"Second Chances"- should it have shaken things up?

[Cronos6939]

Just watched this the other night, and I was wondering if they should have done away with Cmdr Riker and kept Lt Riker as part of the cast? Cmdr could have been an alien life form posing as a human instead of the transporter duplication thing. Or Cmdr Riker could have fallen into that pit at the end.

Lt. Riker could have stayed onboard and they could have hooked Riker and Troi up. It'd shake up the command structure and introduce a new character without needing to switch actors.

Thoughts?

 

[data68]

This would have been interesting. I read that if this had happened, Data would have been promoted to 1st officer, and Lt. Riker would be the new ops officer.

This wasn't the first time they considered shaking things up. When BOBW pt 1 aired, they wern't sure if Patrick Stewert would be coming back for season four, so they left the option open of killing off Picard and making Riker captain permanently, with either Data or Shelby as his XO.

 

[WillsBabe]

I'm ambivilent on this matter. I'd love to have seen the Lieutenant Riker shake up thing happen. It would have had really interesting possibilities. On the other hand, as much as I love Tom Riker, by that time in the series I was immensely fond of Commander Riker and wouldn't want to have seen him die. I once read a great fanfic where it transpired, some time down the line, that the Riker who returned to the Enterprise was actually Tom at the end of the episode and it was Will who went on to do the Defiant thing in DS9. There was another nice twist to the story that lead into Voyager, too.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Cronos6939 said:
Just watched this the other night, and I was wondering if they should have done away with Cmdr Riker and kept Lt Riker as part of the cast? Cmdr could have been an alien life form posing as a human instead of the transporter duplication thing. Or Cmdr Riker could have fallen into that pit at the end.

Lt. Riker could have stayed onboard and they could have hooked Riker and Troi up. It'd shake up the command structure and introduce a new character without needing to switch actors.

Thoughts?

Considering the TNG films oddly has Commander Riker having little to do, it would have been better to have just promoted Data to the XO position so that with the 4 TNG films becoming the "Picard/Data Show," this set-up could have actually justified the level of exposure Data received alongside Picard up on the big screen. Plus, Data as XO and Thomas Riker at ops in the films would show the audience that the characters changed, grew, and advanced in their lives.

With Thomas Riker, Troi, Beverly, Geordi, and Worf being supporting characters in the films, while the 2 officers that run the Enterprise (Captain Picard and Data as XO) at the center of action would have made more sense. They should have gone ahead with it and shaken things up. But, alas...

 

[Spider]

I have always really liked this episode for two reasons. One, I'm a big Frakes/Riker fan so any episode where he is the main plot is good. Two, the ending upon first seeing it was a surprise. It is normal for sci-fi shows when these doubles show up, for the double to die. The fact that he lived showed some spunk on the writers part. I would have loved to see TNG do a follow up on Tom Riker.

I still wish TNG would have kept going with a Captain Riker series.

 

[SonicRanger]

I've read that Ron Moore did lobby to kill of "our" Riker and have Tom stay on the Enterprise. I think he also lobbied to keep Ro as a child. Obviously, he was overruled on both counts.

 

[The Habs Fan]

Tom Riker should have replaced Will Riker. But that's just my opinion.

 

[J47]

I've always thought it would've been a great idea to go ahead with the switch up, not necessarily for the effect it would've had on the Riker character, but just to for the new dynamics that would arise from moving around some of the job descriptions. Seeing Data as first officer would've been a particularly engaging storyline. I know that TNG was never willing to invest in story arcs, but I still think it would've been a fantastic idea.

 

[cultcross]

I think it would have been interesting just to see Data be first officer - a sort of less compressed version of his time on the Sutherland trying to be accepted as a commander of men, as well as a technically accurate starfleet officer. We'd have been able to explore his budding humanity as he found himself in a position which required him to interact with the crew far more and to motivate them and keep their morale up even though his morale was always exactly the same.

