Star Trek: The Next Generation writer Ronald D. Moore explains why Scotty didn’t ask about his Enterprise crew when he guest starred in season 6.
Summary
- In “Relics,” Scotty’s lack of curiosity about his former crewmates from Star Trek: The Original Series is addressed by Star Trek: The Next Generation’s writer, Ronald D. Moore.
- Originally, there was a cut line of dialogue where Troi would ask Scotty if he wanted to know what happened to his friends and family, but Scotty was not ready to hear it.
- The decision not to directly reference the fate of the other Original Series characters was made to avoid cluttering the episode and locking the show into specific storylines.
Scotty (James Doohan) guest starred in a classic Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, and the show’s writer, Ronald D. Moore, explains why Mr. Scott didn’t ask about his friends from Star Trek: The Original Series. The TNG season 6 episode “Relics” saw Scotty emerge in the 24th century after spending decades in a transporter pattern buffer. But the Chief Engineer known as the “miracle worker” didn’t feel at home aboard the Galaxy Class USS Enterprise-D, and Scotty missed his own Constitution Class Enterprise, “no bloody A, B, C, or D.” Yet Scotty curiously didn’t ask what became of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the rest of his crew.
In the Star Trek oral history “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years” by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, Ronald D. Moore says that a cut line of dialogue addressed whether Scotty wanted to know what happened to the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series. Read Moore’s explanation in his quote below:
I set out to do a show that was nostalgic and sentimental and that would resonate with what people cared about. Originally, Troi was going to ask Scotty if he wanted to know what happened to his colleagues aboard the Enterprise. There was a line in a scene that got cut out between Troi and Scotty where she said, “Would you like to know what happened to all your friends and family,” and he said, “No, I’m not ready to hear that.” That was the closest allusion we were going to make. My thought is it would clutter it up a little bit to make direct references, since once you bring up Bones and say that Mr. Spock is James Bond now and underground on Romulus, you have to talk about everybody else, and we didn’t want to say what happened to everybody else because we didn’t want to lock ourselves into it.
What Happened To Star Trek: The Original Series’ Crew In TNG’s Era
Captain Kirk’s Enterprise crew hadn’t seen each other for decades.
At the time Star Trek: The Next Generation aired “Relics” in 1992, the series had only addressed the whereabouts of two members of Captain Kirk’s USS Enterprise crew. Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) cameoed in TNG‘s series premiere, “Encounter at Farmoint,” as the elderly Admiral McCoy. A year before “Relics,” Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) guest starred in the TNG season 5 two-parter, “Unification,” which revealed the Vulcan was now living on Romulus and covertly trying to reunite the Vulcan and Romulan people. It was after TNG ended that Star Trek Generations brought in Captain Kirk, who was in the temporal distortion called the Nexus for 78 years.
Captain Kirk died helping Captain Picard stop the madman Dr. Tolian Soran from destroying the planet Veridian III at the end of Star Trek Generations.
Star Trek canon is spotty on what happened to Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), or whether they were still alive in Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s 24th century. Sulu was Captain of the USS Excelsior, and he appeared in a flashback episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Chekov’s last appearance was in Star Trek Generations‘ 23rd-century prologue alongside Kirk and Scotty, and the movie’s retcon means Mr. Scott believes Kirk died in 2293 when he appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: The Original Series are available to stream on Paramount+.
Source: “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek” by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross
