How Star Trek Drove Away Its Best Director
One of the things older fans may remember about Star Trek: The Next Generation is that it helped attract very talented crew members who would ultimately change the television landscape. This includes Rob Bowman, a gifted director who began working on Star Trek: TNG at the tender age of 27. He was arguably the best director in the early seasons of TNG, and he would likely have stuck with the show longer if not for Paramount cutting a day of shooting out of his episode “Elementary, Dear Data.”
Where No Pizza Delivery Guy Had Gone Before
Before we get to this tale, there are a few things you should know about Rob Bowman. The first thing is that he was initially brought to The Next Generation as a replacement director.
“Where No One Has Gone Before” was originally going to be directed by Daniel Petrie, but he bailed once he got the chance to direct Cocoon: The Return, one of the more disappointing cinematic sequels of the ‘80s.
With Petrie out of the picture, producer Robert H. Justman brought Rob Bowman in to direct the episode. Justman knew that Bowman was talented despite the fact that the young man had only been directing for a year.
His youth didn’t cause any problems on set, but in one amusing encounter, Star Trek producer Rick Berman mistook the young Bowman for the pizza delivery man.
Elementary, Dear Data
Realizing that his skills might be dismissed because of his age, Rob Bowman put in plenty of extra effort to make a good impression. His efforts were a success and he became one of the most prolific directors in the early days of The Next Generation.
Out of the first two seasons, he directed 13 episodes, including the fan-favorite “Elementary, Dear Data.”
Rob Bowman personally chose to direct this episode because he missed out on directing the first season holodeck misadventure “The Big Goodbye.”
For the most part, he was satisfied with how this episode turned out, and he was particularly impressed by Brent Spiner’s excellent performance. Nonetheless, he remembers this as the episode that ultimately made him quit Star Trek.
The Studio Almost Killed The Episode
As fans of this episode will remember, it had very elaborate sets that allowed characters like Geordi La Forge and Data to fully inhabit the world of Sherlock Holmes. However, it was very expensive to build all of these sets, and Paramount tried to contain the costs by reducing this episode’s shooting schedule from eight days to only seven days.
Rob Bowman later noted that this “made the shooting process one of the most unpleasant I’ve ever been through” and “it almost killed the episode.”
The X-Files
Thanks to his talents, Rob Bowman was able to turn “Elementary, Dear Data” into a wonderful TNG episode despite the schedule crunch forced on him by Paramount. However, he ensured he’d never have to deal with such crunch again by leaving the show, and he credits this episode as “when I started to pull away from Star Trek.”
Paramount’s loss was ultimately Fox’s gain, as Bowman would go on to become an acclaimed producer of The X-Files and even produced that show’s first film.
He Left His Mark
Obviously, Rob Bowman’s story is a sad one, but it’s not that surprising–to this day, whether or not we get good episodes of Star Trek seems to come down to arbitrary decisions by Paramount executives.
Those behind-the-scenes decisions sometimes cause high-profile creators to leave (assuming they don’t get kicked out altogether like Discovery co-creator Bryan Fuller). In Bowman’s case, though, he leaves a legacy of great episodes and even left his mark on the franchise in another iconic way: as the voice of the Borg Collective in “Q Who.”
