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The best of Both world's, was it the fork in the road for TNG?
hawkwing43
Member Posts: 1,701 Arc User
The Best of both world's was one of the best episodes of Trek in it's history, and we all know how it ended the season.
Riker was in command of the Enterprise, capt. Picard was turned into a Borg, and the command was given to fire a secret weapon to distroy the Borg ship.
As I hear it, there was a fork in the road at this point behind the everything on screen.
The way I understand it, Patrick Stewart was in heated contract talks, so this was the point in the show he might not of returned. That would have meant:
1. When season two began, no matter how it would have gone, in the end we would still have Locutus of Borg running around.
2. Riker would be named captain of the enterprise fulltime.
3. Commander Shelby would be named the new #1.
Now if this did shake out this way, would it have been a major disappointment at that time, a shocking momment in trek history, or you wouldn't care on any level after all was said and done?
IMO if things did go this road, I feel we would have seen a few cameo's by Patrick Stewart playing the role of Locutus. with his final rescue happening in the Movie Star Trek First Contact.
So what do you guys think?
Riker was in command of the Enterprise, capt. Picard was turned into a Borg, and the command was given to fire a secret weapon to distroy the Borg ship.
As I hear it, there was a fork in the road at this point behind the everything on screen.
The way I understand it, Patrick Stewart was in heated contract talks, so this was the point in the show he might not of returned. That would have meant:
1. When season two began, no matter how it would have gone, in the end we would still have Locutus of Borg running around.
2. Riker would be named captain of the enterprise fulltime.
3. Commander Shelby would be named the new #1.
Now if this did shake out this way, would it have been a major disappointment at that time, a shocking momment in trek history, or you wouldn't care on any level after all was said and done?
IMO if things did go this road, I feel we would have seen a few cameo's by Patrick Stewart playing the role of Locutus. with his final rescue happening in the Movie Star Trek First Contact.
So what do you guys think?
Post edited by hawkwing43 on
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Comments
Picard was very much the center of TNG, much more than Kirk even. I could see how that could have worked, Riker being very much the Kirk archetype, but I think TNG benefitted a lot from being not TOS.
I was the third season finale & first episode of the fourth season.
Riker might have been an excellent captain as well, as Frakes was a great actor.. but who knows!
I for one, am happy good ole' patty stayed in his seat lol
Your Javelin deals 125417 (89066) Disruptor Damage(Critical) to Tholian Recluse. > lol
On the other hand, with Stewart gone, the show was down two of its major cast members. That's the sort of thing a studio executive sees and expects the show to fall apart. After that, a mediocre season 4 could have killed TNG and doomed DS9 before it started.
Michael Pillar the writer of the episode, was leaving the show but needed to write a script to cover several different scenarios. Stewart may leave, the show's future was uncertain, and so forth.
The irony is, none of that occurred and now forced Michael Pillar to come back and undo everything in the story and allow the show to have a future.
So yes, it was a major turning point for Star Trek, not just the show, but the franchise itself.
The proof is made clear as you watch the BoBW full length feature and see the difference in video quality as the scenes change between part 1 and part 2 (since in this new version they are seamlessly edited as one episode), Paramount started channel a lot more money into the show during that summer.
If Stewart did not return they most likely would have killed Locutus along with the Cube. At the time all you hope to do as a TV show is get one more season let alone worry about another few seasons, and several films.
if it had gone down I would have still watched, by picard was so awesome that it would have been a very different show with riker/shelby. I cant imagine it would have been anywhere near as good.
I love alternate timeline stuff, one of my favorite books is Star Trek Myriad Universes: Infinity's Prism.
It's a collection of "short" stories, each the length of a short novel. In one Terra Prime won and humanity became highly xenophobic.
In the second one Janeway listens to Checkotay and turns around trying to find another way past Borg space, eventually Belana becomes a terrorist, Janeway gets knocked up by Checkotay, they form a new UFP from delta quadrant races stuff like that.
The final one I looooove. It takes place in the DS9 time frame but the augments won the third world war, Bashiar is captain of a ship and they find a ship drifting in space, but instead of Kahn it's a bunch of unaltered humans who escaped Earth. Kahn himself is dead physically but his personality has be preserved and uploaded into a special hologram aboard each ship....it's really good stuff.
Now I guess I need to try and find some stories based on what would happen if Picard died and Riker took over.
