swicksy 's review for:

The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From the Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek by Mark A. Altman, Edward Gross

4.0

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I think I liked this one more than the first book, mainly because I had already read or heard most of the background stories in the making of the Original Series and movies and knew almost nothing of Star Trek: The Next Generation and beyond. It gets a bit repetitive after a while - which isn't the author's fault, more the franchise as they churn out show after show which seem to suffer from the same writing and cast problems over-and-over. Voyager gets interesting with the aborted casting of Genevieve Bujold (who works for 3 days as Captain Nicole Janeway, then quits) and the friction caused by the addition of Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine (especially from Kate Mulgrew). The book also highlights why DS9 ended up to be so good, and Voyager, Enterprise and even TNG so bland (yep, TNG, there I said it.).

Good read for not only Star Trek fans, but those interested in the business of TV and the day-to-day of show creation.