🔴TNG Rehashed A Classic Star Trek Story But Kirk's Show Did It Better🔴
0TNG Rehashed A Classic Star Trek Story But Kirk's Show Did It Better
One Star Trek: The Next Generation episode stole its premise from a far better episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. In its first two seasons, TNG was still finding its footing, and several episodes borrowed storylines or other elements from TOS. Some early TNG episodes pull ideas directly from TOS episodes, while others adapt stories that were proposed during the TOS era but never produced. However, what worked on the original Star Trek often did not have the same effect on The Next Generation. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his crew on the USS Enterprise-D were very different from Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his Enterprise crew.
Star Trek: The Next Generation seasons 1 and 2 struggled to maintain consistent writers, and the WGA Strike in 1988 complicated matters even further. This led the show's producers to look into Star Trek's past for episode ideas. TNG truly became great when it stepped out from beneath the shadow of TOS and focused on further developing its characters. TNG season 2, episode 7, "Unnatural Selection," did provide some character development for Dr. Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur), but its plot rehashes the story from TOS season 2, episode 12, "The Deadly Years."
In Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Unnatural Selection," the USS Enterprise-D answers a distress signal only to find a ship full of corpses who appear to have died of old age, despite the young age of crew members. When they continue to Darwin Genetic Research Station on Gagarin IV, they find that the scientists there have also contracted this mysterious aging disease. Dr. Pulaski investigates and discovers that the disease originated from the genetically enhanced children the scientists had created. Pulaski then contracts the disease only to be miraculously cured at the last minute thanks to a technobabble solution involving the transporter.
Star Trek: The Original Series' "The Deadly Years" follows Captain Kirk and his crew as they stop at a space station where all of the young officers have died of old age. When Kirk, First Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) investigate the station, they also begin aging rapidly. They eventually conclude that radiation from a passing comet caused the rapid aging phenomenon and that an adrenaline-based medicine can be used to cure it. Without the burden of the unnecessary genetically engineered children plot of "Unnatural Selection," "The Deadly Years" focuses more on the effects of growing old on the characters. Kirk grows increasingly tired and forgetful, as his young crew members look on with sadness and pity.
The Star Trek: The Original Series version of this rapid aging plot works better because it focuses on the characters rather than the disease itself. While TNG's "Unnatural Selection" is ostensibly an episode focused on Dr. Pulaski, she could have been replaced with nearly any other character, and the plot would have been the same. Pulaski isn't even the one who comes up with a solution to the disease - it's Captain Picard and Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) who come up with the transporter trick. "Unnatural Selection" also hammers home the idea that Pulaski was meant to be TNG's version of Dr. McCoy, by highlighting her fear of the transporter and having her butt heads with Picard.
While Dr. McCoy was a great character who worked well on TOS, that type of character simply didn't work on TNG. Captain Kirk, Spock, and McCoy bickered all the time on TOS, but the characters of TNG rarely bicker at all (by design, as Gene Roddenberry had a "no-conflict" rule on TNG). Dr. Pulaski interrupts Captain Picard and picks on Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), and while Picard stands his ground, Data often misunderstands Pulaski's remarks. Data cannot be the Spock to Pulaski's McCoy because he does not understand her sarcasm, so is unable to respond in kind. Dr. Katherine Pulaski had the potential to be a great new addition to the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast, but the show never quite knew what to do with her.