Star Trek TNG Wanted To Replace Will Riker With His Doppelganger

[Tim Thomason]

Was Frakes onboard? He was number two in the credits ("Starring Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard / Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker / Also Starring these lesser people"). If his character is demoted to "Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Riker", then he would probably be moved into the Also Starring category and, perhaps, Spiner moved to Starring (or they just keep Stewart and everyone else becomes "Also Starring", a la DS9 & Voyager, or make everyone "Starring", a la every series since Enterprise). This seems unimportant, but actors negotiate these to death in contracts. It would look like a demotion, even if there's no pay change, and there'd be alot of gossip about that even if Frakes and Paramount give out press explanations (the question will pop up constantly, over several years, and at every convention).

 

[DataMat]

I would not have killed him off, but if I'm gonna do some quick fan fiction, I'd have had Season 4 end with this Thomas Riker storyline with the cliffhanger being something like Best of Both Worlds where you think Will is gonna die, then it turns out it was just a misdirection. Riker and Riker work together, solve the problem and Riker finally gets his own command.

As a character, Riker largely stagnated after Best of Both Worlds, it made no sense he would remain on the Enterprise, he'd have his choice of command in the fleet, except the one he really wanted. This solves a lot of problems with Frakes in the later seasons, as well as opening up new story possibilities with Will every so often.

It isn't really surprising to see that Berman nixed the idea, the guy was very conservative when it came to Trek unfortunately and all these ideas and lack of vision are why the shows got quickly left behind.

The studio is half the problem. Berman could have ultimately said either let me do exactly what I want or I'm leaving. But that would have opened the door to someone worse taking over and dismantling the whole franchise I am guessing.
I'm pretty sure Berman has gone on the record to say he asked the Paramount to 'rest' the franchise after Voyager ended in 2001 for a year or so and Paramount were having non of it.
They ran it all in ground. They botched Nemesis and they botched Enterprise. It was almost like they didn't care and just deliberately rung out everything, it was really quite terribly managed in the first half of the 00's as a franchise.

 

[publiusr]

This is Ceti Alpha...um... six?

 

[Mojochi]

Honestly, it's a romantic idea, & could have been implemented in any number of ways. However, all any of it really boils down to, for the development of the show, is the fact that Tom represented a more interesting Riker to write for, and what that's really saying is that contrarily Will had become uninteresting to write for.

That being the case, your problem isn't that you need a Riker 2.0 reboot. What you need is to just fix the Riker you have. Which was ultimately what they did with him, by adding some dark history to the character, & embracing a whole new take on the guy we'd been told was a boyscout.

It was the better move IMHO. The only thing you miss out on by doing it, is the shake up of the bridge crew, that a somehow recruited Lt. Riker would've made for, which might've been an interesting concept on paper, but I don't think Data's character exploration works as well as #1

Data's role one the show (not the ship) is not the protege. The #1 is the guy learing to be another Picard. That's not Data. His place there is primarily to be the guy learning to be human, not learning to be captain. Pulling him out of that, sacrifices the whole point of him, to some unfortunate degree IMHO.

 

[Lady Mondegreen]

That's a point I hadn't considered, but I also don't feel like "learning to be captain" was ever a strong aspect of Riker's arc -- especially considering that he in fact turned down a command early on in order to remain a first officer.

 

[Mojochi]

That's a point I hadn't considered, but I also don't feel like "learning to be captain" was ever a strong aspect of Riker's arc -- especially considering that he in fact turned down a command early on in order to remain a first officer.

Possibly, but I always felt like the whole reason he was turning down commands was because Riker himself believed he needed more learning from someone like Picard, not just skills, but life lessons, in order to feel like he could fulfill the role of a worthy leader. I get a very strong impression from how the show played it, that Riker was in all the ways that matter, Picard's protege.

Whereas Data was not expressly a professional protege, like Riker was. The relationship was more like Picard was a personal mentor, taking on more of a parenting kind of role. Both those roles played heavily in the relationship dynamics, & to alter them might have been really messy imho

 

[CorporalClegg]

It would've reinvigorated a character who had become stale by that point in the series.

He was stale half-way through season one.

 

[Orphalesion]

I can imagine a big problem with Riker becoming stale was also because he was created from that old Phase II concept, where the captain would stay on the bridge all the time, while Number One would be the one to go on away missions.
Early season 1 still paid lip service to that concept, but I guess once it became clear what a good actor they had in Patrick Stewart they naturally used him more.

 

[Maurice]

I always thought it was a dumb idea. If you want to make Riker more interesting then fucking write him more interesting.

 

[Oddish]

He was stale half-way through season one.

I wouldn't go that far. But if he had left in S4 to command his own ship, making Jonathan Frakes available to direct more episodes... that might not have been an entirely bad thing.

 

[Markonian]

Side note,
The episode states Riker was promoted from lieutenant to lieutenant commander
Due to the events at Nelvana.
Shouldn’t Tom have been promoted to LTCDR, for having achieved the actually same feat?

 

[Oddish]

Interesting question. Was it a continuity error, or was it something like first Riker distinguishes himself, second the accident occurs, and third Will's promotion comes through.

 

[Farscape One]

I don't think he got the promotion just for that incident. Troi said he got a 'promotion very quickly', but not specifically because of Nervala III. That likely got him a commendation, certainly, and it's very possible another mission happened directly after that earned him said promotion. Nervala III probably jump started the process of his promotion, but something else after that planet was the real reason.

There was a few weeks in between Nervala III and when Troi and Riker were supposed to meet up. A lot can happen in starship duty in that time.

 

[amp]

Tom says that Will got the promotion specifically for his actions on the planet.

TROI: You see, he earned a promotion very quickly.
LT. RIKER: I know. For exceptional valor during the evacuation of the research station on Nervala Four. I looked over his service record.

It does seem unfair that Tom didn't also get promoted. My theory is that the Starfleet computer at HQ has an automated process which flagged Tom's promotion as a dupe and no one can figure out how to get around it.

 

[USS Firefly]

Or that they didn't have the time to promote him yet? He was on the Enterprise for a short time

 

[amp]

Or that they didn't have the time to promote him yet? He was on the Enterprise for a short time

Except he shows up on DS9 two years later and is still just a lieutenant.

 

[Farscape One]

I forgot about that line from Tom. Okay, I stand corrected.

 

[USS Firefly]

Except he shows up on DS9 two years later and is still just a lieutenant.

I forgot about that. But a lot can happen in two years, maybe he got demoted

 

[Oddish]

There was no time. Riker shot up from ensign to commander in 5-1/2 years. No time to get demoted.

 

[USS Firefly]

There was no time. Riker shot up from ensign to commander in 5-1/2 years. No time to get demoted.

I mean Tom Riker, not Will