Once again it is just packed with insights some readily known others scathing. But it still manages to make me wonder how the shows ever made it to the screen. There was so much interference by the creators, studios, networks that all managed to dumb down the product.
What rally made me unhappy was how the powers that be consistently underestimated the audience.
As I've mentioned before, I love the DVD extras that are part of most movies you can buy. This filled that desire so very well.
I've enjoyed these volumes as audiobooks and I must say that the productions was very well thought out. It was not just read by one person. Since the books is nothing more interviews thoughtfully laid out to make a cohesive narrative, the producers of the audiobook hired a cast of narrators which made following along that much easier. It would have been very easy to lose track of who was doing the talking had it been read by only one person.
I had no idea how scripts were written for the show, when you have that many people writing and making changes along the way to production, the original idea of an episod was often completely lost in the process. How I would love to read the originally intended stories in book form, just to get an idea of what could have been.
The only example of that is Harlan Ellison's City on the Edge of Forever, which has been made into a comic book and released as a novela under his own name. What was intended and what was delivered is actually quite disappointing in comparison.
I loved this series of books. If you like knowing what happened on the set an in the writers room, then you'll love these books.
Highly recommended.
