Summary
- TNG writer Ira Steven Behr fought tooth and nail to mention Mr. Spock’s name in the season three episode, Sarek.
- Executive producer Rick Berman honored a strict rule against including characters or aliens from the original series in TNG, which was concocted by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
- Despite this cumbersome rule, TOS characters like Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Mr. Scott and Ambassador Sarek did make appearances on TNG, much to the delight of Trekkies.
Leaving Mr. Spock out of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) would quite simply have been illogical. But in The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek: The First 25 Years, which was penned by authors Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, TNG writer Ira Steven Behr addressed the struggles he faced just mentioning the famous Vulcan’s name in the season three episode, titled Sarek, (per Screen Rant):
“When we did the ‘Sarek’ rewrite, the fight over the word ‘Spock’ was insane. I was absolutely not allowed to use the word ‘Spock.’ Rick [Berman] made a big issue of it and said we can’t do it. There’s no way. We did it once. We had McCoy show up at the beginning, but no more. No references to the original series. I said, ‘It’s Spock’s father, we’re already in that territory.’ He said, ‘Absolutely not.’”
The Emmy-nominated producer and writer wrote almost 20 episodes of TNG from 1989 until 1990, but Behr found himself at odds with executive producer Rick Berman whenever it came to the inclusion of anything remotely having to do with Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) in The Next Generation.
Related: The Best Original Star Trek Characters, Ranked
The Quandary of Including TOS in TNG
Paramount Pictures
Executive producer Rick Berman wanted to honor Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s wishes for TNG. Roddenberry didn’t want any characters or aliens from TOS to appear in The Next Generation. It’s a rule that was broken right out of the starting gates, though, because an aging Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) actually comes aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise D. And he fully interacts with Data (Brent Spiner) in the TV show’s very first episode, Encounter at Farpoint (1987). But when Mr. Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) father, Ambassador Sarek (Mark Lenard), came aboard the Enterprise-D in TNG season three, writer Ira Steven Behr almost had to go to war with Berman over the script’s content just to mention Spock’s name! In another excerpt from the book, Behr says:
“About a week later, I was up in his office discussing something else, because there came a point where he only wanted to give me notes or have me there when he was giving other writers notes, so I had to be the one there all the time as he went through the script and went over his little red changes. We were talking about something, and it was kind of benign, and I just suddenly said to him, ‘Rick, tell me again, why can’t we say the word ‘Spock’?’
And his whole body language changed, he leaned back in his chair and flung his hands up behind the back of his head, and I could tell he did not want to have this discussion again. But he couldn’t think of a reason at that very moment, and he just said, ‘OK, you can say it once.’ It was ridiculous.”
Berman’s decision-making process has always been in question where Trekkies are concerned, particularly when he and writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore controversially killed off Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in the TNG crew’s first big-screen adventure, Star Trek: Generations (1994).
Despite the idiocy of Berman’s rule not to include OG characters from TOS in TNG, many fan favs did show up on the television series during its seven seasons. Sarek, Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock and Mr. Scott (James Doohan) all showed up and reprised their roles from The Original Series on The Next Generation. And check out Dr. McCoy’s short but memorable visit aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-D below:
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