| rdfs:comment | - Bottle shows are usually created due to budget and time constraints. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion 2nd ed., p. 94) Such shows are purposefully planned, every couple of episodes, so production can afford more expensive episodes, such as those filming on location or new sets. (Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, paperback ed., p. 253) While working on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Michael Piller explained, "We need to do bottle shows on this series in order to pay the piper. We need to do contained non-optical direct shows." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 239) In hindsight, Tom Mazza, executive vice president of current programming & strategic planning at Paramount Television, agreed, "We were constantly having to navigate launching the show with a bi
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| abstract | - Bottle shows are usually created due to budget and time constraints. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion 2nd ed., p. 94) Such shows are purposefully planned, every couple of episodes, so production can afford more expensive episodes, such as those filming on location or new sets. (Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, paperback ed., p. 253) While working on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Michael Piller explained, "We need to do bottle shows on this series in order to pay the piper. We need to do contained non-optical direct shows." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 239) In hindsight, Tom Mazza, executive vice president of current programming & strategic planning at Paramount Television, agreed, "We were constantly having to navigate launching the show with a big episode and then over the first few episodes do what we call a 'ship show,' and all of a sudden there's a disease spreading on ship and you notice for forty-four minutes we didn't go anywhere [....] You can get away with it sometimes to offset some of those higher costs [on the bigger episodes]." (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, p. 119) The concept of a bottle show is related to that of a clip show, in that both are methods of producing under-budget episodes. The clip show TNG: "Shades of Gray" is also considered a bottle show. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion 2nd ed., p. 94; Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Continuing Mission) Producing an effective bottle show was somewhat difficult. "It's really hard to make a bottle show interesting, because you are with your own actors and you are on standing sets," remarked Denise Okuda. (ENT: "Observer Effect" audio commentary, ENT Season 4 Blu-ray special features) Nonetheless, many bottle shows are popular among both fans and the production staff. Robert Justman remarked that many were "enormously compelling, as indicated by both fan reaction and the ratings." (Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, paperback ed., p. 253) Likewise, Robert Hewitt Wolfe commented, "A lot of these small shows turn out to be pretty good." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, pp. 140) Attesting to the writing staff's predominantly positive reaction to bottle shows, Lisa Wilke, a writer who worked uncredited on TNG: "Tin Man" , recalled, "I had gone to the sets a year before and [Michael Piller's assistant] Eric Stillwell told us, 'Bottle shows; all they want are bottle shows. Don't go to another planet, make it as cheap as possible and maybe they'll buy it.'" John Logan commented, "The Trek I love most is not the whimsical Trek. It's the bottle shows I love: The Romulans are here. The Enterprise is there. What's going to happen?" (The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, pp. 24, 199 & 391) However, only a few bottle shows were produced for TNG, at least in the opinion of David Livingston. During the making of the series, he stated, "Very rarely do we ever just do a bottle show. There's always some kind of element that will be visually interesting." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 236) Indeed, even episodes conceived as bottle shows occasionally did not go as planned. Producing bottle shows was easier to do for TNG, though, than for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. While working on the latter series, Michael Piller explained, "We can do a bottle show and save a lot of money on The Next Generation by just keeping it on the ship. Here, you keep it on the space station and you are still going to spend a lot of money. You have to because you have the sets like Quark's and the Promenade, where you have so many aliens and people in the background." (The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine issue 3, pp. 11) Bottle shows were deliberately sought towards the end of DS9 Season 1. (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 54) The production of many consecutive bottle shows was, at times, frustrating for the cast and crew. Janeway actress Kate Mulgrew remarked, "You know, when you're in the bottle too long – by that, I mean... as you know, that means a ship show – you do three or four bottle shows back-to-back and everybody starts to get wacky." (VOY Season 2 DVD)
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