Star Trek: 11 Things You Didn’t Know About The Kzinti
2. A Single Writer Made Several Pitches To Bring Them Back To Star Trek
Writer Jimmy Diggs, who contributed stories for both Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, began pitching ideas for Kzinti-centered Star Trek episodes while still an intern on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1994. He pitched these ideas so often that Brannon Braga referred to them as “Jimmy Diggs’s Crazy Cats.”
He eventually wrote a screenplay for an animated film called Star Trek: Lions of the Night which would have featured Sulu, Chekov, Uhura, and the crew of the Enterprise-B facing a Kzinti invasion. It gained the support of Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, and D.C Fontana but failed to impress the suits at Paramount.
He later adapted a story idea by Neal and Jenna Hallford into the Star Trek: Enterprise teleplay Kilkenny Cats. Story editor and producer Andre Bormanis arranged for him to pitch it to Enterprise show runner Manny Coto for a possible fifth season episode. When Enterprise was canceled, Diggs pitched the idea to the fan film series Star Trek: Phase II but even that ultimately died.