How Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Most Ambitious Idea Was Ruined By Its Best Guest

By Chris Snellgrove
| Printed 4 seconds in the past

In Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology, no visitor character is extra memorable than Majel Barrett Roddenberry’s Lwaxana Troi, the prime donna mom to Counselor Troi. Generally, having her round labored out nicely, and generally, it didn’t. In a single case, we all know for sure her presence ruined an episode.

Whereas Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was now not a showrunner by season 2, he nonetheless wielded immense affect over The Subsequent Technology. Understandably, that meant administrators and producers bent over backward to accommodate his spouse, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, on set.

That lodging even went so far as tweaking episodes to focus them extra on her. This had a very unhealthy impact on a season 2 episode of Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology known as “Manhunt.

How Majel Barrett Roddenberry Ruined Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology’s Manhunt

The episode’s director, Rob Bowman, has since revealed that “Manhunt” had attention-grabbing “noir nuances” deliberate for its Dixon Hill plot, and people had been dropped in favor of catering to “the boss’s spouse.”In line with Bowman, “the emphasis was shifted from the noir to Majel” particularly as a result of “that is the boss’s spouse, and he or she solely does it annually, so it needs to be accommodating for her.”

So as an alternative of a Subsequent Technology detective episode steeped closely in noir influences, “Manhunt” gave us a plot centered round Betazed menopause, which made Lwaxana insanely aroused in essentially the most cringe-worthy method doable. 

We had been launched to Dixon Hill within the nice season one episode “The Huge Goodbye,” written by Tracy Tormé. Since he additionally wrote the season one episode which launched the character of Lwaxana Troi (“Haven”), he ought to have been the proper option to pen this episode.

Sadly, Tormé’s script was modified a lot that he glided by a pseudonym (Terry Devereaux) within the credit. It’s straightforward to know his frustration. His authentic script was crammed with nice movie noir homages, together with Picard voiceovers in his jaded Dixon Hill persona.

Within the completed episode, a lot of the noir focus comes from Captain Picard operating to the holodeck to flee a very amorous Lwaxana. He does so by getting into his Dixon Hill program, a form of holonovel during which he performs the titular detective from a few of his favourite old-school books.

Extra Dixon Hill would have immediately improved this episode, and it might have been nice to have Patrick Stewart’s iconic voice narrating the story within the cynically lovely cadence of Raymond Chandler. Sadly, director Rob Bowman confirmed that the majority of those nice noir bits had been lower to give attention to Lwaxana Troi and that he was personally charged with “[making] certain that she did her greatest, so each day that’s what we labored on.”

It’s Not Actually Majel Barrett Roddenberry’s Fault

Now, earlier than anybody throws one thing at us, let’s make one factor clear: Majel Barrett Roddenberry is a nice actor and a real Star Trek icon. Her later appearances as Lwaxana Troi made for a few of the greatest episodes of The Next Generation and likewise a fairly good episode of Star Trek: Deep Area 9.

It’s not Majel’s fault that the script for “Manhunt” is so terrible and inexplicably turns her good and fiercely unbiased character into an oversexed bimbo. The Subsequent Gen staff might have discovered one other solution to focus the episode extra on her, however they didn’t. As longtime followers, we will sum the issue up like this: that Lwaxana story concept would have been painful in any episode, however it’s particularly painful figuring out that its presence stored us from getting a correct noir episode.

Favoritism Was To Blame, However Lwaxana Is Nonetheless Nice

I like Majel Barrett Roddenberry, however this appears to substantiate that one in all Trek’s worst episodes is the results of straight-up favoritism. “The boss’s spouse” bought particular consideration, and the give attention to her character’s terrible plot (that is objectively the worst Lwaxana Troi episode) got here on the expense of Trek’s most formidable concept.

To determine why anybody thought this is able to make for good tv, we’d in all probability have to rent a detective nearly as good as Dixon Hill. Offered, after all, that he isn’t too busy hiding from the world’s horniest alien MILF.