Star Trek: 10 Episodes That Could Have Happened

1. Blood and Fire (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Star Trek: The Next Generation You can't really have this list without including Blood and Fire as the number one choice. It is a legend around the Star Trek community and pretty much led to a great mind in Star Trek being shown the door due to homophobia and some pretty bad timing. In addition to the two Tribble episodes, he can also be credited with a great deal of the changes made to Star Trek: The Next Generation as compared to The Original Series. Despite Gene Roddenberry putting his name on it, Gerrold actually wrote the series bible. All Roddenberry did was remove certain sections of it. For example, Gerrold suggested that there was no reason why the transporter room couldn't just be off the bridge - why did they always have to take a lift there? Roddenberry didn't include that change as he felt the lift sequences allowed for exposition-type dialogue to take place before away teams were beamed away on their missions. So he was on the writing team in the early years of The Next Generation - at the same time though, Roddenberry was going through a great deal of health issues and his lawyer had become ever present. Despite this, Roddenberry still appeared for the fans. At one panel where both Roddenberry and Gerrold was present, the Great Bird of the Galaxy was asked about homosexuality in Star Trek. He agreed that it was something that needed to be covered in the series and afterwards Gerrold set to work on a script about the subject. He turned in a first draft called Blood and Fire. He received good feedback off on it, and headed off to appear on a Star Trek cruise expecting it to be all fine in his absence. However, on his return it seemed that the lawyer had got his hands to it. Gerrold was informed that the lawyer, Leonard Maizlish, didn't like the idea and had convinced Roddenberry to cancel it. The official story is that Paramount canned it because they thought it would offend children. Mind you, this was at the same time that a great big alien burst out of a decapitated corpse in the episode Conspiracy. Herbert Wright tried to do a re-write, and was told by Maizlish not to let Gerrold anywhere near it. Wright produced a version called Fire and Ice, but that was also unsuccessful. The story would have involved an AIDs allegory in the form of Regulan bloodworms and some gay characters. In fact, it was later reworked as an episode of the fan series Star Trek: New Voyages. As for Gerrold - after the issues with the episode he asked for his contract not to be renewed. He later remarked that the last time he and Maizlish met, the lawyer called him: "a f*cking f*ggot." Heard about any other ideas that were considered for Trek? Let us know below!
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Contributor

I'm a pop culture addict. Television, cinema, comics, games - you name it, and I've done it. Or at least read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia.