Leonard Maizlish and Maurice Hurley

[indycar]

I recently watched Chaos on the Bridge and I've got to ask: were those two as bad as people were making them out to be. I understand that the former edited scripts in Gene Roddenberry's name and the latter seemed to complain that he was restricted when it came for writing on the show and also got Gates McFadden fired after the first season.

So is any of this, or anything else said about them, exaggerated? It seems that they didn't let much get in the way of them.

 

[Paradise City]

I think Hurley was a harmless if difficult curmudgeon. Maizlish was reportedly a far more sinister character who often acted unilaterally usurping GR's name. Hurley did sack Gates. But it's also true that cast turnover is part of the TV landscape and that shouldn't be unduly held against him.

 

[Anji]

Hurley didn't fire Gates. She quit. How many times does a woman get sexually harassed on the set and put up with it? Patrick Stewart even had words with Hurley and it did no good. After that, she walked, and as a woman, hell, I don't blame her!

 

[urbandefault]

Two words: Wacky Doodle.

 

[t_smitts]

I still haven't seen the doc (I really want to but, like Hulu, it's not quite as accessible for those of us in Canada) but, just reading the description of Maizlish on Memory Alpha, I'm curious that, with Roddenberry being hurt by this supposed exodus of his old friends and colleagues (Justman, Fontana, Gerrold, etc.), it's puzzling that it never seemed to get back to him that Maizlish (who absolutely had no business on studio property) was the reason.

 

[bbailey861]

I still haven't seen the doc (I really want to but, like Hulu, it's not quite as accessible for those of us in Canada) but, just reading the description of Maizlish on Memory Alpha, I'm curious that, with Roddenberry being hurt by this supposed exodus of his old friends and colleagues (Justman, Fontana, Gerrold, etc.), it's puzzling that it never seemed to get back to him that Maizlish (who absolutely had no business on studio property) was the reason.

It's readily accessible. HBO Canada was the first to air it. It was gone for a bit, but I just had a quick look and it's back on there, airing 5 more times this month.

 

[t_smitts]

It's readily accessible. HBO Canada was the first to air it. It was gone for a bit, but I just had a quick look and it's back on there, airing 5 more times this month.

I don't have HBO Canada.

 

[indycar]

I don't have HBO Canada.

Do you have Netflix?

 

[Mark 2000]

My suspicion is that Maizlish was just doing Roddenberry's bidding. All the changes in the TNG scripts that we know of fit in with the kind of jevinile stuff he was writting in the 70's. When you look at stuff like Pretty Maids in a Row, Genesis II, and Planet Earth you understand Gene's writing style. It could be he was doing the physical writing, but Maizlish was really making those edits on his own then he was doing an extraordinary impersonation.

As for Gerrold et al's insistence that Maizlish was this monster it really comes down to how faltering group dynamics work. Did Yoko Ono really break up the Beatles, or was she just there when John and the rest were getting sick of each other?

 

[t_smitts]

Do you have Netflix?

Yes, but Canadian Netflix is notorious for lacking many of the titles its American counterpart has.

 

[BillJ]

Hurley seemed like a solid writer.