“We were advised by the studio that Good Morning America would be coming into town. They were going to film on the set of ‘Cheers’ and they were going to film on the set of ‘Star Trek,'” Stewart recalled. He doesn’t note exactly when this happened, but a Facebook upload of the fateful special from fan group TrekCore places it in February 1992, years after the season-one run-in Hurley describes. Regardless, Stewart was unhappy with the set appearance. “I said, ‘No! Screw you! We are working 12, 14, 16 hours a day to persuade people that we’re living in the 24th century and we’re out in space,'” he tells Shatner.
His point seemed to be that any behind-the-scenes footage would only serve to shatter the illusion of the Enterprise set, but when the taping took place regardless, he was also upset to see a weatherman dressed in Captain Picard’s uniform. Stewart recalls asking the studio to set down some “ground rules” about the visit, namely, “Taking this stuff very, very seriously for the sake of our fans. No gags, no jokes, no Klingon jokes, no fooling around.” This is actually a sweet sentiment, given that at the time, properties like “Star Trek” weren’t so much considered a cool, niche area of interest as they were the butt of jokes about geek fans. Still, Stewart’s response to a weatherman having some fun was clearly overblown.