I expected that something tragic would happen, Picard/ Pike would be disabled and Frakes would take over leading us into a glorious remake of TOS.
Imagine my disappointment.
Now JJ Abrams HAS used that winning formula, although I much prefer this new Pike over Picard, he has spunk. "Punch It" indeed.
-facepalm- The parking break was on.....I mean seriously!? I shook my head at that point.
Even if it was Sulu's first day on the helm, it doesn't say much for Starfleet Academy training if he didn't know about the "parking brake". Just all kinds of dumb. That and manic Scotty is what pass for humor in the JJ-verse.
Losing Picard permanently would have been a huge change, but I for one wouldn't have minded seeing more of Shelby.
They let old man Picard have meetings instead of commanding thorughout his job so......
And how was that Pike's fault?
Movie wise it was neccessary to delay Enterprise's departure.
Minimizing the event by calling the External Inertial Dampener a "parking brake" is a cheap forum tactic used as a comeback when a witty counter is not within the poster's capability.
I'm sure those few here old enough to drive forgotten something simple in their rush. My favorite was when some macho dude ran into the "pull" out door of a 7 Eleven and then grinds his ignition because he forgot his car was already on derp.
But yeah, keep crying about NuTrek being ridiculous over and over again. I'm sure it will amount to something...
:rolleyes:
As for the TOPIC, there's just no way Frakes could have carried the show. He's only interesting so long as you have Picard to fall back on. They worked well together, but they were not alike. That occasional tension and Riker being Picard's "grunt" were what made the show interesting and different from TOS. A Riker-Shelby show would not have worked well, IMO.
-points- Look, look I found the God of sarcasm!!!
But for the record I was not crying about "NuTrek", I just found the parking break an :rolleyes: moment.
Also out of those scenes you mentioned, Scotty smacking his head was chuckle worthy. As for the rest they are take em or leave em moments to me. Well okay the Troi scene was one of the worst in Trek history.
I do agree with you that Riker would have been nothing without Picard.
Also INCREDIBLE Fanfic Material.
Personally, I enjoy how TNG canon turned out and set the stage for DS9 and VOY to come, and eventually lead us here to STO, but now that I know about the other path it could have gone, I wouldn't mind seeing someone write a Fanfic about that path, possibly posting it on Fanfiction.Net.
JJ Trek 2 will have great success, meaning ticket sales. That doesn't necessarily make it or its predecessor "good" movies. If the lemmings are happy that's all that counts, right? You'll be pleased I'm sure.
...I dare not imagine what I'd be now in THAT timeline!
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Chain of Command came out after Best of Both Worlds. Patrick Stewart wasn't done with that character at that point. Not by a long shot. 'Nuff said for me.
And?
The whole point is the people who keep complaining about NuTrek being soooo horrendous seem to have rose-colored glasses when viewing the rest of Trek movies and TV shows. As if they're all gold nuggets in comparison when they certainly are not.
I'll be pleased if I'm entertained. If I'm not, I won't be. I wasn't with much of Voyager, most of Enterprise, pretty much all the TNG movies and STV. So much for your "lemmings" implication.
:rolleyes:
He even helped launch DS9 and it is a very memorable first meeting between Picard and Sisko in Emissary Pt1 and then again in Pt2 where Sisko almost forgives him! and then Likewise the established DS9 launched Voyager.
The foray into the post TOS films was also spearheaded by Stewart and although Generations was not considered totally successful First Contact was a thoroughly enjoyable film, and again this was largely due to Stewart. In the "Great White Whale" speech for a second you actually forget you are watching Star Trek.
So Stewart carried TNG and then DS9 was Launched with the help of Stewart and TNG and then likewise Voyger was launched with the help of DS9. It is noteworthy that Enterprise was not helped by its predecessors and not tied in at all and we all know what happened there! The Last Episode where Frakes was in it was only written after the series was cancelled!
Im sure John Frakes would of remained along with the other cast, but it would of been more likely Data would of been made first officer to temper Rikers usual impatient heavy handedness with calm logic like Picard did. and just to annoy everyone else on the forum, but Wesley would of like been made full time as well, i could imagine Wil Wheaton agreeing to longer term TNG.
Im not convinced that Liz Dennehy would of been interested in a full time role in TNG, nor would the fans appreciate this adversarial relationship between the senior officers either, besides Shelby was only onboard because of the Borg threat and she didnt seem like the type to play diplomat, not even Riker is good enough for the position beyond mediocrity.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
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