Riker’s Weirdest Girlfriend Was Nearly Like Data
In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Commander Riker was always a ladies’ man who could turn the heads of everyone from visiting aliens to his true love, Deanna Troi. However, Riker’s weirdest “girlfriend” was always Minuet, the fantasy woman he conjures up in the holodeck and that we later find out he never stopped thinking about. It turns out this character was nearly introduced in the earlier episode “Datalore,” and she was going to be something even stranger than a hologram: she was going to be a Data-style android.
11001001
To fully understand all of this, we need to first review the episode that introduced Minuet, Riker’s idealized girlfriend. In the episode “11001001,” the alien Bynars upgrade the holodeck on the Enterprise, and Riker decides to give it a test drive by conjuring up a jazz bar. He also uses the upgrades to create his perfect woman in the form of Minuet, and it doesn’t take long before he “boldly goes” from flirting with the holodeck recreation to kissing her (romance with Riker only has one speed: warp speed).
Future Imperfect
By itself, Riker conjuring up a holodeck girlfriend isn’t that surprising…The Next Generation was always demure about this, but Barclay’s later misadventures all but confirm that the crew is regularly using the holodeck for wild sexcapades. But the episode “Future Imperfect” reveals how much he was obsessed with this hologram when he is nearly deceived by a Romulan holodeck-like fantasy designed to make him think he was a now-older captain of the Enterprise who had both a son and a late wife.
He only realizes the ruse when he discovers the late wife in this simulation is actually Minuet. The alien responsible for the ruse created the whole scenario by probing Riker’s mind, and Riker was apparently so obsessed with his holodeck girlfriend that the alien made her his wife in their elaborate fantasy. Keep in mind this episode was about two and a half years after that jazz bar, meaning that Riker never stopped fantasizing about his dream woman for all that time.
Datalore
That background is important to know because we almost got a version of Minuet that was very different and whose existence could have significantly altered the lore (no pun intended) of Star Trek. In an earlier version of the script for the season one episode “Datalore,” there was a female Enterprise officer named Minuet who joined an Away Team as part of a rescue mission. She ended up falling in love with Riker (hey, can you blame her?), but the Starfleet lothario was shocked to discover that his new girlfriend was, in fact, an android.
That idea was obviously scrapped, but it’s clear that the Star Trek: The Next Generation writers were just as obsessed with Minuet as Riker was. They brought the character back in “11001001” as a holodeck simulation rather than a Data-style android. While the character would later be referenced in “Future Imperfect,” Riker would never actually see her again: in a bittersweet twist, the Bynar holodeck upgrades have seemingly disappeared by the end of the episode, and he is unable to conjure his dream girlfriend ever again.
Eventually Riker Tied The Knot With An Actual Woman
Everything eventually worked out for Riker, of course: he might not have been able to bring his holodeck fantasy back to life, but he eventually reconnected with and married Deanna Troi. In Picard, we can see how these two have started a family together and are enjoying the happily ever after they both deserve. In the back of his head, however, I can’t help but think Riker still occasionally remembered the holodeck girlfriend who loves all jazz except Dixieland because you can’t dance to it.
