10 Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes That Were Almost Completely Different
8. The Neutral Zone
Less a dramatic rewrite owing to creative differences or studio interference, this one and more just a product of the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike. You see, I'm not sure how obvious this premise is to you all but, if you don't have any writers then, amongst other things, you can't do any writing.
A shame, in this specific example, because The Next Generation was winding up for arguably its most important episode yet, but had to pull the plug on production about halfway through. By the time they picked it up again, they pretty much just had to cobble something together from what they already had, despite the fact that the entire second half of the episode - and the dramatic plot twist that it was all built around - didn't actually exist.
That plot twist? A Federation/Romulan team-up storyline that would see the old adversaries put aside their differences to defend The Neutral Zone from a terrifying new alien race... The Borg.
In the end, there simply wasn't enough time to set any of this up, and the episode instead just ends with G̶u̶l̶ ̶D̶u̶k̶a̶t̶ A Romulan rocking up to say "uh, well, actually, all of our outposts got destroyed as well, so... yeah... see you around".