By Chris Snellgrove | Published
Star Trek: The Next Generation is generally considered the pinnacle of television by sci-fi fans, and that’s largely because its third season completely transformed the series for the better. Before that, the first two seasons were extremely difficult, with Season 2 ending at a groan-worthy clip. This episode was titled “Shades of Grey”, but it almost had a much funnier name as a Star Trek production assistant suggested titling it “Riker’s Brain” due to the story’s extremely lazy plot involving Commander Riker.
Riker’s brain
“Shades of Grey” is Star Trek’s one and only clip episode, and the loose plot involves Riker becoming infected with a virus that will soon destroy his brain. In an effort to save the Commander’s noggin, Dr. Pulaski hooks him up to a machine that will stimulate his neurons, and the result is that Riker continues to have flashbacks to the events of the previous two seasons. The idea for the clip show was to help the series save money after the second season went over budget, and production assistant Eric A. Stillwell thought “Riker’s Brain” would be the perfect name for the episode before designing its final title.
If you know much about the creation of television shows, you may wonder why “Shades of Grey” was named by a Star Trek production assistant rather than a writer or producer. The short answer is that Stillwell had the unenviable task of finding all the different clips that the producers could possibly use. He said he spent 80 hours in one week finding all of these clips. So it makes sense that it would have a particular influence on the name of the final episode.
A fitting tribute
Although the “Shades of Grey” production assistant didn’t elaborate on this, it’s possible that his “Riker’s Brain” suggestion was meant to be an homage to an infamous episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. “Spock’s Brain” was the first episode of the third season of the original series, and it involves an insane (even by ’60s Trek standards) plotline in which Spock’s entire brain is removed. “Spock’s Brain” is probably considered the worst Original series episode, and given that “Shades of Grey” is one of the worst episodes of TNG, it would have been entirely appropriate for it to have such a similar name.
Even though the producers didn’t follow Stillwell’s original idea, “Shades of Grey” still owes its final name to the Star Trek production wizard. The title often struck fans as absurd, but Stillwell appreciated it “because I decided it was a really weird episode that was neither black nor white; it was just shades of gray. And for going above and beyond in finding clips and naming the episode, the production assistant received the credit of “Researcher” for this episode.
As fans, it’s crazy to know that “Shades of Grey” had almost the funniest name possible, but the episode itself remains one of the worst Star Trek stories ever to air. It was written by notorious former showrunner Maurice Hurley, and even he later said it was simply a “piece of shit.” Luckily for all of us, the franchise learned from this mistake and we never had to endure another full clip show episode again.