 

[Trekfan21]

I know from a casting point of view why the Thomas Riker character might have been given the ops position, but for a second, lets pretend Star Trek is the real world - does it make a lot of sense? A guy marooned on a planet for years and pretty much out of touch with everything being given the position of Ops officer on the Federation flagship? I'd have sent him off to some lesser ship if it were my call.

 

[K-Star]

I would've loved to see that happen if it meant Data became first officer, but it would still suck if Will was killed.

 

[Tomalak]

I always thought this would have been the better ending - TNG could be so timid with its characters, and so replacing Will with Tom could have allowed for some more interesting stories. Imagine 'The Pegasus' with Tom instead - he would probably have felt more loyalty to Pressman than to Picard. They could have continued the Riker-Troi relationship instead of that silly Worf thing.

And it wouldn't have made any real difference to any of the films anyway. We wouldn't have gotten 'Defiant' in quite the same way, but I could live with that.

 

[D Man]

The only problem with killing Will off is all the development he had up to that point would be destroyed. Sure, TNG was never a show about lasting consequences, but I like to think that experiences like BOBW fundamentally changed Riker and made him a more interesting character. Killing him off by tossing him down a pit would've been rather anti-climactic without first examing who the guy really is.

A better option would've been to expand on what they actually did end up doing, but have Tom show up again in future TNG episodes. Sure, they'd probably never do that on TNG, but if it had been a show more concerned with The Big Picture and ongoing storylines, Tom as a more prominent feature of Riker's life (both past and present) could've been very interesting to the "more seasoned" version of him we ended up getting, especially in seasons 6 and 7 and the movies.

 

[Good Will Riker]

D Jazzy Man said:
The only problem with killing Will off is all the development he had up to that point would be destroyed.

The character of William T. Riker ceased developing as a character and started supporting the other characters (most notably Jean-Luc Picard) after "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II."

"The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" was for all intents and purposes the swan song to the Riker that we came to know intimately in seasons 1,2,3. Afterwards, it was pretty much "Shields up!" "Red alert!" or suggestions and advice to his captain during conference or in the ready room, as well as filling out crew evaluation reports, but we never delved into the mind of Riker nor his personal life or growth afterwards ever again. Except for 1 ret-conned episode during the 7th season "The Pegasus," which detailed an event which was not part of the Riker canon until the airing of this late-term episode, and never touched upon again until ENT's "These Are the Voyages..."

Had the writers physically killed off Will Riker in the season 6 episode "Second Chances," that event would not have been considered "the death" of his character by long time viewers like myself. The character himself was killed-off by the writers at the beginning of season 4 starting with the episode "Family" and pretty much placed Jonathan Frakes on auto-pilot for the rest of the show. I would have been a fan of a Lieutenant Thomas Riker coming onboard with an enthusiastic Jonathan Frakes ready to tackle a newly written role and a new challenge on the show.

But, alas...that bean counter Richard Berman (Who I had the misfortune of meeting back in 1999.) does not like to take risks, and he kept things predictable...Too predictable, which is the reason why I believe that the TNG films failed, the least of which was the fact that the films were mostly written by TV production people who were too used to writing teleplays with "teaser/5 acts/tag" that they just did not know how to write a script for an actual feature film with their television production mentality.

D Jazzy Man said:
TNG was never a show about lasting consequences, but I like to think that experiences like BOBW fundamentally changed Riker and made him a more interesting character.

What character, and what characterization, and what character development? The writers simply stopped developing the Will Riker character from seasons 4-7, except for "The Pegasus." That is over 100 episodes without any character development.

Killing him off by tossing him down a pit would've been rather anti-climactic without first examing who the guy really is.

The sad thing is that they simply stopped examining or developing Will Riker as a character after the 3rd season. All the complaints that Patrick Stewart had about Jean-Luc Picard "not getting a piece of the action" in seasons 1 and 2 (and 3 to a lesser extent.) were transferred over to Will Riker from seasons 4-7. It is Riker, not Picard who eventually became just "a talking head" that Patrick Stewart feared that the character of Picard was becoming prior to season 4. At least Jonathan Frakes had directing to fall back on on the show. What the writers did to his character on the show was an unmitigated disaster.

