7 Crazy As Heck Ideas Star Trek Almost Went With

7

TNG Almost Killed Off Commander Riker To Keep His Clone

In the Next Generation episode "Second Chances," we're introduced to Will Riker's clone, who was created via transporter accident eight years earlier during a routine plot device calibration. Going by Riker's middle name, "Thomas," by the end of the episode, the still-just-a-lieutenant version of Riker left the Enterprise and was pretty much forgotten, other than a DS9 plotline wherein he stole the Defiant and ended up in a Cardassian labor camp.

CBS Television Distribution It really was too much raw sexuality for television audiences of the time.

Despite making history as one of the most screwed-over Trek characters ever, Thomas Riker was nearly given the upper hand by producers, who wanted to kill off Will and replace him with Thomas. The plan was to "reboot" the character, putting him in the Ops position and having him work his way back up the ranks. This would provide a far more realistic excuse for Riker continuing to be on the show instead of constantly deferring a promotion to captain. Also, as Thomas was still very much in love with Deanna Troi, this would introduce a new potential romantic subplot to the show and provide an element of tension about whether he might, uh, breach her warp core.

CBS Television Distribution Or alternatively, dock in her Shuttlebay 1.

Ultimately, the writers decided that killing OG Riker would be going a little too boldly where no one had gone before, so they beamed Thomas off to the planet of unresolved plotlines. They also felt it would be more interesting to have both versions of Riker floating around the galaxy, leaving the door open for awkward get-togethers in the future. A door which they utterly forgot about forever.

6

Captain Picard Almost Had A Wig And A French Accent

When a show is in pre-production, its creators will tinker with characters' backstories and looks until they find what they hope is a winning recipe. For example, at some point during the planning stages of TNG, Wesley Crusher was a girl, Geordi had a Jamaican accent, and Troi was a non-humanoid alien. And while having Leslie Crusher instead of Wesley Crusher may be the stuff of Trekkie fantasies, what nearly happened to Jean Luc Picard is the stuff of their nightmares.

5

Captain Kirk Almost Fought Jesus

While Star Trek: The Motion Picture gave us our first taste of the series on the big screen, the movie probably isn't anyone's favorite Trek film. For most, it's what we suffer through in order to get to "KHAAAAAAN!" At best, it made us think a bit about the consequences of firing junk into space. But hey it could have been ... OK, not exactly better, but definitely way more odd. While what we got was a missing satellite and a bald robot in a short skirt, what we almost got was Captain Kirk fighting Alien Jesus. We'll give you a moment to develop that mental picture.

How many hammer punches and clumsy forward rolls did you envision? Eight? Nice.

As it happens, an early version of the film pitted the crew against a shapeshifting alien that would assume the forms of various biblical figures. "In the climactic scene, Kirk had a fistfight with an alien who had assumed the image of Jesus Christ," Star Trek author and screenwriter Michael Jan Friedman said. "So Kirk was slugging it out on the bridge. With Jesus."

Now before you get all hot and bothered thinking how cool it would be to have Kirk drop-kicking Jesus aboard the Enterprise, it's our duty to remind you of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, in which Kirk fights God. The one time the Star Trek universe dabbled in religion, we get a steaming piece of crap so fragrant that even its producer admits it "almost doomed the franchise."

Paramount Pictures God, you do good work, but you do not belong in Star Trek.

4

Geordi La Forge Was Almost An Alien Spawn

While there wasn't talk of killing him off (that we know of), Geordi La Forge narrowly avoided some serious character reprogramming of his own. You see, in one almost-happened storyline, Geordi was revealed to be the technologically inclined, visually challenged spawn of an alien who impregnated his mother. Yes, really.

CBS Television Distribution The black guy was quite literally almost only three-fifths human? Seriously?

According to writer and producer Jeri Taylor, Geordi's mom had an "almost Rosemary's Baby-kind of thing," giving birth to the half-human offspring of an unknown alien, which might have explained La Forge's similarly awful track record with women. The truth of Geordi's parentage would have come to light when his people showed up looking for him.

Fortunately the idea got scrapped, possibly because Deanna Troi had already done the whole alien impregnation thing, and possibly because they were saving it for Harry Kim, who experienced almost this exact nightmare in an episode of Voyager.

CBS Television Distribution "I noticed you picked a not-white guy again ..."

3

DS9 Almost Got An Episode Making Fun Of Trekkies

When the 30th anniversary of the franchise rolled around, writers for Deep Space Nine wanted to mark the occasion with some sort of special episode. Suggestions were offered, ideas were kicked around, and while we ended up with odd-looking Klingons and lots of Tribbles, we very nearly got a throwback that was way, way more meta.

CBS Television Distribution Also they found a way to reuse all those rejected Picard hairpieces.

You see, someone had the bright idea of going back to the planet Iotia from the TOS episode "A Piece Of The Action," in which the crew encounters an entire society that's based itself on a history book about mobsters in Chicago. When the crew of DS9 visited the planet, they'd find the entire place changed after the encounter with Kirk and Spock, with the culture and religion now based on the Enterprise crew instead of 1920s mob bosses.

CBS Television Distribution "An entire planet that worships me? Sounds plausible."

2

Eddie Murphy Was Originally The Sidekick In The Voyage Home

As a huge Star Trek fan, actor and comedian Eddie Murphy was understandably jazzed at the prospect of starring alongside Kirk and Spock in one of the Trek films. And in early versions of the script for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Murphy was slated for a "sidekick" role in the portions of the film that take place in modern-day San Francisco. There, Murphy would run around acting like Eddie Murphy, while Shatner and Nimoy made faces and tried to keep up.

1

The Original Pitch For The Series Was A "Wagon Train To The Stars"

Although every episode begins with a not-so-subtle reminder that the crew of the Enterprise is here to "explore strange new worlds," "seek out new life and new civilizations," and "boldly go where no one has gone before," the original concept for Star Trek was a lot more along the lines of "Wagons ho!"