Episode 4.01: “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II“

Act One, Scenes 15 – 16: Riker tries to come to terms with his promotion to Enterprise captain and with his feelings for having tried to kill Picard.

This scene, set entirely in the Ready Room, begins with the newly-minted Captain Riker staring out into space – Troi enters, and they discuss the crew’s reaction to the attempt to destroy the Borg ship at the beginning of the episode. Riker admits that Picard was “more of a father to me than my own”; Troi reveals that she could still “sense his humanity” as they tried to kill him.

It’s nice to see the mention of the other thousand people on the ship – for such an overwhelming loss, it always seemed a bit odd that we only witnessed reactions from the core cast… but frankly, the later Ready Room scene between Riker and Guinan plays out much better.

Troi doesn’t do anything to challenge Riker’s feelings, or his plan to keep the Enterprise working like it’s still Picard’s ship; having Guinan metaphorically slap some sense into him carries a lot more weight.

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Episode 4.02: “Family“

Act Five, Scene 35: Wesley sees a hologram of Jack, his late father. Most of Jack’s speech is in the final episode, but two paragraphs in which Jack tells his son about their family history were omitted. This brief expansion of the final scene reveals that Wesley was named after Jack’s grandfather, Richard Wesley Crusher, who first gave him flying lessons as a boy.

Jack goes on to tell Wesley about the scholars and artists in the family line, including the great-great-grandfather who had artwork featured in the illustrious Museo del Prado in Spain; some of the “skeletons in the closet”, briefly mentioning the Crusher who was “a horse thief on Nimbus III“; the fallen heroes, like the Crusher who died for the Confederacy at Bull Run, and the one killed at Station Salem-One.

Stuffing all of this family history feels like a bit of an infodump to be sure, but this kind of familial backstory is the kinds of cut we hate to see – just like the long Troi scene from “The Bonding”, where she talks about how she was affected by her father’s death as a child.

This passage also contains the second reference to Station Salem-One (last mentioned in Season Three’s “The Enemy“), and the Nimbus III namedrop is a cute callback to Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which had just been released the previous year.

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Episode 4.03: “Brothers“

Act Three, Scene 37: Data meets his creator, legendary scientist Dr. Soong, for the first time.

An expansion of the “this is your lucky day, Data!” scene, this additional footage includes Soong testing Data’s equilibrium by making him stand on one foot, and quizzing him on his environmental sensitivity by asking him how a humid day “feels”, as compared to a dry day – all the while, bragging about how hard he worked to make those systems function properly.

Spiner clearly enjoyed playing the Soong role in this episode, and an extra two minutes of his performance is a welcome addition to the scene. This really feels like a sequence that was removed for time, because there’s certainly nothing crucial in the scene that was lost in the final cut.

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Episode 4.09: “Final Mission“

Act Three, Scene 37: Picard and Wesley are trapped in a cavern on a distant planet. Picard tells Wesley that for a moment, he saw Jack Crusher’s face on the young ensign as he fought to keep Picard alive – and he starts to ramble about Jack’s “senseless death”, which “should have happened at night, not on a bright, cloudless afternoon”.

Act Five, Scene 63: The bridge crew finally locates Picard and Wesley’s crashed shuttlecraft. Data says he can’t get a strong fix on the wreckage, so Geordi “narrows the frequency range on the sensor array”. This allows Data to tell that it is the shuttle, but the “the magnetic flux would mask any bio-energy emanations”, and requires an away team to skip the transporter and go down in their own shuttle.

While there’s absolutely no reason to keep the technobabble-filled bridge scene, the brief, delirious rambling from the injured Picard is one more big piece of the very hazy mystery surrounding Jack Crusher’s death.

A full account of his demise is featured in Michael Jan Friedman’s novel Reunion – but his narrative has Crusher dying in space, working to repair critical damage to the Stargazer.

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Episode 4.12: “The Wounded“

Act One, Scene 15: The senior staff expresses their concerns about allowing Cardassians aboard the Enterprise; Picard advises them to keep an open mind.

Act One, Scene 16: Riker and Troi ask O’Brien for his opinion of Ben Maxwell.

Act Two, Scene 26: Miles and Keiko discuss letting go of grudges over dinner.

Act Two, Scene 30: Picard reluctantly releases the USS Phoenix prefix codes to the Cardassian military.

Act Four, Scene 41: On his way to Picard’s Ready Room, Maxwell is surprised to see a Cardassian officer on the Enterprise bridge.

Act Four, Scene 42: Maxwell reveals that he has no real proof of Cardassia’s military buildup, just a strong suspicion.

These scenes are cut together exactly as in our first Next Generation workprint video, published by TrekCore back in March 2013.

We’re proud to have sparked the search for more never-before-seen footage with our series of deleted scenes, and we’re very excited to see them fully restored in high definition for this release.

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Episode 4.16: “Galaxy’s Child“

Act One, Scene 13: Everyone is fascinated by the bizarre space creature on the main viewer.

With wonder in his voice, Picard begins to recite a nursery rhyme from his youth: “Asked the child of the stranger without any name… whither you go… and whence you came?”

He pauses, and Worf completes the poem, amusing the bridge crew in the process: “To the child’s delight the answer came clear… To the end I go for it all starts here.”

Strangely enough, this is the second deleted scene featuring Worf reciting poetry on the bridge. It’s a funny moment – and it wouldn’t have made sense before we met the Rozhenkos in “Family” – but it is really out of place this rather dramatic episode.

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Episode 4.19: “Qpid“

Act Three, Scene 39: Q, as the Sheriff of Nottingham, schemes with Sir Guy of Gisbourne on how to best make life difficult for Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

Q advises Sir Guy to keep his upcoming wedding to Marian (Vash) a secret, so that Robin Hood (Picard) will think her life is still in danger, and be tricked into coming to the castle to be killed.

These few lines are really just padding on a sequence that didn’t need the extra complication – after all, it’s revealed immediately after this cut sequence that Robin Hood was already undercover in the castle, listening to the whole thing – and its removal leaves the rest of the episode working just fine.

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Episode 4.23: “The Host“

Act Three, Scene 34: It’s poker night on the Enterprise, but after being joined with Will Riker, Odan finds it hard to face Riker’s friends. Odan – in Riker’s body – shows up at the door, and clearly Geordi, Data, and Worf are as apprehensive about his arrival as Odan himself.

He’s never played poker, but thanks to his joining with Riker, he knows exactly what to do; he’s surprised to know Riker’s experiences, as his previous hosts “had no personality”. Realizing that he’s making the other players uncomfortable, Odan makes a quick exit from the game.

On Deep Space Nine, we learned a lot about joined Trill – they move from host to host, blending personalities and carrying memories down the line – but in this early incarnation of Trill joining, it’s made clear that Odan – the symbiont – is the only existing consciousness in a “normal” joining, and Riker’s personality has thrown him for a loop.

He exhibits many of the same confused tendencies as Ezri Dax in early DS9 Season 7: knowing how to play a game he’s never even heard of; showing up at Data’s quarters for the game, without even knowing it was taking place.

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