The man responsible for the design of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D first introduced in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" doesn't have a lot of kind words for current Trek executive producer Rick Berman. In fact, Andrew Probert blames Berman for the death of Star Trek.

"The only thing of note that Rick Berman did before 'Star Trek' was a show called 'The Big Blue Marble,' a kid's show," Probert told Salvador Nogueira May 4 in an interview released over the weekend. "For some reason, Paramount left him into this. I don't know. I've heard conflicted stories that Gene (Roddenberry) thought he was a great producer and wanted to bring him in. Whatever it is, Rick Berman did not, in that time -- and as far as I can see from what is being produced -- does not understand science fiction. I've seen a lot of great concepts by Doug Drexler and a few of the other illustrators that they have working on the projects, all by the way in favor of much more controlled concepts. My experience with Rick Berman is, you know, he does not understand what he's doing, he does not understand science fiction.

"I think Star Trek died when Gene died. Well, as I said, Gene understood exactly what he wanted for his show, and his main focus was maintaining consistency in the show. And everybody who cared about Star Trek eventually left the show. Bill Theis, the costumer, left; I left; (producer) Bob Justman left. So ... I don't know what to say. It was very frustrating working on that."