Today in Star Trek history: Paramount execs consider actors for lead roles in The Next Generation

The faces in this Star Trek: The Next Generation promo photo could have been very different. Here (L-R) are LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden and Jonathan Frakes

APRIL 13, 2022 - Last week we brought you the news that the main cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation will appear in the next season of Star Trek: Picard. But the faces we expect to see when PIC season three premieres could have looked very different, at least according to a memo sent from Paramount executive John Pike (presumably no relation to Captain Christopher Pike) to producer John Ferraro on this date in 1987.

It was 5 months and 15 days before TNG would hit the small screens, and the USS Enterprise didn’t yet have a crew. The hunt was on to find six humans, a half-betazoid, an android and a Klingon to boldly go where no man…wait a second…where no one had gone before. The casting process for any television show can be long and arduous, but the producers of TNG must have had extra pressure put on them to find just the right people. After all, none of the fans thought it could be done. Who could replace the heroic Captain Kirk, the logical Mr. Spock or the irascible Doctor McCoy? Paramount had some ideas.

In the memo sent in that spring 35 years ago, there are some interesting and recognizable names:

Whoever was cast as PICARD had to have the gravitas to carry the series, without being a carbon-copy of Captain Kirk. At the top of the list, was Patrick Stewart, whose bald head Gene Roddenberry found off-putting. Apparently, in the future the issue of hair loss would be solved. The story goes that Stewart actually had to audition in a wig before he won the role. But the memo includes five names up for the role, and the one directly below Stewart’s is Mitchell Ryan. Ryan, who passed away last month, is known to genre fans as the first actor to play Burke Devlin in the supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows. To TNG fans, he may be better remembered as Kyle Riker, father to the Enterprise’s First Officer and former lover of season two’s Doctor Pulaski.

Speaking of the First Officer, RYKER is next on the list, with four actors in contention. Sometime between April, when this memo was written, and September, his name got a new spelling, but he was meant to be more of a Kirk-like character, ready to jump into action. Jonathan Frakes was the third actor listed, just under Gregg Marx, who was then known as an Emmy Award-winning actor on As the World Turns.

Continuing down the column, we come to the ship’s Betazoid counselor, TROI, with a single name beneath: Denise Crosby.

Next comes TASHA, the chief of security, with five options, the favorite being Rosalind Chao. Fans of TNG and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine will recognize her name as Keiko O’Brien, wife, mother, botanist and schoolteacher. Nowhere on the list does Marina Sirtis appear. When she eventually came in to audition, it was for this role. Mid-audition, the Producers decided to see what would happen if Crosby and Sirtis swapped roles, and that’s the casting that stuck. One wonders, if they had gone with their original casting idea, would Troi have been killed off and Tasha have married Riker? The world will never know…

Next up, GEORDI, with the most actors being considered yet. LeVar Burton heads the list of eight, with Tim Russ (future TNG guest star and Star Trek: Voyager’s Tuvok) and Wesley Snipes both on the list. But the most interesting name here was also the frontrunner for the role of the blind helmsman: Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson. It seems, however, that Burton managed a home run and scored the role.

Moving on, for the character of WESLEY, only one name appears: J.D. Roth, who eventually went on to host and produce reality television.

Brent Spiner doesn’t appear as a contender for the role of DATA. According to his book Fan Fiction: A Mem-Noir, he was made to audition six times before the producers settled on him. Among the four actors on the list is Eric Menyuk, who didn’t land the role, but was brought back for three episodes of the series as the mysterious Traveler.

Finally, BEVERLY had three options listed, but the favorite was Cheryl McFadden, later to change her professional name to “Gates.” There was concern over her schedule, since she was performing in a play in San Diego at the time, but it seems everything worked out.

It’s an interesting list, and a fascinating peek into what TNG might have been, but I think most fans will agree that there is no substitute for the cast we got. If you’d like to see the full list of names and notes on a few of the favorites, head on over to Slice of SciFi, the first outlet to report the document’s discovery back in 2006.