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Lately I've decided to re-watch TNG from beginning to end. I'm up to WNOHGB, and I googled around and found an interesting blog post by Diane Duane, the writer. It's an interesting take on how these things change as they are produced.

Her second draft outline, for example; Kosinsky isn't nearly the asshole he would end up. In fact he and Picard were old friends who kidded about with one another. And no Traveller - the speed increase came from a device Kosinsky had made with the help of an alien race, called a "warp booster" - a device with a black hole suspended in it. Much more focus on the "dreams becoming real" aspect in this draft, with people going half-insane from the effects. And at the end, one of the manifestations remains real - Kosinsky's child!

Compare to the next draft, which replaces the booster with a much more radical drive advancement which is basically transwarp drive. Kosinsky's kid is with him when he arrives, and there's a standard "busy father" story going on. I rather like their biggest jump - they find the ship sitting in absolutely empty space, not so much as a hydrogen atom within sensor range. Then they zoom in on one particular point, and at the absolute maximum magnification they see a tiny fuzzy blob - "the universe... as seen from the outside."

Also interesting was that they wanted to play Riker as being a little hostile to Data. Wonder if that was something they had planned for Riker and Data early on?

The politics going on in the show were also interesting - the writers lost the script when the producer they were working with fell victim to a feud with another, resulting in him being canned along with every writer who worked with him. Only after that did we get genius Wesley and his pyjama-clad pal.

Anyway, thought this might be of interest. I'm enjoying season 1, goofy as it is.

I think I would've liked Kosinsky being old friends with Picard.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I think I would've liked Kosinsky being old friends with Picard.

Yeah, I actually prefer the second draft. Kosinsky seems like a much nicer person - the version we got was such an incompetent buffoon, I could never understand how he even got into Starfleet when he doesn't seem to understand anything about engineering.

And I like the idea of the "warp booster", which was supposed to make the ship about 7% faster. It makes sense as a piece of tech - basically it's a turbocharger for the warp core! So much better than the Traveller stuff.

Graham Kennedy wrote:

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:I think I would've liked Kosinsky being old friends with Picard.

Yeah, I actually prefer the second draft. Kosinsky seems like a much nicer person - the version we got was such an incompetent buffoon, I could never understand how he even got into Starfleet when he doesn't seem to understand anything about engineering.

And I like the idea of the "warp booster", which was supposed to make the ship about 7% faster. It makes sense as a piece of tech - basically it's a turbocharger for the warp core! So much better than the Traveller stuff.

Indeed. Kosinsky being likeable would explain/excuse a lot of how he got them testing the warp booster, or even his 'adjustments' in the finished episode.

Actually that makes even more sense in the draft. The warp booster works - it's been installed on several ships successfully already. But the Enterprise goes near a black hole, and the interaction between that black hole and the black hole in the booster buggers things up for them. So it was a successful, working piece of tech that failed when put into a rare environment. I can buy that.

Better than the alien from Hogwarts, at any rate.

Mikey wrote:Better than the alien from Hogwarts, at any rate.

Okay... I get you're talking about the Traveler, but where does Hogwarts come into it?

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:

Mikey wrote:Better than the alien from Hogwarts, at any rate.

Okay... I get you're talking about the Traveler, but where does Hogwarts come into it?

He works magic.

Mikey wrote:

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:

Mikey wrote:Better than the alien from Hogwarts, at any rate.

Okay... I get you're talking about the Traveler, but where does Hogwarts come into it?

He works magic.

Oh, okay. Makes sense, then.

I like the second draft idea. It would have made much more sense than what they did. Kosinsky, as was, had no place in Starfleet.

It's a fascinating thought that there may be all these great episodes that never got made, just turned into something a lot worse.

Graham Kennedy wrote:It's a fascinating thought that there may be all these great episodes that never got made, just turned into something a lot worse.

Executive meddling can be one hell of a bitch.

I kinda like the idea of the black hole / singularity suspension device. Makes me wonder if after they went with the plot used in the episode, they kept the device idea though? As they explain later in the series that Romulan ships employ a artificial quantum singularity as the ships warp core. As far as someone mentioning Riker and Data might have originally meant to be hostile towards one another, the show’s writers probably changed their minds about this since data’s character turned into a “child-like” persona. Would’ve made Riker look like a jackass+bully for picking on a kid. *hindsight 20/20 - This of course brings up the fact that while under the Psi2000 viruses influence, Tasha seduced and did the whole, “It never happened”, thing. Someone needs to go on a list!* lol.

I guess they didn’t really know what to do with data’s character in the first season; He has no emotions, derives nothing of what you could call “Joy” from things, and is really more like a wooden puppet as far as personalities are concerned. Yet in the first season, he smiles quite a few times, gives approving/agreement nods to Geordie while sitting at ops, when he jumps down to pick Weasley up out of the omg “dangerous(?)” holodeck water stream, he is seen as looking up at Weasley.... and smiling(?). He may have well been originally written as a challenge to Riker, but as the show went along, they wrote him backwards (development-wise) to a non-smiling+baffled by emotions “I wanna be a real person” robot. When you think about that, it’s not really a fair fight. How do you insult or upset someone with no feelings or ego to bruise? ((You could try telling him you’re laughing at the superior intellect! Or yelling “KHAN!”, might make him moody! ) I will would like to add that as a personal fan of slap-stick comedy, data’s falling down on the bridge during his own psi2000 issues hilarious! Probably one of B. Spiners best moments while playing a the part of an perfectionist Android who never goofs up.

As for the episode this post is about, I will say that season one is a great joy to watch! I remember when it first was aired and how AMAZING (visual effects) it was by comparison to watching the (sindicated) TOS. As I have watched and re-watched TNG seasons repeatedly to date. Season one holds a unique amusement for me, you can clearly see the show’s writers wanting to be faithful to TOS while trying to bring something new to a Star Trek show. Some of the first season episodes were hit and miss (as with all premier seasons really), and some were glimpses of what the show could become. ‘Where no man has gone before’ is one of the latter. It showed that there was no end in sight of how far the characters could go and yet, still find something they had never seen before! It had lots of personnel development/background visuals into the past(s) and the influencers of the crew, it gave lots of promise to viewers about what was yet to come!
(Although I still think that tasha’s, “you mean it’s a kitty cat?”, comment to wolfs pet targ was suppose to be in reference to a “dog”, but her only pet was a cat so it might be that it was played off as her characters only idea of a pet?).