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Trivia / Star Trek: The Next Generation S3E2 "The Ensigns of Command"

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  • Out of Order: Due to script and scheduling problems, this episode was the first one filmed for the third season, despite "Evolution" intended to be (and aired as) the season opener.
  • Prop Recycling: The Sheliak colony ship is a reuse of the Merchantman spaceship model from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
  • Troubled Production: The script had heavy rewrites from Melissa Snodgrass' original draft, which almost caused her to take her name off the finished episode. Gosheven's actor was completely re-dubbed and went uncredited because he was unsatisfied with his performance. Wil Wheaton was due to shoot a movie in France, but missed it because the production insisted they needed him. Thing is, they needed him for "Evolution", which got pushed back due to availability issues with Whoopi Goldberg. Wesley's role in this episode was rather innocuous, meaning his part could've been filled by anyone. Wheaton didn't appreciate being jerked around, and said it was one of the reasons he decided to leave TNG the following year.
  • What Could Have Been
    • Writer Melinda Snodgrass nearly pulled an Alan Smithee, after showrunner Michael Wagner rewrote her script. In Snodgrass' draft, Data was able to use his phaser from the start of the story and just didn't want to resolve the situation with violence, which Wagner changed to him initially being unable to use his phaser due to the radiation affecting the planet. Snodgrass hated the implication that Data would have blown up the aqueduct as anything other than a last resort and tried to be credited under the pseudonym of "H.B. Savage," but backed down after seeing the end cut (by which point Wagner had quit), feeling that Brent Spiner's performance had brought through her original intent.
    • Another alteration was that Ard'rian was actually shown to be Gosheven's girlfriend in Snodgrass' draft — at first, anyway, with their relationship understandably not surviving the episode's events — which was turned into her just being the local Wrench Wench in the final version.

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