By Chris Snellgrove
| Revealed 17 seconds in the past
With regards to evaluating Star Trek: The Subsequent Era to The Authentic Collection, most followers view the android Knowledge as a stand-in for Mr. Spock because of his lack of feelings and eager scientific curiosity. Nonetheless, certainly one of TNG’s most outstanding writers didn’t need the android’s character to stay so staid and Vulcan-like. That author was Melinda M. Snodgrass, who complained that her “Ensigns of Command” script was modified a lot that Knowledge didn’t turn out to be extra like Kirk. As she put it, the android ought to “should learn to wave your d*ck and hope your d*ck is greater than the opposite man’s.”
Knowledge Kirk
To grasp this story of a outstanding TNG author wanting Knowledge to channel Captain Kirk, you might want a fast recap of “Ensigns of Command.” That is the episode the place a creepy alien race is threatening to wipe out all the people which have settled on certainly one of their planets, and Captain Picard busts out all of his inexplicable lawyer abilities to barter for extra time. In the meantime, Knowledge is charged with getting the colonists to maneuver, however their stubbornness and his lack of emotional IQ threaten to finish this mission in catastrophe.
You might generously say that the episode as aired nonetheless has Knowledge channeling Captain Kirk. Whereas he was largely a childlike android sidekick in earlier seasons, “Ensigns of Command” has Knowledge taking cost of the scenario and even utilizing his phaser to interact in a little bit of cowboy diplomacy. Largely, although, the purpose of this episode was to present Knowledge a much bigger style of what it meant to be human, and author Melinda Snodgrass later mentioned “I wished to emphasize him and have him face a scenario the place logic isn’t sufficient, to indicate that to be able to command you must have charisma.”
That is what led to her fairly stunning assertion that the android must learn to wave his metaphorical d*ck round. Why, then, didn’t we get to see Knowledge study to be a bit extra like Kirk as Snodgrass supposed? Merely put, the episode went by means of many rewrites because of the producers, which is more than likely why Snodgrass, a widely known Trek author by this level, used the pseudonym “H. B. Savage” for the episode’s credit.
Changing into Human
In the event you’re nonetheless a bit shocked on the notion {that a} Trek author wished to make the android Knowledge extra just like the passionate Kirk (proper right down to the swinging, uh, phaser), you may assume that Snodgrass doesn’t know what makes this character tick. Nonetheless, it’s value remembering that she wrote “The Measure of a Man,” largely thought of the perfect Knowledge episode and among the finest TNG eps ever written. She knew everybody’s favourite android fairly effectively, however she usually clashed with showrunner Michael Piller, which is why she in the end left the present after Season 3.
It’s fascinating to notice that Knowledge by no means actually did turn out to be a Kirk-like determine even after getting his emotion chip…we’ve seen the android be every thing from a quipping clown to a would-be revolutionary because of that chip, however he by no means grew to become a charismatic commanding officer within the vein of William Shatner. That’s okay, although, as Knowledge grew to become a unusual character (the last word quirked-up white boy) in his personal proper who managed to captivate science fiction followers the world over. And the truth that he’s likelier to be a pedantic stick within the mud fairly than a take-charge chief is in the end simply a part of his positively positronic attraction.
