Shipping Meme Day 15
Day 15: A ship canon really messed with
Jean-Luc Picard/Beverly Crusher, Star Trek: The Next Generation. O, what might have been. If you hadn't royally effed up, TPTB.
The first season of the show was full of wonderful UST moments; there was a clear chemistry and attraction between them from the first episode on, and through pretty much the entire season. And it wound up going... nowhere. I don't know if Gates McFadden leaving the show for a season just threw a wrench into it, or whether they wanted to keep the captain romantically unpaired for future episode storylines... Which I suppose is possible; I remember it being a pretty big deal when TPTB let Captain Sisko get married on DS9.
But whatever the reason, when we get to season 3, it's almost like that season 1 chemistry never happened. We do at least get a fairly strong friendship between them, with just the occasional teasing hint that more might be possible, that an attraction was still there. We even ALMOST get a declaration of some sort of feelings from Beverly in the episode "Remember Me" - but it winds up being essentially in a "false" reality, with the real Picard never hearing it. Finally, in the last season of the show, we get a full episode exploring their relationship, "Attached," where it was finally revealed that Picard was in love with Beverly when she (now long-widowed) married his best friend. The question of exploring a relationship is raised by Picard... and Beverly decides she's still not ready. I remember reading that the episode's writer (director?) Nick Sagan had wanted to end the episode with a different outcome for P/C, but the head honchos nixed it, as well as a kiss that would have occurred earlier in the episode.
P/C fans got teased again in the series finale, where we FINALLY get a real kiss, and a glimpse of a potential future where P/C even married (and divorced for unknown reasons). But the episode, from what I recall, since it dealt with time travel, essentially "erased" the reality where the kiss took place. So it takes us seven years to get one little (and lovely) kiss, and then it apparently NEVER HAPPENED. ARGH.
Then we have the movies - where Beverly may as well not even exist at all, for all she's utilized. Riker/Troi got resurrected by their youthful semi-regeneration in Insurrection so you'd think hey, if they're de-aging, Picard should be experiencing a reawakening of his feelings for Beverly, right? Wrong; the powers that be decide to have Picard have a pointless romance with a woman we never hear from again. I remember when Nemesis was in production, the director made some positive comments about the importance of the P/C relationship and said we'd get some scenes exploring it - that wound up being bunk, too. Then again, that was hardly the only problem with Nemesis.
I never really understood why the official hesitance on exploring this relationship. It certainly wasn't due to lack of fan popularity, or lack of recognition of popularity by TPTB. I think a main reason McFadden was even brought back after being dumped in season 2 was that a lot of fans missed her chemistry with Patrick Stewart. "Attached," aside from the P/C story, is an otherwise unremarkable episode, yet it made it into the top ten fan favorites of all time when a marathon of those episodes aired when the series ended in '94. The official Star Trek novels set after the movies, though not officially canon (unless something has changed since I was last in Trek fandom), feature P/C having a relationship, getting married, and I think even having a late-in-life child together. It can't really be a question of appropriateness/lopsided balance of power, either - Riker/Troi were different ranks and got married (albeit late in the game); and really, as Chief Medical Officer, Beverly's the one person on the Enterprise who CAN give Picard orders. So what gives? Who the heck knows?
Jean-Luc Picard/Beverly Crusher, Star Trek: The Next Generation. O, what might have been. If you hadn't royally effed up, TPTB.
The first season of the show was full of wonderful UST moments; there was a clear chemistry and attraction between them from the first episode on, and through pretty much the entire season. And it wound up going... nowhere. I don't know if Gates McFadden leaving the show for a season just threw a wrench into it, or whether they wanted to keep the captain romantically unpaired for future episode storylines... Which I suppose is possible; I remember it being a pretty big deal when TPTB let Captain Sisko get married on DS9.
But whatever the reason, when we get to season 3, it's almost like that season 1 chemistry never happened. We do at least get a fairly strong friendship between them, with just the occasional teasing hint that more might be possible, that an attraction was still there. We even ALMOST get a declaration of some sort of feelings from Beverly in the episode "Remember Me" - but it winds up being essentially in a "false" reality, with the real Picard never hearing it. Finally, in the last season of the show, we get a full episode exploring their relationship, "Attached," where it was finally revealed that Picard was in love with Beverly when she (now long-widowed) married his best friend. The question of exploring a relationship is raised by Picard... and Beverly decides she's still not ready. I remember reading that the episode's writer (director?) Nick Sagan had wanted to end the episode with a different outcome for P/C, but the head honchos nixed it, as well as a kiss that would have occurred earlier in the episode.
P/C fans got teased again in the series finale, where we FINALLY get a real kiss, and a glimpse of a potential future where P/C even married (and divorced for unknown reasons). But the episode, from what I recall, since it dealt with time travel, essentially "erased" the reality where the kiss took place. So it takes us seven years to get one little (and lovely) kiss, and then it apparently NEVER HAPPENED. ARGH.
Then we have the movies - where Beverly may as well not even exist at all, for all she's utilized. Riker/Troi got resurrected by their youthful semi-regeneration in Insurrection so you'd think hey, if they're de-aging, Picard should be experiencing a reawakening of his feelings for Beverly, right? Wrong; the powers that be decide to have Picard have a pointless romance with a woman we never hear from again. I remember when Nemesis was in production, the director made some positive comments about the importance of the P/C relationship and said we'd get some scenes exploring it - that wound up being bunk, too. Then again, that was hardly the only problem with Nemesis.
I never really understood why the official hesitance on exploring this relationship. It certainly wasn't due to lack of fan popularity, or lack of recognition of popularity by TPTB. I think a main reason McFadden was even brought back after being dumped in season 2 was that a lot of fans missed her chemistry with Patrick Stewart. "Attached," aside from the P/C story, is an otherwise unremarkable episode, yet it made it into the top ten fan favorites of all time when a marathon of those episodes aired when the series ended in '94. The official Star Trek novels set after the movies, though not officially canon (unless something has changed since I was last in Trek fandom), feature P/C having a relationship, getting married, and I think even having a late-in-life child together. It can't really be a question of appropriateness/lopsided balance of power, either - Riker/Troi were different ranks and got married (albeit late in the game); and really, as Chief Medical Officer, Beverly's the one person on the Enterprise who CAN give Picard orders. So what gives? Who the heck knows?