The Stupidest Star Trek episode had almost the funniest name

by Chris Snelgrove
| Published 13 seconds ago

Star Trek: The Next Generation It is generally remembered as peak television by science fiction fans, largely because its third season completely turned the show around for the better. Before that, the first two seasons were pretty rough, with the second season ending with a heartbreaking clip. That episode was titled “Shades of Gray,” but it almost had a funnier name because a Star Trek production assistant suggested calling it “Riker’s Brain” because of the extremely slow plot involving Commander Riker.

Riker’s brain

“Shades of Gray” is the one and only Star Trek episode, and the loose plot involves Riker being infected with a virus that will soon destroy his brain. In an attempt to save the Commander’s head, Dr. Pulaski connects him to a machine that stimulates his neurons, with the result that Riker continues to have flashbacks to the events of the previous two seasons. The whole idea of ​​showing the clips was to help the show save money after Season 2 went over budget, and production assistant Eric A. Stillwell stated that “Riker’s Brain” would be the perfect name for the episode before coming up with its final title.

If you know a lot about how TV shows are produced, you might wonder why someone named it “Shades of Gray.” Star Trek Production assistant instead of writer or producer. The short answer is that Stillwell had the unenviable task of finding all the different clips that the producers might use. He said he spent an astonishing 80 hours in one week finding all of these clips, so it makes sense that he had a special influence on the name of the final episode.

Appropriate greeting

While the “Shades of Gray” production assistant didn’t elaborate, it’s possible that his “Riker’s Brain” suggestion was an homage to an infamous “Shades of Gray” episode. Star Trek: The Original Series. “Spock’s Brain” was the first episode of the third season of the original show, and includes an insane plot (even by 1960s Trek standards) in which Spock’s entire brain is removed. “Spock’s brain” is probably considered the worst The original series episode, and “Shades of Gray” is considered one of the worst episodes TNG Rings, it was fitting that it had such a similar name.

While the producers did not approve of Stillwell’s original idea, “Shades of Gray” still owes its final name to a Star Trek production assistant. The title often seemed inconsequential to audiences, but Stillwell liked it “because I decided it was a really weird episode and it wasn’t black and white; it was black and white.” It was just shades of grey. To go beyond finding clips and naming the episode, the production assistant was given the title of “researcher” for this episode.

As fans, it’s interesting to know that “Shades of Gray” almost had the funniest name, but the episode itself is still one of the worst Star Trek stories ever broadcast. It was written by notorious former showrunner Maurice Hurley, and even he later declared that it was just a “piece of absurdity.” Fortunately for all of us, the series learned from that mistake, and we never had to suffer through another entire clip show episode again.