 

[Red Ranger]

GWR,

I kind of agree that Riker's character hit a dead-end after the big build-up to BOBW, Pts. 1 & 2. Now, this is a tangent -- maybe I'll start a new thread -- but I always wondered what would have happened if TPTB decided to stick with Frakes as captain and said to Patrick Stewart, "You're asking for too much. We can't pay you. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out."

It's obvious Shelby would've become XO. I can see them examining Data's reaction to that. Maybe that would cause some friction between Data and Riker, with Data challenging Riker the way he later challenged Picard on why he wasn't offered a command in the blockade fleet in "Redemption, Pt. 2."

Then Shelby could've been written out and Data would finally have a chance to be XO, and the same issues they played out on the Sutherland would play out on the Enterprise.

As for the original question, I also doubt Tom Riker, having been "out of the loop" for more than 8 years, would be offered the ops position on Enterprise, despite the fact that was his position on the Potemkin. I thik it would have been more likely Tom would have been a bridge officer, the way Geordi and Worf were, so he could get up to speed on the changes in ship's systems that occured while he was out of circulation.

However, do like the idea of Frakes having a new acting challenge and Brent Spiner moving up the chain of command. And of course, they finally could have had a Riker/Troi relationship.

Here's another thought. What if they moved Worf into the ops position and became second officer instead? I can imagine Tom being a bit resentful, even if they made him security chief.

Red Ranger

 

[flandry84]

Riker and later Chakotay suffered from the style the shows took , that is , an overreliance on tech and on shipbound solutions. Both men were reduced to lurking about the bridge without any visible job except to parrot orders and look on worriedly as one special effect countered another. The lack of physical action left Riker looking surplus to requirements and subsequently i think thats how the suits did too.

 

[Robert_J]

Red Ranger said:
Here's another thought. What if they moved Worf into the ops position and became second officer instead? I can imagine Tom being a bit resentful, even if they made him security chief.

I never got the logic of Worf at ops. They did that in one of the future episodes, Paralells I think. I know that's essentially where he started out, but Worf is a security or command officer through and through. He's not the scientist that ops requires.

 

[Jayson]

Why not keep Tomas Riker at op's and promote Commander Riker to captain and have him finally take command of another ship. This way you can bring him back for the movies while at the same time have Thomas Riker join the Maquis and basically do that Ro episode with Thomas Riker instead of Ro which would make more sense do to the fact he is a series regular.

Jason

 

[Red Ranger]

Robert_J said:

Red Ranger said:
Here's another thought. What if they moved Worf into the ops position and became second officer instead? I can imagine Tom being a bit resentful, even if they made him security chief.

I never got the logic of Worf at ops. They did that in one of the future episodes, Paralells I think. I know that's essentially where he started out, but Worf is a security or command officer through and through. He's not the scientist that ops requires.

Robert_J,

From what I can tell from Riker's own career and the ep "Lower Decks," it seems a stint at ops helps officers get to a command position. Perhaps because ops is a position where you have to keep track of many things. The way I see it, that's a helpful stepping stone to becoming a c.o., who has to be able to multitask. Of course, it's not the only way to a command position, as we saw from the career paths of Sisko and Janeway.

In general, being a bridge officer seems necessary to move up the ladder. So while it doesn't fit Worf on the surface, it might help in terms of advancement. We have seen Worf man science stations before, as well as both conn and ops.

Red Ranger

 

[nx1701g]

Robert_J said:
I never got the logic of Worf at ops. They did that in one of the future episodes, Paralells I think. I know that's essentially where he started out, but Worf is a security or command officer through and through. He's not the scientist that ops requires.

I think in that universe Worf was Second Officer and (up until then) maybe Ops was the assigned position of the Second Officer of the ship because of the assignments entailed. If you really think about it Ops essentially performed every role aboard the ship. In the 24th Century series we've seen Ops Officers do the following things:

- Flight Control
- Engineering Operations
- Science Functions
- Tactical Control

The only thing we haven't really seen an Ops officer be is a Doctor.