10 Star Trek: Voyager Episodes That Were Almost Completely Different
1. Mortal Coil
Mortal Coil went through extreme changes in the scripting sessions, with Bryan Fuller being told to drop tools and rewrite days of work twice along the way. Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky were responsible for the final version, though both commented on Fuller's excellent early drafts.
The initial story pitch by freelancer Kathy Hankinson centered around a death fetishist, one who tricks the Doctor into killing, and reviving them, several times through the episode. Though that idea didn't go far, the idea of exploring death intrigued the writers. They then decided that Ensign Samantha Wildman would be killed on an away mission.
It was soon decided that Borg technology would revive her, though it would be similar to Pet Semetary - she would come back wrong. She would be more connected to death than life, with Naomi Wildman being her only link, which would lead to Samantha trying to kill her. While the writers loved the idea, Rick Berman and the studio were nervous about showing a mother trying to kill her child.
The character focus then switched to Chakotay, with Fuller believing it could make for an interesting exploration of Native American attitudes toward death, though this was quickly quashed as well, as many Native tribes had a less than positive view of the notion of an afterlife, which could have led to the episode being seen as distasteful.
Finally, the episode settled on Neelix coming back from the dead - which is more than can be said for poor old Tuvix.