To Boldly Go... in a Different Direction

Here's a fun little posting I found today from the days when Paramount executives were first casting Star Trek: The Next Generation. It's an executive memo that lists several candidates for the main characters, and talks about some of the "front-runners" at the time -- not all of whom were the ones to originally get the part. It's a fun little look at what might have been.

Patrick Bauchau is a great character actor you might know from Carnivàle or a few other places. Probably would have made a fine Picard, but of course, Patrick Stewart was perfect. (Yaphet Kotto, huh? That would have been different.)

I don't recognize any of the other names for "Ryker," but it's interesting to note that Jonathan Frakes wasn't the front-runner in this exec's eye.

I'd heard before that Denise Crosby and Marina Sirtis read for each other's roles before being cast as Yar and Troi, respectively. Interesting to see it here, though. I think it speaks to how weird a role Troi was that they had only one candidate for it on the list. Having to just gush spontaneously about other people's emotions is just weird.

Lots of Yars on the list, including Rosalind Chao, who would wind up playing Keiko O'Brien. She didn't get Yar, obviously, despite being a "favorite."

Each name on that list for Geordi seems stranger than the next. Reggie Jackson, baseball player turned pseudo-actor? (In what, The Naked Gun, I guess?) Tim Russ, who would play Tuvok on Voyager? (Patience is a virtue, man.) Wesley Snipes? (Depriving us one day of Passenger 57, I suppose.) And Kevin Peter Hall, the 7 foot tall man who wore the creature costumes in Alien, Predator, and Harry and the Hendersons? Huh.

Of course, it goes without saying that had they not eventually found Wil Wheaton for Wesley, the internet would have been deprived of one of its greatest heroes. Or maybe we'd all be loving jdroth.net?

When it comes to Data, there's Kevin Peter Hall again for no reason I can comprehend -- unless they were trying to conjure memories of the Ruk android from the original series. A better fit might have been Eric Menyuk, who wound up playing The Traveler in a few episodes. Brent Spiner? Nowhere to be seen here.

And "Cheryl McFadden" was Gates McFadden's name before she took her professional moniker. One favorite finally earns the role.

No Worf listed here. When the pilot episode was being worked on, he wasn't being considered as a main character, but just a possible recurring guest star (or maybe even a one-off) to show "look how far we've come! We're at peace with the Klingons!"

Hard to imagine any other show besides the one we got. And though it wasn't fantastic in that first season, it did wind up being pretty special.