Gates McFadden Directorial Commentary on TNG’s “Genesis” 🎬

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Gates is a treasure and a delight! (But if she would like this removed as prepared material, please just let me know! 💕)

0:00 Introduction from Space Son #2, Ed Speleers
0:52 💬Gates’ intro to Genesis - favorite week in all seven years; very few people in the world have directed TNG actors and iguanas and kittens 🦎🐈
3:24 💬Gates on the opening sickbay scene
5:07 TNG theme 🎶
6:52 Gates’ director credit 😘
7:02 Spot love 🐱; significance of the pink collar
7:30 💬the scene with Data, Barclay, and Spot being one of the hardest scenes to do
8:46 “I loved that shot”
8:51 Michael Dorn hating what Worf had to eat; going primitive
9:31 💬Worf’s food
11:12 💬the scene in Worf’s quarters, and what they later cut out
12:57 💬the engineering scene
13:40 💬showing the different effects on the crew in a limited about of time
14:57 💬”Was it hard directing people that you knew so well?” Which cast member was difficult; the big LA earthquake during filming
15:56 🏆Michael Westmore wanted to submit this episode for Emmy consideration for makeup, but the studio overrode him to promote another episode
16:28 💬Tori’s bathtub and sickbay scenes 🛁
18:23 Worf attacks Crusher in sickbay
18:51 💬Jonathan (Riker) and Dwight’s (Barclay’s) performances in the briefing room with Nurse Ogawa
19:53 💬question re the heartbeat sound; Worf and Barclay turning first; the script dubiously de-evolving a human into a spider
21:18 💬wanting the shuttlebay scene to be darker; the studio limiting seeing the Enterprise filthy with excrement as scripted
22:31 Picard and Data discovering Troi in the bathtub 🛁
22:51 Picard and Data on the bridge
23:04 “This is one of my favorite scenes coming up.”
23:18 💬Jonathan’s de-evolved performance
24:16 💬”Did the studio give pushback on how much gore there was?”
25:32 💬”How involved is a director in when the music comes in or not?” 🎶
26:35 Picard and Data in sickbay
26:58 “My favorite scene” 🐈🐈‍⬛🐱🦎
27:32 💬directing the iguana (Spot) and kittens 🦎🐱; shooting them at different times
28:50 💬Picard starts to de-evolve; loving what Patrick did in that scene; studio vetoed having Spider Barclay drop down from above
30:30 💬Nurse Ogawa’s makeup; shooting Worf trying to barge into sickbay
32:13 💬shooting Worf perusing Picard
34:23 “My fault.”
34:49 💬”What was the scene that Patrick Stewart didn’t want to shoot?”
36:38 💬directing the animals; always animal handlers on set; had the grumpy Spot that day
37:35 💬the script getting Crusher incapacitated because Gates was directing; the shut down due to the earthquake
38:33 💬did she get more or less pushback from the studio than a male director would/did; 🎬Gates had the most directing experience of anyone on the cast from the start