Did Paramount manipulate Gene Roddenberry for Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Gene Roddenberry had no interest in creating Star Trek: The Next Generation.

After Star Trek: The Motion Picture didn’t do as well as hoped, Gene Roddenberry wasn’t permitted to work on another motion picture. But Paramount executives were interested in another series set in the Star Trek universe.

As Slashfilm reports, when Roddenberry was approached to do a new series, he turned them down. He didn’t want to devote the time and effort necessary to produce another show.

"“When Paramount originally approached me to do a new series, I turned them down. I did not want to devote the tremendous amount of time necessary to produce another show. There is only one way I know to write and produce, and that is to throw my energy at the project all the time. So when they began to think about a second series, I said I would not do it. When I turned them down, Paramount had someone else work on a new ‘Star Trek.’ It had a Vulcan captain and a lot of space cadets who seemed to mainly say, ‘Gee whiz, Captain.'”"

Sp Paramount chose a father-son producing team of Greg and Sam Strangis who were behind “The Six Million Dollar Man,”  to helm the series even though Greg admitted he wasn’t a Trekkie. In fact, he calld himself “agnostic” when it came to the franchise. Still, he introduced a version of Starfleet Academy that would have taken place on a ship.

Gene Roddenberry agreed to take over Star Trek: The Next Generation because he was angry.

Roddenberry wasn’t having Paramount create a Star Trek that he wasn’t involved in, and he had a meeting with the studio, threatening legal action if they proceeded without him. At the end of that meeting, he agreed to make Star Trek: The Next Generation.

David Gerrold, though, felt like this was all a set-up on Paramount’s part, that the studio wanted Roddenberry on the new Star Trek series, and when he refused, they chose a different tactic. They wanted to show Roddenberry they were willing to make a show without him, even if they didn’t intend to make the series proposed by Strangis. And even if it was a bluff, it worked. Roddenberry got angry and Star Trek: The Next Generation was born.