Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Geordi La Forge

10. Away Teams And Jealous Pupils

After 20 years, or thereabouts, Star Trek was returning to (live-action) television. What Gene Roddenberry had defined in a 16-page pitch in the 1960s was now a 48-page treatment for the show that had to follow. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Writer/Director's Guide, aka the Series Bible, sets out, then, as much what this new Trek was as what it was not — what had and what had not changed from the Original. A similar process of transformation occurred to the character of Geordi, from those first jots of ink to the screen.

Down in writing as "LT. (J.G.) GEORDI LA FORGE," there is much that is the same about the character in his initial, biblical sketch. With all the sensitivity the late '80s could(n't) muster, Geordi is described as "birth-defect blind," but with "prosthetic super-high tech artificial 'eyes'." He was already best friends with Data; however, in this, Geordi was assigned the role of "away mission regular," with no mention of the conn (or engineering).

Perhaps the oddest point of difference in the Lieutenant's extended bio, which thankfully didn't make it to air, is that his "speciality [was] the starship school for children." (Odd way to say 'teacher,' but okay.) Geordi would have equally had to "deal with" a gaggle of pupils jealous of his "vision abilities so marvellously beyond their own." Another reason, in retrospect, that they shouldn't have allowed kids aboard a bloody starship!