Script Backstory
Before folks read the script I wanted to explain why Data gets laid. It wasn’t my choice or my preference, but it had been established in the first season that Data was “fully functional in every way”, and in a meeting to discuss the story outline it was decided that Data and the heroine had to sleep together. This was agony for me because trying to get a totally logical character into the sack was not an easy task. It took many wanderings through Rickie and Han’s office going “so what it he says this, and she says this and that logically leads to that.”
Unfortunately I think the sex scene is what ultimately sunk the script as written. Some people viewed it as making Data emotional (which it didn’t), and meetings ensued. People went to Michael Wagner, then the executive producer of Star Trek, but he refused to rewrite my script. It turned into quite a fight, and Michael ended up quitting the show. I don’t know if my script was the only reason. I hope not.
And now you are wondering who in the hell was Michael Wagner. Michael was our executive producer for about six weeks in the third season. He was a lovely man and a wonderful writer, an alumni of HILL STREET and other shows. He was a complete science fiction fan and this job was the dream of a lifetime. Tragically Michael died from a brain tumor when he was 44 years old, and he has been written out of the Star Trek histories.
It’s two am and I’m going to bed now. Too much thinking makes it hard to sleep.
Melinda