A Generation Gap

Concerning the “Commentary” (by James Endrst) TV Times, Dec. 15: It’s interesting how “Star Trek: The Next Generation” executive producer Rick Berman says the show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry--before his death--had complete control of the show until “in the second season he began to step away. And by the third season (his input) was quite a bit less.”

I don’t doubt it one bit, especially since Berman admitted how the original “Star Trek” had “a lot more fun and was more swashbuckling and sexy”--Roddenberry’s precise vision of man as he makes contact with new worlds.

What do we get with “Star Trek: “The Next Generation?” A certain melancholy woven through the whole show, a colorless judgment that no matter the progress of man, machines and space travel, man remains disappointed with his station and cries the blues to an unexpectedly wise bartender or soothes them through a make-believe world.

Roddenberry must have recalled the simple enchanting fun of his original series and begun thinking, “Look what they’ve done to my song.”

Tom Bagley, La Puente