INVESTIGATIONS

CONTENTS

1. Assembling the team to create [Star Trek Voyager] - SCROLL 2. The working relationship of the co-producers 3. "The secret meetings"

In July 1993, the work on [Star Trek Voyager] began with a sense of dèja vu as Rick Berman set about creating, one more time, a new Star Trek television series. To help him with the development process, Berman called on Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor. At the time, Piller was heavily involved with [DS9] and so Berman's request came at a bad time. But he was a good choice - he and Berman had created [DS9] together and were its co-executive producers; he was well-versed in the ways of the Star Trek universe, and had the additional advantage of having been through the Star Trek series-creation loop once before.

Rick Berman: "In the fourth year of [TNG] Paramount Television asked to create a second show that would run concurrently with [TNG], which turned out to be [DS9]. The fact that [DS9] and [TNG] were both successful running simultaneously, it was decided by the Powers That Be that if two shows can run at the same time, it would be great to have another show put on when [TNG] goes off the air. So, lo and behold, a couple of years go by, they asked us to develop another show. And with [DS9] I chose Michael Piller to create the show with, and now that it was time to create a new show I invited Jeri Taylor, who was one of our fellow-producers on [TNG], for the three of us to create this new series."

Michael Piller: "It starts with Rick coming to me and saying, 'They want to do another Star Trek series. Do you want to do it?' And I'm saying to myself, 'Well, how do you turn down an opportunity to do another Star Trek series?' But I felt very strongly about a couple of things. I felt that I wasn't necessarily going to be in the Star Trek universe for the rest of my career, and so I wanted to create the show and put it in good hands in terms of the writing of it, and I really said to Rick, 'We have to bring Jeri Taylor into this. She's done a remarkable job for us on [TNG] and especially because in the back of our minds we were thinking: female captain. It wasn't approved, it was just there, and it seemed like the most logical thing in the world to say, 'Let's bring in Jeri so that, you know, two guys from New York are not creating the first female captain of the 24th century."

Jeri Taylor was by this time a Star Trek veteran in her own right, since joining [TNG] as supervising producer in 1990. In 1992 she moved up to co-executive producer, and she became executive producer for the series' final 1993-94 season. She was serving in that capacity full-time when Berman asked her to join the development team for [Star Trek Voyager]. Like Michael Piller, she would have to divide her time between working on an existing series and trying to develop a new one. An Emmy Award nominated writer, Taylor is a true "first" in Star Trek production. Over the last thirty years of Star Trek history she is the first, and still the only, female to carry the title executive producer, breaking into an area long known for its male chauvinism. Her writing, directing, and producing credentials are extensive. I recall seeing, when much younger, her name regularly in the 'Quincy, M.E.' credits; it was the first time I had seen "Jeri" spelt that way. One reason why Berman asked Taylor was his desire for fresh input in creating and developing new characters - it is the characters that form the lifeblood of Star Trek, regardless of Jonathan Frakes' later joke that in signing their contracts the [TNG] actors were warned that the star of the show is the starship and not them. Berman hoped a fresh perspective from Jeri Taylor would enhance the creative process.

2. THE WORKING RELATIONSHIP OF THE CO-PRODUCERS

Jeri Taylor: "We are all equals. We co-created the series, we all share the title of executive producers. So it was a matter of redefining our relationship, and it's been a very interesting prospect. Rick and Michael had the opportunity on [DS9] to achieve a parity between them, which they did very nicely, so I was sort of scrambling to keep up and remind myself that, wait a minute, my vote counts too."

Michael Piller: "The dynamic was very simple. Rick and I created a rhythm on [DS9] and [TNG]. I think Jeri took a while to catch up with that rhythm. Eventually she sort of sat up and spoke up and said, 'Well, I don't agree with either one of you guys.' It was an interesting new dynamic because Rick and I would fight out our differences on [DS9]. Now there was like, she was like the swing vote. She would come in and will, you know: 'I agree with Rick on this one,' or 'I agree with Michael on this', and we would sort of grumble. You know, we'd sort of be working for control of, you know, decisions as we went through it."

The fact that Jeri was female was a bonus, because she could also be a positive influence on the development of the female captain.

