By Chris Snellgrove | Published
Star Trek: The Next Generation is often remembered as television by sci-fi fans, and that’s because its third season completely changed the show for the better. Before that, the first two seasons were extremely bad, and season 2 ends with a groan-worthy clip. That episode was titled “Shades of Gray,” but it almost got a funny name because a Star Trek production assistant suggested it be called “Riker’s Brain” because of the story’s lazy plot involving Commander Riker.
Riker’s brain
“Shades of Gray” is a one-off episode of the Star Trek show, and the loose plot involves Riker contracting a virus that will soon destroy his brain. In an effort to save the commander’s noggin, Dr. Pulaski has hooked him up to a machine that will stimulate his neurons, and the result is that Riker keeps having flashbacks to the events of the past two seasons. The whole idea of the clip show was to help the show save money after the second season went over budget, and production assistant Eric A. Stillwell thought that “Riker’s Brain” would be the perfect title for the episode before naming its final title.
If you know much about how TV shows are made, you might wonder why “Shades of Gray” was written by a Star Trek production assistant instead of a writer or producer. The short answer is that Stillwell had the unenviable task of finding all the different clips that the producers could use. He said he spent an incredible 80 hours in one week finding all these pieces, so it makes sense that he would have a special influence on the name of the final piece.
Due Respect
Although the “Shades of Gray” production assistant did not elaborate on this, it is possible that his “Riker’s Brain” suggestion was intended to pay homage to the infamous episode. Star Trek: The Original Series. “Spock’s Brain” was the first episode of the show’s third season, and it involved a crazy plot (even by ’60s Trek standards) in which Spock’s brain is removed. “Spock’s Brain” is considered the worst The Original Series episode, and considering that “Shades of Gray” is one of the worst TNG episodes, it would have been appropriate to have the same name.
Although the producers did not go along with Stillwell’s original idea, “Shades of Gray” still owes its final name to the Star Trek production assistant. The title often seemed absurd to fans, but Stillwell liked it “because I decided it was a really weird episode that wasn’t black or white; it was just shades of gray.” And for doing more than just researching clips and composing the episode, the production assistant was given the credit of “Researcher” on the episode.
As fans, it’s weird to know that “Shades of Gray” almost has a funny name, but the episode itself is still one of the worst Star Trek stories ever to air. It was written by the famous former game producer Maurice Hurley, and he later declared that it was just a “piece of s***.” Fortunately for all of us, the franchise learned from this mistake, and we didn’t have to deal with another clip show episode.
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