By Chris Snellgrove
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Whereas we stand by the truth that Deep House 9 is one of the best Star Trek collection, its first season was as tough in some locations as season certainly one of The Subsequent Technology. That’s very true of the episode “If Needs Have been Horses,” which options the imaginations of the station’s crew working rampant and bringing a number of the weirdest fantasies to life.
Because it seems, this episode was successfully ruined by not one however two fantasy creatures. These have been the offensive leprechaun within the unique Deep House 9 script and his attempt-to-be-less-offensive alternative, Rumpelstiltskin. The swapped-in character got here along with his personal huge issues; his scenes with Chief O’Brien have been overly difficult to shoot.
It Began With An Thought So Dangerous Colm Meaney Refused To Do It
When the writers penned “If Needs Have been Horses,” they cherished the concept of a leprechaun coming to life as a result of O’Brien learn a fairytale to his younger daughter (as a result of aliens, after all). That they had no concept this is perhaps offensive till their very Irish actor Colm Meaney, who performed Miles O’Brien, summed up his drawback with the leprechaun plot to them this manner: “It’s actually racist, and I don’t wish to do it.”
Colm Meaney was offended on a number of completely different ranges by the leprechaun within the unique script. Because the actor instructed producer Rick Berman on the time, “Each Irish actor I do know has labored his total life to beat the stereotype of Irish individuals and leprechauns.”
After Meaney instructed Berman point-blank that this was racist, the writers and producers scrambled to discover a substitute fantasy creature that might change the leprechaun. Later, Meaney mirrored on how the preliminary concept was simply as doubtlessly offensive to franchise followers because it was to him: “Utilizing caricatures or cliches of any nation just isn’t one thing Star Trek is or must be into.”
As for then-showrunner Michael Piller recalled, “We had no concept there was any sensitivity to leprechauns within the Irish tradition, and positively we didn’t wish to drive Colm Meaney to behave with a leprechaun, however what the h*ll do you do after you’ve acquired an entire story structured round a leprechaun stealing a baby?” It was an comprehensible dilemma as a result of the script was principally completed by the point Meaney acquired to see it. Piller and his staff had to determine make the mandatory adjustments to maintain Meaney blissful whereas not altering issues up so dramatically that it could require an in depth rewrite.
Racism Accusations From Star Trek: Deep House 9’s Star Power Them In A Unusual Path
The final word resolution to this dilemma got here from author Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who advised changing the leprechaun with Rumpelstiltskin, one other fantasy character that Chief O’Brien may moderately be studying about to his younger daughter. Piller admitted that this wasn’t a wonderfully elegant resolution as a result of “Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t precisely the identical factor and wouldn’t work within the construction we had.”
Piller was answerable for rewriting the script to include the brand new creature and later admitted that, “I had no concept resolve it or the place it was going to go” and “I wrote every scene to see if it labored and had enjoyable with it.”
As soon as the alternative was made, Colm Meaney was blissful that the leprechaun plot had been eliminated, however he revealed that Rumpelstiltskin offered his personal issues when it got here to capturing as a result of the character “had the showing and the disappearing” potential. This meant they needed to do “very difficult” reverse capturing, which typically concerned him talking ahead to an actor behind him. Nonetheless, Meaney felt that the episode “got here out nicely.”
Not all followers agree with that evaluation, particularly as a result of Rumpelstiltskin nonetheless visually reads as a leprechaun. Meaney himself appeared placated by the substitution, however some followers nonetheless really feel like this was some surprisingly out-of-place racism within the midst of an in any other case enjoyable Star Trek episode. Possibly you probably have just a few rounds at Quark’s bar first, you would possibly discover a pot of gold (or the underside of some bottles) on this sizzling mess of a Star Trek: Deep House 9 episode.
