time we spoke you described doing the extended edition of ' The Measure of a Man ' as pretty much a crap-shoot, you didn't know whether it would work out or not. How much of a journey has this been for both of you? Denise Okuda : It's been an amazing journey! We really didn't know if it was going to happen or not. There was so much work that went into it, we still almost can't believe it happened. Mike Okuda : It's not uncommon for a finished episode to have a scene or two -- or a few lines -- trimmed. But it's very unusual to have that much material trimmed from an episode. Then, to luck out in such an extraordinary way -- to have an accurate reference of the original version... Melinda held on to that VHS tape for 25 years and she was so kind to loan it back to us. Then CBS and HTV went through and examined all the fresh material and discovered all of the original elements still existed. When CBS found out about it, they looked at the extended episode and said "Wow, there's some good stuff here, this really adds to the episode." They were thrilled to jump through the hoops to make this happen. Denise Okuda : One of the things that I particularly love about Star Trek in general but Star Trek: The Next Generation in particular is the character interaction. I'm not going to spoil it, but