10 Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes That Were Almost Completely Different

Alright so, no, this one isn't "Completely Different". But, in the process of researching some 178 episodes to find ones that were I'm allowing myself this little palette cleanser because reading about it did amuse me greatly.

Season 3's The Offspring - originally written as a budget-saving mid-season filler piece that wouldn't require any expensive locations, shots, or props - was always intended to be a story about Data facing the love and loss of parenthood. It always included Lal, and it always featured Data as her father, but a core component that was altered during production was the identity of her mother.

Originally, she was going to be the "offspring" of Data and the ship's computer.

Quite how that was going to have happened never made it onto the page but the key premise of the episode was that it was going to be a family comedy where Data and Majel Barrett's automated voice would repeatedly disagree and argue over the correct way to raise their child. On the one hand you can see why they scrapped that but, on the other, you'd watch the hell out of that.