Star Trek TNG Nearly Cut Off Wesley Crusher’s Head In The Best Episode
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise” has been a fan-favorite for over three decades. This tale of an alternate-universe Enterprise-D crew allowed the writers to get really nasty with our favorite characters, including showing the gruesome death of Commander Riker. It could have been a lot worse (or, depending on your perspective, a lot better), though: if the producers had more time and money for this episode, we were going to see hated character Wesley Crusher get freakin’ decapitated.
Yesterday’s Enterprise Was Going To Be Crazier
For this crazy story about “Yesterday’s Enterprise” having more death and destruction, we’re going to have to travel back in time and explain the basic plot. This episode kicks into high gear when Captain Picard’s crew detects a vessel coming out of a nearby temporal rift. While it goes unnoticed by the crew, audiences see an immediate change: the Enterprise bridge is now darker, the uniforms are a bit different, and (most shockingly) deceased officer Tasha Yar has replaced the Klingon Worf.
Fateful Choice To Save The Future
We find out that the ship that came through the rift is the Enterprise-C, a vessel that was destroyed by Romulans while trying to respond to a Klingon distress call. Their heroic sacrifice led to peace between the Klingons and the Federation but now, Starfleet is rapidly losing ground in a war with the Klingon Empire. “Yesterday’s Enterprise” largely focuses on whether Captain Picard is willing to save the future by sending the older ship’s crew to certain death in the past; Tasha Yar joins the Enterprise-C on its suicide mission, and the climax of the ep is one of the coolest moments in Star Trek history.
A Shocking Death
The Enterprise-D must defend the older ship as it slowly makes its way through the rift, but this is made more difficult by the arrival of three Klingon battle cruisers hungry for blood. Soon enough, the wounded Starfleet vessel is experiencing an impending warp core breach, and Picard has to take over at tactical after Riker (who had previously replaced Tasha Yar) gets killed. It’s genuinely shocking to see Riker’s dead body with blood pouring from the neck, but it turns out that he was originally meant to be only one of the brutal “Yesterday’s Enterprise” deaths.
More Deaths Were Cut
Because reality is eventually restored by the end of the episode, producers wanted to originally fill “Yesterday’s Enterprise” with more shocking deaths. One such death was quite literally shocking: if the show had the time and the budget, we were going to see the android Data get fatally electrocuted. Considering how often the crew gets zapped on this show and survives, I can only imagine how over-the-top this electrocution scene would have been.
The One Death Fans Wanted To See
However, the intended “Yesterday’s Enterprise” death the fandom would have most wanted to see was that of Wesley Crusher. Created more or less as Gene Roddenberry’s self-insert character, the precocious boy genius character annoyed fans from the very beginning. Originally, this episode was going to show Wesley decapitated by the Klingon attack before he was made whole when the universe restarted.
Fans Were Denied
It’s not clear how graphic this “Yesterday’s Enterprise” death scene would have been, but considering how much blood comes out of Riker’s neck, I think it could have rivaled “Conspiracy” for the level of gory violence. Sadly, we were denied seeing this moment onscreen, so you’ll just have to imagine Wesley getting a Highlander-style death. Just think: if a Klingon were to cut off his head, the lopped-off head of boy genius might have had just enough time to blurt out a cool final line like “I’m shutting up now.”
