The dumbest episode of Star Trek almost had the funniest title

The author Chris Snelgrove
| Published 13 seconds ago

Star Trek: The Next Generation It's generally remembered by sci-fi fans as TV, and that's largely because its third season completely transformed the show for the better. Before that, the first two seasons were extremely rough, and Season 2 ended in a groan-worthy clip show. This episode was called “Shades of Grey,” but it almost had a much funnier title, as a Star Trek assistant producer suggested it be called “Riker's Brain” due to the story's extremely lazy plot involving Commander Riker.

Riker's brain

“Shades of Grey” is the only episode of the Star Trek clip show, and the loose plot has Riker infected with a virus that will soon destroy his brain. In an effort to save the Commander's fatigue, Dr. Pulaski hooks him up to a machine that will stimulate his neurons, and as a result, Riker continues to relive the events of the previous two seasons. The whole idea of ​​the clip show was to help the show save money after the second season went over budget, and assistant producer Eric A. Stilwell thought “Riker's Brain” would be the perfect title for the episode before its final title was developed.

If you know a lot about how TV shows are made, you might be wondering why anyone named 'Shades of Grey' Star Trek a production assistant, not a writer or producer. The short answer is that Stillwell had the unenviable job of finding all the different clips that the producers could use. He said he spent a whopping 80 hours in one week finding all these clips, so it only makes sense that he would have a special influence on the title of the final episode.

Appropriate tribute

Although the “Shades of Grey” production assistant didn't elaborate, his suggestion of “Riker's Brain” may have been meant as an homage to the infamous series Star Trek: The Original Series. “Ghost's Brain” was the premiere episode of the original show's third season, and involves an insane plot (even by 1960s trek standards) in which all of Ghost's brain is removed. “Ghost Brain” is considered to be possibly the worst The original series episode, and in terms of Shades of Grey, it's one of the worst LPG episodes, it would only have been fitting to have a title so similar.

Although producers did not approve of Stilwell's original idea, Shades of Gray still owes its final title to a Star Trek assistant producer. The title has often struck fans as silly, but Stillwell liked it “because I decided it was a really weird episode that wasn't black or white; it was just shades of gray.” And for his work researching the clips and naming the episode, the production assistant was awarded “Researcher” for the episode.

As a fan, it's wild to realize that the title of Shades of Gray was about as ridiculous as possible, but the series itself remains one of the worst Star Trek stories ever aired. It was written by the infamous former showrunner Maurice Hurley, and even he later stated that it was simply a “piece of shit”. Fortunately for all of us, the franchise learned from this mistake and we didn't have to suffer through another whole clip show episode.