'Tournament of Decision' My Other 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' Script
After Selling My Script To Star Trek: TNG, I Wrote A Second Next Generation Teleplay Which Wasn't Produced
Aren’t you beginning to feel time gaining on you, Picard? It’s like a predator. It’s stalking you…. Soran - Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek, you stalk me as timely as a temporal phenomenon. You’re always closing in on me. You track me like a hyperactive Klingon warrior on a never ending intergalactic hunt.
It’s true. Star Trek has followed me in some real way since I was a toddler. I recall watching Gene Roddenberry’s fantastical starship of the imagination at only four years of age. It’s just always been there for me. Inspiring tales of our noble USS Enterprise have been a big part of my life from the very beginning.
Ultimately, I figured the only way to pay such incredible devotion back was to actually write for the show. Now, the stalked would stalk back.
In 1993, I sold my first Hollywood script to Paramount Pictures. It was a teleplay for Star Trek: The Next Generation, entitled, Shadowdance, and became the 7th season episode, Homeward, guest starring Paul Sorvino of Goodfellas fame. Sorvino played a Starfleet mission specialist, Nikolai Rozhenko, the human foster brother to Klingon, Worf, Chief of Security serving aboard Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s Enterprise 1701-D.
So, the sale was made. After contracts were signed, and my episode produced and aired, I was still attending college. During my class schedule, I started work on another TNG teleplay. This one wouldn’t sell, however, I’d like to share some of the particulars with fans since what never was can be almost as interesting as what we got.
The Next ‘Next Generation’
I’d successfully written for TNG, so what happens next? Could I enlist in Starfleet itself? Well, why not...
I kept planning and thinking about what could be next for me with writing in Hollywood.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was ending its syndication run soon. It had become one of the most watched and successful syndicated shows in TV history. The seventh season would be its final television warp, so I had to finish my script and submit in a timely fashion.
I still, despite trying my best to get one, didn’t have an agent. Representation in Hollywood is more than essential to getting your work discovered. Once again I had to go through a speculative script submission promise. This time, however, the Trek producers knew me.
Executive Producer Michael Piller essentially opened up the Star Trek writing offices to welcome writers without representation. The catch? You could only submit two scripts - unless you’d sold, as I’d done. Once you sold, the cap was taken off and a writer could submit as many scripts as they’d like.
Crusher Crushes It
Dr. Beverly Crusher played by Gates McFadden seemed to be overlooked compared to Picard’s other Starfleet minions. Granted she was Chief Medical Officer and certainly had her share of adventures, however, the focus too often was on the psychic empowered Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) when it came to exploring Enterprises’ medical personnel.
My story revolved around a super athlete. He’d be sort of a Michael Phillips aquatic star, a Mary Lou Retton gymnast combined with the pugilistic powerhouse of a Muhammed Ali or Mike Tyson. These aliens, I called Nemeans, in honor of ancient Greek games held in the city of Nemea - similar to the Olympics. They could basically acquire any physically demanding skill within a few minutes simply by watching a pro at work. He could swim, fight, be a star archer, do gymnastics, you name it. This guy would make the front of a dozen Wheaties boxes.
He was a unique, physical specimen, so who better to have interaction with than Dr. Crusher. Crusher would monitor his vitals and determine just how the aliens pulled off their wondrous physical talents.
As happens in many Star Trek tales, the Nemeans are going through an intense political climate, with our hero smack dab in the middle. It’s not such a removed premise from reality - when the global workings interfere with athletics.
Look at geopolitical complexities of our own world: There was a call for boycotting the Olympics being held in China because of Covid-19. Sadly, athletes who’ve trained for years - some for most of their young life - were caught in the middle between yearning to compete and not wanting to become a political football for their nation to toss around and score geopolitical capital.
My unproduced Next Generation teleplay is but one of scores of other Trek stories which never saw the light of day. Fans could count it as Dr. Beverly Crusher yet again being deprived of a mainline feature to more fully develop her way too often neglected character. Finally, all these strange new and unproduced worlds have yet to be visited. It would be fascinating if a publisher was to publish a book chronicling the evolution of the various pitches and scripts which could have become part of our Star Trek canonical library.
Fascinating! 🖖