Michael Piller: "It turned out to be a wonderful decision [to bring in Taylor], and Jeri did exactly that. She brought the compassion and the female quality to Janeway, and we never regretted that. It was a wonderful partnership."

One problem Taylor had to deal with was the nature of her working relationship with Piller and Berman. The problem was both practical and cultural. On [TNG] there was a well-defined hierarchy: Berman was the boss, Piller reported to him, and Taylor reported to both Berman and Piller. Although for [DS9] Berman and Piller were co-creators and technically the two were equals, in reality, as head of everything, Berman was still the boss, so that Piller reported to Berman on everything in general anyway. But the two men had developed a viable 'equal-within-limits' working relationship and had the advantage over Taylor who now had to form a new working relationship with both men. All Taylor had was the established fact that Berman insisted on absolute control of every aspect of production. She found it hard to imagine Berman could operate any differently just because she was a member of a series-development team.

As a consequence Taylor found she had to struggle in the beginning, to give herself permission to be an equal partner, and it was a difficult time for her. Taylor believes part of her internal conflict may have been rooted, culturally, in the fact that she is female. Even today, at least ten years on, women are mainly raised to be nurturers and care-givers and, despite great strides in female equality in many fields in the past decade, in the face of unequal status and unequal pay in other areas women still have to do conspicuously well to be thought good by men (hence the common joke: "women must do twice as well to be thought half as good"). One aspect is that women are expected to support men but not to confront or directly oppose them.

Jeri Taylor: "It was more my having to overcome my own hesitancy, and my own difficulty with the role. Not that I haven't done that in my years in the business ... but this had been so strictly codified and regimented that it was a struggle for me. Michael and Rick are both extremely gracious, fair-minded people. There was absolutely no resistance from them in terms of my speaking my mind and having an equal say. ... For me, in the early weeks of the process, it was interesting and challenging. Ultimately I think we all worked out a nice relationship. It's not as though I always side with one or the other, or that they side with me. Any one person at any one time might disagree with one or both of the others, but the fabric of the relationship I think is very strong and very fair."

In all matters save for developing [Star Trek Voyager], the established hierarchy remained the same for all three. For Taylor, that meant that when the daily [Star Trek Voyager] meetings were over, she immediately had to revert to having both men as her bosses. However, the arrangement was made to work. It was not, as some might think, a case of designing by committee. They all quickly realised that two votes beat one. That meant any one among them, at any time, might have the swing vote (it was very rare for all three to have a separate position each). Taylor often found herself in the position of being the swing vote, which made her feel very uncomfortable. Berman and Piller's relationship had reached the point where they could talk out their differences of opinion, arguing and disagreeing in a constructive way, without becoming petty or personal, and allowing the other to express their view. Taylor had no such previous experience with either man. Until she became comfortable with her new role, she found herself waiting to state her views on certain issues until the two men had declared theirs. Piller would make the case for doing one thing, and Berman would make the case for doing it the opposite way. Then she would come down on one side of the issue or the other, or often present a third alternative.

3. "THE SECRET MEETINGS"

At noon three days a week, Berman, Piller and Taylor met over lunch in Berman's corner office in the Cooper Building.

Berman's office: At the time, it was neither spacious nor luxurious (this would change dramatically at the end of [Star Trek Voyager]'s third season). It had a mahogany executive desk in the corner, to the left as one entered, with a couch and end table by the wall on the right, and a second couch under a window on the far wall, opposite the door, with both couches served by a glass-topped coffee table. The walls were mostly bare, though it had a kind of bookcase, and had a credenza behind the desk.

Jeri Taylor: "Well, it was a very long and exhaustive process, and creatively very challenging and ultimately very rewarding. Rick Berman, Michael Piller and I spent three lunch hours a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday we would all order lunch in in Rick's office and sit there and start flinging out ideas."

This pattern continued throughout July, August and September 1993. Nothing was said to anyone about a new series. Officially these get-togethers were called "developmental lunches" but staff members quickly dubbed them "the secret meetings". At her own request, Taylor became the official note-taker, although the men kept notes of their own. Each person's notes were passed to the others under strict security. Piller would hand his PA, Sandra Sena, two sealed envelopes with explicit instructions for her to hand-deliver them personally to Taylor and Berman, stressing the "personally" part of the instructions - the envelopes could not be given to the PAs for either person.