How Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Biggest Idea Was Ruined by Its Best Guest

By Chris Snellgrove | Published 4 seconds ago

In Star Trek: The Next Generationno guest character is more memorable than Majel Barrett Roddenberry’s Lwaxana Troi, donna’s main mother in Counselor Troi. Sometimes, having him around worked well, and sometimes it didn’t. In one case, we know for sure that his presence ruined the episode.

While Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was no longer a showrunner for season 2, he still had a lot of influence over it. The Next Generation. Understandably, that meant the directors and producers bent over backwards to accommodate his wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, on set.

That residency went so far as to change episodes to focus more on him. This had a particularly negative impact on the season 2 episode Star Trek: The Next Generation called “Manhunt.

How Majel Barrett Roddenberry Destroyed Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Manhunt

The episode’s director, Rob Bowman, has revealed that “Manhunt” has interesting “noir nuances” planned for its Dixon Hill plot, and that was scrapped in favor of serving up “the boss’s wife.” According to Bowman, “the emphasis shifted from priority to Majel” especially because “this is the manager’s wife, and she only does it once a year, so she has to treat her well.”

So instead of a The Next Generation A detective episode steeped in noir influences, “Manhunt” gave us a plot centered on Betazed’s menopause, making Lwaxana wake up to madness in a very appropriate way.

We were introduced to Dixon Hill in the wonderful first season episode “The Big Goodbye,” written by Tracy Tormé. Since he also wrote the first season episode that introduced the character of Lwaxana Troi (“Haven”), he should have been the right choice to write this episode.

Unfortunately, Tormé’s script was changed so much that he went with a fake name (Terry Devereaux) in the credits. It is easy to understand his frustration. His original script was full of great homages to the film, including the voices of Picard in his villainous Dixon Hill persona.

In the finished episode, the focus is on Captain Picard who runs to the arena to escape from Lwaxana who is in love with her. He does this by hosting his show Dixon Hill, a type of holonovel where he plays a brilliant detective from some of his favorite old school books.

A little more Dixon Hill would have immediately improved this episode, and it would have been nice to have Patrick Stewart’s iconic voice telling the story with Raymond Chandler’s sarcastic voiceover. Sadly, the director Rob Bowman confirmed that most of these good noir pieces were cut to focus on Lwaxana Troi and that she was charged “.[making] he sure did his best, so every day that’s what we’ve been working on.”

It’s Really Not Majel Barrett Roddenberry’s Fault

Now, before anyone throws anything at us, let’s get one thing straight: Majel Barrett Roddenberry big an actor and a true Star Trek icon. She appeared later as Lwaxana Troi for some of the best episodes The Next Generation and an excellent episode Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

It’s not Majel’s fault that the script for “Manhunt” is so bad it turns her very intelligent and fiercely independent character into an oversexed bimbo. I Next gen the team could have found another way to focus the episode on him, but they didn’t. As long-time fans, we can summarize the problem as follows: that idea of ​​Lwaxana’s story would be painful anywhere episode, but still especially it’s sad to know that its presence has kept us from getting a proper noir episode.

Bias Was To Be Guilty, But Lwaxana Is Still Great

I love Majel Barrett Roddenberry, but this seems to confirm that one of Trek’s worst episodes is the result of a specific choice. “The manager’s wife” was given special attention, and the focus was on the negative structure of her character (this is the goal even worse Lwaxana Troi’s episode) came from Trek’s ambitious idea.

To find out why anyone thought this would make for good television, we’d have to hire a detective like Dixon Hill. It just depends on if he’s not too busy hiding from an alien MILF in the world.