Bob Justman on Majel Barrett

Years later, I realized it wasn’t [Majel Barrett] I disliked, it was the role. Nurse Chapel was a wimpy, badly written, and ill-conceived character. In ‘The Naked Time,’ all she did was stand around and pine for Mister Spock, much the same as Yeoman Rand did for Captain Kirk. And in ‘Little Girls,’ Nurse Chapel pined for her fiance, mad scientist Dr. Korby. The close-up shots of her eyes misting over and lower lip quivering were beautifully photographed by cameraman Jerry Finnerman, who used special lighting and diffusion lenses. But this only served to emphasize the lack of character written into the character.

In 1987, in ‘Haven,’ a first-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that I produced, Majel created the role of the Betazoid character, Lwaxana Troi, a bold and lusty, irreverent and energetic female alien, and she played the part to the hilt. This new character became popular with viewers – and with me, too. I took pains to tell her of my changed opinion.

Bob Justman (producer and assistant director of TOS) in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, 1996.

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