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Can you imagine a future where everyone gets along with their family members? It’s an optimistic notion, and one Gene Roddenberry wanted to portray in the “Star Trek” franchise. Unfortunately, the writers of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” had other plans, causing some backstage disagreements between them and the franchise’s creator. “Family,” one of the truly must-see episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” sees Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) return to Earth and bicker with his brother. The siblings aren’t each other’s biggest fans — and Roddenberry wasn’t the biggest fan of a storyline about brothers butting heads.
Writer and producer Ronald D. Moore told TrekCore in 2013, “Gene goes through this whole thing about how much he hates this script. ‘It says terrible things about Picard’s parents; these brothers don’t exist in the twenty-fourth century; they have such profound personal animosities; this would never happen. I don’t buy any of this, this is not a “Star Trek” episode.'”
Roddenberry proposed the idea of having Picard resent his father instead, leading to a confrontation between the pair. However, Moore didn’t want to have the USS Enterprise-D captain get into it with an elderly man. At one point, it looked like the episode wouldn’t make it into the acclaimed sci-fi series, but thankfully it did.
How the Star Trek: TNG writers got Family made
Paramount
Gene Roddenberry might have disapproved of “Family,” but the creators of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” still brought their vision to the screen. Roddenberry’s reasons for allowing the episode to come to fruition remain unknown, but Ronald D. Moore credits Rick Berman and Michael Piller for making it happen.
“I never got the story of what happened, but somehow they went in and dealt with Gene,” Moore said in the book “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years.” “I think Rick was, at that point, learning how to handle Gene. And he did, because the show was done and produced and I never heard another word of protest, but Gene didn’t like it.”
Roddenberry also opposed the episode’s lack of action, but reviewers have praised it for taking this approach. In fact, “Family” was noted for being a low-key affair that differed from the “Star Trek” norm at the time. Maybe — just maybe — Roddenberry was wrong for wanting to shut down this one.
