The Eight Episode Arc

[somebuddyX]

Everything I heard about TNG is that nothing ever was planned but the kept story ideas up in the air and maybe would come back to it. Voyager was the first one to try a serial arc with four episode with Paris in Season 2 and DS9 really ran with it and succeeded with six episodes in Season 6. I remember what a huge deal both of those events were. Ira on Shuttlepod Show talked about what a big deal doing a three episode arc was for Season 2 and yet they're saying they were going to do an eight episode arc before that?

 

[Arpy]

Eh, they never told John de Lancie he’d be back either. (After it was clear he wouldn’t be doing 6 episodes a season in Season 1.)

His death only happened on his last day of shooting so they were keeping him around until then. It made sense from a writing perspective (it was such a dread-inducing surprise) and was an easy change when he wasn’t coming back, instead of a laying in a breadcrumb toward a continuing story.

I could easily see him as the Kurn of the Romulan storyline. The noble Romulan living the double life for his people.

 

[Trek Survivor]

Sorry, struggling to believe this at all, as much as I like McDonald, I'd like a slightly more authoritative source from the production side to corroborate. Given how many thousands of pages of behind the scenes guides/books we've had on TNG (as well as other interviews/documentaries on DVDs, internet etc) I think it would have been mentioned before...

 

[Arpy]

Sorry, struggling to believe this at all, as much as I like McDonald, I'd like a slightly more authoritative source from the production side to corroborate. Given how many thousands of pages of behind the scenes guides/books we've had on TNG (as well as other interviews/documentaries on DVDs, internet etc) I think it would have been mentioned before...

Why? We’re constantly learning new things about behind the scenes stuff. I’ve been amazed to this day discover new pictures and materials and entire deleted scenes coming out I’ve only discovered through Twitter. For all the bits we’ve read over the decades about different ideas for storylines we’ve probably only been privy to 5% of all the discussion in the writers room for what they thought about doing. I hope more comes out about this, and other stuff.

I wish we knew more…or watched them develop, like with the Klingon arc, where this whole thing would go. I’m so curious what the Romulans might have been on TNG. I think Reunification would have been a crowning achievement in TNG changes from TOS, on par with making the Klingons allies, or families on the Enterprise.

 

[Takeru]

Why? We’re constantly learning new things about behind the scenes stuff.

We have no actual source for this. McDonald says he "learned later", he was not contracted for more than one episode, he did not know about an arc, this is hearsay, there's no reason to believe this was ever a thing without an source with firsthand knowledge confirming it.

 

[Arpy]

We have no actual source for this. McDonald says he "learned later", he was not contracted for more than one episode, he did not know about an arc, this is hearsay, there's no reason to believe this was ever a thing without an source with firsthand knowledge confirming it.

There is no reason to immediately discount it either. I’m so puzzled by people’s reactions here. No one is claiming it would have 100% happened even if the actor got it from a legit source, but we can think about it for crying out loud. I’m more interested in imagining how it might have all played out. It’s like giving us more TNG, if only in the multiverse.

 

[somebuddyX]

If this were real that would be amazing. I love finding out about random bits that never happened, like the past decade I heard about "The Cattlemen" or "Who's Killing the Great Voyagers of the Delta Quadrant?" or the TNG/DS9 crossover at the end of DS9 Season 1. I just have a problem with this based on everything I've heard about how they produced TNG at the time. Even within the episode N'Vek's death makes sense as a consequence of the mission, without adding in some other production reason. There needed to be a cost. And the fact that it is reported they toyed with the idea, even it was jokingly, of killing off Spock offscreen when breaking the episode is another reason I just find it a bit unbelievable. It does sound a bit like the idea of Q being in a half-dozen episodes of Season 1 and like someone thought it would have been nice after the fact and it got muddied in the retelling.

 

[Arpy]

They killed Sarek offscreen. Q being in a bunch of episodes makes sense too if he’s more a storytelling device of the series. Charlie sent the angels on their missions, Q threatens and mocks and judges the crew. Like the ships’s counselor having something to do or the civilians aboard ship, TPTB didn’t know how to make that work, so he appeared more sparingly.

Someone should ask him how the script originally ended — there could have been other consequences — and what more he knows about the arc.

 

[drt]

I think killing off Spock is pretty on brand for Berman, Braga and Moore. The TNG production didn't treat TOS nearly as reverently as people seem to think they did.

 

[Crewman6]

While the falling out is documented, I don't know how much stock to put in every detail of this claim. For TNG to plan a specific (high) number of connected episodes so late in the run of the show...I dunno, I just can't see TNG ever doing eight interconnected episodes. And they presumably couldn't afford Nimoy for more than one or two eps. If it had been earlier, I could see an arc of non-consecutive episodes covering the story, but even then...

I'd be curious to know what dates Face was filmed during.

This is SO far out of field of anything TNG did that there's no way it was ever even close to happening. I mean, maybe someone mentioned it once in a meeting, but there's zero chance it would have happened.

 

[drt]

I think people are stuck on this being heavily serialized like DS9. It most likely would have been like they did the Klingon Civil War/Duras “arc”, a continuing story with essentially standalone episodes taking place here over the course of the last couple of seasons with a two parter to wrap it up.

 

[Arpy]

I think people are stuck on this being heavily serialized like DS9. It most likely would have been like they did the Klingon Civil War/Duras “arc”, a continuing story with essentially standalone episodes taking place here over the course of the last couple of seasons with a two parter to wrap it up.

Seriously. It isn't a binary TNG episodic DS9 serialized, ne'er the twain shall meet. I wish we knew more about MacDonald's source and what else they told him.

 

[JesterFace]

It most likely would have been like they did the Klingon Civil War/Duras “arc”, a continuing story with essentially standalone episodes taking place here over the course of the last couple of seasons with a two parter to wrap it up.

And here we have the correct way to create a good series.
Storylines are visited occasionally, every episode doesn't have to be about a certain and same thing, something else might happen in between.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

I think killing off Spock is pretty on brand for Berman, Braga and Moore. The TNG production didn't treat TOS nearly as reverently as people seem to think they did.

Moore was a huge fan of TOS , I wouldn't say that's on brand for him and his influence at all. He literally had a poster of Kirk in his room before working for TNG.

 

[JesterFace]

I think killing off Spock is pretty on brand for Berman, Braga and Moore. The TNG production didn't treat TOS nearly as reverently as people seem to think they did.

Well, Moore and Braga managed to kill James Kirk. Maybe they shouldn't have but here we are.
Fortunately it didn't happen in an episode but in that weird thing some call a movie.