banned…no warning. ”
Hear, hear! I’ve been really discouraged by all the post-TOS flaming going on here…good to see you’re finally trying to get it under control.
Long live Anthony! Long live Star Trek!
2 things struck me about the video…
1 If the SFX supervisor is editing the show, what’s the editor doing?
2 Linear tape editing was a royal pain in the posterior, I was surprised the show wasn’t using non linear editing systems (which WERE available then), and it’s amazing the shows turned out as well as they did being edited that way.
Jim