Really engaging, especially if you're a big fan of TNG. It's interesting to see how the creative staff saw the subsequent sequels and films become more erratic in quality too.

The only bad thing to say is that the new Kelvin-timeline movies are basically given a pass compared to the in-depth autopsies on the TNG films. ( )

The chapter on Deep Space Nine made me want to go binge watch it. It's compulsively readable, full of surprises and insights, and if you love the shows you'll find it hard to put down. My Star Trek was TOS, so this second volume was less vital to me, and I found the last parts, particularly about the reboots, less interesting because it seemed as if all those people were probably still working together and bent over backwards to say nice things about each other. ( )

This one was just as fun as the first one. Roddenberry was, it seems, even more of an ass toward the end of his life, and, for a brief period of time after he passed, much of the conflict seemed to pass with him.

But it's Star Trek, and, interestingly, for a show about a future where there is no greed or conflict amongst those in the Federation, there sure as hell was behind the scenes, and I wonder, had some of that been smoothed over, would the shows have been better? Or worse?

Hard to say, but listening to the actors, the writers, the directors, the producers, and all the others involved in the day-to-day of the creation of the various series and movies, this is a nasty, fun ride through all of the last 25 years of this crazy, wonderful thing that is Star Trek. ( )

I never watched "Next Generation" on a regular basis, so the (considerable) sections on Next Gen weren't that interesting to me. Those sections contained lots of accounts of infighting between producers and writers (with lots of different titles, but I think their jobs came down to producing and writing); few contributions from actors, especially beyond Patrick Stuart and Brent Spiner. I liked the stuff about the less-popular series more. I liked reading about how DS9 (the series I really watched) was able to be more serialized, and how they did the casting. The book increased my appreciation for the series. Then there's Voyager, with some problems among the cast, which were described pretty specifically. If you ever wonder what it means when a cast member is "difficult," there are some specific examples here! It was interesting to see how the writers and producers tried with Voyager and Enterprise, what they felt worked and what didn't, and why, and the missed opportunities. There seemed to be quite a bit about Joss Whedon's movies too. For the most in-depth coverage of episodes, I would recommend the "Deep Space Nine Companion" by Terry Erdmann and Paula Block, and Gross & Altman's "Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages." These have comments from actors, writers, directors, producers, and the various production staff, from sets to music to special effects, on individual episodes. ( )