{"id":380405,"date":"2026-04-07T23:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T23:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/380405\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T23:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T23:39:09","slug":"the-man-who-saved-star-trek-hated-the-episode-that-got-him-hired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/380405\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Saved Star Trek Hated The Episode That Got Him Hired"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Chris Snellgrove<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t | Published 4 seconds ago\t\t<\/p>\n

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As a writer who specializes in Star Trek, I spend a fair amount of time delving into the production details of my favorite episodes. I\u2019ll often discover cool, behind-the-scenes trivia that makes me enjoy these stories that much more. Every now and then, though, I\u2019ll discover something shocking. Namely, that my favorite creators really despise what I consider their best work.<\/p>\n

A perfect example of this is the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode \u201cEvolution,\u201d which was written by Michael Piller. The episode is so good that it helped him land the gig as TNG<\/a> showrunner, and he almost single-handedly ushered in the Golden Age of the franchise. Because of this, I always assumed Piller must be proud of the story he crafted. In reality, though, he hated \u201cEvolution,\u201d the episode that helped him land the most important gig of his entire career.<\/p>\n

Boy (Genius), Interrupted<\/p>\n

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In case you don\u2019t have perfect android memory, here\u2019s a recap. \u201cEvolution\u201d was about the Enterprise helping an eccentric genius study an interstellar explosion that occurs every 196 years, the cosmic equivalent of Old Faithful. Meanwhile, Wesley Crusher is conducting a science experiment and accidentally unleashes some nanites on the ship. They evolve and cause mayhem, but after a few wacky hijinks, Picard reaches a diplomatic solution, getting the nanites their own planet just in time to help the visiting scientist complete the research he spent a lifetime working on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a really great episode, one that most fans think writer Michael Piller should be proud of. However, the future TNG showrunner didn\u2019t agree with this assessment. As recorded in Captain\u2019s Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Voyages, he later said that \u201cEvolution\u201d was ultimately \u201ca B-episode.\u201d His primary concern (one shared by Michael Wagner, who helped develop the overall story) was that \u201cI didn\u2019t have an ending for it.\u201d While there were \u201csome character scenes\u201d he was \u201cvery proud of,\u201d he ultimately worried that the episode \u201cdidn\u2019t quite come off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ghost Of Cranky Yet To Come<\/p>\n

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Interestingly, episode director Winrich Kolbe shared some of Piller\u2019s concerns with \u201cEvolution.\u201d The director enjoyed the plot about a scientist \u201cwho tried to push an issue and then suddenly found out there were ramifications he hadn\u2019t thought of, which is the lack of control of the nanites.\u201d He felt that this was \u201ca very serious issue\u201d that \u201cwasn\u2019t dealt with properly\u201d because it was a Wesley-centric episode and \u201ceveryone considered it a child\u2019s show, even the writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last bit was directed at Piller, who primarily saw the episode as a chance to (ahem) evolve Wesley Crusher\u2019s character. He intended cranky visiting scientist Paul Stubbs to be a cautionary vision of what Wesley could grow up to be if he continued to focus only on his studies. \u201cEvolution\u201d is very successful in that regard, and it\u2019s the perfect episode to show friends who hate Star Trek\u2019s resident teen genius. But Kolbe felt the episode spent too much time on Wesley and not enough on the nanites, who were at the heart of the episode\u2019s moral dilemma: namely, whether to put them down as dangerous pests or acknowledge them as a new (albeit unconventional) form of life.<\/p>\n

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Michael Piller might not have been the biggest fan of \u201cEvolution,\u201d but this opinion was not shared by Star Trek<\/a> producer Rick Berman. Piller\u2019s script (complete with a baseball speech that impressed Berman, a huge fan of the sport) helped him land the job as showrunner of The Next Generation. After he transformed this show into must-see TV, he went on to create Deep Space Nine and Voyager, solidifying this era as the Golden Age of Star Trek. Ultimately, none of that would have happened without \u201cEvolution,\u201d a killer episode that everyone but its writer absolutely loved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Chris Snellgrove | Published 4 seconds ago As a writer who specializes in Star Trek, I spend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[182047,146,85,46,182048,182049,182050,12119,140864,143539,66343,101161,411,182051],"class_list":{"0":"post-380405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-captains-logs-the-unauthorized-complete-voyages","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-michaeil-piller","13":"tag-michael-wagner","14":"tag-rick-berman","15":"tag-star-trek","16":"tag-star-trek-trivia","17":"tag-star-trek-deep-space-nine","18":"tag-star-trek-the-next-generation","19":"tag-star-trek-voyager","20":"tag-tv","21":"tag-winrich-kolbe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}